I assume that everyone here has seen A Christmas Story?[1] It’s hard to live in the Cleveland area and not to know about the 1983 cult classic Christmas movie, and by now, with the Turner movie channel running it as a marathon every Christmas, to have seen it. Do you remember the character “Scut” Farkus? That was the bully who, accompanied by his toady Grover Dill, made Ralphie’s life miserable. Until, that is, Ralphie had simply had enough and exploded, knocked Scut down into the snow, and gave him a bloody nose. This morning, I’m going to try to convince you that that’s sort of what’s happening in today’s gospel lesson.

A rather standard way of preaching the Temptations of Christ is to say that Satan’s point is to raise doubts about whether Jesus is who he thinks he is by casting doubt on his relationship with God, and that Jesus’ rejections of the temptations “prove his identity as God’s divine and beloved son.”[2] I’m probably a heretic, but I don’t think that’s the point of this story at all; that not what this episode is about.

Satan and Jesus both know perfectly well who Jesus is. According to Matthew’s telling of the tale, which we just heard, the confrontation between the Tempter and the Saviour seems to happen at the end of Jesus’ forty days and forty nights in the desert after his baptism.[3] If that’s so, not more than seven weeks earlier, again according to Matthew’s version which we heard a few weeks ago, Jesus and John and everybody gathered at the River Jordan heard “a voice from heaven [saying], ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’”[4] I suspect Satan may have been lurking in the bushes and probably heard it, too.

So I don’t believe that Satan is there seriously asking, as one commentator paraphrased it, “Are you really God’s child? … [A]re you really who the Voice said you are?”[5]

True, our English translation can be read to suggest that Satan doubts Jesus’ identity. He prefaces his first two challenges with what sounds like a conditional hypothetical – “If you are the son of God….”[6] – but there’s really no doubt here. In fact, the Greek word ein, here translated as “if,” can also be translated as “since.” Read that way – “Since you are the son of God….” – it becomes not a hypothetical condition, but a fact, an established premise. “The devil is not attempting to raise doubts in Jesus’ mind, but is making an argument on a fact assmed to be true.”[7]

For Jesus it certainly is true. He is comfortable in his own skin; he has a clear, unambiguous understanding of who he is, of what he is capable of, and of what his mission and situation are. Jesus has no need to prove himself to himself, to Satan, or to anyone else. He will do so and will do so by accomplishing almost all of the things the devil asks of him here, but he will do them in his own way, on his own terms, and in his own time.

So this showdown is not about who Jesus’ is. It’s about who Satan is. Satan, like Scut Farkus, is a bully and bully’s don’t care about anyone’s identity but their own. They’re not interested in who their victim is because, to a bully, their victim isn’t a who, just a what. The victim is just a tool, simply a means to an end, something to fulfill the bully’s need. And the bully’s need is always the same: to prove — to themselves if to no one else — that they are someone important, that they are the person in charge. And that is a need that is never, ever satisfied. That is why bullying is never a one-time thing.

As I said before, the way Matthew tells the story in today’s reading, it seems like a one-time thing just at the end of Jesus’ forty days in the desert, but it probably wasn’t. Listen to how the other gospellers relate this event. Mark, the first of the gospel writers, says simply that after Jesus’ baptism, “the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tested by Satan, and he was with the wild beasts, and the angels waited on him.”[8] That’s it; no more detail. Luke does provide detail listing the same temptations as Matthew (though in different order), but his introduction sounds a lot like Mark: “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tested by the devil.”[9] So this bullying, like Scut Farkus’s bullying of Ralphie, like bullying we may all have experienced or witnessed, isn’t a singular event. It went on for all those weeks in the wilderness.

Back in mid-January, I was watching the PBS Newshour and one of the reporters was interviewing journalist Michael Steinberger of The New York Times Magazine about his new book The Philosopher in the Valley about Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir, and he made an observation about the billionaire tech-bros of Silicon Valley, which I suspect may be true of all autocrats, whether they be in business or in politics. What he said was, “Well, I think with a lot of these guys, there’s always something in their lives, something. Someone not acknowledging their success, someone not giving them what they think they’re due.”[10] I think that pretty much defines a bully: someone who feels they deserve something that they’re not getting. It seems to me that most of the world’s problems can be laid at the feet of bullies, people who have some sort of insatiable need or appetite that they keep pursuing to the detriment of everyone else, whether that be money, or national prestige, or just smearing their name all over things.

This primary driver of bullying leads the bully to constantly attemp to dominate others in order to feel superior. They use intimidation to put others in their place, to keep them “in line,” and to gain and maintain their own status. The bully just has to be the one in control.

As the story of Eve’s encounter with the Tempter in the Garden of Eden demonstrates, the power of evil has been at this a long time. When the Psalmist writes that “great are the tribulations of the wicked,”[11] it is because those tribulations never end. The bully’s deep-seated feelings of powerlessness and inadequacy are never satisfied and never erradicated, so the bullying seems to never stop. According to one researcher, bullying is characteristized by three things: (1) hostile intent, (2) imbalance of power, and (3) repetition over a period of time.[12] It may pause briefly, but then it continues and it always escalates.

It’s often said that bullies lack empathy, but I’m not sure that’s entirely correct. It’s not so much that they can’t empathize, but rather than bullies refuse to empathize.  Since their victims are seen as mere objects, rather than as people, their feelings don’t matter. Bullies don’t care about their victim’s feelings, and they don’t try to. “[T]heir [own] vulnerability necessitates [that] they withhold [empathy].” They use “their recognition of the vulnerabilities of another person … to protect themselves: they manage to evoke in others the [powerlessness, inadequacy, and] shame that they wish to disown.”[13]

In his face-off with Jesus, Satan claims political power: “[T]he devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’”[14] In other words, “I’m in charge.” He’s not, but he claims to be.

Unfortunately, among humans, bullies do sometimes gain political power. Joseph McCarthy, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gadaffi, Mao Zedong, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Putin, Ferdinand Marcos, Nicolas Maduro, and so many others; history is littered with little men who gained power by bullying. Bullies who use intimidation, aggression, and deceit to gain power become tyrants who use those same, magnified tactics to maintain it. Personal antisocial behavior transforms into institutionalized oppression.

I suppose one way to deal with bullies is the way Ralphie dealt with Scut: explode in rage, blacken their eyes, and bloody their noses. But that really doesn’t work: they may stop bullying you for a while, but they’re likely to return with harsher bullying. The way to deal with bullies and tyrants is the way Jesus dealt with the devil, calmly and decisively.

The Anti-Defamation League suggests four ways to respond in the moment to a bully:[15]

First, “walk away: if possible, remove yourself from the situation immediately.” Now, this wasn’t really Jesus’ style. His mission was to confront, dismantle, and defeat the works of evil, so walking away wasn’t an option for him. But it is for us.

Second, “say ‘Stop:’ if it feels safe, tell the aggressor to stop in a firm but calm way. If you feel confident to do so, use humor or a clever response to weaken the effect of the mean behavior.” This is exactly what Jesus does in today’s gospel story: he responds confidently, like a rabbi debating the fine points of biblical theology with another rabbi, countering each of the devil’s points with an appropriate verse of scripture.

Third, “keep cool: try to control your emotions in the moment. Showing fear or anger may egg on the aggressor.” Jesus in the wilderness is certainly cool! He refrains from heated argument with Satan; he doesn’t try to bargain with him, compromise with him, or appease him. Jesus may be hungry and exhausted, but he’s in control.

Fourth, “don’t fight: try not to fight or bully back in response—this may just continue the cycle of bad behavior.” This last one is particularly important. “Fighting may make the bully feel he or she has to come back later with a weapon or friends to help — and the whole thing can get out of control.”[16] As Martin Luther King, Jr., observed:

[F]orce begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe. And you do that by love.[17]

“Do not be overcome by evil,” Paul wrote to the Romans, “but overcome evil with good.”[18] This is what Jesus models in the wilderness: tough love answering a bully with calm, assertive opposition.

Responding to a tyrant, the bully who has gained political power, is no different. In his book On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century,[19] Timothy Snyder lists several responses individuals and societies can make in the face of tyranny. Basically, they are just more pointed, more detailed actions following four guidelines of the Anti-Defamation League. They include: Do not obey in advance. Defend institutions that help to preserve decency. Stand out: “Someone has to.” Be kind to the language; avoid using slogans and cliches, and use your own words. Believe in truth: “To abandon facts is to abandon freedom.” Be calm. Be a patriot. Be as courageous as you can.[20] Research has shown that “the most effective way [to overcome tyranny] is through non-violent protests.”[21]

The thing to remember is that bullies always back down. When they don’t receive the emotional reaction they seek, or if confronted by firm, calm assertiveness, they back off. Satan didn’t get what he sought, so he left.

Lent, we say, is a time for giving up things. “What are you giving up?” we ask one another. But more than that, in the words of St. Gregory the Great’s wonderful hymn, it is a time for us

… all with one accord
in company with ages past,
[to] keep vigil with our heav’nly Lord
in his temptation and his fast.[22]

Let us do so by joining him in standing up to the bullies and tyrants in our lives. Let us do so by giving up giving in. Faced with calm, assertive opposition, bullies always back down. As a currently popular acronym has it, T-A-C-O: “Tyrants always chicken out.”

“Away with you, Satan!” said Jesus, and the devil left him. This Lent, let’s do the same. Amen.

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This homily was offered by the Rev. Dr. C. Eric Funston on the First Sunday in Lent, February 22, 2026, to the people of St. Hubert’s Episccopal Church, Kirtland Hills, Ohio, where Fr. Funston was guest presider and preacher.

The lessons for the service were Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Psalm 32; Romans 5:12-19; and St. Matthew 4:1-11. These lessons can be read at The Lectionary Page.

The illustration is a still of “Scut” Farkus from A Christmas Story.[23]

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Notes:
Click on footnote numbers to link back to associated text. Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations from Scripture are from the New Revised Version Updated Edition.

[1] Bob Clark (Director). (1983). A Christmas Story [Film], Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

[2] David W. Lose, Commentary on Matthew 4:1-11, The Working Preacher, 13 March 2011.

[3] Matthew 4:1-11.

[4] Matthew 3:37.

[5] Austin Gentry, Temptation & Identity, Austin Gentry, 2023.

[6] Matthew 4:3,6.

[7] M. Eugene Boring, Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. VIII (Abingdon, Nashville:1995), page 163.

[8] Mark 1:12-13.

[9] Luke 4:1-2.

[10] Ali Rogin, New book offers glimpse inside world of controversial tech firm Palantir and its CEO, PBS Newhour Weekend, January 10, 2026.

[11] Psalm 32:11.

[12] Barry Dym, When Bullies Become Tyrants, LinkedIn, January 17, 2017.

[13] Mary C. Lamia, Do Bullies Actually Lack Empathy?, Psychology Today, October 30, 2010.

[14] Matthew 4:8-9.

[15] 10 Ways to Respond to Bullying, Anti-Defamation League, 2012.

[16] Should I Fight Back?, Children’s Minnesota, undated.

[17] Martin Luther King, Jr., “Loving Your Enemies,” Sermon Delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research & Education Institute (Stanford University), November 17, 1957.

[18] Romans 12:21.

[19] Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (Crown, New York:2025).

[20] Timothy Snyder, Twenty Lessons for Fighting Tyranny, Carnegie Reporter, December 23, 2022.

[21] Roni Dori, Bringing down dictators: “Contrary to myth, tyrants are fragile. Most fall in the end”, CTech News, October 21, 2024.

[22] Now let us all with one accord, Hymn 147, The Hymnal 1982.

[23] See note 1, supra.