Chocolate Isn’t the Problem

A sermon for Choral Evensong, on the 1st Sunday of Lent 
 
Readings:  Psalm 50.1–15, Deuteronomy 6.4–9, 16–end, Luke 15.1–10

I have a small confession to make. Every year, without fail, on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, I find myself in the same spiritual crisis. What shall I give up?  Chocolate? Heroic, but foolish. The clergy should not be making themselves irritable in March. Social media? Possibly virtuous, but awkward when one’s parish life seems to happen there. Beer after Evensong? Now we are into dangerous ecclesiology.

Lent, for many of us, becomes a sort of holy self-improvement scheme. A sanctified New Year’s resolution. We give up something trivial, feel faintly proud for a fortnight, forget on day sixteen, and console ourselves with a hot cross bun.  And yet Psalm 50 arrives tonight like a bucket of cold water.

“The Lord, the most mighty God, has spoken…

Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving…

Call upon me in the day of trouble.’”

It was a surprise to some of the Temple crowd to learn that God is not short of goats. God is not pacing heaven saying, “If only they would give up chocolate, I could finally redeem the world.” The Psalm is almost comical in its divine exasperation. “If I were hungry, I would not tell you.” The cattle on a thousand hills are already God’s. The ritual is not the point.

And that is where Lent becomes dangerous. Because it is far easier to adjust our diet than to adjust our heart. It is far easier to give up Instagram than to give up resentment. Far easier to renounce sugar than to renounce superiority. Much easier to “rend our garments” than to rend our hearts.

Then we hear Moses in Deuteronomy: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” Not with your occasional dietary tweak. With all your heart.

And then the instruction to bind these words on your hand, fix them on your forehead, write them on your doorposts. In other words, let this love soak into your habits, your conversations, your domestic life. Let it be so woven into you that you don’t perform religion — you breathe it.

But even here we are warned: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” Which is what we subtly do when we treat Lent as a spiritual transaction. “Right, God. I’ll give up crisps. In return, could you make my life tidier?” It becomes a bargain. A contract. A small religious bribe.

Psalm 50 will have none of it. God does not need our offerings. God desires our trust. “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall honour me.” Not “Perform for me.” Not “Impress me.” Trust me.

And then — beautifully — Luke 15.

Tax collectors and sinners are coming near to listen to Jesus. Which tells you something already. They are not frightened of him. They are drawn. Meanwhile the respectable religious professionals are muttering. “This fellow welcomes sinners.”

And Jesus responds, not with a lecture on self-denial, but with a story. A shepherd who leaves ninety-nine sheep to find one. A woman who turns her house upside down for a single coin. And when they find what was lost? They throw a party.

Notice what is not in the story. The sheep does not say, “I promise to give up grass for Lent.” The coin does not pledge moral reform. The movement begins with God’s searching love. With divine initiative. With grace that goes out into the dark.  If Lent is anything, it is an invitation to stop pretending that we are the shepherd. We are not the ones orchestrating our own salvation through well-chosen deprivations. We are the ones who get lost. We are the coin under the sofa. We are the sheep who wander off because something shiny caught our attention.  And the good news — the genuinely destabilising news — is that God comes looking.

So perhaps this Lent the question is not “What shall I give up?” but “Where am I hiding?”

Where have I drifted into self-sufficiency? Where have I become performative in my faith? Where have I been content with the garment rather than the heart?  Because when the Psalm says, “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,” it is not prescribing a liturgical flourish. It is pointing to a posture. Gratitude instead of bargaining. Trust instead of transaction. Love instead of performance.

And in a parish like ours — with choirs gathered tonight to sing, with music filling stone and timber — there is something especially pointed here. The beauty of worship is not a display piece for God. God is not sitting in the stalls with a clipboard marking our intonation. Worship is our response to being found.   We sing because we have been searched for. We pray because we have been addressed. We gather because we have been gathered.

So by all means, if you wish, give up chocolate. Or take up prayer. Or log off something noisy. But do not imagine that these are the currency of heaven.  The real work of Lent is quieter and braver. To allow God to turn the house upside down in us. To allow old assumptions to be shifted, dusty corners exposed, small lost parts of ourselves recovered. To let the Shepherd carry us, rather than insisting we know the way.  Rend your hearts, not your garments.

Because the God who speaks in Psalm 50, who commands love in Deuteronomy, who searches in Luke 15 — that God is not hungry for your sacrifice.  He is searching for you.  And when he finds you — and he will — there will be singing.  Which, on a Come and Sing Sunday, feels exactly right. Amen.