Sermon for Sunday, February 22, 2026

February 22, 2026
By Kristin Berkey-Abbott



Matthew 4:1-11


The story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness always comes to us for the first Sunday in Lent, the Sunday right after Transfiguration Sunday and then Ash Wednesday. It’s important to remember where we are in the story of the life of Jesus. Last week, Transfiguration Sunday, Jesus was midway through his ministry. For today’s Gospel, we go back to the beginning, to the time just after his baptism, just before his ministry starts.


In today’s Gospel reading, we find Jesus in the wilderness, the place of prophets, the place of preparation. We might associate the word “wilderness” as a time where bad things befall us and our faith is tested. The first Christians, hearing or reading the Gospel of Matthew, would have had different associations, and the number 40 gives us insight into a different relevance of this text.


Think about the meaning of 40 in the Old Testament: Noah is on the ark for 40 days and 40 nights, Moses fasted on Mount Sinai for 40 days and nights as he wrote down the words of the new covenant that God offered, the Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, and for 40 days and nights Elijah fasted in the desert before getting a new mission from God. The number 40 is a sign of preparation and waiting for the next thing that God will be doing, not a sign of being punished by God.


It shouldn’t surprise us that the devil takes advantage of this time out of time, this space between what has happened and what has yet to come. The temptations are familiar, because they are still what the devil uses to tempt us today: the seduction of knowing that we will have enough for our physical needs still has power, and we only need to watch a news program, from any end of the political spectrum, to see how many ways humans lust for power: power over people and power over nations, power over the whole world. The middle temptation might seem strangest, but if we put it in other terms, we see that it, too, can wreck our best laid spiritual plans. I can almost hear the devil whispering it now: “Aren’t you tired of waiting for God to act? Aren’t you tired of waiting to find out what’s next? Don’t you want to claim God’s powers for yourself?” Our first reading for today gives us one of the more well known versions of this temptation: “Go ahead and eat the fruit—claim that knowledge for yourself. Why should God have all the power?”


Jesus responds to the devil as we would expect. He resists temptation, but not only that: he offers well-reasoned responses as to why he rejects the devil. In the reading from Genesis, we see the devil’s reasoning; here in the Gospel of Matthew, we see Divine reasoning.


Jesus will go on to do the things that the devil suggests: feeding multitudes, enduring the suffering of the body, and ultimately possessing the nations. What the devil offers to Jesus are powers that he already possesses. But the reasons that Jesus has for these displays of Divine power will be very different than the ones that the devil offers.


In these early days of Lent, we, too, might find ourselves in an in between time, like the one where we find Jesus in today’s reading for the first Sunday of Lent. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus has just been baptized, just experienced the heavens open and the spirit come down on him. Jesus has heard that God is pleased with him. But what now? The wilderness becomes a time of discernment. The devil’s temptations give Jesus several possible road maps and force Jesus to wrestle with important questions: what will Jesus do with his life? How can he best serve God and serve as the bridge to reunite the people to God? How can he be a beacon to show the ways that God is already at work in the world? The devil offers a warped version of the mission, but Jesus shows that he understands that he serves a very different purpose.


We, too, serve a different purpose. We, too, are called to serve God by showing the ways that God is already at work in the world. We, too, are living in this in between time, where it may seem that the devil is in charge. In our current time, the devil offers us gifts and powers that we already collectively possess.


Lent is a time that offers space to wrestle with the question of who we are serving and how we will use our power. When we’re assembled here in this building on Sundays, the answer seems so clear. Of course we serve God. We’re not off in a fancy restaurant having a champagne brunch—although the idea of combining the worship service with a champagne brunch is one we might find tempting: mimosa mass for the masses!


Isn’t it amazing how many ways that Satan has to tempt us? A wilderness time can be a time of temptation, when the devil tries to move us from service to God’s vision to service of our own vision of what the world should be. It’s especially hard to resist the devil’s temptation if we’ve grown impatient with God’s timeline. It’s so intoxicating when we first grasp the message of Jesus, about the inbreaking Kingdom of God, which is already here and not yet fulfilled. As the time drags on and fulfillment seems further away, it’s tempting to take matters into our own hands. We might even tell ourselves that we’re serving God in any number of ways. For example, by making lots of money which we’ll use to feed the poor. By getting political power so that we can change policies to be more Bible based. But once we’ve had a taste of the power of money and being in charge of policies, we might see their spiritual danger as more temptations come our way. It can be hard to remember who we are and who we serve, and it’s so easy to get pulled away by the glittering attractions of the world.


These ideas aren’t necessarily bad ideas, but in today’s Gospel of Jesus in the wilderness, we see how easy it is for the devil to take ideas for serving God and warp them into ideas that will disrupt God’s timeline. The time of temptation in the wilderness shows that the devil has a sense of where Jesus’ mission will take him. The difference is that Jesus will do these things in a different spirit.


Jesus knows that he already has the gifts that the devil offers him. We, too, have gifts given to us by God, although we may have felt that we’ve been in the wilderness so long that we’ve lost sight of those gifts. Lent offers us a time of discipline and enrichment, so that we can rediscover those gifts and strengthen ourselves to withstand the devil’s temptations.


Rest assured, the devil is always around the corner, always ready to tempt us. Don’t fall for those empty promises. Remember that God has already given you everything you need and more. Renounce the devil and all those empty promises. Serve God, who has promised us everything and who will deliver.

Catechisms and Croziers in Confessions Class

In yesterday's Lutheran Confessions class, our professor closed our session on Luther's large and small catechisms by asking what the role of the historical church documents is today which led us to an interesting discussion about good ways to educate children--and acknowledgement that now, as in Luther's day, adults may need some basic Church/Christian education too.

At some point in class, we talked about protests and whether or not clergy would be allowed at twenty-first century protests.  Our professor, who is president of the seminary and has been a bishop in the past, said of course clergy are allowed to go to protests as long as they remember that they are answerable to the larger Church, which includes bishops.

Along the way, we had a talk about the authority of bishops, and our professor said that he used to go to protests for causes that aligned with his faith, and he would go in full bishop regalia, including crozier.  He did this for a variety of reasons, but mainly to remind everyone whose authority he claimed.  He knew that if any clergy member was going to be arrested, they'd start with him, and he figured that they might resist, since it wouldn't make a great visual, arresting a bishop in full regalia with a crozier.

We had a few minutes of amusement, thinking about the police trying to figure out how to handle the crozier and envisioning the police car driving away with the crozier sticking out the window.  Then it was back to the serious business of thinking about the future of the Church in light of Reformation history.

Recording of Ash Wednesday Sermon

My Ash Wednesday sermon went well, I think.  I always try to say something I haven't said before, and on church festivals like Christmas Eve, Easter, and Ash Wednesday, it's more difficult.  Last night, I was successful.  If you'd like to see it, I posted a recording here, on my YouTube page.  It talks about my shift in thinking, from Lenten disciplines to Lenten enrichments.

If you want to read along, I put the sermon manuscript in this blog post.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, February 22, 2026:

First Reading: Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7

Psalm: Psalm 32

Second Reading: Romans 5:12-19

Gospel: Matthew 4:1-11


This week's Gospel tells us the story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness. Notice that Jesus is human in his temptations: he is tempted by the ideas of fame, power, and immortality.

In her book, Things Seen and Unseen, Nora Gallagher points out that Jesus will indeed accomplish these things that Satan asks him to do. Jesus will reverse these days in the desert: he will multiply bread, he will hurl himself from the cliff of his crucifixion and be caught by angels, he will be worshipped, but by humbling himself in service (page 85).

Gallagher says that we face the same kinds of temptations that Jesus did: “Magical powers, helplessness, rescue, fame and power—they beckon me every day of my life. Just around the corner lies happiness; a new lover will provide lasting bliss; if I had what she has then I would be . . . They are the fantasies, the illusions, that suck out my vitality, that keep me from discovering my own rich reality. To come to terms with illusion is one of the great jobs of our lives: to discern what is fantasy and what is reality, what is dead and what is alive, what is narcotic and what is food” (page 84).

We may want to tell ourselves that Jesus could resist temptations because of his Divine side. But I would posit that Jesus' special powers of resistance were less about his supernatural side, and more about his spiritual discipline. He's in the wilderness, making a retreat to pray, when he’s tempted. He resists. Throughout the life of Jesus, we see him hard at work honing his powers through his spiritual practices.

Here's the good news. These practices are available to all of us too. Great disciples are not born, they are created. How? We turn ourselves into great disciples the same way that a doughy person transforms himself or herself into a great athlete, the same way that a creative person becomes a great artist. We show up, day after day, logging the training miles, working on our art. And soon enough, we wake up to find out that we've transformed ourselves into a person with new powers.

The season of Lent begins, that season of penitence and discipline. Now is the time to attend to your spiritual life. What practices will you adopt to become a great spiritual athlete? You’ve got a wide variety to choose from. You could give something up: gossip, worry, sugar, alcohol, excessive Internet time, caffeine, chocolate, speeding, more money to your tithe. You could add something: additional Bible reading, more devotional time, prayer, a creative practice. Spend some time in discernment. What one practice could you choose that would bring you closer to God by the time that we get to Easter?

Sermon for Ash Wednesday 2026

February 18, 2026, Ash Wednesday
By Kristin Berkey-Abbott



Matthew 6:1–6, 16–21


A lot of us approach Ash Wednesday as a kind of wake up call, a reminder that we all die in the end, and so we better get on with it and start living better lives. Because we live in a secular culture that wants us to forget this reality, in many ways the Ash Wednesday message that we're returning to death is an important one.


And yet, the older I get, the less I need this reminder. When I was younger, the Ash Wednesday message—we are dust and to dust we shall return—that message still had the power to shock me. For a very long time, my maternal grandmother was one of the oldest people I knew, and she always had more energy than the rest of us combined. But now I’ve seen death come for former classmates, former colleagues, and friends and family. Some weeks, it feels like every day comes with the Ash Wednesday wake up call, as people younger than me die, and now it seems predictable, no longer freakish.


So we might be tempted to choose a Lenten discipline with an eye to cheating death. We might want to give up alcohol, for example, in the hopes that we get a few more years. We might give up sugar, thinking that we’ll say a prayer whenever we have a sugar craving, but also hoping to lose some pounds along the way.


One of the problems that comes with thinking about our Lenten disciplines this way is that many of us go right back to our former habits once we get to Easter. Shouldn’t a Lenten discipline change us more profoundly and permanently? What does it say about our discipline, Lenten or otherwise, that we can drop it so quickly?


If you were at church on Sunday, or if you listened to the sermon (thank you tech wizard Katie!), you hear me think out loud about giving up something that’s really hard. We live in a culture that’s always giving up sugar or dairy or gluten or extra calories. There’s lots of support for that effort. On Sunday, I made this impromptu suggestion: If we’re giving up something for Lent, let’s give up talking badly about other people, both the people we know personally and the ones who are famous. If we want to do something really hard, let’s giving up thinking bad thoughts about others—let’s give everyone the benefit of the doubt and tell ourselves, “They’re doing their best.”


Luther encourages this behavior. In The Small Catechism, in interpreting the Eighth commandment, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against your neighbor, he tells us that the commandment is about so much more than refraining from lying. He says that we are to interpret everything that our neighbors do in the best possible light.


But I’ve decided not to do this as my Lenten discipline. Just thinking about it for 48 hours made me realize how hard it would be and how much of my time would be consumed with reminding myself that people are doing their best. Maybe I would retrain my inner thoughts. But maybe there’s another way to do this, a way that would benefit not just me, but others.


I like the idea of adding something for Lent, although I realize that for some of us, just thinking of where we would add the extra something might make us ready to throw up our hands in defeat before we even start. In the past, I’ve added a daily devotional, and if that’s your preference, know that the publishing world has noticed—you’ll have a lot of books to choose from.


As I was reflecting on Lenten disciplines, my mind wandered to how many people I know personally who are facing crises of various sorts and how few are not. I made a note to myself to pray for them. And then, my Lenten discipline revealed itself.


I’m going to send at least one note of encouragement to someone each day. It will be a physical note, written by hand on paper, and sent through the mail. As I’m writing the note, I’ll be praying for them and for the larger world. My hope is that the recipient will have their spirits lifted, at least for a time. They’ll have something to keep on paper, a reminder that someone is praying for them and with them.


Some of you might ask, “Don’t you already do send hand written cards?” Yes, for friends who really need it, for people for whom it is the only way to communicate, like my friend who had a stroke and is confined to a skilled nursing unit. I send a note at times of acute crisis. But I’d like to send notes as a matter of routine.


It may seem like a little thing, especially when compared to the big, difficult thing of refusing to think bad thoughts about anyone that might flit through my brain. But refusing to think bad thoughts would only be changing me. Sending notes of encouragement has the potential to change over 40 individuals, at least for a brief moment at the mailbox. Sending notes of encouragement will give me a tactile prayer discipline. If I begin this practice now, my hope is that it will be cemented by Easter, that I can continue sending notes and cards of encouragement throughout the year.


We might think that a Lenten discipline needs to be something dour or something that imposes order on chaos. But what would happen if we looked for ways for our Lenten disciplines to bring us joy? Writing cards will bring me joy, from the creating of the card to the affixing of the stamp. I’ve been buying more stamps than I have been using, and the post office creates so many beautiful stamps.


I’ve found it useful to think about Lenten enrichment, instead of Lenten discipline. The theologian Diana Butler Bass reminds us that the earliest Christians saw the season of Lent as preparation for meeting the risen Lord. It’s an interesting idea—if you knew that Jesus was coming here, in the flesh, to celebrate Easter with us in this sanctuary, and then spending the week with you, in your house, what would you be doing right now to prepare?


Don’t say you would be deep cleaning the house, unless that brings you joy. I’d be reaching out to people, planning some get togethers. I’d bake a poundcake or two, because they freeze well, and they’re a versatile dessert. I’d get together the art supplies we’d need to have a fun morning creating together, where I would see the creative process of God in real time.


I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Let’s approach this Lent as a time where we’re getting ready to meet Jesus, where we have the courage to put aside all the stuff that hasn’t served us well, and we have the discipline to commit to joy, and to choose the joy of living in the Kingdom of God even before death. Death will come for us all soon enough. Choose joy. Choose Jesus.

The Day Before Ash Wednesday

 Today is Mardi Gras, and it's also Shrove Tuesday. It's the day before Ash Wednesday, the day before Lent begins. The holidays of Shrove Tuesday, Carnival, and Mardi Gras have their roots in the self-denial of the Lenten season. These holidays are rooted in the fasting traditions of Lent and the need to get rid of all the ingredients that you'd be giving up during Lent: alcohol, sugar, eggs, and in some traditions, even dairy foods.

Mardi Gras and Carnival, holidays that come to us out of predominantly Catholic countries, certainly have a more festive air than Shrove Tuesday, which comes to us from some of the more dour traditions of England. The word shrove, which is the past tense of the verb to shrive, which means to seek absolution for sins through confession and penance, is far less festive than the Catholic terms for this day.

In the churches of my childhood, we had pancake suppers on Shrove Tuesday. In the church of my childhood, a church could count on its members gathering whenever the church doors were open. Thus we had Shrove Tuesday pancake suppers and Wednesday Bible study meetings and groups of all sorts gathering throughout the week.

These days, most mainline churches feel lucky if members come on Sunday, much less at other points in the week. Many churches have Confirmation classes during Sunday School time, unlike my experience of trooping back to church in the late afternoon of a Sunday. Many churches do the whole Holy Week journey on Palm Sunday because they know that church members won't be coming back on Thursday and Friday.

It feels like we should do something special on the day before Ash Wednesday, but I suspect many of us aren't interested in traditional Mardi Gras festivities which often include large amounts of alcohol.  This blog post has a recipe for a quick yeasted bread that is relatively healthy.  It's fairly simple to make, and easy to make more festive if that's your thing.

We have had a burst of spring-like weather in the mountains, and today is the last day to see the trolls at the arboretum.  It's a strange Mardi Gras/Shrove Tuesday celebration plan, but I have high hopes for it.

Recording of Sermon for Transfiguration Sunday, with Discursive Ramble about Giving Up Badmouthing for Lent

I went a bit off-manuscript with my sermon yesterday, adding some background about Lenten disciplines--if we decide to do something special for Lent, do we give up something or add something?  I did a bit of thinking-in-real-time about giving up saying anything bad about anyone:  people we know, famous people, everyone.  That part of the sermon felt most electric as I was giving it, and it's very near the end.

To see what I mean, you can view the recording here on my YouTube page.  You can read the manuscript by going to yesterday's post.