The Long Way

Luke 4:1-13

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished. The devil said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.’ Jesus answered him, ‘It is written, “One does not live by bread alone.” ’

Then the devil led him 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.” ’

Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written,
“He will command his angels concerning you,
   to protect you”,
and
“On their hands they will bear you up,
   so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.” ’
Jesus answered him, ‘It is said, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” ’ When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time.

The devil’s first attempt at winning Jesus over is to try to convince Jesus to turn the stones that surround him in the harsh, desert wilderness to bread, when he is absolutely famished. Jesus quotes Deuteronomy at the devil— “One does not live by bread alone.” In Deuteronomy, God was telling the Jewish people, after their forty years wandering in the desert not to forget all that had sustained them in those years— that it was manna from heaven, it was their faith in God and in the possibility and the hope of a better world that kept them going. God was telling them not to forget this in their new land. God was telling them not to get complacent in their prosperity and comfort.

And here we have Jesus, spending a symbolic 40 days in the desert without bread to discern his call and his path forward as savior of all. We have him, a human man, surely raging inside with the hunger of thousands of men. The devil reminds him, though he is human, he is the son of God, and so why not use his power to turn stones into bread?

On Ash Wednesday last week, I reflected on a single verse from the book of Genesis—3:19:

By the sweat of your face
  you shall eat bread
until you return to the ground,
   for out of it you were taken;
you are dust,
   and to dust you shall return.

“By the sweat of your face / you shall eat bread.” This is God telling Adam and Eve of their punishment for eating the forbidden fruit. In addition to feeling shame and pain, they will also have to toil and labor for their food. They will have to harvest the grain, mix the proper ingredients, knead and wait and let the dough rise, bake over a hot fire, and only then will they be able to eat.

Ash Wednesday is the day when we remember that we are mortal. Our time on this earth is limited, it is finite. It is a time when we realize that we must turn back to God and follow the path of love and compassion, considering we only have so much time on this earth to do the right thing, to work for an earth as it is in heaven. And Lent is the time in which we commit to turning a new leaf— to give something up that holds us back, or to take up a new practice that moves us forward. And the hope is that that sacrifice, or that practice will continue in some capacity well beyond the days of Lent.

For whatever reason, the devil’s first temptation and Jesus’ response to it really hooked me, even if it seems that it’s the most obvious and the least exciting one of the three—I mean, after the bread, the devil offers him earthly political power and then urges him to jump from the top of the temple to test God’s protection. I guess it was that in my research and outlining for both this sermon and Ash Wednesday in relation to each other, and considering we’re taking Communion today, I kept seeing bread pop up over and over.

“By the sweat of our face / you shall eat bread.” I mentioned in my Ash Wednesday reflection that at the very beginning of the pandemic, it seemed that everyone tried their hand had cultivating sourdough starters and perfecting bread recipes and baking skills. It was one of the few joys of that time; people were forced to slow down, to be creative, to learn or improve a useful and fulfilling skill. People were avoiding grocery stores and crowds, many groceries were hard to come by, and so people improvised. In a beautiful op-ed written in the New York Times about a year ago, the author and baker Lexi Smith describes this pull to break-baking so eloquently:

Fresh bread offered itself as a useful anchor, both as a symbol and as a direct supply of sustenance and emotional comfort. During this global crisis, many felt drawn to a substance that has connotations of life, money and God, all at once.[i]

And while I know many in this congregation have sourdough starters that are alive and well and are baking delicious things all the time (we have Harriet to thank for our Communion bread this morning), I think many people have reverted back to the daily temptations of convenience and instant gratification. Human ingenuity has rendered this particular aspect of God’s alleged punishment for eating the forbidden fruit essentially impotent. None of us have to toil and sweat and suffer for our bread anymore. We can take a stroll to BG’s and grab a loaf right now if we want. But what do we lose amidst all this convenience? What do we lose when we don’t have to think of where our food came from? Or who came up with the recipe? Or what hands actually worked to package and ship it to our local market?

The devil is offering Jesus an easy way out. He is offering Jesus the opportunity to avoid the pain and suffering and death that awaits him. He is offering a shortcut that avoids that treacherous and ultimately fatal path that is set up for him. And it all starts with sating Jesus’ deeply human hunger with some magical bread. But as we know from folktales, folk songs, and episodes of the Twilight Zone, there’s always a catch when it comes to agreeing to a deal with the devil. Jesus knows this. And yet, he is human and we must assume he is genuinely tempted by what he’s being offered. After all, we know that throughout his life, he weeps, he asks God to reconsider his path, he asks God why he’s been forsaken. Certainly the idea of earthly power and relief of the constant pressure of allegiance to God would have been wildly attractive.

We are offered these alleged gifts of convenience all the time, aren’t we? Whether they be in the form of fast food, of fast fashion, fast furniture; we are offered these supposed gifts in the form of email and texts, quick and easy ways to get in touch with people. We are offered these purported gifts in the form of streaming movies with the touch of a button.

Last week, the director Sean Baker won the Academy Award for his incredible movie Anora. His acceptance speech was a love letter to movie theaters, to going out and seeing movies on the big screen. In his speech he said,  

Watching a film in a theater with an audience is an experience. We can laugh together, cry together, scream in fright together, perhaps sit in devastated silence together. And in a time in which the world can feel very divided, this is more important than ever. It's a communal experience you simply don't get at home.[ii]

 And this brought to mind an experience I had in Philly. One evening, Chris and I went to see a movie, it was the movie Green Room, a very violent and troubling horror movie— we went to a movie theater we had never been to before, because it was the only theater in the area that was playing Green Room. Now, unbeknownst to us, this was their discount ticket night, and as we learned, on those nights, people in this neighborhood often would buy a cheap ticket, and just sort of theater-hop. So we were in this theater with a small handful of folks like us, who loved the director and were excited about this new movie of his, but mostly people who had no real idea what they were getting into. I had no idea how this was going to go. Now— Green Room is about a scrappy punk rock band, on tour in the Pacific Northwest. They get booked to play a show in rural Oregon, and as they begin their set they uncomfortably look around the room and slowly by surely realize they are in a white supremacist bar. Well, you can imagine how the movie goes from there—it’s a bloody fight to the death, not a movie for the faint of heart, but let me tell you—when the folks who came into this movie totally blind to what it was about, mostly people of color, realized what they were watching… this became one of the best movie-going experiences of my life. People were cheering the punk band on the edge of the seats for the finale, and my repressed, ultra-polite waspy New England self was having a GREAT time.

This… this is what we lose when we give into convenience. We lose togetherness, we lose new experiences, we lose the situations that push us out of our comfort zones.

When so many of us began baking bread during the pandemic, we learned what it really took to make a good sourdough starter, the science, the miracles behind it. We learned the work it took to knead, the patience for the dough to rise, and the result of our time and effort. And we learned to share. We shared our sourdough starters, we shared our croissants with our friends, we dropped muffins off on doorsteps. In the same op-ed that I mentioned above, Smith writes of her pandemic project—she took bits of her sourdough starters and mailed them to hundreds of people. From her home in New York all the way to Alabama, to California, to Mexico, to Canada, to China, to Ireland, to Argentina... Smith began getting and outpouring of love and support for this project, and much of the love was about how this was this beautiful, human, earthly way of connecting during a tumultuous and uncertain time. Smith writes, “In 2020, a pervading feeling among many Americans was that the powerful were not equipped to save us. We were going to have to try to do it ourselves.” She believes that “the more people’s hands are in the dough, the more power is in the people’s hands.”[iii]

So much gets lost to the temptations of convenience and material comforts. So much gets lost to the temptations of the ease of sinking into a couch and pressing a button. We lose connection. We lose out on new experiences. We lose the understanding of the effort and the toil that we are supposed to understand in the baking of our bread… and with that, we lose the utter joy and relief in tasting the result of our labor. We lose the warm feeling when someone tells you how delicious your bread was. And when we hunker down at home to watch movies alone, we lose out on that feeling of hearing another person laugh with you, of hearing those teary sniffles from the person in back of you, reminding you it’s okay to cry, and there’s that feeling of solidarity.

Jesus was saying no to the easy way out. Jesus was saying no to the catch that he knew would always be there when it comes to the devil. He was saying no to the offer of power because he knew the kind of easy power the devil offers is not the kind of power that lifts oppressed from the ashes. The kind of bread the devil was offering him was not the kind one shares with friends or strangers. It was not the kind that would sate him in any real way.

The journey before us is not easy. But along the way, there will be joys. Yes, it’s easier to go to the store and buy a loaf of bread. But there’s something rewarding in baking it yourself, and even more rewarding in sharing your work with others. Yes, it’s easier to sit on the couch and watch a movie while your phone buzzes next to you. But there’s something special about immersing yourself in a story with other people who share your excitement. Yes, if you have the means, it’s easier to give a little money to the food shelf to help them out. But there’s something so fulfilling by going there in person and being with other helpers on Thursdays, or eating breakfast with the regulars on Friday mornings.

Take the long way this Lent. Make food and share it, eat it with other people. Laugh or cry or dance with people at a movie or a concert. Volunteer, join a club, meet new people. The powerful people in this world want you to give in to convenience. They want you stay hunkered down, quiet, and docile, too tired to and cynical to take the long way. We do not live by bread alone. We live by the labor of our own hands and the hands of others; we live by curiosity and compassion, by the joy and the love we give and receive along the journey; and we live by the hope and the faith that the long, hard way is worth it.

[i] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/16/opinion/sourdough-bread-starters-pandemic.html

[ii] https://www.npr.org/2025/03/02/g-s1-51716/sean-baker-best-director-screenplay-editing-anora-oscars-2025

[iii] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/16/opinion/sourdough-bread-starters-pandemic.html