We're part way through a series exploring God's Kingdom under the title a brighter day (taken from a Gungor track), We're using Donald Kraybill's classic book The Upside Kingdom as a our launch pad, so the first three sermons were based on the three temptations of Jesus. So here's my piece from this month's magazine reflecting on the Devil's suggestion that Jesus turn stones to bread.
Nothing reveals the upside-down nature of God’s Kingdom
quite as much as Jesus’ response to the devil’s temptations. Satan offered
Jesus a range of right-side-up options, straight out of the world’s political
and religious lexicon. And Jesus passed on them all. In doing so, he left us a
model to follow as we seek to be good citizens of his upside-down kingdom.
Jesus was offered political power, provided that he exercised
it in the way every other tin-pot dictator did. He was offered religious power,
the chance to run an elaborate temple empire that kept people in thrall to a
cycle of guilt and laws. And he was offered the opportunity to be a welfare
messiah. Turn stones to bread, said the devil; what could be better than
meeting the needs of the world’s poor by working a miracle of provision? Jesus
declined then all, opting for a rougher, harder, more costly way that involved
subverting the empires of the world from below.
Nowhere is this more needed in the economic realm. I have
been and continue to be a big supporter of our foodbank. I think it is a simple,
practical way for us to stand with people who are struggling to make ends meet.
I am also furious that we have to be involved in it. I do not think that hunger
should be a matter for charity.
And this is
the heart of this temptation to Jesus that he be a welfare messiah, doling out
charity bread to the poor but leaving the system that makes and keeps them poor
unchallenged. So, I’ve been reflecting a little on this with the help of a book
called The Stop: how the fight for good food transformed a community and
inspired a movement by Nick Saul and Andrea Curtis. It tells the story of a
Canadian project that started as a foodbank but grew like Topsy.
The
temptation to turn stones into bread is about the daily provision that we trust
God to provide. Jesus told us to pray, ‘give us today our daily bread’. His 40-day
fast echoed the 40 years that Israel spent in the wilderness during which time
God provided bread every day. Jesus lived in hungry times and the devil’s question
suggested he take the struggle out of the provision of bread, so being hailed
as messiah.
We too live
in hungry times. Some 500,000 people in the UK depend on foodbanks to provide
some meals each month; that’s more than the population of the borough of
Bromley. This is a political issue and not just an invitation to be charitable
to people in need. The society that Jesus lived in was hideously unequal with a
few fabulously wealthy people living in the lap of luxury while the
overwhelming majority of the population struggled to make ends meet. And the
devil wanted it to stay that way, hence suggesting that Jesus conjures bread
for the poor but does nothing to change the order of things – rulers remain in
place, the rich hang on to bank balances.
Jesus
refuses to play this game because he’s listening to God. That’s what his answer
means. What does quoting Deuteronomy 8:3 have to do with this temptation? Simply
that there are words aplenty in scripture that relate to how society should be
ordered so that there are no poor who need us to dump charity on them. Deuteronomy
15:7-11 is a good place to start; the laws on gleaning, the Sabbath laws and
the jubilee – all point to a society where people do not become helplessly
poor. That’s what Jesus meant by people living by the word of God. He took up
these ideas in his teaching on the Kingdom; in Luke 12:12-13, for example. And
the early church took what he said seriously as we see in Acts 2:42-48 and 2
Corinthians 8:1-15 (especially verses 13-15 which speak about equality).
This
temptation begins to look like something that has implications for us. All too
often our stock response to things going wrong in the world is ‘someone should
do something’. Jesus’ response suggests that I have it in my power to do
something that will make a difference. The citizens of his Kingdom are people
who live by different rules.
It’s interesting
that when Paul quotes Exodus 16:18 in 2 Corinthians 8, a text that was used to
show how God deals equitably with everyone, he applies it to us, saying that we
should use our resources (all that God has given us) to bring about equality.
It is a deeply worrying suggestion but one that we need to take seriously if we
are going to be a people who live by every word that comes from the mouth of
God (including this one).
So what
does being a citizen of this upside-down kingdom entail? In relation to the
inequitable distribution of bread, it means that first, we support our foodbank,
giving generously so that those in need can receive the help they desperately
need. But we do this, secondly, not as an act of charity but as a pointer to the
equality that we want to see in the world around us. So, thirdly, we kick up a stink
that so many people depend on handouts of food in our society in 2013. And
finally, we begin to dream, like the good folk at the Stop in Canada began to
dream: What else could we do? How could we use the resources we have to create
more imaginative and long-lasting solutions that enable people to provide for
themselves and others rather than depend on charity?
In that way
we will show ourselves to be caught up in the upside-kingdom, pointing to God’s
brighter day. The great thing about this series so far is that people are
having conversations along these lines. Long may it continue ...
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