A sermon preached by the Revd Dr Trevor Jamison at St Columba’s United Reformed Church, 9 March 2025
Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16; Luke 4:1-13
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Who could object to any one of these? “Food for all.”; better government; that all people should get an opportunity to see God at work in the world? Nobody could object to any one of these, surely? Why then, does Jesus decline the opportunity to turn not one, not two, but any three of these into a reality?
For these are the three things offered by Satan – the devil – to Jesus, as he spends his forty days in the wilderness, fasting. First, Jesus is invited to turn a stone into bread: ‘If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.’ (4:3) Jesus is invited to demonstrate his divine status by miraculously providing himself with bread: note that the temptation is to turn one stone into one loaf. Of course, though, if he can do it to one stone he could do it to any number of stones.
Jesus could become the one that everyone looks to provide them with their daily bread; the one upon whom everyone depends. It’s great to feel needed; there’s no doubt about it. So we need to bear in mind that when we do good things for others, that as much as possible, we are really are doing it for the sake of the others, and not just for how it makes us feel about ourselves.
Jesus swats that temptation aside, using scripture to do so: ‘It is written, “One does not live by bread alone”’ (4:4) says he, quoting Deuteronomy 8:3. Jesus is not denying he is hungry. Luke tells us that he had eaten nothing at all during his time in the wilderness, to the extent that ‘he was famished.’ (4:2) Nor is Jesus saying that material things, like basic food that keeps us alive from day to day, are unimportant.
What Jesus is saying is that there are additional dimensions to life – what we might call “the spiritual” – which are also necessary to true human flourishing. I wonder if there might be a word here for our current UK government which keeps telling us it is focused on economic growth, but seems more hazy about the sort of society such economic growth is intended to sustain.
Jesus, now faces temptation number two: ‘the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.’ (4:5) The devil then offers to transfer to Jesus the authority that he says he (the devil) has been given (from God presumably) with just one little proviso: ‘worship me, [and] it will all be yours.’ (4:7) Ignoring the question of whether such authority was really the devil’s to offer, Jesus turns to scripture once again – Deuteronomy 6:13 this time: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’
Now notice something here. When Jesus is faced with temptation he was able to come up with a ready answer because he was well acquainted with scripture. There’s a lesson there for us, I think, about how being as familiar as we can be with scripture equips us with an appropriate mindset to guide us in answering questions about how we should conduct ourselves in the experiences that life throws at us.
This is not some veiled attempt by me to tell you off about how frequently or infrequently you dip into the Bible. If we all took a confidential survey, I’m sure that most or all of us would say that we wished we knew the content of the Bible better, and/or wish we were better able to make use of it to inform our life decision-making; to support us when we are in a quandary or a crisis. What I am pointing out is that Jesus’s example suggests that if we did read it more we would be beneficiaries of it.
So now we’re on to temptation number three, and the devil has caught on to this thing about scripture. Transporting Jesus (whether literally so or in the mind of Jesus) to the pinnacle of the temple, which was at the centre of Jerusalem and of religion, he suggests that Jesus throw himself down off the temple. (4:9) It will be an opportunity, the devil says, for Jesus to allow or force God to demonstrate how important Jesus is by saving him from any harm.
And here’s the devil quoting scripture now: ‘For it is written, “he will command his angels concerning you, to protect you … so that you will not dash your foot against a stone’ – Psalm 91:11-12, as we heard read earlier to us this morning. (4:10, 11) By the way, although it’s proverbial to say that even the devil can quote scriptures for his own purposes, and this occasion in the Gospel is the inspiration for that saying, the saying itself comes not from scripture but from Shakespeare: Merchant of Venice, Act 1, Scene 3. I trust that you are impressed that I can quote “chapter and verse” of Shakespeare to you. It would be even more impressive for me to have done so … if Google did not exist!
Jesus, on the other hand, did not have Google available to him, yet was still well able to come back with another verse from scripture; the book of Deuteronomy again (6:16): ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ (4:12) And at this point, Luke tells us, the devil ‘departed from him [Jesus] until an opportune time.’ (4:13) If you understand this conversation / contest between the devil and Jesus as a literal historical event with two characters then that ‘opportune moment’ might be when the devil possessed Judas Iscariot (Luke 22:3), or if you see this conversation as one going on within the mind of Jesus, perhaps it came when Jesus once more wrestled with temptation in the Garden of Gethsemane. (Luke 22:39-46)
So during this period of temptation in the wilderness Jesus refuses to turn a stone into bread, declines to set himself up as head of a kingdom, and does not require God to act to save him. But here’s the thing, as the gospel story unfolds, Jesus does do all three of these things!
Consider the breadmaking. In chapter nine in Luke’s Gospel (9:12-17) Jesus and his disciples are in a ‘deserted place’ (9:12) – a wilderness you might say, like the place where he had been tempted to make bread – and they have company. There’s a large crowd – five thousand men alone – and there are only five loaves and couple of fish to sustain the lot of them. (9:13) So what does Jesus do? He feeds the lot of them: ‘and all ate and were filled,’ plus basketfuls of leftovers. (9:17) When the devil asks, Jesus refuses to make even one loaf of bread, but when people are in need he’s a one-man bread factory!
And knowing that people do not live by material bread alone Jesus also provides them with a whole ministry of spiritual teaching, some of which features images of bread: a parable about one friend seeking bread from another (11:5); or the end of all things pictured as a divine banquet to which all people and peoples are invited. (15:16)
Disciples at Emmaus recognise the risen Christ when he breaks the bread at the meal (24:30, 35). I wonder if they recognised him because they had seen him pray and break the bread when he fed 5000+ people? Alternatively, had they been present, on the fringes, when Jesus prayed and broke bread in an upstairs room in Jerusalem?; when Jesus said that for us his body is the bread which sustains us (22:19); something which we re-member today.
And Jesus declined to set himself up as a king over other kings when the devil made his offer, but he was never done going around Galilee and other parts, proclaiming that the kingdom of God was near, and providing people with parables about how things would be better if and when God’s kingdom came on earth. And Jesus was prepared to fling himself into the place of ultimate danger – arrest, and death on the cross – but not, as the devil suggested, to put God to the test to save him, but rather that through this action God might save the world.
So, who could object to “Food for all.”; better government; and that all people should get an opportunity to see God at work in the world? Jesus could, and did. And so should we, if we were ever tempted to use any of them as a cover for the triumph of evil; or if they are done in the pursuit of self-interest, rather than in the interest of others. We can be ever so thankful that Jesus was able to resist such temptations.
Instead, let’s focus on providing material things for the sake of those in need, plus offering spiritual insights and resources that they and we need for full, flourishing, eternal life. Let’s wield whatever authority we have in whichever situation, so that God’s love and God’s justice is what wins through. And let’s not waste time putting God to the test, for God in Jesus Christ has already been put to the test, even to the point of death, and has passed that test; has triumphed over death and all that is evil. Thanks be to God. Amen.