So we turned up to the public forum and took our seats. The room was packed, with all the seats taken plus a crowd left standing at the back. We planned to mic check the first speaker, and then leave. What happened was way better.

After the intro, the first speaker was introduced. The mic check began just as he began to speak. Here’s what we said:

Mic check!
Mic check!
We are here today
To say that drones have no place
In our civilised society.
Our technological innovation
Has outstripped our moral capability.
We kill without compunction
And from a distance.
Drone operators have greater rates of post traumatic stress disorder
Than regular soldiers
Drone bombings are the cause
Of mass civilian casualties
And much anger and bitterness around the world.
In particular Afghanistan
And the tribal areas of Pakistan
See regular drone bombings.
Some of us know innocent, ordinary Afghans
Who are terrified by your silent weapons from the sky.
This forum
Will give you stacks of information
On the latest in drone technology
But it will not give you information
On how to be more compassionate or more human.
As Martin Luther King said
We must rapidly begin the shift
from a thing-oriented society
to a person-oriented society.
When machines and computers,
profit motives and property rights,
are considered more important than people,
the giant triplets of racism,
extreme materialism,
and militarism
are incapable of being conquered.
In the words of the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
Why not love?
Why not put your considerable expertise
Towards technology which benefits humanity?
This is the voice of the people.
We are your conscience.

While we were doing the mic check, some of our crew were flying paper planes (fliers, get it? ) with info on the military application of drones to audience members, for a little extra education. After the mic check finished, as I walked towards the back of the room to leave, a bunch of discussions broke out between the mic checkers and the audience members. There was some great back and forth for a while, until the RMIT security person told us to leave. At that moment it dawned on all of us: the disruption wasn’t over. By staying here, we could extend it indefinitely.

When it became obvious we weren’t about to leave, security ordered everyone who wasn’t part of the mic check to leave (she called them “the legitimate people” – as opposed to we illegitimate ones?). In fact, she specifically said, “Don’t talk to them.” That’s a good educational institution for you; don’t engage with detractors, they’ll only tell you things you don’t want to hear. Anyway, we were left in the room, alone with the sandwiches and wine, and a few security people. They called the police.

As usual the police took their time, and there were only two of them, so with twenty or more of us there it was going to be difficult to move us on, and it was obvious they were reluctant to arrest (they were well known to the Occupy Melbourne people anyway). Finally we realised the participants who were gathering around the door (waiting to come back in to restart the forum) had gone, meaning hanging around was a bit pointless. Moving into the corridor we realised they’d found another room and were locked in there. A door briefly ajar revealed only a fraction of the original participants remained.

So we ran the mic check again – and again – loudly, just to make sure. By this time we’d disrupted the forum for an hour, so when a bunch more police came and herded us out it had proven far more successful than we had ever anticipated.

Once again we underestimated ourselves, but managed to scramble for a very successful disruption. Thanks to all who participated.

Coincidentally, there was a great piece on drones today in the Fairfax papers. Well worth a read.

This is my way of reflecting on the year, and of sharing some of the music that has touched my life with those close to me.

Mostly these are just the songs I listened to most, although a couple have specific memories associated with them. The order is always carefully crafted to produce the best album out of the songs – since the songs are chosen as representative of my year, not for the way they go together, that can be a challenge. I hope it works for you!

1. Back in the USSR: The Beatles

Spent too much time in airports this year – up and down the east coast of Australia as well as to Afghanistan. Just a good travelling song.

2. Hand Grenade: Things of Stone and Wood

TSW were part of the soundtrack of my teen years, especially the Happy Birthday Helen EP. So when  I saw the CD of it at a second hand record store I grabbed it. Turns out they were a little bit peacenik. “We are pointing guns at children not yet born/We toss our hand grenades into the future…God it makes me scared, it makes me so mad.”

3. Have a Lucky Day: Morphine

As I think I’ve said before in a previous year, I reckon Morphine are one of the most underrated bands of the 90s. Found this in an op shop for like 99 cents.

4. Girl from Mars: Ash

This one is op shop sourced too, although it was also a staple of my teenage years. Mostly this one reminds me of that time, but it holds up well even now. After I listened to this recently I tweeted, “Is it just me or did music peak around the mid 90s?” Scott Stephens (@abcreligion) responded, “It’s not just you.”

5. Details in the Fabric: Jason Mraz

Yes, I know. Jason Mraz. Well, get used to pop, because there’s a couple in here. I’m trying to get over the cringe factor, because I actually like this a lot. I agree with Nick Hornby: a good song is a good song. Life is too short for music snobbery. When you find a good song, why not just enjoy it?

6. Every Little Thing She Does is Magic: The Police

I never got into the Police when I was younger, it was really just before my time. I got their best of this year because it felt like my music education needed it (let’s face it, they’re not wanting for classics). I wasn’t disappointed.

7. Lovers in Japan-Reign of Love: Coldplay

Again, I know. Coldplay. But hey, a catchy riff is a catchy riff. It moves me. Why would you not want that in your life? “Sometimes even the right is wrong…”

8. Everybody’s Got a Right to Live: Jimmy Collier, Pete Seeger, Rev FD Kirkpatrick

I borrowed this cd (a Pete Seeger collection) from my friend David, and it’s just steeped in history. I taught and sang this in front of the gates of Swan Island on our second day of blockading, at 6am in the freezing dead of winter. “And before this campaign fails we’ll all go down in jail/Everybody’s got a right to live.”

9. O Mary Don’t You Weep: Bruce Springsteen

I’ve been collecting spirituals the last few years as ways of arming myself for times of trouble. I bought this cd (Bruce Springsteen “The Seeger Sessions”) at the start of the year and I’ve listened to it solidly ever since. Just spectacular stuff.

10. Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard: Paul Simon

This song just always makes me happy, because of the bouncy guitar, even though its content isn’t particularly. Wikipedia says that the “radical priest” referenced in this is probably either Daniel or Phil Berrigan, because they’re the only radical priests who have been on the front of Newsweek.

11. Nonviolence they choose for Afghanistan: Anita McKone

I first heard this song over patchy reception through an ancient mobile phone on loudspeaker in the upper room of a Kabul home. It was written and performed for the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers by a new friend, Anita, partner of one of my nonviolence heroes who I now also call friend, Robert Burrowes. (The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers was one of the groups I went to visit in Afghanistan, and have since become good friends with many of them.) We then had it recorded by my friend Evan, and put it out. It’s become somewhat of an anthem for the AYPVs.

12. Turn the World Around: Harry Belafonte

I’ve been reading a lot about the civil rights movement the last couple of years, and Harry Belafonte was heavily involved, bankrolling the Southern Christian Leadership Convention (SCLC – King’s organisation) a lot of the time. So when I brought home a Muppets Season 3 DVD featuring him, it was a good excuse to combine the kids’ education with my own. We listened, and all loved his music; in fact, the Banana Boat Song has become the number one favourite for my youngest. From there I bought the Essential Harry Belafonte, and it’s just magnificent. This is my favourite, and you can watch the Muppet version here.

13. Rumble: You Am I

Bought their Best Of, and had it on in the background while driving Kathy Kelly and Dr. Hakim around to various speaking gigs and radio interviews during the Melbourne leg of their tour. It’s (rather bizarrely) become the soundtrack to that rather hectic but memorable week.

14. All for You: Sister Hazel

This one is a memory from my early uni years – found it on a best of the 90s cd at the library and it brought back all sorts of memories.

15. Mystery track: (A plea)

When I rang my young Afghan friend last week on his mobile phone, he was bringing his sheep and goats in from the fields, so when the passage about the final judgement, described as “the sheep and the goats” (Matthew 25:31-46) came up in the lectionary on Sunday I couldn’t help reflecting on Afghanistan. Out of my reflections came this Afghan paraphrase. I hope it brings this passage alive for our context, and moves us to action.

“I was hungry and you drove past my refugee camp with food for your troops. I was thirsty and you told me you the situation was too insecure to fix the water supply. I was a stranger and you refused to learn my language, I was naked and you walked past in your battle armour. I was sick with preventable diseases and you told me your priority was to train people to kill so I would be safe. I was in prison, held indefinitely without charge and no one could visit me because no one knew where I was or even whether I was alive. Inasmuch as we do this to Afghans, we do it to Christ.”

Firstly, let me say thankyou for what you are doing for a fairer and more compassionate world. I spent a bit of time around the camp in week one, and experienced it as an inclusive space where significant conversations were taking place.

What follows is my hopes, my encouragements, for what they’re worth, from someone who has studied and participated in social change movements in some depth.

What we saw at last Friday’s eviction was just the first skirmish in a larger struggle, a struggle which may take years and must be conducted nonviolently if it is to succeed in birthing a better world than the one in which we currently live. And by ‘nonviolently’ I do not mean merely the absence of violence but the robust, active, public, persistent transformation of wrong.

Now the real struggle begins.

We are witnessing a shift in world politics which has for too long been allowed to be dominated by a few. It would be easy and self satisfying to blame the few for this, but we must take our share of the responsibility, for we the many have largely remained inactive and therefore ineffective.

That is changing. The ordinary people of the world are shaking off their apathy and rising up for a world of love and justice. We are realising that we all need each other. More than ever in this world we are all interconnected.

In fact, even the very language of the 99% implies our need of the 1% to be whole. This is as it should be, for as long as we all live under the same blue sky we cannot pretend we exist in isolation from one another.

That’s why I encourage you to not just refuse to demonise your opponents but to treat them with love and respect. Whether we’re talking about those who are sceptical or outright opposed, if you are to succeed you need to win them over, not alienate them further. You must therefore act in such a way that you win the sympathy, and then the support, of the majority. Know that the public wants to choose a side with which to identify in this struggle, but whether or not they do depends entirely on the way you conduct yourselves. If you are to win, you have to be the ones with whom they want to identify. You have to be the courageous ones, the principled ones, the disciplined ones, the ones who persevere with patience and love. If not for moral reasons, then for strategic ones.

Resist the temptation to scapegoat or demonise others, even those who make themselves the most bitter opponents of this movement. Demonisation of others may help you feel self righteous but does nothing to win over the very people you call brothers and sisters in the 99%. What is more it ignores the reality of our own moral ambiguity, and sets you up as dishonest and hypocritical. As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has said, the dividing line of good and evil runs through us all. Let us therefore admit our own failings as well as keeping others accountable for theirs. But let us not allow our own failings to be used as excuses for inaction. You will win by appealing to the best of both your opponents and yourselves, not by shaming the worst.

Nonviolent action cannot be defeated because it carries within it the seeds of its own moral victory: persevering love that puts itself at the service of others. It works because our capacity to accept suffering for a noble cause is greater than our opponents capacity to inflict it. It does not seek suffering out but is willing to persevere through it where necessary because the cause is greater than any one of us.

Persistent nonviolent action cannot be defeated by the violence of your opponents for with every use of violent force they undermine their own moral legitimacy; they admit that they have run out of sufficiently compelling ideas to be convincing. The reality is, the only ones who can lose this struggle are you – either by giving up, or resorting to violence.

Understand that I do what I do (nonviolent direct action/civil disobedience) not because I feel a particularly special “call”, but because I look at Jesus and it seems to me to be what Jesus calls his disciples to do. Not just some disciples, not just a “hardcore” element, just “whosoever would be my disciple”. You don’t need to be special or different, it’s just the call to “follow”, and following means doing the things Jesus did (including the cross). I’m not special or different – I have the same pressures, hesitations, fears, questions anyone has. As I said to a group recently, I dislike the word “activist” being attached to me for the same reason for the same reason that Stanley Hauerwas doesn’t like to be called ‘pacifist’ – because it “sounds like you have a position that is somehow separate from your worship of the crucified Savior.” I don’t like the implication that a) activism is somehow separate from or extra to my being a disciple of Jesus and b) “Simon does activism,” as though that’s my thing and it somehow therefore lets others off the hook. “Activist” should simply be assumed in the word “Christian”.

In a sense, I resent it when people say or imply that, “Not everyone can be an activist,” because, I think, why not? I’m an activist, and goodness knows there are many days I’d like not to be. It’s had costs for me in terms of relationships, in terms of time, in terms of stress and money and a raft of other things. In many ways I’d like to find a convenient out that lets me off the hook too. I mean seriously, what’s different about me than you that means I can do it and you can’t? That’s what always strikes me when I meet people I respect or regard as heroes (like John Dear or Kathy Kelly) – at first I’m a little starstruck, and then I start to realise they’re just a normal person, and it’s not a disappointment, it’s an empowering realisation. Because when we hero worship people (or just consider them weird), it holds them at arm’s length, and lets us off the hook. But when we discover we’re no different, all excuses are gone (which is the point of Dorothy Day’s “don’t call me a saint” comment – “I won’t be dismissed that easily,” she said).

It’s just that I believe that this is what discipleship looks like (or actually, I’m a pale imitation of what discipleship looks like). In other words, ‘radical discipleship’ is not some subset of a general group called ‘discipleship’. It is not only for the ‘hardcore’. It’s for all of us. “Whosoever would follow.” If Jesus defines discipleship as taking up your cross, and taking up your cross isn’t costly, then what is it?

Of course I’m painfully aware that it’s difficult to say this without a) sounding like I’m up myself or b) sounding like the bar of discipleship is impossibly high. As far as a) goes, I’m just starting on this journey; the reality is I’ve taken very few risks, and those I’ve taken have been fairly calculated and small. But I don’t see that  as anything other than unfaithfulness to the call to follow with my whole self, to offer my whole self as a “living sacrifice”. So I’m not in any way holding myself up as an example, I’m trying to hold myself to the same standard. And as far as b) goes, of course in the grace of God both faithfulness and unfaithfulness are safe places to be; it’s just that we’re invited to far more with faithfulness. So failure is always in the context of grace, with the invitation to keep trying.

I hear people often complain that those who are “hardcore” (whatever that means) separate themselves from or look down on those who “aren’t”, or treat them as lesser. That has not been my experience (well, generally speaking, though there have been exceptions). In my experience it is far more often the other way around – those with less experience feel inferior for their own reasons, not because anyone else made them feel that way – and they then project this feeling of inferiority onto those with more experience. I’ve done that. I now try to recognise it when I do.

So do I think everybody has to do civil disobedience/risk arrest? Not necessarily, though many more do, especially leaders. Leaders need to lead by example. Certainly it would help to spread the load if everyone did though. Imagine this is what the church was known for – nonviolently getting in the way of injustice and violence wherever it happened, demonstrating love that is willing to bear costs.

If Jesus saw fit to describe discipleship in terms of taking up our cross (and, as Yoder reminds us, “Only at one point, only on one subject – but then consistently, universally – is Jesus our example: in his cross”), why do we think it’s not going to cost our comfortable middle class lives anything to follow Jesus?

Do I think that risking arrest is the only way to “take up your cross”? No, of course not. Taking up your cross, though, does not merely mean any inconvenience or difficulty; it does have a particular social and political meaning. Here let me quote John Howard Yoder: “The cross of Calvary was not a difficult family situation, not a frustration of visions of personal fulfillment, a crushing debt or a nagging in-law; it was the political, legally to be expected result of a moral clash with the powers ruling his society.”

So taking up our cross does not mean any difficulty or inconvenience or frustration. It is something costly. It is something (mostly, at least in the West) we choose to take on. It is something that is done to us, usually by “authorities” (powers/principalities). It is a political and social (though not merely political and social) act, the result of laws or policies which mitigate against the quality of love being lived (what Jesus describes as “perfect” or “complete” love).  It is the result of actions, not mere thoughts, opinions, or attitudes.

I’m speaking as a privileged member of the First World here – taking up our cross, I believe, looks somewhat different to what it looks like for those in the majority world. For us it means ceding our privilege, moving towards genuine solidarity with those who are victims of our country’s or society’s policies. Real solidarity (not just charity) means coming alongside people not in a position of power but in vulnerability.

(Of course in reality I can never shed my power by virtue of my white skin, education, etc. But I can refuse to use it deliberately, take steps to undermine it, and find ways to gift my opportunities to those who are not usually going to be afforded them by our systems of privilege.)

I can’t judge you or anyone else (even myself – that’s God’s job), but I don’t think I’m doing anyone any favours letting this “I can’t do what you do” attitude slide by not calling it when I see it. I hope anyone else would hold me accountable in the same way.

I guess partly I’m saying that while God’s grace is always freely available, and therefore costly action is never a prerequisite for God’s love or grace, faithfully following Jesus does demand our whole selves. That means everything – family, money, reputation, life – all of the things you’re afraid of losing when you consider undertaking costly action. So we can skirt around it and say, “Well I’m just not ready for that yet” but we can’t pretend that our not being “ready” for it is still discipleship, is faithful following of Jesus. It’s not.

There’s no use waiting for some magic moment to be “ready”, no use succumbing to what Dr. King called, “the paralysis of analysis”. We need to try stuff out. Take a step. “Experiment with truth” as Gandhi put it (experiments often fail, and that’s ok if you learn from them). Keep going. It’s only as you do that you learn how.

I like what Tim deChristopher said when someone asked him how they could keep him from going to prison. He quickly responded, “I’m not sure keeping me out of prison is a good thing. I’d rather think about having you join me.” It’s that kind of gracious, unexpected invitation to shed our privilege that I’m talking about.

What do you think? Am I just being a prat? Before you respond immediately, let me invite you to take a few minutes to think about your internal responses. Are they just cop outs? (That’s a genuine question.) I’m not asking if they’re real for you, of course they are. But are they reasons or just excuses? Then feel free to go me as hard as you like.

I always wondered why my paternal Grandfather, who died when I was a boy, never really went to church much. He was a Baptist, as was his father and grandfather before him all the way back to the great patriarch Rev John Turner who brought out his small Particular Baptist congregation to Melbourne in 1852. My Grandpa’s name was Roy, and he was more involved in the Fitzroy Football Club than he was in his Baptist Church. I asked my Dad about this and he told me that his Father was a man with a strong social conscience and that he never really felt that the church gave voice to his own concerns about important social issues. I wondered about this for some years. I wondered what my Grandfather’s social concerns might have been. I was sure they would have been many and varied but I was naturally curious. Not long before my own Father died he gave me Roy’s old wallet. It is made of Pig Skin with R.H. TURNER stamped on the front in gold leaf. It was given to Roy by his work mates when he retired from GMH years ago. It has a gold pen inserted in it with a note pad, change pocket and a slip for notes. It also has a pocket containing a small fold for stamps. While looking it over I pulled the stamp fold out of the pocket and a small newspaper clipping slipped out into my hand. It was poetry…
I know not by what master
minds are moved
Brave pawns who march
wherever they are sent,
Nor how by Christian leaders
is approved
Each new appeal to war’s
arbitrament.
But this I know: in graves
today there lie
Inspired by platitude of
voice and pen,
Who in great trust went out
to fight and die,
Uncounted hosts of gallant
cheated men.
What then of marble, ceno-
taph or shrine
If some new lie should cheat
your child and mine?

I asked Dad whether he had put it there and he hadn’t. There was no indication of the author. Roy had put it there and had given me a tiny window into why he wasn’t that interested in church. Even as I write it today I have the same sense of being moved by it as I had when I first read it. My Grandpa was a man who valued truth and gospel from the pulpit. For him there was no place for false nationalistic jingoism in the life of the church and so, because of his great faith, he removed himself from it.  I am of course inspired by Roy’s faith and I like to think that my own social conscience is grounded in his. I had always wondered where it had come from. I am not a radical, nor a revolutionary by nature, but I do hope that I will always have the courage to preach the gospel as costly peace and reconciliation.
Chris.

Amen.

Thank you for this opportunity to speak. I am a Baptist church minister in a parish in Coburg, where we try to live simply and lovingly together, and I work for Urban Seed, an organisation in Melbourne’s CBD which provides hospitality and connection to homeless and other marginalised people. I’m married to Julie and we have three young kids. I did not take this step lightly.

I have been doing what I can to stand against this war for years now. We have signed petitions, written letters, held information nights, done public vigils and organised demonstrations. But in the face of a ten year war which according to our Prime Minister will go on for at least another ten years, I had to ask myself, is that all I am willing to do? Is stopping there an abdication of my responsibilities as a human being and certainly as a follower of Jesus?

As Martin Luther King Jr. once said,

“There is nothing wrong with a traffic law which says you have to stop for a red light. But when a fire is raging, the fire truck goes right through that red light, and normal traffic had better get out of the way. “

What is happening in Afghanistan is not just an emergency, it’s a full scale disaster.

War and violence cannot create the conditions of trust and cooperation that any country needs in order to be peaceful and secure. Only active nonviolent love has the capacity to transform the fear that lies behind wars and that is why we chose it as the means of our resistance. We were entirely open with the police and military about what we were going to do. That nonviolent discipline led to a significant relationship of trust being built with police over the week we were there.

Please understand this is not merely an intellectual or ideological exercise for me. Earlier this year I travelled to Afghanistan to spend time with the people there, and to understand what they want for their country. I spent time with with the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers, a courageous group of Afghan nonviolent peacemakers. They are not only working to end the war, but to teach fellow Afghans and the world that the only way to peace is through actively loving those you oppose. And that means listening, and speaking truthfully, and acting truthfully, even when it might be controversial or costly. I have sat with 15 year old Abdulai who told me he spends every night crying at the trauma this war has caused him and his family, with 22 year old Faiz whose brother was murdered right in front of him. And I’ve sat with 15 year old Zikhrullah who lives with the daily terror of never knowing if a US helicopter gunship or unmanned aerial drone will come out of nowhere and kill him or his family. Afghans have had enough of violence and we continue to force it on them by our military presence there.

I believe any law which stands in the way of those who seek to end this war through nonviolent means is unjust, particularly after all legal means have been exhausted. I accept the penalty of that law willingly.

I went to Swan Island because it is one practical, identifiable part of the machinery behind this war. I climbed the fence and attempted to block the gate because it is one practical, identifiable way that I could put myself in the way of the war being conducted.

And so I’m guilty, not only of breaking this law but more importantly of not doing enough to end this war, not being at Swan Island every day, every week, every month until this war is over. Of that, I’m truly guilty.

I do need to be honest and say I cannot in good conscience pay a fine into the general fund, as that money may go towards paying for further military engagement. My family and I deliberately live a simple life, under the tax-free threshold in order to not pay for war. I also cannot honestly sign a good behaviour bond, as I would not want to give an undertaking I could not honestly keep. As long as this war goes on, I need to be free to resist it. I would, however, pay a fine to a charitable organisation, particularly one which is trying to help the Afghan people, such as the Red Cross or the Mahboba’s Promise orphanage, which I visited while in Afghanistan, if you deem that appropriate. But obviously I leave that in your hands.

I guess I’m saying is that, with respect, there is no deterrence value to any punishment you might give me. I intend to continue this course as long as war continues.

Are you against the Afghanistan war?

So are we.  So we’ve planned a solid week of action to resist the war at Swan Island near Queenscliff.  Swan Island is where SAS troops are trained-one of our major contributions to the war in Afghanistan.  It will coincide with Talisman Sabre, the biggest military exercises in Australia, aimed at interoperability with the US militaries and involving 30,000 troops.

Come to Queenscliff 4-8 July (or part thereof) and be part of blockades, public stalls, movie nights, facetious cake stalls for the military, and maybe even the inaugural Swan Island swim carnival.

We are thinking big, and we’d love a team of people to organise a fun week to nonviolently challenge, disrupt and transform the military.

Check it out and register at http://swanislandpeace.org and follow the planning and action on twitter @SwanIslandPeace

Facebook event

For more info – e-mail us at swanislandpeace@gmail.com

For those that don’t live in Victoria – there is of course the national action at Shoalwater Bay and other actions around the country – see www.peaceconvergence.com.

Last year was fantastic for anti-war direct action in Victoria.  We had two very successful nonviolent disruptive direct actions at Swan Island, which were both followed by dismissals of participants’ charges.  (http://www.indymedia.org.au/2010/11/29/charges-dismissed-for-swan-island-activists)  These actions needed a strong group of well grounded and prepared people who both played arrestable and nonarrestable roles.

The war in Afghanistan continues to rage, and becomes more lethal for both Afghans and internationals.  This year also sees the bi-annual Talisman Sabre military training exercises.  So we’d like to continue to build on our work together towards more actions here in Victoria this year.

Would you like to be involved?

Successful actions require thorough preparation - addressing strategy; ideology as well as logistical planning.  In looking towards an action, two full-days of planning are scheduled for Melbourne.  What do the following dates look like to you?

Friday 13 May OR Saturday 14 May

This episode is, of course, not the only time Jesus was tempted, but it is an archetypal story of temptation. It follows immediately on the heels of his baptism – in ancient societies what might have been called a ‘vision quest’ to deepen one’s groundedness.

We’ll be going on a mini version of a wilderness pilgrimage. You might like to take one of the ‘temptation’ icons with you to reflect on, or just spend time with the questions arising from the passage below.

1. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

‘The wilderness’ would immediately conjure up the experience of Israel in the wilderness for Matthew’s Jewish audience. As his first act post-baptism, Jesus returns here, perhaps to figure out where the story he is grounded in went wrong. What is the story you are grounded in, and where have they gone wrong?

Jesus is led by the Spirit to be tempted. Where is the gift in the experience of temptation for you?

‘Diabolos’ [often translated ‘devil’, here translated ‘tempter’] means accuser or slanderer. What accusations do you make of yourself? What accusations do you make of others?

2. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished.

It is at the point of Jesus’ greatest weakness that he was tempted. What are your points of weakness?

3. The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God,

The ‘accuser’ begins by attacking Jesus’ identity as Son of God, an identity which has only recently been affirmed by the heavenly voice at Jesus’ baptism. What difference does it make when you lose your sense of identity as child of God?

command these stones to become loaves of bread.”

The pressure for immediate, tangible results is a hallmark of our culture; patient waiting is rarely considered a virtue. How do you cultivate patience and slowness?

4. But he answered, “It is written,
“One does not live by bread alone,
but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ “

What opportunities do you give to hear the words that come from the mouth of God?

5. Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6. saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written,
“He will command his angels concerning you,’
and “On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’ “
7. Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ “

The ‘devil’ tempts Jesus with a sense of entitlement to safety, security and privilege, regardless of what he does. Jesus responds by reaffirming God’s radical independence of any personal or political allegiance, preferring to side with the vulnerable whoever they might be. What types of entitlement (spiritual, material, social, political) do you find yourself assuming?

8. Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor;

The fact that all the “kingdoms of the world” can be seen together suggests that they are merely varying versions of the same idea. What is that idea(s) and how does it/they contrast with God’s Kingdom?

9. and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”

Is there any signficance to the devil/accuser/slanderer offering the “kingdoms of the world in all their splendour” to Jesus? If so, what is the significance?

10. Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written,
“Worship the Lord your God,
and serve only him.’ “

What other ‘god-substitutes’ do you find yourself chasing? The Bible often defines idolatry as the things we trust in for salvation (to save us). What do you trust in to save you?

11. Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

Take at least five minutes to notice the presence of God with you now, waiting on you.

One more question:

What echoes of this story can you hear in the Lord’s Prayer?