This Week: Lent 1C
Gospel: Luke 4:1-13
The first Sunday in Lent is about temptation — an idea that people are used to engaging with the season. Particularly those of us who choose a discipline to engage with.
When we read the story, however, it doesn’t seem like Jesus is all that tempted. He seems almost sanguine, prepared even. Like, yeah…you’re not really going to trick me here.
In this way, the story seems more like a trial than a temptation. Like Jesus is being tested. By whom and for what, though?
The idea that these things are seen as tempting at all is more revealing of Satan and the reader than of Jesus. Which, I think, is probably the real point. That the temptation is not really on Jesus half as much as it is on us — that humanity is easily tempted by the promise of what? Power. Or more precisely, control.
Power and Control
I like the interplay between these two words, particularly around the notion of our own responsibility and place in the process. We tend to recognize the problem of power, or at least, the dangers of it. One of the most famous quotes in the English language involves the total corrupting influence of power. But control…that’s a word that people often consider a normal desire.
Think about the language we offer to one another:
My life feels out of control. I need some sense of control. We need someone to take control of the situation.
Even the more extreme uses of the word, like “he can be so controlling” are often rendered as something below abuse or manipulation. Just something a person does sometimes (and to which many respond by saying I can change him! Oops!)
Control, even the sense of being “in control” is often just another way of saying “power over,” even when we’re talking about ourselves. Having power over one’s emotions or being in control of one’s actions is nearly always a good thing. But this contrasts distinctly with the idea of having power over others or controlling one’s environment like a monarch. In this sense, the difference seems to be the locus of control.
In short: the limits of the goodness of control are primarily one’s self, and really, no further.
There are ways we can dream up exceptions, of course, particularly around the things we do for one another’s own good or the need to protect children and the elderly. But notice how, even these, are not about exerting my own will to dominate another as it is helping protect another with a generous heart. So let’s amend the above statement:
The limits of the goodness of control are primarily one’s self, and really, no further, when goodness, rather than one’s way, is at heart.
Let’s take it in a different direction.
Because we can wade too deeply into weeds and miss the central theme of the passage itself!
Satan tries to tempt Jesus to use power to control his environment, the nations, and God. This is material of the temptation. Even quoting scripture to Jesus to manipulate and control him to try to control God. Jesus refuses.
We could put our attention on the fact that Satan thinks this will work or that he goes away until another opportune time. In this way, pinning this whole thing on Satan who thankfully doesn’t succeed. Making sure we get the idea that if someone is tempted then it must be Satan’s doing.
This doesn’t help us keep responsibility, now does it? Oops! More control!
But this, too creates a funny conviction for some to see themselves as having no control whatsoever and that, since we are pawns in a cosmic struggle, we aren’t in control of anything. Which is funny when people have the literal levers of power and claim they have no control.
So what is this all really about?
We tend to use these semantic word games to avoid dealing with the challenge of the gospel’s critique of power. This is really a story for us. It is about our will to control others, dominate and oppress, to demand our way and make people do what we want. It is about our propensity to want a secure and predictable existence that we can control like Minecraft in creative mode. And finally, to make God’s will into our financial gain.
We are tempted to seek out our desires, even a desire for safety, at the expense of others. This is why the notion of control here is entirely relational. Because it isn’t just about the control or the relationship itself, but how we use and exploit other people.
We might say, then, that this is about good and bad — not just whether power itself is good or bad, but that using power is always a question of good and bad. And when we use our power to attain our desires, we are more often using it badly.
Power with — not over
If we turn to how Jesus uses power and talks about power in the rest of the gospel, we can see that Jesus paints a different example of power. To move our understanding from power over others to power with others. Power in the midst of others (wherever two or three are gathered), in the presence of others (disciples sent out in pairs) and in being present to others (like Mary rather than Martha).
The power Jesus uses take three basic forms: power to heal, the power to feed, and the power to comfort/restore. To heal wounds and exorcize demons, to feed the multitudes and to still the storm and raise the dead. All of this is power with people, to serve people, not dominate or control them.
And because it must also be said, the notion of political power, to literally control the fortunes of the nation is something Jesus literally fled from, as in ran away from when people tried to put a crown on his head or forcibly make him king.
Our sense today, in this world, with our own wrestling with the role of power in nation, society, and church often presupposes power over as given, as the way of the world, and perceives power with as a threat. This is why we can champion the president as not only the leader of the nation, but also the commander in chief of the military, why we can accept a judge’s sentence of death, but get kinda uncomfortable when people bring up labor organizing or public protests. This isn’t just an inherent bias — it is the way empires operate. And it is the opposite of the Dream of God.
This is our chance to see it. When Satan tries to tempt Jesus in the ways that would surely tempt us. And to that, Jesus simply tells him to take the L.
We just heard God tells us last week to listen to him. Let’s do that.