From Our Archives

Debie Thomas, In the Barren Places (2022); Debie Thomas, Human and Hungry (2019); novelist Ron Hansen, Temptation and Testing (2013); Rebecca Lyman, The Grace of Bewilderment (2010); and Nora Gallagher, From Ashes to Fire (2007).

This Week's Essay

Luke 4:1: "Jesus was tempted by the devil for 40 days."

I've never liked the question what my favorite Christian book is, but when pressed, I've always given the same answer — the little meditation by Henri Nouwen called In the Name of Jesus. The book was published back in 1989, but as I look at my worn copy, with marginalia from many readings in different colors of pen and pencil, its radical message still smells like wet paint. The book is a reflection on the gospel for this week about the three temptations of Jesus.

Henri Nouwen (1932–1996) was a Dutch-born Catholic priest, professor, psychologist, and writer, who reached the highest levels of success as a religious academic. He taught at the University of Notre Dame, and then at the divinity schools of Yale and Harvard. He eventually published forty-two books that today have sold over 8.5 million copies and been translated into thirty-five languages. But after twenty-five years in the priesthood, Nouwen describes how as he was turning fifty he began to experience “a deep inner threat.”

He says that he was praying poorly, living in isolation from others, preoccupied with being relevant, and sensing that his success had placed his soul in peril. “I woke up one day with the realization that I was living in a very dark place and that the term ‘burnout’ was a convenient psychological translation for spiritual death.”

This sort of painful and public vulnerability was characteristic of Nouwen, and what endeared him to so many readers. In book after book, beginning with Intimacy in 1969, Nouwen wrote not about intellectual theories or theological problems, but about personal struggles, like his chronic loneliness, his insatiable need for personal affirmation, his clinical depression, and a nervous breakdown. In some ways he kept re-writing the same book over and over, based on his belief that his personal experiences were universal to all his readers.

The Temptations of Christ, Melisende Psalter, Jerusalem, 1131-1143.

Faced with his age fifty crisis, Nouwen made the most important decision of his life. He left Harvard and moved to Toronto, where for the last eleven years of his life (1985–1996) he served as the residential priest at Daybreak, a home for people with severe physical and mental disabilities.

Living among the weak, and “suddenly faced with my naked self,” was the starting point for Nouwen to discover his “true identity” as a child loved by God: “These broken, wounded, and completely unpretentious people forced me to let go of my relevant self — the self that can do things, show things, prove things, build things — and forced me to claim that unadorned self in which I am completely vulnerable, open to receive and give love regardless of any accomplishments.”

This radical break was provoked by the gospel for this week about the three temptations of Jesus in the desert (Luke 4:1–13), which Nouwen joined with the story of Peter’s reinstatement and call to be a shepherd (John 21:15–19). Together, these two stories form the basis of In the Name of Jesus. 

Nouwen writes that “Jesus’s first temptation was to be relevant: to turn stones into bread.” He then challenges our drive for control, efficiency, and relevance: “While efficiency and control are great aspirations of our society, the loneliness, broken relationships, boredom, feelings of emptiness and depression, and a deep sense of uselessness fill the hearts of millions of people in our success-oriented world.”

As a counterpoint to relevance, Nouwen proposes that future leaders will be those who dare to “claim their irrelevance” and enter into solidarity with the suffering majority, bringing the light of Jesus to them as one of them.

Jesus didn't ask Peter, his successor, “Who is going to take you seriously?” “What are your metrics?” or “When will you deliver some results?” Instead, Jesus asked Peter not once but three times, “Do you love me?”

Jesus’s second temptation was to do something spectacular, something worthy of hits, likes, tweets, and more followers. The devil goaded Jesus at the top of the Temple, “Since you are God’s Son, jump… The angels will catch you so that you won’t so much as stub your toe on a stone.” (The Message).

Today we're pressured to become "influencers." With Instagram and Tik Tok, the proliferation of TED talks, and endless hours of reality TV, personal branding is the new norm. It’s hard to feel “in” if you’re not pursuing audience and applause. But, Nouwen writes, “Jesus didn’t come to be a stunt man."

The Temptation of Christ by Simon Bening, Flemish, 1550.

Nouwen proposes a new kind of leadership, modeled on the servant Jesus rather than power games. Peter will be a shepherd who, night and day, nourishes, gathers, rescues, restores, and needs the community as much as it needs him.

Nouwen concludes with Jesus’s last temptation — the temptation of power.  He observes that “one of the greatest ironies of the history of Christianity is that its leaders constantly gave in to the temptation of power” — political, military, economic, moral and spiritual — “even though they continued to speak in the name of Jesus, who did not cling to his divine power but emptied himself and became as we are.”

Maybe we grab for power because “it seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life,” observes Nouwen. 

Which brings Nouwen to the story of Peter at the end of John.

Dirty, wet and tired from fishing all night and catching nothing, the disciples nonetheless followed Jesus's command to re-cast their nets one more time. The result was the miraculous catch of 153 fish.  That number looks suspiciously symbolic, but there's zero scholarly agreement about what that might mean.

After hauling their fish to shore, they were met by Jesus and "a charcoal fire" (21:9). Jesus greeted them with welcoming words, "come and have breakfast." 

When breakfast was over, and as they warmed themselves before the crackling fire, Jesus asked Peter not once, but three times, "Peter, do you really love me?" Three times Peter replied, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you." And then three times Jesus responded, "feed my sheep."

This is a masterful literary stroke by John to connect two different but related stories. John says that "Peter was hurt" by Jesus's repeated query.  That's because the triple query by Jesus provoked a painful memory of a triple denial by Peter before an earlier "charcoal fire" — the identical Greek word is used in both 18:18 and 21:9.

Who doesn't have powerful memories about standing around a fire, staring into the flames, and smelling the smoke? The last time that Peter stood around a "charcoal fire" was just a few days earlier, during the arrest of Jesus, when he denied three times that he even knew Jesus. John describes how "it was cold, and the servants and officials stood around a charcoal fire they had made to keep warm. Peter was also standing with them, warming himself." (18:18).

12th century mosaic of the temptations of Christ, St. Mark's Basilica in Venice.

Both campfire conversations about faithfulness to Jesus were painful in the extreme. Nonetheless, Jesus reinstates Peter three times with the words, "Feed my sheep," and despite his past failures, he went on to become the movement's leader. 

The story concludes with a zinger of a postscript that is perfect for our Lenten pilgrimage that starts this week. "Very truly I tell you," Jesus said to Peter, "when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” (21:18).

This is Jesus's last word on mature leadership with Peter before commanding him to “follow me.” He tells Peter that he must be willing to be led where he would rather not go, to places where power, relevance, and spectacle are abandoned in favor of love.

This "triple-triple" of denial, questioning, and reaffirmation around two "charcoal fires," says Nouwen, is an invitation to vulnerability and downward mobility. They are "the words that made it possible for me to move from Harvard to L'Arche. They touch the core of Christian leadership and are spoken to offer us ever and again new ways to let go of power and follow the humble way of Jesus."

Weekly Prayer

By Brother Eckhart (Chip Camden). Brother Eckhart is a novice in the Order of Saint Benedict, Community of Saint John Cassian. He is a member of St Mark's Episcopal Church in Palo Alto.

Temptations

Creature comforts
And why not?
All you have to do is
Give up a few rocks
These sun-baked stones
That burn your hands and cut your feet
Could soon become a desert treat!
Stop being so hard on yourself!

Fame
All yours for the taking
All you have to do is
Leave this lonely wilderness
Head right to the center of the noisy crowd
Drop in your branding clear and loud
Start showing what you've got!

Power
Not as easy, but well within your reach
All you have to do is
Want it more than anything
Make it your top priority
Your one and only deity
Instead of your strange, silly God
Of Suffering
Solitude
And Silence

Dan Clendenin: dan@journeywithjesus.net

Image credits: (1) Wikipedia.org; (2) Wikimedia.org; and (3) Wikimedia.org.