1st Sunday of Lent – February 22, 2026 Sermon: “A Path to Healing”

We are so easily tempted.  Often, we don’t even realize when it’s happening.  

Why? The temptations we face are ubiquitous in this culture; the temptations we succumb to are often normalized by the culture or often have their roots in deeply buried childhood pain. 

If, like Jesus, we want to resist temptations, if we want to live with more interior freedom, to serve God more generously, we need to understand what our temptations are and why they are so appealing. If we don’t see them for what they are, they will only continue to cause havoc and destruction in our personal lives and in the wider society.   

So, let’s explore what some of these difficult-to-see temptations might be and how we can move beyond them into lives anchored by trust in God and spiritual well-being. 

Let’s start with temptations presented by the culture.  (The doctrine of original sin isn’t that an infant comes into the world fundamentally flawed; it’s that an infant comes into a world that has fundamental flaws.) We live in a culture that values faster, cheaper, stronger, more. It is a society that prioritizes independence, security, and power.  These values are so much a part of our American, capitalist mindset that we rarely step back and ask ourselves, are these values in harmony with the way of Jesus? 

From the time we are in school, we are taught, “Achieve enough so that you can do what you want when you want.”  We are taught that our security comes from individual success, money, and power. 

How much of our lives, how much of our psyches, chase these goals? Consciously and unconsciously? 

What the Tempter offers, what White Christian Nationalism offers, is what the culture and the ego tells us we want: self-sufficiency, invincibility, and control.  

The lure of White Christian nationalism is that it has taken these cultural norms and named them Christian, rather than what they really are – temptations. 

And so when someone comes along and says, “You don’t feel safe or successful.  You worry you are losing power to those others (immigrants, Blacks, non-Christians, Democrats); you rightfully feel that forces beyond your control are making your life difficult;  I’ll fix it for you.  I will keep you safe, you will be successful and I will make you prosperous,” many in our country very happily say, “I’ll sign up for that.”

This is one reason people fall for autocrats. Because, like Satan, autocrats offer quick fixes and the promise of things we want – security, power and control. These desires, these temptations, are so strong within us in this society that the Christian values of mercy, justice, and peace can be seen as merely utopian, rather than the way of life that Jesus calls us to.  Every kind of injustice and violence can get rationalized in a world that values power over love.

What the way of life that Jesus offers is a deeper satisfaction – the satisfaction that comes from serving the God of love and striving to build a society not based on domination of others, but based on the common good and care for others, especially the poor and vulnerable. 

After Jesus is baptized, named as “beloved of God,” the Spirit leads him into the wilderness, the place of testing. Through his baptism, Jesus is given an awareness of his unbreakable connection to God, who is the foundation and horizon of his life and ours.  In the wilderness, famished,  he is given a series of stark choices.  

Because Jesus is so deeply rooted and grounded in God’s love,  even though pushed to his human limit, he can see Satan’s offers for what they are. (Which is not so easy for us to do, especially when we are hungry, tired, unsatisfied, discouraged or distraught.)  

Jesus is so well acquainted with scripture that he recognizes how Satan is twisting it for his own ends. (Which is not so easy for us to do – because, let’s face it, how many of us are well acquainted with the Bible?) Just because someone quotes scripture in an impressive way, like many Christian nationalists, doesn’t mean they understand its context or meaning – which is always about love – and never about dominating others. 

Jesus sees the evil in the world  as a lack of trust in God’s love. (Henri Nouwen)

From our youngest years, the messages we get about who we are and who we are supposed to be from the culture – successful and self-sufficient –  often put us on a collision course with the call to trust God.  By the time we are adults, we’re supposed to have everything figured out – to know what we need to know to make our lives work..  But, to turn to God and others for help? To trust that God is with us through the highs and lows of life? It’s simply not a part of the curriculum of our society.  

And if we’ve had experiences as youngsters that undermined our trust in  the very people we are supposed to be able to trust – parents, teachers, coaches, religious leaders, political leaders and others – it can be very, very hard to take the next spiritual step and trust God. If anything, when trust has been broken we may feel a need to be that much more independent and self-sufficient. 

And if when we were young we didn’t have enough food, or a safe place to live, or a sense of our own personal agency because we were abused, exploited, or “helicoptered”, it often doesn’t take much for us to give into the temptations of false safety and false security that this world presents.  If you’ve known demeaning poverty or a deep sense of unsafety, trust in God doesn’t necessarily just happen. 

Lent offers an opportunity for healing, to build our muscles of spiritual trust. Through the practices of prayer, fasting, and generosity we are given the chance to see more clearly our temptations, our vulnerabilities, and our triggers so that we can make different choices; so that we can change our ways and trust more fully in the God who calls us beloved.  To discover the inner root of our destructive temptations, Journaling or spiritual counseling or conversation with a trusted friend or therapist can help.

The person who struggles with alcohol, who chooses with God’s help to give it up during Lent, might examine why alcohol became a crutch. 

The person who feels distant from God and chooses to begin praying daily, placing themselves in the presence of God, might examine when and why that feeling of distance began. 

The person who decides to stretch and  give generously, might examine the origination of their fears around having enough money.  

So much of the temptations that cause us the most trouble personally can likely be traced back to experiences we’ve had – especially as children – when we were famished – physically or emotionally: those experiences that left a scar on the inside.  When we don’t deal with whatever emotional pain we carry, it often leaves us vulnerable to the kinds of temptations that promise to ease that pain. 

But, if in those wilderness moments of our lives we can remember that we are beloved of God; if we can turn to God when we are feeling famished physically or emotionally; if we can begin to consciously place our trust in our loving God; then we open ourselves to what God will do for us. When we say “No. I don’t believe your lies, Satan.  I won’t fall for your tricks.  I trust that God has my back,”  then we are available to the angels that will show up for us; angels that don’t necessarily fix what we want fixed, but are present and loving. 

At the heart of our national crisis is a spiritual crisis –  not understanding the difference between the path of temptation (the path of lies and domination) and the path of Jesus (the path of mercy and justice.) 

Pastor Steve Garnaas-Holmes writes, “Lent invites us to be honest that the worst evil we see in the world comes from energies that are in our own hearts. We can neither blame ourselves for the state of the world, nor blame others. We are all in this…We turn to Jesus to heal that part of ourselves that has created this…The victory is in choosing to trust God rather than blindly follow our egoic desires.”

In what ways do you sometimes feel famished physically, emotionally, or spiritually? What tempts you?

Take courage.  You, too, can say, “Away with you Satan!”

This Lent, invite God into the tender, easily triggered, easily tempted places within your own being. 

Know that as you face your temptations and turn to God, trusting in God, not only will you heal, but you will contribute to the healing of all; you will contribute to the healing of the nation. Amen.