"Then the devil led Jesus up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, 'To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.' Jesus answered him, 'It is written, Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him'." (Luke 4:6-8)
Some folks never get over playing board games for play money and imaginary empires. Jesus was never into that kind of thing in the first place.
I mean that seriously. At some point in childhood, I suspect many of us went through that phase where we loved games of accumulation, or at least prided ourselves on our victories when we won the day at a game of Monopoly, Risk, or Settlers. But even after we stopped playing those games and the pieces all went back into the box, that way of thinking has a way of digging its claws into our minds and not letting go. Once you get used to making sense of reality like it's a game-board full of territories to be carved up, properties to be accumulated, or places to be ruled, it's hard to stop. All too tragically, lots of grown-ups still see the world in those terms: an unending game of acquisition and conquest, being played everywhere, in which the only real victory is to own all the properties, command all the armies, or control all the countries. And once you've gotten stuck in that way of seeing the world and living in it, it is very hard to break the habit and see from a new perspective.
Enter Jesus. Jesus steps into this world of empire-building, money-piling, and score-keeping and never gets lured in by it. It's almost like he's the adult in the room and watching a bunch of children hunched over a game-board salivating over their stacks of pastel-colored Monopoly money and little plastic armies, and he's the only one who knows that they are all worthless play things. The Tempter, of course, is still going to do his damnedest to try and get Jesus to bite. Satan is a salesman supreme, and everybody else in human history has at some point or in some way bought what the Tempter was peddling and made a deal with the devil. We've all fallen for the pursuit of bigger piles of money, greater influence (whether at work, on social media, or with the levers of political machinery), a larger share of power, or at least wanting more of those things for "our group," whether that's our town versus their town, our political party versus the other guys, our country against other countries, or our church denomination against everybody else. That strategy has worked so well before with everybody else that the devil trots it out against Jesus, too.
And of course, maybe the devil is clever enough to be playing chess with Jesus in this temptation. I tend to assume that Satan is at least as smart as you or I are, and if that's so, then it may well be that the devil is trying to tailor this temptation to a well-meaning messiah like Jesus. Maybe it's not about an overt power-grab, but about Jesus' vision for making the world perfect. If Jesus were king of the world, he could force everyone to fall in line. If Jesus reigned over an empire of all the world's kingdoms--like an even grander Caesar!--he could compel good behavior, rule-follower, and justice to be done, all at the point of a sword. That... kind of sounds persuasive to a lot of reasonable people, doesn't it? Why leave the world in its messy chaos of warring tribes, competing countries, and disordered peoples, if you can enforce your kind of "law and order" by ruling over all the kingdoms of the world?
You can almost imagine the subtext here of the Satanic sales-pitch: "Look, Jesus, we all want peace, tranquility, and a chicken in every pot. I think it's great that you want to make the world a better place. Hey, me too. Let me assist you in that project of yours. Help me help you--just bow to me, quick and painless, a little allegiance here, a little reverence there, and then you can have the reins on the whole world, and I'll give you the keys to every kingdom on earth, and you can make the world into a perfect place. They'll all do your bidding when you're the king, and you'll have all the power to zap anybody (or just crucify them if you wish) who dares to oppose your new order of things. Wouldn't that be a perfect world?"
And, at least as the last two thousand years' worth of history has born witness, an awful lot of folks who claimed to be disciples of Jesus thought that was an acceptable bargain. Plenty of kings, queens, presidents, and even "Holy Roman Emperors" were all convinced that their grand visions of bringing their sort of order (in the name of Christ, of course!) entitled them to treat the world as one big game-board, and that their victory would unequivocally be a victory for goodness and righteousness. It's worth remembering, of course, that in the Star Wars saga, the newly christened Darth Vader insists that turning the Republic into an Empire complete with a literal evil Emperor has "brought peace, freedom, justice, and security" to the galaxy. Nobody thinks they're being evil when they're building empires; everybody tells themselves (and often the people they are trampling over, too!) that they are the heroes of the story, nobly bringing order and goodness and achieving a righteous victory. And if it's all just a board-game world, then every kingdom you conquer and every other territory you occupy is just a part of "winning." Once you see the world that way, other actual people have a way of becoming collateral damage very quickly. And if you've convinced yourself that you're doing it all with a cross on your shield for the sake of "God's glory" it becomes even easier to justify monstrous things "for the greater good." The devil relied on the same diabolical logic in his pitch to Jesus here for all the kingdoms of the world--the good news is simply that Jesus didn't fall for it.
No, Jesus' response (a loud NO!) to the devil here makes it clear that Jesus is not willing to resort to rotten or tyrannical means in the pursuit of even supposedly noble ends. Jesus isn't willing to become a conqueror like Caesar or a tycoon like Mr. Monopoly in order to bring about God's Reign. He just doesn't see the world as a board game of domination, so the devil's offer rings hollow. Jesus sees the whole world differently. No, as Henri Nouwen put it so succinctly, "For Jesus, there are no countries to be conquered, no ideologies to be imposed, no people to be dominated. There are only children, women and men to be loved." That love crosses boundaries to include people all over the map, from Boardwalk to Baltic Avenue, including the people who do not collect $200 or pass Go on their way to jail.
Like we saw yesterday in the first part of this temptation story, Jesus defeats the wiles of the tempter without any supernatural powers on display or any divine aces up his sleeve. He has simply come to see the world differently in light of the Scriptures. Jesus knows deep down at the core of his identity not to worship anything or anyone but God, and he will not sell his allegiance even in exchange for all the kingdoms of the world. And once Jesus is clear on that, saying "NO" to the devil's offer is straightforward and clear. It can be that clear for us, too. The question is whether we will stay stuck like children thinking we are still playing Monopoly and Risk, or whether we will let Jesus give us his own mature vision to see the world not as a game to be won, but as a neighborhood full of people to be loved.
Today, let's dare to allow Jesus to change our vision that way--and to see what that does for how we face the day.
Lord Jesus, free us from childish games of conquest to love the people all around us without needing to dominate them.
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