Times of trials

1Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. 2After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.3The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”

4Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

5Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6“If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:

“‘He will command his angels concerning you,

and they will lift you up in their hands,

so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

7Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

8Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9“All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”

10Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’”

11Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

Matt 4:1-11


This is a sermon on the temptation of Jesus in the desert. It was originally preached one year ago on the first sunday of Lent. Therefore it is in Swedish. It is heavily based on Dostojevskijs story of the Grand Inquisitor in his novel The Brothers Karamazov. You can find it in english here.

En gång i tiden brändes de otrognas ben i hundratals i staden Sevilla i Spanien. När häxornas och kättarnas ben hade börjat förkolna av elden så kom Han åter, Människosonen som hade vandrat på jorden femtonhundra år tidigare. Han kom tyst och utan att annonsera sig, men folkmassan kände genast igen Honom och som dragen av en oemotståndlig kraft så omslöt de Honom. Han går igenom den täta folkmassan och en kärlek strålar från Hans hjärta, och vågor av ljus och ömhet slår ut från Hans blick. En blind man rör vid Honom och kan se igen. Det kommer ett begravningsfölje och när de ser Honom komma gående lägger de kistan vid Hans fötter. Han sträcker ut sin hand och talar till den lilla döda flickan, och hon stiger upp och lever igen. Folkmassan faller i extas. ”Hosianna! Det är Han! Det måste vara Han!”.

Plötsligt slås katedralens portar upp, och ut kommer Storinkvisitorn, han som var ansvarig för de flammande bålen. Han är en lång, skinntorr man på 90-år, med ett hårt och tärt ansikte. Hans insjunkna ögon glöder som två eldgnistor. Långsamt höjer Storinkvisitorn ett benigt finger och beordrar sina vakter att genast ta Honom till fånga.

Så stor är Storinkvisitorns makt, att folket är så totalt kuvat i skräckslagen lydnad så att de genast gör rum för vakterna, som för bort Honom till en trång och mörk fängelsecell. De låser dörren med tungt järn.

Och natten – en mörk och kvalmig spansk natt – sänker sig över Sevilla. I kolmörket i inkvisitionens fängelse så slås porten upp, och Storinkvisitorn besöker ensam sin fånge. Han granskar noga fångens ansikte, och tar till orda:

”Det är Du! DU! Nej, säg inget, var tyst! Vad skulle Du kunna säga? Jag vet mycket väl vad Du kommer att svara... Men... Varför har Du kommit för att hindra oss i vårt arbete? För det är därför Du har kommit, och det vet Du. Men vet Du vad som kommer att hände med Dig imorgon bitti? Imorgon så kommer jag att högtidligt döma Dig och bränna Dig på bål som en skändlig kättare och de som idag kysste Dina fötter kommer imorgon att jäkta för att lägga till bränsle på ditt bål!

So ofta har Du sagt att 'sanningen skall göra oss fria'. Vad har Din frihet gjort oss? Oro, förvirring, lidande!"

Storinkvisitorn tar ett djupt andetag och fortsätter dystert: ”Du blev prövad en gång. Du var i öknen och djävulen satte Dig på prov tre gånger. Du var hungrig och djävulen sa att om Du ville kunde Du förvandla stenarna till bröd. Djävulen tog Dig till templets högsta torn och bad Dig att kasta Dig ner, för änglarna skulle skydda Dig från fara. Djävulen tog Dig till ett högt berg och visade Dig alla riken och stater och sa att om Du ville så kunde Du härska över dem alla.

Du borde ha förvandlat stenar till bröd! Du ber människor att följa Dig men vem orkar göra det när han svälter? Du säger att Guds ord mättar oss, men säg det till den som dör av hunger! Ge människorna bröd, och sen kan Du tala om Gud och moral. Ge en man bröd, och först då kan han följa dig.

Du borde ha kastat Dig ner för templets högsta torn och räddats av änglar. Tänk så många som hade kommit till tro på Dig då! En säker och benfast tro! Istället gav Du oss inget tecken, och gett oss osäkerhet. Hade Du utfört detta mirakel, då hade alla vetat vem de skulle tillbe, och de krig och lidande som sker på grund av osäkerheten på Dig hade aldrig hänt!

Du borde ha blivit härskare över hela världen. Då kunde Du ha styrt oss med visdom, gett oss välmåga och lycka. Under Din diktatur hade vi haft fred och enhet, men Du valde att ge oss strid och splittring.

Dessa tre grova misstag försöker jag nu rätta till. Jag berövar människor deras frihet, men jag ger dem bröd, jag ger dem säkerhet, jag ger dem fred och enhet. Jag ger dem lycka. Jag har gett dem allt som Du förvägrat dem!"

Storinkvisitorn har förstått vem Jesus är. Han har förstått att när Jesus motstod djävulens prövningar så visade han vilken sorts frälsare han är. Jesus är inte en frälsare som lättar på vårt fysiska lidande, utan han är den frälsare som tar del i det lidandet, och därför förvandlar han inte stenar till bröd. Jesus är inte en magiker eller mirakelgörare som väcker tro genom fantastiska under, utan genom att skapa närhet till Gud, och därför låtar han inte sig bäras upp av änglar. Jesus är inte en politisk frigörare som kämpar mot eller genom världsliga etablissemang, utan han kämpar med de lägsta och utstötta och därför väljer han att inte styra över världens riken.

Jag känner ibland en längtan efter den sortens frälsare. Den sortens frälsare som gör allting lätt, en frälsare som ger ett lätt och välmående liv nu. Men Jesus har visat att det är inte vem han är. Det stora miraklet är inte att Jesus underlättar våra ofta svåra liv, utan att han delar det livet. Han var Gud, som blev människa för att skapa en gemenskap med oss. Och den gemenskapen bygger på frihet. Friheten att vilja gå med Gud, friheten att älska Gud. För vad är en relation som bygger på tvång? Det är en skadlig relation. Det är inte en relation som Gud vill ha med oss. Gud vill älska och älskas.

Det är vem Jesus är, och Storinkvisitorn kan inte acceptera det. Hans anklagelser är genuina, och vi måste ta dem på allvar. Storinkvisitorn accepterar inte Jesus för den han är, för han älskar människorna så mycket. Och vad kan vi svara på det lidande som Storinkvisitorn har upplevt? Jag kan inte svara honom. Kan du?

Nå, vad hände sen?

Storinkvisitorn står tyst en lång stund, och väntar på att fången skall svara honom. Fången har hela tiden tittat mjukt och intensiv på den gamle mannens ansikte och verkar uppenbarligen inställd på att inte säga ett enda ord. Den gamle längtar efter att få höra Hans röst, och hade föredragit arga och bittra ord före denna tystnad. Plötsligt så ställer sig fången upp går fram mot Storinkvisitorn, böjer sig fram, och kysser gamlingen ömt på hans nittioåriga blodlösa läppar.

Det är svaret.

Det rycker i storinkvisitorns mungipa, och han går raskt fram till porten och ställer den på vid gavel. ”Gå din väg." Väser han. "Gå din väg och kom inte tillbaka... kom aldrig tillbaka... aldrig... aldrig!” Och fången går ut genom porten, och försvinner i den varma natten.

Storinkvisitorn står kvar, och kyssen brinner i hans hjärta, men han håller fast vid sina idéer och sin otro.

Christian identity

I won't beat around the bush. The question of Christian identity is hard. This questions pertain to the extremely tricky question of what it means to be a Christian. Is it what you do that makes you a Christian? Is it your values that make you a Christian? Is it your beliefs that make you a Christian? All of those questions could be said to somehow be said to be the leading question of what being Christian mean. But then we have missed something.

And I know this hurts our egos quite a bit, but this "being Christian"-thing? It ain't just about you. It is something so much more. 

You can't be a Christian on your own, you just can't. Because when God became man in Jesus Christ, it was not to create little faithful individuals all around. There were so many of those already in 1st century Palestine so that they were pretty much an export commodity. No, it was to create a community. Sure, Jesus came to save individual sinners, but for what? Was it so sinners could start ticking the right boxes in the great multiple-choice test of faith? No, it was so sinners could become a part of the Resurrection and the Life, the Kingdom of God. And that's what baptism is about. 

Baptism isn't there in order for people to show how nice and Christian they are. It's so they can enter into the holy community that Jesus Christ created through his resurrection from the dead. Jesus was baptised by John the Baptist, and then proceeded to bitch-slap the entire natural order as we percieve it, by dying and then coming back from the dead, full of Life. When we are baptised, we share in that completely barrier-shattering and wonderful Life with capital-L as then we too die, with Jesus, and are resurrected, with Jesus, and we become something other than a mere believer. In one way, we are changed as a person. It is only then that we become part of the Church. Not as individual believers, like it's a common interests club of holiness, but as One. One Body. The Body of Christ.

I think, that being a Christian is not about anything that we sinners do. It's about to whom we belong. That we are all part of the life-giving Body of Christ. And God wants you there, in his Body. Explore your faith and question it. Learn from the Scripture and speak to the wise and ask those ego-hurting questions that so few dare to ask. And when you're ready to, you can be baptised and become One with Christ, and with me and all other holy sinners.

God's waiting. He's patient.

"Religion was created to control people"

I wonder sometimes how people who claim that religion somehow is "artificial" or "invented" imagine how the creative process of constructing a religion appears. Do they picture a council of shady bishops brain-storming how to control the populace? Do they think that the apostles of Christianity were like the savvy used-car salesmen of spirituality? In any case, the notion that religious faith is somehow artificial and constructed in order to "control the masses" (tin hats, anyone?) is not only foolish, it also shows a lack of empathy toward the depth of human experience that religions are.

No matter your own religious convictions, one have to recognize and affirm the sincerity and depth of the personal faith of believers, both today and throughout history. It is true that many churches have been, and still are, part of the power structure of society. That is just natural, and inevitable for something that is part of this earthly life. However, the different churches and religious communities of the world do not see themselves in this manner and the faith that is found in these communities is not artificial. It is genuine and deep. Would you dare say to a recouvering alcoholic who sincerely believes that Jesus is helping and healing him that his faith is artificial? Would you say that the daughter who prays for the welfare of her mother who is suffering from dementia is under the spell of sinister power structures constructed by power-hungry people? Doing that would severely insult the raw and sheer humanity of religious faith.

In the end, the Church is not a power structure, but a community of the faithful and the living God. It is the result of the very real meeting with the divine (or, if you're an atheist, the experience of meeting the divine), and there is not one ounce of insincerity there that is not endemic to the human condition. It is not a community that is easily judged, quantified or analyzed. Its beauty and brokeness is far too wide and too deep for that. For the beauty and brokenness of the Church is a reflection of the beauty and brokenness of the faithful, and of the beauty and brokenness of Christ's lifeless body, lying in a tomb like a seed awaiting its final germination into the Resurrection and the Life. So, do you know what I think that God says to those who claims that religion is something created and artificial? "This church is my body given for you, take and eat." (Matt 26:26).

Vegetarianism: why it's holy and why it's not

There are very good religious reasons for a Christian to be a vegetarian. And a vegetarian Christian will never have any problems justifying her stance from scripture and church history. I am a Christian pescatarian due to both ethical and religious reasons. 


In Genesis there are two references to the diet of mankind. Before Noah and the Deluge, mankind were not permitted to eat meat. God only gives them vegetable matter:

Then God said, "I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. (Gen 1:29).

This part of scripture has been recognized by the church throughout history, and that's why not eating meat is the most common form of penance during times of fasting. It is an attempt to at least partly restore the lost paradise of Eden. So, all vegetarians rejoice! You've obviously got the moral high-ground by imitating the paradise in the Garden of Eden! Truly, you're the scions of the righteousness of God unlike those gluttonous carnivores! 

Well, except that you're not. In fact, one of the ways that God shows his mercy towards mankind is that after the Great Deluge, he allowed Noah to take animals as food (Gen 9:2). Carnivores can in this case be just as smug as vegetarians can, but only because they rely on the mercy of God.

I am, quite frankly, disturbed at how in our affluent society, the moral integrity of a person is measured by what she consumes. A good person nowadays is someone who consumes ecological vegetable produce and consumes fair-trade. Consumerist ethics is, as far as ethical perspectives go, a fairly crappy one. It is highly problematic that we put ethical value-judgements in consumption behavior, for that is just part of that cruel religion that is materialism, where Mammon is worshipped. It is part of the Christian gospel that we are not what we buy, or what we consume, our identity comes not from consumption habits but from our relationship with God. Our identity as believers and moral agents comes not from what we buy, but from who we belong. The righteousness of a Christian comes from the righteousness of Christ and nowhere else. It is in our co-servitude with him that we can find an ethical perspective that is both effective, humane and dare I say it - holy!  We can not buy our righteousness by being vegetarians, or by buying ecological or fair trade goods, for it is the Christ Jesus only who is our righteousness, holiness and redemption (1 Cor 1:30).

Fear and trembling

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else" says C.S. Lewis.

Even though there are many philosophers who utter many wise words about our world, I have seldom found any that has corroborated what I have already experienced. Eventually the only world-view that actually described reality has I have experienced it was Christianity, and only in the light of the person of Jesus Christ did I actually comprehend what I have seen and experienced in my few years on earth. It is this coherense in the message and person of Jesus Christ, and the way the world appears to me, that makes me believe in the veracity of his claims. I guess that my meeting with Jesus was a meeting of wisdom, not a wisdom of false assurance, like that of the philosophers, but a compassionate and heavenly wisdom, that reminds us of our own ignorance. It was when I had glimpsed the heavenly that I might try to understand what the earthly means, and it awakens questions, questions that leads you on in exploring this world and what might come after. Jesus asked me questions, that birthed both confusion and intrigue. And once I started to ask myself those crucial question I could not turn back. One question after another lead me closer to God, gladly, but also with fear and trembling.

My conversion(s)

I am a born-again Christian.

There.

I said it.

When I became a Christian at the tender age of fifteen my faith was very intellectual in nature. The critical and intellectual way of thinking about faith has (un)fortunately stayed with me. I have a fairly large archive of very neat and well-reasoned arguments about christian faith and doctrine. So, I became a Christian when I figured that the most reasonable belief was that in Christ crucified. Not only is it rather tragic how you can think of a god being tortured and executed as reasonable, it is also highly inconvenient having that tortured and ex-executionee Jesus constantly and rudely barging into my life and disturbing my orderly thought processes.

Another inconvenient thing is perspective. Maybe I didn't become a Christian when I was fifteen. Maybe I actually became a Christian when I was sixteen and was baptised in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. When I lowered my head into the baptismal font I was without knowing thrust into a completely new place in the world. Suddenly I had become a citizen in the Kingdom of God. I had become a mighty priest before God in the priesthood of all believers. I had become the annointed heir of the God of Poverty. All those fancy titles were suddenly mine and in many respects I had become a new person.

I was born again, and mom had baked a cake for the occasion. Thanks be to God.

With two conversions already under my belt I had become  rather good at this whole Christianity thing, right? That's probably true until you get hit by the extreme sense of unworthiness and failure that you get when you're trying to follow and emulate the living incarnation of the Almighty and All-Merciful God of Hosts. All those fancy titles I got in baptism did not seem to count for much. But that's the thing. They do. For being born-again ain't a singular miracle. It is a miracle-in-action, and God is still working hard in order to convert me. It feels like I have a conversion experience almost every day, and that I become a Christian every day. Just as Jesus said to St. Peter: "I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers" (Luke 22:32). I will, Lord. I will turn again. And again. And again. And again.

Matteus 24:2

Här kommer inte att lämnas sten på sten, allt skall brytas ner.