This week’s Gospel takes us into the wilderness, where Jesus is hungry, alone, and being sold three different versions of a “successful” messiah: the provider who turns stones into bread on command, the spiritual daredevil who throws himself off the temple for angels to catch, and the ruler who takes every kingdom at the cost of his worship. Each of those offers still shows up in our institutions and churches today, dressed in efficiency, spectacle, and political power.
Episode 37, “Between Bread and Empire,” sits with the moment Jesus says no. We look at how empire inverted that refusal into a theology of control, how Christian nationalism still tries to trade worship for influence, and what it costs a community to reclaim a Gospel that will not sacrifice people to keep its place at the table.
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Gospel text from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
