Whispers of Scarcity
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Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”
7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”
11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.
That little whisper in my ear or a feeling in my gut that says there is not enough to go around. I need to fight for my share. My fear that something that can’t be healed will happen to my kids. My tendency to overestimate and project far into the future the negative consequence of one small action (or inaction). These are the ways that the accuser uses temptations in my life.
Growing up, temptation was framed as the impulse to do a sinful action. And it was equally simplistic that the solution to temptation was to grit your teeth and just not sin. This simple scaffold produces success for me because my impulses are more subtle. The outwardly holy life isn’t hard for me. For example, I grew up in a teetotaling household, and when I was introduced to a glass of wine at dinner in grad school, I discovered I got a headache within a few sips. So it follows that in my life, it has been easy to avoid the sin of drunkenness.
Similarly, in today’s lectionary text from Matthew chapter 4, drunkenness was not on Jesus’ temptation list as he headed into the wilderness. We go into the wilderness, led by the Spirit, alongside Jesus. After forty days of fasting, the accuser appears to tempt Jesus. Let’s consider the temptations that surfaced.
A little rabbit trail: I prefer to use the language of the accuser, following the lead of my grad school professor, Dr. Marva Dawn. She noted that the Hebrew word (ha-satan) that became the personal name Satan has the definite article “ha” (the), so literally translated it would be “the accuser.” Since hearing Marva Dawn articulate this difference, I have found it helpful to limit the personality and power of the accuser.
Back to the wilderness. The story picks up with Jesus hungry and the accuser appears. "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread." I read that temptation and I have questions. Why didn’t the accuser simply offer Jesus actual bread? Why the temptation to command the stones to transform?
Maybe the temptation could read something like this: “You are hungry; you don’t have enough food. But it’s in your power to make more for yourself. Don’t suffer when you could have more.” Now that sounds more like a television ad. That temptation is familiar. I find that the capitalist allure for more is driven by this enticement to believe that life would be better and easier if I simply got what is in my power to have. It drives the so-called protestant work ethic. And I find that it blurs my view from recognizing when I have sufficient provision or even an abundance of things in my life.
The next temptation is also puzzling to me. The accuser takes Jesus to the top of the Temple in Jerusalem and tempts Him to throw Himself off the Temple, and command angels to catch Him. Maybe this temptation could be translated to the whispers of the accuser: “Are you sure that you know what happens when you die? Do you have enough control over your own life and death? Grasp at that certainty by whatever means necessary. Control the faith narrative of those who could pull you away from your envisioned future.”
While I have never felt the impulse to command angels to catch me in mid-air, I do see how I continually fight the tendency towards certainty about unknowable realities. That doesn’t mean that nothing is trustworthy. For example, I am certain that God is Love, but how that reality works out is beyond me. I find that God continually calls me away from clinging to a prescribed way in which Divine Love is demonstrated.
The third temptation that the accuser levels at Jesus is the chance to rule the world if Jesus would bow down in worship. I think I always assumed that this was a legitimate temptation for Jesus, but the more I reflect on Jesus’ message that power is meant to be shared, divested, and subverted, the more I wonder if this scene with the offer of political power is meant for us, not for Jesus.
So, what would this whisper of the accuser be in the context of 21st-century Canada? What would worship of the accuser look like? Maybe something like, “You can have all the power and influence you desire; just leverage my winning strategy. Whisper lies and half-truths to those around you. Climb your way to the top, and then keep going because there is never enough influence. There is no need to care for those around you; it’s better to leverage them for your gain.”
I think that the heart of each of these whispers is the lie of scarcity.
There isn’t enough.
You will miss out.
You can control your situation if you protect what you do have.
I feel the oppression and lie just typing those words. For me, the counterpoint of abundance and generosity offers a subversive path to peace.
It’s been intriguing for me to reflect on how the whispers of the accuser surface in my own life. As a response during this season of Lent, I want to follow Jesus’ lead and fast as the antidote to the whispers of scarcity.
I am going to fast from my scarcity mindset. I am going to respond to my impulse to consume with generosity. I have lined up a list of charities I will give to instead of consuming. I will fast from certainty and control by seeking out unfamiliar voices and sitting in uncertainty longer. I am going to fast from power seeking by actively seeking out situations where I can share my influence.
In some ways, it would be easier to give up chocolate during the Lenten season, but if you are like me, the past three years have been like fasting on so many levels; that the typical sacrifices don’t touch the losses forced upon us. It’s still the first week of Lent, but I am going to give this new approach to fasting a try and see how it goes.
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