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Matthew
4.1-17
The fabled Delta-blues guitarist Robert Johnson died in
1938, aged only 27,
after a
troubled life wandering the Mississippi wilderness
eking out a
living as an itinerant musician.
Probably his most famous song is the brilliant ‘Sweet Home
Chicago’,
a song I
know best in its incarnation as performed by The Blues Brothers,
but more notorious is his song ‘Cross Road Blues’,
which in
many ways came to define his mythology.
The song opens with him on his knees at a crossroads,
pleading
with for salvation;
but as the sun sets and no help arrives, he says of himself,
‘I believe
to my soul, now, poor Bob is sinkin’ down’.
And so the myth began,
of how
‘poor Bob Johnson’ met the Devil at the crossroads
and
sold his soul,
in exchange
for his supposedly supernatural abilities on the guitar.
It was a bargain struck in the grand tradition of the Germanic
Faust legend,
whose own
pact with the devil cost him his soul
in exchange
for unlimited pleasure and power.
And the human story, from Adam and Eve onwards,
is littered
with examples
of those who have exchanged their own integrity
for knowledge,
power, or success.
And so we come to the fateful meeting
between
Jesus and the Devil
at the
crossroads of history.
It was, I suppose, the ultimate moment of temptation.
The offer
of unlimited power and influence,
of
wealth and adoration,
to use as
Jesus sees fit.
Who in their right minds could refuse such a deal?
I wonder if you ever have those moments when you think to
yourself,
‘If I ruled
the world, things would be very
different!’
I know I do…
In fact, I’ve got a little list of Executive Orders
ready to be
issued immediately.
Number One:
All doors
to public rest-rooms must henceforth open outwards;
specifically
so that I don’t have to pull the door handle on my way out.
Number Two:
All tables
in restaurants must henceforth
have
only three, evenly spaced, legs;
because
then, according to the milking stool principle,
I
will never have to sit at a wobbly table ever again.
Now I admit I may not be setting my sights all that high
here,
but I
thought I’d start with some easy wins,
before
addressing some of the more intractable problems in the in-tray.
So what would you do, I wonder, if you ruled the world?
Would you
end war?
Abolish
poverty?
Solve
climate change?
I’m sure all of us are so very aware that,
in so many
ways, from the global to the trivial,
the world
is not the way the world should be.
But the question remains of what to do about it?
How do we change the world?
I’m not aware that any one of us, any time soon,
is going to
be granted absolute executive power,
so even my daydreams about doors and tables are an
irrelevance,
let alone
our grander hopes for addressing the world’s bigger problems.
But the fact remains that I’m still one of those people
who wants
to leave the world better,
or
at least not worse, then when I
arrived.
So how do we
change the world for good?
Well, I think that if the story
of Jesus and the Devil in the wilderness
were
to offer us only one insight,
it would be
that seizing absolute power is not the answer.
We may make our Faustian bargains,
we may even
strike the ultimate deal with the Devil,
and rise to
a position of supreme power;
but the cost to our soul will always rob that power
of its
capacity to effect lasting change for good,
because the power will have come from the wrong place.
Power born of ambition
will never
truly serve the common good.
And so Jesus declined Satan’s offer
of all the
kingdoms of the world for him to rule over,
because he knew the terrible price that such power would
exact.
But there is more wisdom on offer here
than just
the rejection of imposed imperial power,
because in his rejection of the Devil,
Jesus
rewrote the script
of how
power can be used to effect change in the world.
Jesus moves the game away from the desire
to have
power over people,
to a new place
of seeking
to share power with people.
It turns out that the alternative to taking power over
others
is not them having power over you.
Rather, there emerges in the life of Jesus a new way:
the way of
power shared,
the
way of power through collaboration,
power
through community.
The empowering of the disempowered,
and the
raising up of the weak,
consistently lie at the heart of the ministry of Jesus.
And far from offering an example of unalloyed weakness,
his life
creates the possibility of a new way of being human,
where the
rules of using power to effect change are re-written.
Until this moment, power over
others
often
appeared to be the only option.
But Jesus calls followers to work with him
to expose
the lie of the false narratives
by which
societies construct themselves.
You see, power over others is Satan’s great deception.
We are deceived if we come to believe
that our
desires are God’s desires;
and that in doing our will, we are doing God’s will.
Such distortion of desire will always open the door to hell,
because it
displaces God from the centre of creation,
replacing
him with an idol made in our own image,
through
which we exercise our power over others.
Jesus knew that it was relational power
that will
be the game-changer, as well as the world-changer.
Because power held in relationship
is never
about ‘me’, and ‘my desires’;
it is
always about the other.
Selfless power, as seen in the life of Jesus,
is what
makes the real difference.
Jesus consistently gave away power,
seeking to
build others up
rather than
asking them to worship him.
And the church that he calls into being
is, or at
least should be, the supreme example
of a
collaborative community of shared power,
against which not even hell itself can triumph.
Jesus does not want to change the world on his own,
but in
relationship with others;
and so, it seems to me, that those who follow Jesus
should
follow his example.
The church of Christ should never seek power over others,
no matter
how pure we may think our motives to be;
and I would suggest that those times
where
Christianity has done its deals with
power
to
get its message heard more widely,
have
resulted in a dilution of the radical message
of
the one who came to expose
the
lure of power over others
for
the insidious lie that it is.
So when we find ourselves at our own crossroads of
temptation,
or
abandoned in the wilderness of our deepest need;
when we face our own moments of crisis and decision,
I wonder
what choices will we make?
Can we, I wonder, be so shaped by our engagement with the
story of Christ,
that our
natural inclination will be to follow his
path
of
rejecting power over others.
Can we embrace the new way of being human
that he
opens before us?
For Jesus, this meant a move, a decisive change,
and Matthew
symbolises this change
by telling
us that Jesus moved from Nazareth to Capernaum.
This is more than just a decision to relocate to the
seaside,
and it’s
more than minor detail from Jesus’ back-story.
Rather, it’s a move from the centre to the margins,
from the urban
centre of Nazareth
to a fishing
community by the shores of Galilee.
Matthew’s invited us already in his gospel
to start
paying attention to the places where Jesus lives,
and has been giving us quotations from the prophets
to help us
interpret these geographical signifiers.
So we started with the holy family in Bethlehem, the ‘city
of David’,
- a place for
a King to be born,
and Matthew told us that this was in fulfilment of the
prophecy of Micah (5.2)
And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least
among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who
is to shepherd my people Israel. (Matt. 2:6)
Then we saw Jesus travel to Egypt to escape the murderous
intentions of Herod,
something
Matthew tells us is in fulfilment of the prophecy of Hosea (11.1):
This was to fulfill what had been
spoken by the Lord through the prophet,
"Out of Egypt I have called my
son." (Matt. 2:15)
Then Jesus returned from Egypt and bypassed Bethlehem,
to spend
his childhood years in Nazareth,
with Matthew claiming that this was:
so that what had been spoken through the
prophets might be fulfilled,
"He will be called a
Nazorean." (Matt. 2:23)
Although no-one is sure quite which prophets Matthew is
referring to here!
And then we get to Jesus the adult,
at the beginning
of his ministry,
and he makes his decisive move to the margins,
to
Capernaum of Galilee.
Once again Matthew is clear that this is in fulfilment of
prophecy,
this time
from Isaiah (9.1-2):
He left Nazareth and made his home
in Capernaum by the sea,
in
the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali,
14 so that what had been spoken
through
the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:
15 "Land of Zebulun, land of
Naphtali, on the road by the sea,
across
the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles--
16 the people who sat in darkness
have seen a great light,
and
for those who sat in the region and shadow of death
light
has dawned." (Matt. 4:13-16)
This passage from Isaiah is often part of our Advent
readings,
where it is
used to express the light of Christ
coming into
a world of darkness at his incarnation.
But for Matthew, this isn’t a prophecy that’s fulfilled at
Jesus’ birth,
rather it’s
fulfilled after Jesus’ temptation, as he moves to Galilee.
Did you notice the slightly strange way Isaiah describes Galilee?
He calls it
‘Galilee of the Gentiles’,
because
this portion of land was taken from Israel
by
the foreign empire Assyria during the 700s BCE.
This is marginal territory,
barely even
Israel.
And yet this is where Jesus moves to make his residence,
as this child
born of David’s line becomes and adult at the margins of society,
living in
disputed and occupied territory.
And it is there, in Galilee of the Gentiles,
that Jesus
starts to call his followers.
This is the ultimate repudiation of the temptation that
preceded it,
as Jesus walks
away from any vestiges of claiming ‘power over’,
to start
building the ‘power with’ that is going to change the world.
Israel of the first century was an occupied country,
and the
temptation to raise a rebellious army,
to
storm Jerusalem and claim David’s throne
is going
return to Jesus and his followers again and again
as
they make their way through the gospel.
And so Matthew is clear:
it begins
at the margins,
and it
stays at the margins.
The path of Christ is not a path to power over others,
it is
always a path of peace, justice, and righteousness.
So Jesus calls people to repent of their authoritarian
dreams,
and to
discover the true power to transform the world
that is
found only in collaboration with others.
I sometimes describe Bloomsbury
as an
‘eccentrically central’ church,
and what I mean by this is that we are church not only in
the centre,
but also at
the margins.
We seek to model in our community the call of Jesus
to share
power with those whom others would disregard.
We reject the temptations to power and glory,
and instead
seek the glory of service to others.
And as we start a new year,
my prayer
for us is that we will continue to live out our vision statement,
of
provoking faith in the heart of London,
as we take
our place alongside others
in bringing
the world as it should be into being in the midst of the world as it is.
And my challenge for all of us is to recognise that this
doesn’t happen by accident.
Jesus had
to move from one place to another
to
start building his kingdom through calling his disciples.
And there
will be things we are called to do
which
will involve change in us, too.
Maybe we will commit ourselves to becoming more involved
in the work
Bloomsbury does with London Citizens
in
addressing the needs of the most vulnerable in our city.
Or maybe we will commit ourselves
to taking
the training offered by the Welcome Directory
to find out more about how we can welcome those
who have
been released from prison.
Or maybe we’ll attend the Churches Together in Westminster
meeting
in a couple
of weeks,
to find out about how communities of faith in our area
are
responding to the impact of the increasing needs faced by so many.
Or maybe we’ll simply commit ourselves to being at church
more regularly,
being
present to one another in fellowship and community
as we build
a community of welcome and inclusion.
In the name of Christ, and for his sake,
we are
called to live and work collaboratively,
across
all borders and boundaries;
we are
called to find allies in unexpected places,
to
treat the other as our brother or sister,
and to
share together in the mystery
that
is power held through powerlessness,
for the
transformation of the world for good.
Amen.
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