Money, power, pleasure fame or love? Lent 1 18.2.24 Jeanette Acland
Money, power, pleasure fame
One of these 4 will call to us and influence us more than the others, but they are present in all our lives according to St Thomas Aquinas’ 15th C Summa Theologica.
None of them is bad, we need them all…money means financial stability and freedom, power is influence over others which is sometimes necessary, pleasure is a beautiful part of being human, fame is recognition, respect from people and peers.
If we can allow Jesus to be fully human (that, for me also means fully divine) today as we reflect together we can see that he, too, wrestled with these particular idols
Money, power, pleasure and fame
Healing, alone, would have brought Jesus great respect admiration & fame
Doing tricks that others couldn’t would have meant fame & money from people who want to be seen with the famous
If Jesus had chosen any of these options, then every meal would be prepared, his body minded by people while he slept, any number of willing sexual partners would have appeared…
We know this from leaders…Spiritual leaders are served by others today
So here is Jesus, drawn away from the world to consider who he is and what his work, of revealing the love of God, will look like.
Jesus knows that they are, ultimately, each empty
Each of these 4 money, power, pleasure and fame promise much and ultimately deliver nothing
We face the same temptations today, money, power, pleasure or fame and we need, every moment, to remember our sacred core, our spiritual home, our divinity, in order to refuse them
After being tempted, Jesus walked, out of the desert to begin his mission
He has ‘died’ to everything but the voice of his beloved within
He is ‘dead’ to all that this world can offer him
He ‘died’ in the wilderness to everything that would get in his way
He won’t be able to save all those who’re drowning, (Judith Wright’s Eli Eli) because some will be too deeply swept away; swept up in money, power, fame and pleasure,
But some will choose to follow, trust and obey – and we are amongst them…