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Well, the big thrill for me in resurrecting this tacky dinosaur is that I get to hear the one lyric that should go down in history as Exhibit A in how Hollywood celebrities are magnificently and almost charmingly out-of-touch with the most basic religious facts. What is that lyric, you ask? Remember when Willie Nelson gets his moment in the sun and comes in with his signature warble? He says: “As God has shown us… by turning stone to bread…” I’ll never forget hearing that for the first time. For me it was like hearing someone referring to President Richard M. Dixon. I couldn’t believe it. Had Willie Nelson just said that God had at one time “turned stone to bread”? Had I really heard that? Who’d written this lyric — and why had Willie sung it? I could only guess that the lyricist was Lionel Ritchie or the King of Pop himself. In any case, they had flubbed up rather majorly here. It was obvious that they mistakenly thought Jesus had at some point in his ministry performed this miracle… But as any non-Grammy-winning Fifth-grader knows from Sunday School, Jesus didn’t turn stone to bread — he refused to turn stone to bread. That’s an important difference.

But hadn’t someone suggested turning stone to bread? Whose idea was that? (Cue 80’s-era Churchlady voice): Satan’s?? That’s right, Churchlady: it was Satan’s idea. Most average Americans remember the famous scene from Scripture where Jesus is tempted in the wilderness. He is hungry, having fasted for forty days, and Satan suggests that he use his miraculous powers to turn “these stones into bread.” And Jesus refuses, saying: “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Whoops!

Anyway, Lionel and Michael and Quincy and Willie and everyone else on the risers seems to have missed this. Did Cyndi Lauper notice and not say anything? Or Dan Ackroyd? Or Ed Bradley? I doubt it. Certainly no one in the news media picked up on this whopping gaffe at the time, and as far as I know it’s never been mentioned since. Why? Well, mainly because the tiny group of Americans who are part of the much-vaunted media elites simply don’t know this sort of thing. And here’s the kicker — they don’t know anyone who knows it. It’s as if they are quarantined behind impenetrable pallisades of secularism — utterly protected from any molecules of Biblical knowledge or ideas. As if they are all Bubble People.

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The Bible tells about an experience Jesus had early in his career when he was in the wilderness for 40 days without food (Matthew 4). The devil tempted him saying, "If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread." But Jesus refused this suggestion and replied, "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God."

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All of this leads to our reflection upon Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness regarding bread. The Tempter finds Jesus hungry in the wilderness and tempts him saying, “If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread.” This I take to be a seduction of the material, an enticement away from his first love of the spiritual. Jesus’ response? “Man cannot live by bread alone, but by every word which comes from the mouth of God.” Perhaps we could exist by bread alone. But live? Never! The word of God, not literal bread, is the sustenance necessary for true life. Thus he who is Word of God soon reveals himself as the Bread of Life, in time taken, blessed, broken, and given to us on a crude banquet table on a hill called Golgotha.

Yes, Jesus was tempted to turn stones into bread. But what about the reverse possibility? What about turning bread into stones? Make no mistake about it, throughout our ministries we too will be tempted, like Jesus, to place the material over the spiritual in our priorities. Turning stones into bread is a front for a global demonic operation which has long afflicted humans with street addictions such as materialism, workaholic-ism, hedonism, and yes, paganism. Naming demons frightens them, and us too, doesn’t it?

What do you think about “turning bread into stones?” Could that too be a dangerous seduction? If Jesus were tempted to transform cold, nutritionless stone into foodstuff, might not we be tempted to do the same? Yes, but also the reverse. To take the bread of life and turn it into useless stones—how might we do that? When might we fall into so grave a sin? It is already being done!

The sacred substance and sustenance of the Gospel is being challenged, as we speak, by the voices of some in the modern academy of biblical scholarship. The word (lower case “w”) and the Word (capital “W”) are for many no longer divine or divine-human. Is biblical teaching, for some, turning to stone? Shall the hungry cry out for bread, only to receive from our hands stone—cold, lifeless, nutritionless stone? I pray that you and I in this place, on this “holy ground” called Truett Theological Seminary, will reject the corrupting leaven of the Herodians and Sadducees. For to be sure, a purely secular worldview transforms the Bread of Life into the bread of death—for the founders of Christianity in the first century and for Christianity in the twenty-first century. “Beware the leaven of the Sadducees and Herodians,” Jesus said.

But the bread which gives life may be turned into stones not only by Neo-Sadducees and Herodians, but also by Neo-Pharisees. The letter of the law kills; the Spirit gives life. Upon what or whom will we hope? Let us be careful! Leaven, or teaching, or settled convictions affect the whole life. To reject fundamentalism is not to accept whatever the cultural winds may blow our way. By all means we stand against some things and for other things! Our culture is stuffed with information and starved for values. But we are the people of God, the body of Christ. So we beware the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees and Herodians. Ironically, each group tramples morals and true spirituality while violating the first commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” For they turn bread into stones, tragically exchanging the bread of life for the bread of idolatry. Unless our righteousness, Jesus warned, exceeds that of the Pharisees and Sadducees we will not see the kingdom of Heaven

Rather let us behold the Bread of Life. Let us reject secularism on the left and fundamentalism on the right. Let us embrace historic orthodox Christianity. For God has not left us clueless in Seattle or in Waco. God has revealed himself in Jesus Christ, the incarnate, crucified, risen, coming again Savior of the world. May we all repent of our appetites for evil and sinful leaven and receive the Bread of God. May we love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, and mind. And may we, by God’s grace, love our neighbor as ourselves. Let us resist the yeast of the Tempter and accept the feast of the Savior. Let us, by God’s grace, refuse to turn bread into stones by rejecting both worldliness and religious dysfunction. Rather, may we accept the invitation to the grand banquet table set at Mount Calvary. There let us say in one accord, “Pass the Bread of Life please.” And let us hear the celestial words of our Host, “Take. Eat. This do in remembrance of me.”
Updated Thursday, April 12, 2001