Holy, Weak
Holy, Weak
The Rev’d Devin McLachlan
Lent 1, 22 February 2026
St Bene’t’s, Cambridge
It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad,
but you will occasionally find in Bible Verse-a-Day calendars,
as well as on the internet superimposed on soft sunrises
or images of praying hands,
this inspirational quote from Holy Scripture:
All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.
Ooops.
Indeed, awks.
That this quote from Satan sounds so like a promise from God…
that’s worth spending some time to reflect on:
We’re reminded by Matthew that even the Devil can quote scripture.
“For it is written,” Satan claps back at Jesus,
going on to quote Psalm 91,
He will command his angels concerning you…
and on their hands they will bear you up
So much for any magical thinking about the Bible.
It doesn’t make Scripture less-than,
doesn’t make the Bible useless or flawed.
But Jesus and the Devil quote Scripture at each other,
each responding to the other with a passage from Holy Writ.
Here, in Scripture itself,
stands the warning that the Bible can be accurately quoted but cruelly abused
to the harm and detriment of others.
If you’ve ever been shamed or abused by someone quoting the Bible at you,
you already know what this is like.
It hurts. It wounds, turning the consolation of your faith into a bludgeon for abuse.
How was it for the very Word of God,
to have God’s word used as an instrument of abuse?
Context matter when quoting scripture.
Intent matters.
Does our reading of Scripture,
does our theology — that is, our language of God,
and the eyes with which we look out on God’s world
and at God’s people —
do these things reflect the sacrificial love of Christ,
or do they reflect the fear, division and hatred
of the powers and principalities of this world?
We’ve had a lot of powers and principalities in the news of late,
principalities and even former princes;
Our newsfeed seems to be full of women and men
who have lost their moral compass
in pursuing all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour.
Our faith can echo this misorthodoxy as well, false prosperity gospels that claim:
All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.
We are always at risk of focusing on the achievement
— do we get the bread, the kingdoms,
the angelic bungee jump experience?
We selfishly skip past examining our intention —
even when warned that wicked intention can twist Scripture.
It can help to look to neighbours at such times.
Intention, in Islam, is one of the first things Muslim children are taught.
If you intend to fast during Ramadan,
and then out of habit drink a glass of water after brushing your teeth,
you haven’t broken your fast. Your intention remained pure.
On the other hand, if you don’t eat all day
but you never made the intention at dawn to fast,
you really haven’t been fasting at all.
Intention is there in Christian ethics and theology, of course,
although we have underplayed it in recent centuries.
It’s there at the heart of the Prayer Book’s invitation to communion:
Ye who do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins,
and are in love and charity with your neighbours,
and intend to lead a new life…
Our Lent disciplines of prayer and reading scripture,
of fasting or giving up a favourite food,
of acts of charity and generosity,
of coming faithfully to take part in the sacraments —
these are all ways that we practice intentionality during Lent.
The sacrifice of hunger,
or the sacrifice of time from work or rest to sit and pray,
These are choices of intention, about how we are living our lives,
moments when we say:
This is how I intend to spend these 5 minutes,
this is how I intend to share this meal,
this is how I intend to give of my treasure and time and talent.
They might be little things,
but it is in the little things that God has asked us to be faithful.
The Deceiver comes to us
in the places in our lives where we assume we are the strongest.
Appealing to our desire for fullness, power, invulnerability,
drawing on our hunger for affection, satiation, approval,
exploiting our fear of poverty — material, social, or spiritual
manipulating our anxiety around our mortality.
To the rich, promises of an endless banquet of riches.
To the powerful promises of kingdoms without consequence or cost.
To our own illusions of self-sufficiency and strength,
puffed-up promises of perfect ego:
Your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods.
The Deceiver comes to us
in the places in our lives where we assume we are the strongest.
But God, God comes to us where we are weakest.
In the words of today’s collect:
“as you know the weaknesses of each of us,
let each one find you mighty to save”
A mighty fortress is our God.
But not us.
We are not called to be a mighty fortress.
We are invited to take shelter in God who is mighty to save;
to bring our weakness, our poverty of spirit, our soul-deep hunger,
under the sheltering wing of the Maker of All Things.
This Lent, our preaching series is about ‘bringing our questions to Christ’
Today’s gospel is the only one where there are no questions in the text —
not outright.
But the whole Gospel passage is an invitation to ask a question,
a question most of us are very uncomfortable with asking:
How would our Lent change if
—in a world worshiping strength and power,
twisting institutions to serve the interests of the strong —
our intention was ask Christ who hungered in the desert:
Where, Lord, am I weakest?
Where have I hidden my sorrows,
my fears, my deep heart-ache hunger?
Where have I hidden away my poverty of spirit,
where am I holding my loneliness and pain?
Where is the desert wilderness in my soul,
thorny with sin-sick longing?
This Lent, might we ask Christ to show us our weakness —
not in anger nor in shame,
nor even in fear of our weakness,
but because we know that is where he will meet us in honest love,
waiting upon us in the barren wilderness,
living water springing forth in the desert of our hearts.