Sunday Musings: Lent 1

Wilderness -- The Temptation of Empire

TODAY IS THE FIRST SUNDAY OF LENT

The traditional reading for the day is the story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness.

Instead of the usual “spiritual” or allegorical interpretation of this text, I chose to read this story in the context of the news. My inspiration for this comes from Karl Barth who insisted that the Bible and the newspaper should be read together.

Frankly, this ancient story about the devil and Jesus is a shockingly relevant tale.

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Luke 4:1-13

After his baptism, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil.

He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread."

Jesus answered him, "It is written,

'One does not live by bread alone.'"

Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, "To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours."

Jesus answered him, "It is written,

'Worship the Lord your God,
and serve only him.'"

Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written,

'He will command his angels concerning you,
to protect you,'

and

‘On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'"

Jesus answered him, "It is said,

'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"

When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.

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One of the temptations of the Temptation passage is to read it as a personal and spiritualized invitation to enter into our own “wilderness” and wrestle with the sins that beset us.

Such readings de-fang this story — which, at its heart, is a call to resist imperial delusions and political empires.

Three years ago, I wrote about this same text on the first Sunday of Lent. Then, I argued that the three temptations — of bread, power, and protection — were actually a single lure. Through these three, the devil enticed Jesus to make himself a new Caesar:

Bread, power, and protection were not three separate things in Jesus’ world. Indeed, they were all connected and they weren’t theoretical inducements. This was a single temptation.

Caesar was the ruler of the world, the Emperor of Rome. All of the kingdoms and realms of the Mediterranean were under his sway, and all its inhabitants were required to worship him as their Lord and Savior.

Caesar maintained control of this diverse and extensive empire in two ways — by providing bread and protection. From roughly 20 C.E. to the sixth century, the empire supported a bread dole to hundreds of thousands of people. The distribution of grain to the poor guaranteed the stability of the state. It is hard to rebel against the power that feeds you.

The Roman military was a fearsome force that both conquered territories and protected the lands under imperial authority. If Caesar ruled over you, you were at least secure from foreign threats. Bread and safety.

And part of the web of Roman power.

Was Jesus being tempted to be like Caesar? Being enticed to replace the evil of Rome with a good political system, one headed by a decent Jew like him, a man inspired by love to liberate his people? He’d be a better Caesar than Caesar — called by God to announce the Kingdom on earth. Wasn’t that his job?

But Jesus said no.

In 2022, these words were directed toward some theoretical “Caesar” and a nonliteral sort of “empire.”

Little did I imagine that three years later we’d be living in a world where actual Caesars stride across the planet enacting plans for their empires.

We are in the wilderness.

A banner displayed at the recent CPAC conference in Washington, DC. Reported by many news organizations, including NBC News. MAGA isn’t kidding. This is not a joke.

And it isn’t just a spiritual wilderness, like heading off to some retreat center.

In Jesus’ time, the wilderness was the place “beyond” civilization. And there, Satan met him with a series of temptations that all involve testing the boundaries between the Empire and the Kingdom of God.

Yes, these are political temptations. Bread was political. Power — offering Jesus “all the kingdoms of world” — was obviously political. And protection, the ultimate “blessing” of the Roman military, emerged as a kind of divine protection racket.

Right now, these three things aren’t just “spiritual.” Each of the temptations are the actual headlines here in the United States, enacted by Trump who thinks he is a Caesar.

1. Donald Trump wants to control bread.

His tariff threats have been specifically directed at the American food supply (especially as most of our agricultural imports come from Canada and Mexico), his cuts to USAID have undermined American grain farmers, and shutting off both health and science research limits the ability to track food-borne illness and is causing an inflationary cycle in food prices. All of these political moves impact the food supply — and locate the future of that supply under the control of the president.

Satan said, “Bread. Bread for you. All the bread you can eat. All the bread I control.”

2. Trump has imperial ambitions.

He wants to expand the geographical boundaries of the United States, as he has specifically stated. He wants to add new territories, has renamed locations to reflect American colonization, and even threatens to make Canada a fifty-first state. These desires are manifested by abandoning traditional allies (whom Trump perceives as “weaker” and who “drain” strength from the nation) and forming alliances with authoritarian states (who already have their own “Caesars”).

And Satan said, “All power and glory will be yours. All the most powerful will worship you, bend the knee before you. You will control the world.”

3. Donald Trump is commanding the attention of the world.

I used to think that the third temptation was about safety or protection. But I’m wondering something else this year, something that has been made clearer by the new American Caesar.

You know that “pinnacle” on the Temple? The place of the final temptation?

The pinnacle was a platform at the top of the southwestern corner of the Temple mount. Each day, a priest would mount that platform and blow a trumpet to direct everyone’s attention in the city and the surrounding area to prayer. The call would sound several times a day from the “Place of Trumpeting.” As one archaeologist said, “It was a very visual, very public, very well-known, and significant place for marking the religious rhythms of the spiritual life of the Jews.”

The third temptation was to command the attention of everyone from the platform through a miracle — so they might worship him and him alone.

Donald Trump wants to command the attention of the world. Every single day, several times a day, he mounts the Temple pinnacle and blows the trumpet (we call it “X” or “Truth Social” or a new Executive Order) to draw our worship to him. Even when he makes a mistake or says or does something completely inane or false (“throws himself off”), nothing touches him. The whole city stops and stares. Some in wonder; others in horror. The emphasis isn’t safety. The emphasis is on adoration and controlling the public narrative.

Food, empire, the “trumpet.” Caesar wants us to be beholden to him; Caesar wants all the kingdoms of the world beholden to him; Caesar wants all eyes and hearts to behold and worship him.

The “test” is Caesar becoming God.

We are living inside of this story. The context isn’t ancient Rome; the context is now.

Our reality is the temptation of Jesus.

Jesus, of course, said no to all of this. He rejected everything that Donald Trump desires and embraces.

Jesus showed it all to be a lie, the ultimate human deception, the great sin of humankind — these dreams of every Caesar, every authoritarian, every oligarch, every king and emperor who ever lived.

The temptation teaches one thing: Empires and Caesars are of Satan and God’s beloved community is to be something completely different.

Jesus said God provides bread; the only “empire” is a kingdom of humble love and gratitude to God; and God is “I AM,” the essence and being from which all creation has life. We are fed by bread. We live in a sabbath community of thanks. Only God is God.

That’s what Jesus was all about. That’s the purpose of his life, ministry, teaching, miracles, and death. That’s the Kingdom of Heaven.

All who fall for the sin of empire will themselves also fall — as will the nations they lead. The Devil flees at the end of this story. But we know that he always returns. The narrative says the adversary awaits “an opportune time.”

So, what of us, living in this “opportune time”?

This story insists that we’re not only misled by vague, spiritualized sins. Our wrongs are not merely personal. We, corporately and communally, are being forced to cooperate with desires and actions identified in Jesus’ own temptation as some of the most destructive evils in human history.

And, as it happens, those specific sins are now being carried out by a leader who has placed his power and ambition above God’s own words of provision, community, and humility.

Lent isn’t just about repenting from our private sins or getting our individual souls in shape for heaven. It is about standing with Jesus over and against the satanic enticements of empire and to worship any Caesar who sets himself up as God.

This Lent, we must reject all temptations of empire and Emperors. Lent isn’t personal. It is political.

As the Temptation in the Wilderness revealed, the stakes are higher than any of us fully understands. But staying close to — and proclaiming — the truth that sustains, inspires, and protects us is the only way through the desert.

Sometimes, the Bible springs to life. And this is one of those times.

My Lenten prayer? That American Christians would remember that when it came down to a contest between Jesus and Caesar, this struggle in the wilderness, Caesar was the bad guy.

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🙏 LENT AT THE COTTAGE:
WANDERING TOGETHER IN THE WILDERNESS — SEEKING WELLNESS AND WITNESS

TRACK ONE: SUNDAY MUSINGS
For all Cottage subscribers, free and paid

Ash Wednesday and six Sunday posts focused on the W’s found in the lectionary texts:

Ash Wednesday
Lent 1: Wilderness
Lent 2: Willingness
Lent 3: Waiting
Lent 4: Welcome
Lent 5: Way
Palm Sunday: With Others
Easter Sunday: Weeping

TRACK TWO: FULL EXPERIENCE
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The Sunday posts plus two posts each week on Tuesday and Thursday from March 11 through April 10 (the five weeks of Lent) plus the Tuesday of Holy Week. There will be videos, poetry, comment-chats, and resources for each of the following:

Week 1: Walk and Write
Week 2: Wake Up and Welcome the Day
Week 3: Work and Watch
Week 4: Wide-Eyes and Weep
Week 5: Wonder and Worship
Holy Week: With Others

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INSPIRATION

“The Merton Prayer” by Thomas Merton is sometimes read at the beginning of Lent.

Below is Merton’s prayer for the wilderness. The second version is my revision for these days — praying it communally and liturgically.

My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end
nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore I will trust you always though
I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
— Thomas Merton, “The Merton Prayer”

God,
We have no idea where we are going.
We do not see the road ahead of us.
We cannot know for certain where it will end
nor do we really know ourselves,
and the fact that we think we are following your will
does not mean that we are actually doing so.
But we believe that the desire to please you
does in fact please you.
And we hope we have that desire in all that we do.
We hope that we will never do anything apart from that desire.
And we know that if we do this you will lead us by the right road,
though we may know nothing about it.
Therefore we will trust you always though
We may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
We will not fear, for you are ever with us,
and you will never leave us to face our perils alone.
— “The Merton Prayer,” revised

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God of the desert,
we follow Jesus into the unknown, may we recognize the tempter when he comes; let it be your bread we eat, your world we serve, and you alone we worship.

— New Zealand Prayer Book

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