Forty days in the wilderness. Those were a big 40 days… 40 days to undo 40 years of wandering, which in turn were 40 years of judgement for refusing to enter the land where the spies went into for 40 days. I know I have posted on the ‘temptation stories’ before, but they seem to carry such significance.
The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness (Mk. 1:12).
The Matthew and Lucan accounts are a little softer with ‘led’ being the verb, but in Mark the verb is ultra-strong. The same verb as is used consistently of ‘casting out’ demons! Two sides of the same coin. Being led to the wilderness usually feels like being ‘cast out’, ‘thrown’ into the wilderness. A dislocation is what is experienced, but behind it all is the gentle (!!) leading of the Spirit.
The wilderness, the abode of demons. The place where demons go to when cast out (‘dry and waterless place’) so that from there they can then go and find a home. They are always looking for a home among humans and within human activity. Jesus goes there, and from time to time we will find ourselves dislocated, vulnerable.
The big picture…
The first temptation is one the two Gospel writers agree on. Economic principles that are not based in creational order. The second two they change the order – religious and political power. The final two are of course what put Jesus on the cross; the compromised religious order ‘prophesying’ that it was better for one to die otherwise the Romans would come and take away their religious privileges, even taking away their Temple. Of course this is exactly what happened with the destruction of the Temple in AD70… (I think the current desire to move in this direction can only end with the same outcome.)
Some people suggest I am biased… I simply say I am writing from a perspective!!! So.
Dislocation. Into the wilderness, led there tenderly / cast out and landing there. The place where the word of the Lord comes (to John) and the place where he stayed. It is one thing to get the word of the Lord in the wilderness, but I think maybe too many have gone from the wilderness to the palace. John stayed there; Jesus went in there.
We have to (corporately, globally, and believers as first fruits of a new Creation) nail the ‘stones into bread’. Get rich schemes. Exploitation of creation, solely extracting and all that follows on from that. A confession: I never want to be without, I have insecurities about all kinds of provision… I am intimidated in the presence of those with resources / money / possessions (cannot call that wealth, as wealth and money are not the same), and one of the jokes the Lord has (divine jokes are normally at our expense, they come to reveal what is in us) is that from time to time I mix with those who are involved in global finance, who have downloads about the shifts taking place. I have pointed out to one of them that I am on a totally different page to them; the response has been ‘that is why I want you here’. That is grace, for truth does not lie in me, nor in ‘them’; truth is elusive and is in the space between us, and it will always remain just a little elusive (a lot elusive!).
Back in 2008 I began to see that there was coming an invention that would ‘recycle everything that cannot be currently recycled’. I have lost sight of that (and related aspects concerning climate crisis) over the past years and lost hope. I have been provoked in recent days to pick this up again, to believe that there will be ‘inventions’, ‘sight’ that will reverse the mess we have created… Maybe, but I think first the economic (‘money makes the world go round and round’) will have to change. Let me put it more strongly it has to change. We might all have a bias, but the simple extraction from creation as if it is ours to do that to has to go. Twenty years of challenge, into this.
If we are serious about the religious giving way to the true knowledge of God… for the boundaries are set so that people might seek after God (so there is something of God that can be found within all kinds of religion, including that of the religion that we have created with Christendom – political power compromised, as Judaism was in the days of Jesus in Jerusalem). ALLLLLL religion has to give way to the true knowledge of God – that only comes through Jesus. If we are serious about a genuine new world order, a city where there is no Temple present, or no Temple to be seen – that is so ironic, with the original Jerusalem Temple occupying something around 20% of the territory, it was what was seen!
Yes the wilderness is where it begins. There is also the top of the Temple and the high mountain that has to be visited. With the attendant temptations to be refused and a return to the wilderness, so that the scene can end with angels (heavens occupants) and wild beasts (the institutions hostile to heaven) all being present.
Wilderness is home for a while to come I guess. Yet provision will be there.
I can only affirm this Martin. Some of us have been working for years to implement and point to directions we must go – how communities will be reconfigured in light of climate change, how resources will be shared and must be more equitable. I am heartened by so many who have put in the work and continue to put in the work. The shift/transformation required feels overwhelming and threatening. It challenges the foundations of the lives we have built. We watch them crumble, sometimes literally during disasters.
It helps to keep a long view in mind. The current human approach to life evolved along with the development of agriculture and is an eye blink in human history. All major religions, evolved concurrently and address those specific structures, sometimes reinforcing and sometimes challenging. Patriarchy, hierarchy, autocracy, elites vs everyone else, imperialism flow from large scale populations that invested in water infrastructure to do large scale agriculture. We have been on this treadmill ever since. Does that mean growing food is bad? No, we need to grow food. But we need to do it differently. The current system is not sustainable, resilient or even healthy.
Much to change but there are two roots to all of this beyond resource extraction and consumption. The first is how we get food and manage water. That is our first interaction with creation. The second is the root social arrangement from the institution of agriculture. . . the relationship between men and women, the degradation of the feminine, and the subjugation of women to men. All class divisions are based on this one. Interestingly, both are described in Genesis. I’ve always seen the first few chapters of Genesis as being about the shift from hunter/gatherer groups to statelets and states, cities and civilization due to agriculture. And Genesis makes it clear that it is a step away from God and away from creation. Jesus presumably provokes a rethink of this structure.
What is needed? What will come? There are 8 billion people and counting to feed and shelter in the midst of increasing climate extremes. Climate changes tests us morally as nothing else ever has. Perhaps community is the answer, geographical communities as well as digital/virtual ones. That is what I see happening all over. Disasters are local and require engaged communities to prep for and clean up from. But we learn from the whole world and so need those digital connections.
There is much hope in this crisis but also much peril. The outcomes are uncertain. The situation is literally beyond our imagination in so many ways. It is a time to work, protest, and build. A time to garden despite all the obstacles. A time to make sure shelters are strong and solid and everyone has access to them. A time to build relationships that challenge and support us. A time to care for people, other species and the planet. If we do this we may just move our species to a much better situation, if we can just imagine it.
No time for despair. Yes, we all wander in the wilderness right now and don’t know where we will end up. Doesn’t matter. Just move, do good things to take care of real needs. Allow every assumption to be challenged. Discover capacities you did not know you had. I take heart from the young people in Ukraine who now go to damaged villages and help clean up and rebuild. The woman who organizes used to organize rave events. And then the war came. She re-imaged how her skills could solve a problem, particularly for the elderly in these villages. That’s a model for how we should be living and working.
I think those last few sentences encapsulate something of the model we need Anne. Yes there maybe signs in being able to recycle that which was not recyclable (and there are already examples of bugs breaking down plastics that were not recyclable) but that to me feeds into the technocratic solutions that I’m rather tired of hearing just lately. New ways of using waste are very much being discussed and the resulting waste added to foods to add antioxidants and natural colourings etc. All well and good because they are nutrients that would otherwise be lost, but they are still not the answer. They are all part of the discussions on the bioeconomy and the new Green Deal – laudable to a point. However, this planet needs us to do more than just recycle, there also needs to be more green spaces, not less to provide all the biomass we need for all the different replacements to fossil fuels. I’ve been telling my Landscape Architect students to plan for abundance, no low maintenance parks any more, they have to be lush, abundant producers of biomass as well as being places for recreation in a more holistic sense of the word (body ,mind and soul – it has to feed us and not just with food). Phytoremediation, bug eating plastics, CO2 absorbing green mass, we have the technology now to deal with these, the only thing stopping us now is the political/social will to implement it.
Oh and I must just say that Landscape Architects do not just design parks but also future planners, designers of stormwater solutions and so much more 🙂
With you on all of this as someone who has taught both LA and Planning. I tell my Planning students that we actually have all the technology we need for the transformation. We need to focus on changing how we think and imagine things. It actually isn’t that difficult but we sure make it so.
We know what to do. And you are right. . . green space, abundance, diversity, shared equally in cities with others and with other species. All those suburban lawns could be growing food for humans and providing for other species while enhancing water management. Easy shift. Cheap. Sustainable.
People are eager for solutions. Eager for leadership. Eager to make a contribution to a better world. I just finished the online Daring Cities conference. I hope you attended it. Fabulous. So much good thinking. So many excellent case studies to think about. People doing and learning together. It inspires me. And inspires my students when I require it in classes. The transformation seems scary. Change always is. But we can actually craft a better way of living with each other and the planet. As you say – its a matter of will.
PS: I love the way you and Martin make me an ‘Anne’ with an ‘E’. I always wanted to be an Anne with an ‘e’. I think I’ll make that change right now. Why not? No rules here. There you go. . . transformation! Now if WordPress will allow it. The interface may not have the will to allow the change. I’ll have to test it.