Stephen Executed before Paul Falls asleep Envisioning God’s Kingdom While forgiving the ignorant Who cover their ears Against hearing The Human One Who substitutes God’s Reign Of compassion and love For religion’s insatiable Blood thirst.
PS 97: 1-2, 6,7,9
Yes, Jesus’ Kingdom rests Not on executioners’ haste To throw the first stone But on justice Joy and gladness For everyone It confers judgment Revealing The emptiness of Everything Killers venerate.
REV 22:12-14, 16-17, 20
May God’s Kingdom come! Even amid roadside missiles and martyrs’ gore. Hear the urgency! “Come, come, come, come, come, come” Six times over: Come Alpha and Omega First and Last Beginning and End Root and branch Starlight and Bride Water and Life.
JN 17: 20-16
It’s about Unity The Master assures Five times he says: One, one, one, one, one We are Close like Jesus and Abba. Foundationally coherent With them, Stephen, Paul And those myopic men Throwing rocks Powerful enough To awaken Prophet’s rage To know, know, know, know, know, know (Count them!) That God and We are One Rendering stones and blood Impotent To destroy Shared unity At divine core.
It’s Memorial weekend already – the unofficial beginning of summer, 2019. As usual, it’s a day when our country celebrates war and its heroes. That’s simply the American way of commemorating every patriotic occasion.
Appropriately however, this weekend’s liturgy of the word introduces a note of dissent. It centralizes peace as the content of Jesus last will and testament. In so doing, it implicitly contrasts Jesus’ concept of peace with that of Rome or any empire for that matter. The Roman Tacitus described his country’s understanding with the famous aphorism: “They create a desert and call it peace.” For me, Tacitus’ description applies just as well to the United States.
With that in mind, it also seems appropriate to connect
Memorial Day, the peace Jesus advocated and the presidential candidacy of
Marianne Williamson. I say “appropriate” this time because Williamson is the
only candidate in the crowded Democratic field who thematically centralizes the
need for change of specifically spiritual consciousness about all things
political – including matters of war and peace. Her attitude on those issues corresponds
closely with that of Jesus as expressed in today’s Gospel reading.
Marianne Williamson
and Peace
To begin with, Williamson is a harsh critic of the Pentagon
and the policy of perpetual war into which our country has increasingly fallen
since the Second Inter-Capitalist War (1939-’45) and especially since 9/11/01.
In fewer than 100 years, she points out, the real driving
force behind United States military posture has become the interests of Lockheed
Martin, Raytheon, Boeing and other defense contractors. That has Americans, for
instance, buying one hundred B-21 stealth bombers each costing $550 million and
each capable of carrying thermonuclear weapons. That’s $55 billion in total.
Such investment, Williamson says, is completely
over-the-top. Why 100 planes of that type? At the very least, it all seems
completely out-of-proportion to the danger posed by our perceived terrorist enemy.
Terrorists belong to no particular state. Very often they are home-grown. In
any case, their hit-and-run attacks cannot be effectively answered with
wholesale bombing, much less with nuclear weapons. Williamson writes:
“America today is like
the British Red Coats during the Revolutionary War – standing abreast in a straight
line waiting for someone to yell ‘Fire!’ while American colonists were hiding
behind trees like the early guerrilla fighters that they were. Our entire
notion of national security is like something out of another century.”
Instead of such waste and without neglecting legitimate
defense concerns, Williamson calls for effective recognition of the soul force
of peace building. She wants established a US Department of Peace that would
make peace-creation a central goal of national policy, both foreign and
domestic. It would use resources like
those now wasted on those B-21s to support diplomatic efforts with those currently
villainized in order to justify purchase of overpriced weapons systems.
Peace building would reconstruct the cities that US policy
has destroyed. It would support educational opportunities for children, expand
economic prospects for women, and in general alleviate human suffering across
the planet. “That would be the moral thing to do,” Williamson says. “That would
be the loving thing to do. And that would be the smart thing to do.” In summary
she says, “The best way to create a more peaceful world is to treat people with
greater compassion.”
Jesus and Peace
Williamson’s approach to peace-building is in sync with
Jesus last will and testament expressed in today’s liturgy of the word. There
he says: My peace I leave with you. My peace I give you. Not as the world
(meaning Rome) gives, do I give.”
Jesus words and ultimate fate remind us that Rome’s policies
created terrorists no less predictably than our own country’s way of creating “peace.”
It led the empire to identify Jesus as a terrorist and execute him accordingly.
Jesus, I’m sure, must have hated Rome. Like all his Jewish
contemporaries, he must have despised Rome’s imperial presence in Palestine –
especially since it was headed by a man who considered himself God, Savior,
Lord, and Prince of Peace. Scholars remind us that empire was the most
significant factor shaping Jesus’ life. We know for a fact that he opposed it
vigorously – especially its local collaborators personified in the Jewish high
priesthood of his day, along with the scribes, Pharisees and Jewish high court.
However, his resistance was non-violent.
Yes, Jesus’ peace is not what the world calls peace. It’s not Roman peace which was imposed by means of war. Rome’s, like the Pentagon’s, was peace through victory – always supported by Roman religion. In fact, as scripture scholar John Dominic Crossan, puts it in God and Empire: Jesus against Rome then and now, the exact sequence was religion – war – victory – peace. Sound familiar?
By contrast, the
peace Jesus bequeathed had nothing to do with Rome or empire in general. His
peace is brought not by victory, but by justice – especially for the poor. His
was not peace through victory, but peace through justice. As I noted last week,
that point was made in the programmatic sermon the Master gave in Nazareth at
the beginning of his public life. These are the words with which he described
his very purpose: “The Spirit of the Lord in on me, because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim deliverance to the
captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed, to
proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (LK 4: 17-19).
Jesus was about serving the poor, releasing the imprisoned,
caring for the disabled, liberating the enslaved, and ending debt servitude.
His peace had nothing to do with victory as the world understands it – as Rome
understood it or as the United States does. The sequence of Jesus’ gift to the
world was religion – nonviolence – justice – peace.
Conclusion
And that’s what Marianne Williamson’s national defense program
is about as well. It entails a spiritual conversion that takes its cue as well from
Gandhi, and Martin Luther King. It also takes heed of Republican Dwight
Eisenhower’s warning about the dangers of the military-industrial complex.
Williamson’s program would:
Have our country live within its means
Emphasize peace building rather than war-making
Rather than bombs and drones, it would rain down rebuilt homes,
schools, hospitals, factories, temples, mosques and churches on the enemies
created by our imperial philosophy of peace through victory
And to those who say that all of that won’t work or that it’s
totally unrealistic, Williamson is fond of responding, “And how’s that realism
working out for you?” In fact, it’s creating more terrorists and mayhem while
simultaneously destroying the planet.
We’ve got to try something different. And that means national spiritual conversion. It’s in that call for repentance, transformation and restorative justice that the campaigns of Jesus and Marianne Williamson coincide. And that coincidence has nothing to do with memorializing, much less glorifying our country’s ceaseless imperial wars.
(By the way, Marianne has not only achieved the 65,000 unique donors required for her to appear in the debates with other presidential candidates. As well, she has surpassed the minimum 1% support in 3 separate national polls. Nate Silver has identified her as a major candidate.)
Readings for 5th Sunday of Easter: Acts 14: 21-27; PS 145: 8-13; REV 21: 1-5A; JN 13: 31-35
The readings for this fifth Sunday of Easter centralize Jesus’ New Commandment, to “Love one another as I have loved you.” He also identifies the criterion for distinguishing his true followers from those who are not. He says, “This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” – again, “as I have loved you.”
So, the question becomes how exactly did Jesus love those he interacted with? Was his love confined to the inter-personal sphere, or was it somehow political? And even if it was, is a politics of love practical? Or are we condemned to the political status quo based on fear and greed which our “Christian” culture has ironically convinced us is much more realistic than the love and compassion that Jesus seems to recommend?
The answer to all of those questions was captured in our liturgical readings several weeks ago in Jesus’ first sermon as recorded by the evangelist called Luke. Jesus described his program in this way: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to release the oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
That final phrase “the year of the Lord’s favor” is key to answering the questions I just posed. It’s a reference to the Jubilee Year enshrined in Israel’s ancient tradition. That tradition, if nothing else, was highly political. As economist Michael Hudson has reminded us recently in his And Forgive Them Their Debts, Jubilee referenced a political and economic practice common not only in Israel, but throughout the ancient Middle East. It had kings and emperors (usually on the occasion of their assuming power) periodically creating a clean slate for everyone, especially the poor. During Jubilee, debts were cancelled, land was redistributed, slaves were freed, and amnesty was extended to prisoners. Jubilee prioritized the needs of the poor, not the rich. Its unfolding in Jesus’ public life involved non-violent resistance to temple authorities who had aligned themselves with Roman imperialism.
In other words, the unmistakable conclusion here is that if Christians are to love one another precisely in the way that Jesus loved them, their love must be unapologetically political and anti-imperial. They must practice a politics of love that prioritizes the needs of the poor, sick, indebted, imprisoned, and of those victimized by oppressors of all kinds.
In our own day, don’t you think that at least gestures towards the spirit of the Green New Deal as opposed to continuation of the status quo? I do.
But, you might ask, is a politics of love practical? Or given the fallenness of the human race, isn’t it more realistic to practice our familiar politics based on fear and greed – to run the country like a business instead of like a family. Isn’t it more sensible to appeal to self-interest, money and the bottom line?
In response, Marianne Williamson would ask, “Well, how’s that working out for you?”
In case we’ve forgotten, (and please notice the dollar figures in what follows) by prioritizing the values of fear and greed, our “leaders” have :
Committed to a program of perpetual war that’s costing us about $2 billion per day
Spent $2 trillion in just one of those wars (Iraq) while slaughtering hundreds of thousands of civilians (and perhaps more than a million) and creating ISIS in the process
Prevented refugees created by our wars and economic system from finding refuge in our country where all but a hand-full (Native Americans) are descended precisely from immigrants, refugees, and slaves forced by the rich to work here against their wills
Created a society in which 3 men own as much as the bottom 50% of the country
Given $2 trillion in additional tax breaks mostly to those men and their colleagues in the richest 0.1%
Decided to commit mass suicide by hanging on to an economic system that is destroying our planet despite our claims to love our children and grandchildren
Asserted proudly that, all evidence to the contrary, our system of political-economy somehow “works”
And that’s just the short list of the craziness of our
culture’s commitment to fear and greed rather than to a politics of love and
compassion that prioritizes (as did Jesus) the needs of the poor, education,
health care, debt forgiveness, and anti-imperialism.
Clearly, we can do better than that. Clearly, it’s time to
try something else.
But where, our culture asks, would the money come from to eliminate poverty and save the planet? Practically speaking, where would we find the money for a Green New Deal, for universal health care, for higher wages, for forgiving student loans, to remedy the epidemic of homelessness?
“Don’t make me laugh” says Marianne Williamson in her Politics of Love. She writes:
“How would we pay for all that education and culture, health and safety” ask those who have no problem whatsoever paying for ill-begotten wars and tax cuts for the extremely wealthy. Such a question should be met by laughter from those who were never consulted as to how we would pay for a $2 trillion war in Iraq (which, among other things created ISIS) or a $2 trillion tax cut for the wealthiest among us (which, among other things, is already adding tour wealth inequality).”
No doubt, the Jesus of Jubilee would join in Williamson’s ironic laughter. Where will we get the money?
Please go back to the dollar figures I asked you to note above. Then allow me to count the ways. They include moving quickly to an energy economy not based on fossil fuels, and then:
Saving trillions when the energy-switch enables us to stop fighting and threatening wars fought for oil (think Iraq, Iran, Venezuela). Stopping those energy wars would enable us to cut the Pentagon budget in half.
Revoking the recent tax gifts to the rich. That too would provide trillions
Revising the tax code’s highest bracket to 75% annually freeing up billions in the process
Cutting off all subsidies to oil companies. That as well would save millions each year
Imposing the death penalty on Exxon and seizing its assets as a penalty for concealing and lying about its climate research. That alone would go a long way towards paying for any Green New Deal
Returning to workers the wages stolen by their corporate employers who for the past 40 years have kept the fruits of skyrocketing labor productivity for themselves while practically stiffing their employees.
Recovering from corporations like McDonalds and Amazon the cost of food stamps and other federal aid programs accessed over the years by their underpaid workers.
Identifying the beneficiaries of 250 years of unpaid slave labor and assessing penalties on the families and corporations involved for the wages not paid for all that forced labor. The money could be used to build respectable housing and palatial schools in black communities.
And here I’m probably only scratching the surface.
According to my way of looking at things, implementation of the above policies would actually pay for the Green New Deal without raising taxes on any but the super-rich whose extravagant lifestyles will remain mostly unaffected.
In any case, the point is that the politics of love highlighted in today’s readings is the only realistic way of saving our planet. And Marianne Williamson is the only presidential candidate willing courageously to say so.
Again, as Marianne puts it, (just as in the past) love is the only answer to our current problems. “It was love that abolished slavery, it was love that gave women suffrage, it was love that established civil rights, and it is love that we need now.”
(P.S. Marianne Williamson recently achieved the 65,000 unique contributions required for her to appear on the debate stage with other Democratic presidential candidates. But now that more than 20 are running, it’s necessary for her to poll at 1% in national opinion polls. She’s close to achieving that goal too, but needs financial help to get her name and identity before the public. Please help her by donating here. She only has till June 12th to reach this goal.)
It was religion in flames. It was a reminder of the conflagration engulfing our very planet. It should have clarified the relevance of the resurrection story that Christians across the world defiantly celebrate this Easter Sunday. It made me think of female prophets like Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and presidential candidate Marianne Williamson.
Notre Dame in Flames
Of course, I’m referring to the recent conflagration within
the Cathedral of Notre Dame. Everyone’s heart went out to the people of Paris
as they sang hymns to Mary while helplessly watching her beloved basilica burning
on the other side of the Seine. We’re told that even the fire-fighters sang to the
Grande Dame while dousing the inferno
and risking their lives to rescue relics of Jesus’ true cross and crown of
thorns. The spectacle brought the world to tears.
How like the rest of us, I thought, as we witness the Catholic church (and religion in general) hopelessly ablaze! Pedophilia, patriarchy, the antipathy of our children towards the faith that we elders once embraced so fervently have all contributed to the disaster. So has the successful counter-revolution waged by two reactionary popes (John Paul II and Benedict XVI) against the hopes enkindled by the ecumenical movement and Vatican II. Then there’s the heresy of know-nothing religious fundamentalists attempting to counter the creative ferment of liberation theology and of science itself . . . They’ve all done their parts to bring down the new church that John XXIII (and so many of us) once hoped for. Instead, the institution now lies in ruins, in putrid irrelevance. The strewn ashes embody our bleak despair. Only a miracle on the scale of Jesus’ resurrection can save us now.
A World Burning
But the combustion of Notre Dame presents only the palest reflection of our despondency before our very world in flames. That too was imaged forth in the cathedral’s conflagration. The climate chaos caused by our mad consumerism and worship of mammon, weapons, and war has set the planet ablaze. So, we stand there on the opposite shore of our own Seine, our mouths agape, the flames flickering against our mirrored eyes as we stand witness in hopeless impotence and despair. The stench of the ruins, the loss of our treasure, the cost of rebuilding . . . It’s all too much to think about. Mary help us!
And she does! She along with her sister prophetesses bring news of resurrection – just as they did for the male followers of Jesus’ who wallowed in the despondency following that first Good Friday. Yes, the women are here once again to save us with their news of resurrection and its impossible future!
What seems dead can return to life, they all insist. Another America is possible shouts the infant terrible, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Another world is possible Sweden’s teenaged Greta Thunberg repeats for all with ears to hear. Yet more: another God is possible proclaims Marianne Williamson with her invitation to a New Age characterized by the miracle of revisioning EVERYTHING. Naomi Klein, Maria Lopez Vigil, and (from their graves) Dorothy Day, Harriet Tubman, all those suffragettes, and Rosa Parks echo the message. In fact, an entire army of latter-day Jean D’Arcs broadcast the Good News that despite what the world tells us, resurrection – radically new life – is indeed possible. It’s the redivivus message of the goddess Miriam herself – of our Lady, of Notre Dame in flames.
If you want to actually see the hopeful vision of resurrection for America, watch again Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s video published just last week. Through the fascinating art of Molly Crabapple, AOC calls us to face head-on the sad facts of our planet’s Good Friday. Nearly 50 years ago those facts were researched, but cynically obscured and denied by Exxon and its supporting cast of male politicians. All that time they foresaw that without resurrection, disasters like Puerto Rico (devastated by a Hurricane named Maria!!) inevitably represents our common future.
AOC reminds us that devastation caused by an entire system requires systemic reform. That includes a new economy with decent salaries and the type of benefits the industrialized world once took for granted and aspired to – affordable schooling, healthcare for all, meaningful work, comfortable retirement – all in a context where polluters are assigned responsibility for the destruction caused by their decades-long denial allowing them to privatize profits while socializing costs. They owe us! Reparations are due!
Yes, the crisis of climate chaos changes EVERYTHING!
Moreover, it’s all been done before just as our young prophetess insists. In the face of the Great Depression’s and World War II’s lesser crises, FDR put together the original New Deal.
It changed the entire economy. It recognized that unions, full employment, environmental protection, decent jobs, recreation, art, music, dignified retirement, and strict regulation of greedy corporatists were all part of the clean slate the country and world needed to survive.
And it worked! Our
nation and the western economies prospered as never before, as countries across
the industrialized world implemented what came to be called the welfare state.
Religion Flaming Out
For her part, Marianne Williamson calls us to re-vision the God of resurrection who makes fundamental change possible. Like no other presidential candidate, she puts her finger exactly on the spiritual transformation required to change everything. We need another God, she says in effect. Not the imperial one foisted upon us since Constantine in the 4th century. That’s an idol. What we need is the God of Jesus: the champion of working people, widows, orphans, and immigrants. We need the God reflected in the teachings of the one who taught that whatever we do to the least of the brethren, we do to him.
Yes, that’s the God of the Bible – a divinity who remains foreign to most. It’s as if we have all been imprisoned in Plato’s Cave. Nothing that the world (and very little that the church) tells us is true, especially about God. Another God is possible, Williamson insists. That God’s vision is 180 degrees opposite that described by our desperate politicians through their media minions. It’s the direct opposite of most of the drivel we hear from the pulpit.
And it’s here that Williams joins Ocasio-Cortez. Insisting
that the resurrection we celebrate today is indeed real, Marianne calls us to
support something like the Green New Deal. It promises new life for us here and
now, including Medicare for all, gun control, higher minimum wages, the
overhaul of public education, criminal justice reform, raising taxes on the
rich, and repairing damage done by our history of racism.
Conclusion
“Impossible!!” the world shouts with one accord. “It’s too costly. Making changes like the GND proposed by our prophetesses would take decades. Such alterations could never be accomplished by 2030.”
And yet, when the world saw Notre Dame in flames, the money poured in. Already more than a billion dollars have been pledged. Artists and artisans from across the world have pledged their labor. And whereas initial estimates were that it would take 100 years to rebuild Notre Dame, France’s President Macron now assures us that the cathedral will be back to normal, even more beautiful than before in only five years!
That’s what happens when human beings commit themselves to
achieving the impossible. As Marianne continually repeats, “There is no order
of difficulty in miracles.” And she’s right. Miracles – fundamental changes in
perception – are indeed possible. Our times demand them.
Yes, resurrection can happen. Easter calls us to make it happen to save our planet – and our church.
Readings for Palm Sunday: LK 19:28-40; IS 50: 4-7, PS 22: 8-9, 12-20, 23=24, PHIL 2:6-11, LK 22: 14-23:58.
It’s puzzling to see white Evangelicals rallying around Donald Trump. He’s the one who owns casinos and strip clubs, who has been married three times and brags about sexually assaulting women.
How is it possible for white evangelicals to support such a person whose policies favor the rich and punish the poor, who despises immigrants, advocates torture, and whose appetite for profit seems insatiable.
After all, Jesus was a poor laborer who criticized the rich in the harshest of terms. He and his family knew what it was like to be unwelcome immigrants (in Egypt). He himself was a victim of torture, not its administrator. Far from a champion of empire, he was executed as a terrorist and enemy of Rome. His followers were not about accumulating wealth but shared what they had according to ability and need.
When you think of it, all of this seems antithetical to not only to Trumpism, but to the declared positions of virtually the entire Republican Party. They’re all imperialists. All of them are friends of the one-percent. They all want to increase military spending — apparently without question or limit.
How did
all of that happen?
Today’s
Palm Sunday readings provide some clues. Luke’s Passion Narratives reveal a
first century Christian community already depoliticizing Jesus in order to
please Roman imperialists. The stories turn Jesus against his own people as
though they were foreign enemies of God.
Think
about the context of today’s Palm Sunday readings.
Note
that Jesus and his audiences were first and foremost anti-imperialist Jews
whose lives were shaped more than anything else by the Roman occupation of
their homeland. As such, they weren’t waiting for a Roman-Greco “messiah” who,
like the Sun God Mithra, would die and lead them to heaven. They were awaiting
a Davidic messiah who would liberate them from the Romans.
So, on
this Palm Sunday, what do you think was on the minds of the crowds who Luke
tells us lined the streets of Jerusalem to acclaim Jesus the Nazarene? Were
they shouting “Hosanna! Hosanna!” (Save us! Save us!) because they thought
Jesus was about to die and by his sacrificial death open the gates of heaven
closed since Adam’s sin by a petulant God? Of course not. They were shouting
for Jesus to save them from the Romans.
The
palm branches in their hands were (since the time of the Maccabees) the symbols
of resistance to empire. Those acclaiming Jesus looked to him to play a key
role in the Great Rebellion everyone knew about to take place against the hated
Roman occupiers.
And
what do you suppose was on Jesus’ mind? He was probably intending to take part
in the rebellion just mentioned. It had been plotted by the Jews’ Zealot
insurgency. Jesus words at the “Last Supper” show his anticipation that the
events planned for Jerusalem might cause God’s Kingdom to dawn that very
weekend.
Clearly
Jesus had his differences with the Zealots. They were nationalists; he was
inter-nationalist who was open to gentiles. The Zealots were violent; Jesus was
not.
And yet the Zealots and Jesus came together on their abhorrence of Roman presence in the Holy Land. They found common ground on the issues of debt forgiveness, non-payment of taxes to the occupiers, and of land reform. Within Jesus’ inner circle there was at least one Zealot (Simon). Indications might also implicate Peter, Judas, James, and John. And Jesus’ friends were armed when he was arrested. Whoever cut off the right ear of the high priest’s servant was used to wielding a sword – perhaps as a “sicarius” (the violent wing of the Zealots who specialized in knifing Jews collaborating with the Romans).
But
we’re getting ahead of our story. . . Following his triumphant entry into
Jerusalem, Jesus soon found himself and his disciples inside the temple
participating in what we’d call a “direct action” protest. They were
demonstrating against the collaborative role the temple and its priesthood were
fulfilling on behalf of the Romans.
As collaborators, the
temple priests were serving a foreign god (the Roman emperor) within the temple
precincts. For Jesus that delegitimized the entire system. So, as John Dominic Crossan puts it, Jesus’ direct action was
not so much a “cleansing” of the temple as the symbolic destruction of an
institution that had completely lost its way.
It was
this demonstration that represented the immediate cause of Jesus’ arrest and
execution described so poignantly in today’s long gospel reading.
Following
the temple demonstration, Jesus and his disciples became “wanted” men (Lk.
19:47). At first Jesus’ popularity affords him protection from the authorities
(19:47-48). The people constantly surround him eager to hear Jesus’ words
denouncing their treasonous “leaders” (20:9-19), about the issue of Roman
taxation (20:20-25), the destruction of the temple (21:1-6), the coming war
(21:20-24) and the imminence of God’s Kingdom (21:29-33).
Eventually
however, Jesus has to go underground. On Passover eve he sends out Peter and
John to arrange for a safe-house to celebrate the feast I mentioned earlier.
The two disciples are to locate the “upper room.” They do so by exchanging a
set of secret signs and passwords with a local comrade.
Then
comes Jesus’ arrest. Judas has betrayed Jesus to collect the reward on Jesus’
head – 30 pieces of silver. The arrest is followed by a series of “trials”
before the Jewish Council (the Sanhedrin), before Pilate and Herod. Eventually,
Jesus is brought back to Pilate. There he’s tortured, condemned and executed
between two other insurgents.
Note that Luke presents Pilate in way completely at odds with what we know of the procurator as described for example by the Jewish historian Josephus. After the presentation of clear-cut evidence that the Nazarene rabbi was “stirring up the people,” and despite Jesus’ own admission to crimes against the state (claiming to be a rival king), Pilate insists three times that the carpenter is innocent of capital crime.
Such tolerance
of rebellion contradicts Crossan’s insistence that Pilate had standing orders
to execute anyone associated with lower class rebellion during the extremely
volatile Passover festivities. In other words, there would have been no
drawn-out trial.
What’s
going on here? Two things.
First
of all, like everyone else, Luke knew that Jesus had been crucified by the
Romans. That was an inconvenient truth for Luke’s audience which around the
year 85 CE (when Luke wrote) was desperately trying to reconcile with the Roman
Empire which lumped the emerging Christian community with the Jews whom the
Romans despised.
Luke’s
account represents an attempt to create distance between Christians and Jews.
So, he makes up an account that exonerates Pilate (and the Romans) from guilt
for Jesus’ execution. Simultaneously, he lays the burden of blame for Jesus’
execution at the doorstep of Jewish authorities.
In this
way, Luke made overtures of friendship towards Rome. He wasn’t worried about
the Jews, since by the year 70 the Romans had destroyed Jerusalem and its
temple along with more than a million of its inhabitants. After 70 Jewish
Christians no longer represented the important factor they once were. Their
leadership had been decapitated with the destruction of Jerusalem.
Relatedly,
Jesus’ crucifixion would have meant that Rome perceived him as a rebel against
the Empire. Luke is anxious to make the case that such perception was false.
Rome had nothing to fear from Christians.
I’m
suggesting that such assurance was unfaithful to the Jesus of history. It
domesticated the rebel who shines through even in Luke’s account when it is
viewed contextually.
And so
what?
Well,
if you wonder why Christians can support Donald Trump . . . if you wonder why
they so easily succumb to empires (Roman, Nazi, U.S.) you’ve got your answer.
It all starts here – in the gospels themselves – with the great cover-up of the
insurgent Jesus.
And if
you wonder where the West’s and Hitler’s comfort with xenophobia in general and
anti-Semitism in particular come from, you have that answer as well.
The
point here is that only by recovering the obscured rebel Jesus can Christians
avoid the mistake they made 80 years ago. Then instead of singing “Hosanna” to
Jesus, they shouted “Heil Hitler!” to another imperialist torturer, xenophobe,
and hypocrite.
The
readings for Palm Sunday present us with a cautionary tale about these sad
realities.
Readings for Fourth Sunday in Lent: Jos. 5:9A, 10-12; Ps. 34:2-7; 2 Cor. 5: 17-21; Lk. 15: 1-3, 11 32.
Recently, two very good friends challenged me about supporting Marianne Williamson’s run for president. “She has no chance,” they objected. “You should be supporting Bernie instead.”
Their remarks coupled with today’s familiar Gospel account of Jesus’ Parable of the Prodigal Son have prompted me to explain myself. The parable particularly as re-created by the French Nobel laureate, Andre Gide, is about a person like Marianne Williamson who eventually identified and escaped the oppressive reality we all take as normal. In Gide’s interpretation, Jesus’ parable is like Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.
So, today I want to describe what we might call the “deep politics” of Marianne Williamson. After all, it’s her spirituality (her deep politics) that first drew me to support her candidacy. Because of her more than 30 years of work as a spiritual teacher, we can know her more deeply than any other presidential candidate. And that’s important. Our interior lives – our thoughts and values – are finally shaped by our relationship with what we consider ultimately important. They are shaped by what some of us term “God.”
So, let me first talk about Marianne’s deep politics and then connect it with Gide’s interpretation of the Prodigal Son.
To begin with, I’m supporting Marianne Williamson because she represents the most radical candidate in the field “of thousands,” as she often jokes. Using the term “radical” here, I’m referring to its etymological meaning which derives from the Latin word radix meaning “root.”
Alone in the crowded field of Democratic candidates Marianne puts her finger on what’s really ailing our nation. It’s not primarily an economic or military problem. No, at root, it’s a deeply spiritual malady. Yes, ours is a spiritual problem!
The problem is that rather than “free and brave,” we’re all scared out of our wits. We subscribe to values that are 180 degrees opposed to those identified as ultimate by all the world’s great wisdom traditions – be they Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or atheistic. At their deepest level, all of those traditions converge identifying compassion rather than fear as the supreme human value.
Ms. Williamson says it clearly: fear (which is the opposite of compassion) has us captive. Fear has us identifying Russians, Chinese, Muslims, immigrants, refugees, LGBT community members, poor people in general, and even (at our borders) children and babies as somehow our enemies fundamentally unlike us and threatening us at every turn.
None of that is true, Marianne says. It’s quite the opposite. All of us have far more in common than anything that can possibly separate us. In fact – as she puts it – “There is really only one of us here.” We are not only sisters and brothers, we are really a single person. What I do to you, I do to myself.
That’s really the authentic teaching of Jesus, isn’t it? That’s the meaning of his words, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” We must love our neighbor because our neighbor is our self.
As Williamson explains, that conviction is what moved the abolitionists, the suffragettes, the civil rights campaigners and many who brought the Vietnam War to an end. It’s no accident, she says, that so many of the abolitionists and suffragettes were Quakers, that Martin Luther King was a Baptist preacher, and that anti-war activists like the Berrigan brothers were Catholic priests. Those are the great heroes of the land we call “America.” Like Marianne herself, they all recognized our fundamentally spiritual nature.
So, none of us should say all of this is too idealistic. Instead, we should realize that, in effect, Marianne Williamson is challenging Americans to live up to their faith claims. After all, 70% of us claim to be Christian. Then there are the Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists I already mentioned, as well as atheists and those claiming to be “spiritual but not religious.” As I said, all of those traditions, at their most profound level, converge in calls to liberty, equality, and fraternity.
And that brings me to Jesus’ Parable of the Prodigal Son and its connection with Marianne Williamson’s deep politics. In what I’m about to say, I’m taking my cue from John Dominic Crossan’s book The Power of Parable: how fiction by Jesus became fiction about Jesus. There, Crossan suggests challenging Luke’s parable as excessively patriarchal. After all, the story is about a bad boy who realizes the error of his ways and returns home to daddy and daddy’s patriarchy with its familiar rules, prohibitions, and tried and true ways of doing things.
Crossan asks, what if the prodigal left home and never looked back? Would he have been better off? Would we be better off by not following his example as described today by Luke – by instead separating from the patriarchy and leaving home for good?
Andre Gide actually asked that question back in 1907 when he wrote “The Return of the Prodigal Son.” In his version, Gide expands the cast of the parable’s characters to five, instead of the usual three. Gide adds the father’s wife and a younger son. The latter, bookish and introspective, becomes the story’s central figure who escapes his father’s walled estate never to return.
According to Crossan, Gide tells his version of Jesus’ parable through a series of dialogs between the returned prodigal and his father, his older brother, his mother, and lastly, his younger brother. In his dialog, the father reveals that the older brother is really in charge of the father’s household. According to daddy, the brother is extremely conservative. He’s convinced that there is no life outside the walls of the family compound. It’s the older son who must be obeyed there. (Are you hearing overtones of Plato’s parable?)
For his part, the older brother, reinforces what the father said. “I am his sole interpreter,” the elder son claims, “and whoever would understand the father must listen to me.” In other words, the elder brother has owned the authority which the father has surrendered to him.
Then the mother comes forward. She tells the prodigal about his younger brother. “He reads too much,” she says, and . . . often perches on the highest tree in the garden from which, you remember, the country can be seen above the walls.” One can’t help detect in the mother’s words a foreboding (or is it a suppressed hope) that her youngest son might go over the wall and never come back.
And that’s exactly what the younger son decides to do. In his dialog with the returned prodigal, he shares his plan to leave home that very night. But he will do so, he says, penniless – without an inheritance like the one his now-returned brother so famously squandered.
“It’s better that way,” the prodigal tells his younger sibling. “Yes leave. Forget your family, and never come back.” He adds wistfully, “You are taking with you all my hopes.”
The younger son turns for the door. His brother cautions him, “Be careful on the steps . . .”
Gide’s version of Jesus’ parable returns me to Marianne Williamson, and how in these pivotal times she has followed the youngest son in Gide’s parable and calls the rest of us to go over the wall with her – to escape Plato’s cave and pass into the “other world” that is possible if only we take seriously the spiritual teachings of the world’s great traditions. Making that transition, she says, means becoming economically literate, re-learning American history, and internalizing what used to be called “Civics.”
So, don’t expect Ms. Williamson to directly invoke her spirituality during her presidential campaign. She’s won’t stump as some kind of preacher or moralist like Pat Robertson or Mike Huckabee. Unlike those other two, Marianne is no come-lately to political analysis and policy recommendations. In fact, twenty years ago in her prescientHealing the Soul of America, she predicted the crisis we’re now experiencing in the person of Donald Trump. No, Williamson will stick to her policy positions – Medicare for all, a Green New Deal, college-debt forgiveness, raising the minimum wage, drastically reducing the inflated military budget, making reparations for slavery, and establishing a cabinet-level secretariat for children and youth.
But aren’t those what (since Bernie) have become the standard positions of progressive Democrats? Of course, they are. But in Marianne’s case, such positions are grounded in a vision honed and sharpened over more than 30 years of forging connections between her deep spirituality and her deep politics.
And that personal reality, that long-term genuineness is precisely what’s required for our world to abandon the destructive reality of business-as-usual – to go over the wall of our father’s compound, to leave Plato’s Cave.
The very profundity of her “deep politics” is precisely why I’m supporting the candidacy of Marianne Williamson. If you’re similarly intrigued, and want to hear her voice in the Democratic debates, please go here and contribute at least $1.00. She needs 65,000 donors to be included.
Readings for 3rd Sunday of
Lent: Ex. 3:1-8A, 13-15; Ps. 103: 1-4, 6-8, 11; I Cor. 10:1-6, 10-12; Lk. 13:
1-9
The
entire world was shocked last week when a right-wing gunman and admirer of
Donald Trump slaughtered at least 50 worshippers in two mosques in Christchurch,
New Zealand.
At the same time, the
world edified when the New Zealand prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, the world’s youngest head
of state, donned a hijab in a sign of solidarity with the Muslim community. The
Muslim worshippers, she said “are us.” She
resolved immediately to change her country’s gun laws (in defiance of the
international gun lobby) including a ban on assault weapons.
Her response contrasted sharply with that of President Trump following a similar massacre in Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue last October. Then, instead of calling for solidarity and disarmament, the president famously advised placing armed guards at synagogue doors.
Prime
Minister Ardern’s words and symbolic action were a demonstration of the very
type of repentance to which the non-violent Jesus called his own community (and
us!) in the puzzling episode recounted in today’s Gospel reading for this third
Sunday of Lent.
To make
his point, Jesus comments on two contemporary tragedies that were “in the news
of the day” as prominently as last week’s New Zealand catastrophe. Then he adds
an explanatory parable underlining the time-urgency of his summons to
non-violence. All three elements are highly relevant to Christchurch and our president’s
and our culture’s tendency to solve everything with violence.
The similarities
between Christchurch and the Gospel’s first-mentioned tragedy are undeniable. Like
what happened in New Zealand, it involved the slaughter of worshippers by
reactionary outsiders who despised their victims’ religious faith. Some
Galileans (no doubt identified as insurgents) were killed by Roman soldiers
while offering sacrifice in the temple.
Jesus
asks, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way because
they were greater sinners than all other Galileans?” Then he answers his own
question, “By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent, you will all
perish as they did!”
The
second tragedy had eighteen people killed by the collapse of a tower located in
the section of East Jerusalem called Siloam. In this case, it seems that a
tower had fallen by chance and killed some innocents.
Regarding
that second tragedy, Jesus asks, “Or those eighteen people who were killed when
the tower at Siloam fell on them— do you think they were guiltier than everyone
else who lived in Jerusalem? By no means! But I tell you, if you do not repent,
you will all perish as they did!”
But
what does Jesus expect his audience to repent from? Does he want them to stop
being insurgents against Rome? Does he want them to be more faithful to the Ten
Commandments or something?
As
Jesus would say, “By no means!”
How
then do these two events connect?
To get
the connection, put the incidents in context. There they become statements
about violence, counter-violence and the need for non-violent resistance.
Again, that contextualization sheds light on the Christchurch tragedy and our
own culture’s worship of guns, as well as the permission it gives our military
to kill people in their mosques and schools, at their funerals and weddings.
This
approach takes seriously the political intent of the news item shared with
Jesus at the very outset. Luke tells us, “Some people told Jesus about the
Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with the blood of their sacrifices.”
No
doubt, this was not news to Jesus. The opening words of today’s gospel were not
meant to communicate news but to complain about the Roman occupiers. Those
introducing the topic were looking for sympathy and agreement. Jesus does not
disappoint.
Pilate,
of course, would have claimed that his temple victims were insurgents against
the Roman occupation; they were “guilty” as terrorists, he would have said.
That was his official line.
Jesus
says, “Don’t believe it” – as if his audience were tempted to believe Roman
lies. “Do you think they were guilty?” Jesus asks. “By no means,” he answers.
Here
Jesus is agreeing with his Galilean compatriots. If the ones Pilate killed were
terrorists, he says, so are all Galileans; we’re all guilty in Pilate’s eyes.
None of us wants the Romans here, Jesus implies. After all, it wasn’t the
Galileans who threw the first stone; it was Pilate and the Roman soldiers who
did so by invading Israel’s sovereign territory.
But
then Jesus suddenly takes another tack. He connects Pilate’s butchery with
another headline of his day – an act of counter-violence taken by the “Zealot”
forces Pilate was attempting to punish. (Zealots were the revolutionary force
committed to ousting the Roman occupiers from Palestine.) Pilate’s action,
Jesus suggests, started the cycle of violence that evoked a disaster at Siloam
at a spot near the Fountain of Ezekias. Siloam was the location of a small
arsenal, where the Romans kept their swords, shields, battering rams and other
weapons.
According to Maria and
Ignacio Lopez-Vigil, a group of Zealot
insurgents had tried to dig a tunnel up to the tower with hopes of seizing the
weapons and turning them against the Romans. But the tower’s foundation was
already in a state of decay, and the tunnel caused the entire construction to
suddenly collapse. The falling tower claimed the lives of several Galilean
families who had built their houses near the arsenal.
Jesus
point: Pilate is certainly a bloodthirsty man. None of us want him or his
armies on our soil. However, those who resist the hated Romans by resorting to
arms are bloodthirsty too. And if we follow their example, we’ll all drown in a
bloody deluge. Or as Jesus put it, “I tell you, if you do not repent, you will
all perish as they did!”
And
time is running short, he adds with his parable about a fig tree. The bloody
deluge has been building for at least three years. We have maybe another twelve
months before the chickens of the deadly cycle of violence come home to roost.
Without repentance, without replacing violent resistance to Roman butchery with
non-violent tactics, we’ll all be cut down like a barren fig tree. (Later on,
remember, Jesus himself demonstrates the kind of non-violent direct action he
had in mind, with his “cleansing” of Jerusalem’s temple.)
Jesus’ prediction of bloodbath, of course, eventually came true, but not as soon as he thought. The Romans would defeat the Zealot uprising in the year 70, and definitively squash all Jewish rebellion in 132. Jesus was right however about the extent of the slaughter. It was horrific resulting in the deaths of more than a million Jews. Such disaster is inevitable, Jesus teaches for all who “live by the sword.”
What
does all of this say to us today? The message is quite relevant. It reminds us
first of all that empire represents the systematized oppression of the poor and
defenseless by the rich and powerful. That was true of Rome; it’s true of U.S.
empire today. We’re still killing those identified as insurgents in their
churches and mosques. In fact, our soldiers do it every day. And far from being
outraged, we applaud them as heroes.
Secondly,
this passage calls us to non-violence and warns us about where the cycle of
violence will inevitably lead. Christchurch NZ provides a window into the world
created by the worship of guns. Another window is provided by Afghanistan and
Iraq, Vietnam, Hiroshima, the Cold War, and the general impoverishment of our
country and world brought on by so-called “defense” spending. All of it has us
drowning in a deluge of blood. And it promises to get worse and eventually
destroy us all. How much time do we have before our chickens come home to roost
– three years, one year. . .?
Christians
represent about 30% of the world’s inhabitants. There are more than two billion
of us. Imagine the world we’d create if we insisted on following the call to
non-violence represented by Jesus’ words in this morning’s gospel!
Imagine the country we’d
create if our politicians followed the example of Jacinda Ardern ‘s
identification with the Muslim community instead of following the divisive
policies of Donald Trump and endorsing the genocidal violence of our armies.
Readings for First Sunday of Lent: Dt. 26: 4-10; Ps. 91: 1-2;
10-15; Rom. 10: 8-13; Lk. 4: 1-13.
Last Tuesday’s edition of “Democracy Now” had Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez interviewing Daniel Immerwahr, and associate professor of history at the University of Chicago. Dr. Immerwahr has just published a book called How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States. For me, it was an eye-opening conversation, because it described the actual extent of U.S. empire that remains hidden even, as Dr. Immerwahr noted, from PhD historians.
Yet more importantly,
for today’s reflections on this first Sunday of Lent, the interview revealed
how the hidden U.S. empire actually involves our country in devil worship as
defined by this Sunday’s Gospel episode.
Actually, that’s been
the case for Christians in general ever since the 4th century of our
era, when their predecessors threw in their lot with Constantine’s Roman army. Since
then, they’ve (we’ve!) been worshipping Satan while calling him “God.” Today’s Gospel
calls attention to that contradiction. It implies that Christians should no more
support their country’s foreign policy (or what pretends to be the Christian
Church) than if it were run by Hitler or the devil himself.
Let me explain.
Begin with Dr.
Immerwahr’s description of the hidden U.S. Empire. He traces its inauguration
to the period immediately after our country’s founding. It was then that
settlers incorporated territories seized (in clear violation of treaties) from
Native Americans. Then in 1845, the U.S. absorbed nearly half of Mexico – Texas
first and then [after the Mexican-American War (1846-’48)], what became Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada,
New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
By the end of the 19th century, the U.S.
had added Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Hawaii, Alaska, Guam, and Wake Island.
If we add to this the implications and actual invocation of the Monroe Doctrine (1823) in order to control the politics of Latin America, we can see forms of U.S. colonialism extending throughout the western hemisphere.
Coups in Africa [e.g. Congo (1961), Ghana (1965), Angola (1970s), Chad (1982)] established U.S. hegemony there. Similar interventions in the Middle East (e.g. Iran in 1953) along with the establishment of Israel and Saudi Arabia as a U.S. proxies controlling political-economy throughout the region established United States control there.
Factor in the 800 U.S. military bases peppered across the world and one’s understanding of our empire’s extent expands exponentially. (Russia, by contrast has 9 such bases; the rest of the world has virtually 0). To understand the sheer numbers involved, think of our continued military presence in South Korea (35,000 troops) Japan (40,000), and Germany (32,000). Besides this, of course, there are the active troops who daily kill civilians and destroy property in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and elsewhere. In total we’re told that there are about 165,000 troops deployed in 150 countries throughout the world – though, in the light of what I’ve just recounted, even that number seems vastly understated.
In any case, all of that describes
an extensive, highly oppressive, and extremely violent American Empire.
And we’re proud of it. Theodore
Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson thought of colonialism as marvelous. However, by
the first decade of the 20th century, politicians became
increasingly uncomfortable with “the ‘C’ word,” and exchanged references to
colonies for the gentler euphemism, “territories.”
But whatever name we give it, the reality of U.S. empire stands in sharp contrast to today’s Gospel reading and its description of Jesus basic proclamation with its negative judgment on empire and colonialism.
As a prophet and actual victim of empire, Jesus made his fundamental proclamation not about himself or about a new religion. Much less was it about the after-life or “going to heaven.” Instead, Jesus proclaimed the “Kingdom of God.” That phrase referred to what the world would be like without empire – if Yahweh were king instead of Rome’s Caesar. In other words, “Kingdom of God” was a political image among a people unable and unwilling to distinguish between politics and religion.
According to Jesus, everything would be reversed in God’s Kingdom. The world’s guiding principles would be changed. The first would be last; the last would be first. The rich would weep, and the poor would laugh. Prostitutes and tax collectors would enter the Kingdom, while the priests and “holy people” – all of them collaborators with Rome – would find themselves excluded. The world would belong not to the powerful, but to the “meek,” i.e. to the gentle, humble and non-violent. It would be governed not by force and “power over” but by compassion and gift (i.e. sharing).
That basic message becomes apparent in Luke’s version of Jesus’ second temptation described in today’s Gospel episode. From a high vantage point, the devil shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the earth. Then he says,
“I
shall give to you all this power and glory;
for it has been handed over to me,
and I may give it to whomever I wish.
All this will be yours, if you worship me.”
Notice what’s happening here. The devil shows Jesus an empire infinitely larger than Rome’s – “all the kingdoms of the world.” Such empire, the devil claims, belongs to him: “It has been handed over to me.” This means that those who exercise imperial power do so because an evil spirit has chosen to share his possession with them: “I may give it to whomever I wish.” The implication here is that Rome (and whoever exercises empire) is the devil’s agent. Finally, the tempter underlines what all of this means: devil-worship is the single prerequisite for empire’s possession and exercise: “All this will be yours, if you worship me.”
However, Jesus responds,
“It is written: You shall worship the Lord, your God, and him alone shall you serve.”
Here Jesus quotes the Mosaic tradition summarized in Deuteronomy 26 (today’s first reading) to insist that empire and worship of Yahweh are incompatible. Put otherwise, at the beginning of his public life, Jesus declares his anti-imperial position in the strongest possible (i.e. scriptural) terms.
Now fast forward to the 4th century – 381 CE to be exact. In 313 Constantine’s Edict of Milan had removed from Christianity the stigma of being a forbidden cult. From 313 on, it was legal. By 325 Constantine had become so involved in the life of the Christian church that he himself convoked the Council of Nicaea to determine the identity of Jesus. Who was Jesus after all – merely a man, or was he a God pretending to be a man, or perhaps a man who became a God? Was he equal to Yahweh or subordinate to him? If he was God, did he have to defecate and urinate? Seriously, these were the questions!
However, my point is that by the early 4th century the emperor had a strong hand in determining the content of Christian theology. And as time passed, the imperial hand grew more influential by the day. In fact, by 381 under the emperor Theodosius Christianity had become not just legal, but the official religion of the Roman Empire. As such its job was to attest that God (not the devil) had given empire to Rome in exchange for worshipping him (not the devil)!
Do you get my point here? It’s the claim that in the 4th
century, Rome presented church fathers with the same temptation that Jesus
experienced in the desert. But whereas Jesus had refused empire as diabolical,
the prevailing faction of 4th century church leadership embraced it as a gift
from God. In so doing they also said “yes” to the devil worship as the
necessary prerequisite to aspirations to control “all the kingdoms of the
world.” Christians have been worshipping the devil ever since, while calling
him “God.”
No, today’s readings insist: all the kingdoms of the world
belong only to God. They are God’s Kingdom to be governed not by “power over,”
not by dominion and taking, but by love and gift. Or in the words of Jesus, the
earth is meant to belong to those “meek” I mentioned – the gentle, humble, and
non-violent.
Yet, as Dr. Immerwahr attests, those very people living in the West’s
former colonies in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia are
the very ones ceaselessly victimized by the empire historians have so well-hidden
from our consciousness.
As described in Immerwahr’s How to Hide an Empire, colonialism and neo-colonialism are diabolic abominations in the eyes of Jesus’ God. They represent nothing less than a system or robbery currently bent on confiscating the rich resources of the Global South. Authentic followers of Christ can never support such depredations.
On this First Sunday of Lent, we should pray sincerely and work tirelessly for the defeat of such abominable practices.
Readings for 7th Sunday in Ordinary Time: 1 SM 28: 2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23; PS 103: 1-4, 8, 10, 12-13; I COR 15: 45-49; LK 6: 27-38
This Sunday’s instruction from Jesus stands on its own. Comment seems hardly necessary.
Instead, Jesus’ unadorned words
should turn bright red the faces of all in our country who claim to be his
followers. For they contradict our economic system and entire way of life
driven as it is by the military-industrial complex, unending wars, and an
economic system that victimizes the poorest among us, while enriching beyond
belief a tiny minority.
Moreover, Jesus’ teachings call entirely into question the “realism” of mainstream politicians. Such realism ridicules anyone (like Marianne Williamson) who might have us adopt Jesus’ approach before it’s too late.
Think about that in the light
of our readings from the Gospel of Luke these past few weeks. In case you’ve
forgotten, here’s a summary of Jesus’ absolutely radical, highly political program
found in the passages we’ve read. To begin with, he describes his entire purpose
in this way:
“The Spirit of the
Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring glad tidings to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to
captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”
Notice the undeniable political thrust of Jesus’ teaching. He emphasizes bringing good news to the impoverished. He wants to clear out the prisons, to cure the disabled and liberate those oppressed (by the Roman empire that controlled Israel in Jesus’ day). Notice he is proclaiming a Jubilee Year with its debt forgiveness, release of slaves, and radical land reform. That’s Jesus’ agenda. It’s undeniably political; it’s directed towards the poor.
And just in case we might miss the point, our readings of just
last week had Jesus continue like this:
“Blessed are you who are
poor,
for the kingdom of God is yours.
Blessed are you who are now hungry,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who are now weeping,
for you will laugh . . .
But woe to you who are rich . . .
Woe to you who are filled now,
for you will be hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will grieve and weep.
Woe to you when all speak well of you,
for their ancestors treated the false
prophets in this way.”
As I indicated last week, those words should shock us. Jesus’
words turn everything upside-down. It’s the poor who are God’s favored, not the
rich. According to his promise, the poor will govern God’s Kingdom (a highly
politicized image for what the world would be like if God were king instead of
Caesar). By contrast, the rich, well-fed, the apparently happy and admired stand
in God’s disfavor.
Read those words again. Imagine if our leaders insisted that they instead of the Ten Commandments be posted in front of our court houses and on school walls! “Blessed are you poor! Woe to you rich!”
But the evangelist still isn’t
finished. Here’s what he has Jesus say in today’s Gospel selection:
“To you who hear, I say, love
your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray
for those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic. Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand
it back. Do to others as you would have
them do to you . . . (L) end expecting nothing back . . .”
And yet, despite such clear instruction, here’s what our “Christian” criminals in Washington do (with scarcely a whimper of objection from us “believers”):
They spend more on war than the next 12 countries combined.
They’re currently fighting wars against poor people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Ethiopia – having just destroyed Libya and previously most of the countries in Central America.
Against all the principles of international law, they’re tightening the screws on Venezuela causing hunger and shortages of medicine in order to spark rebellion against a government that has not attacked the United States.
They have their eyes set on regime change in Nicaragua and Cuba which have harmed the U.S. in no way at all.
They’re cooperating with Saudi Arabia in bombing to smithereens Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East. (And virtually none of us can explain exactly why. Can you?)
With that in mind, doesn’t it
seem true to say U.S. policy (especially towards the world’s poor) is 180
degrees opposed to what Jesus is reported to have said? It’s as if Jesus taught:
“To you who hear I say, hate your enemies. Annihilate those
who disagree with you. Curse those who speak ill of you. Condemn those who retaliate
against you. If someone defends himself by striking you back, waste him. And take
everything from the person who tries to recover what you yourselves have stolen;
put them in prison and throw away the key. Ignore those who seek alms from you;
they’re just lazy freeloaders. And jail the one who takes what your system
denies him making sure he pays back every cent with interest. Do others before
they can do you. Lend at the highest rate of interest the market will bear –
even if it causes women and children to starve.”
Just look at the world such departures from Jesus’ wisdom have
produced!
Still, when someone (e.g. like Marianne Williamson) comes
forward calling the nation to a radical spiritual change based on the
elementary teaching found not only in Christianity but in all religions – viz. “Do
unto others as you would have them do unto you” – she’s dismissed as “impractical,”
“unrealistic,” and “new age”
No, that teaching is “old age.” It comes from Jesus! It represents his political program.
Isn’t it time for politicians to reverse course and follow
the teachings of the spiritual Master they claim as the Savior of the world? For
starters, truly following Jesus’ political program that we’ve reviewed these
past few weeks would have us:
Assume leadership in the fight against climate change
Cut our defense budget by at least two-thirds
Withdraw from all foreign wars
Repair the damage done by those conflicts
Close our country’s military bases across the world
Forgive the debt of the former colonies
Completely reform our prison system from one dominated by punishment to one centered on rehabilitation
Make reparation to the descendants of former slaves
Renounce interference in foreign elections (as we would have others do in relation to our own voting system)
And so much more
You get the idea. I get the idea. Or maybe we can’t . . .
Readings for 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time: JER 17:5-8; PS 1: 1-5; I COR 15: 12, 16-20; LK 6: 17, 20-21;
There’s a plot going on to neutralize Pope Francis. Even worse, it’s about neutralizing Jesus and his “preferential option for the poor” that has dominated our liturgical readings for the past several weeks.
This week’s readings are no exception. In fact, in today’s
Gospel selection, that option for the poor receives its starkest expression so
far. There, Luke the evangelist has Jesus say clearly that the poor are the
object of God’s special favor, while the rich are not. In Luke’s version of the
Sermon on the Mount, Jesus speaks frankly: “You poor are blessed.” He tells the
rich just as clearly, “you are cursed.” And he does so for no other apparent
reason than that the objects of Jesus’ blessing and cursing are poor and rich
respectively.
Before I get to that, let me say a word about the plot I
just mentioned.
What I’m talking about was reported in January’s Sojourner’s Magazine – the progressive Christian Evangelical monthly published by Jim Wallis. It all appeared there in a piece authored by Tom Roberts, the executive editor of the National Catholic Reporter. The article was entitled “How Right-Wing Billionaires Are Attempting a Hostile Takeover of the Catholic Church.”
There, Roberts described an aggressive project to establish what I would call an ecclesiastical “shadow administration” bent on usurping the authority of the church’s U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). The undertaking is “financed by the Koch brothers, by Domino Pizza founder Thomas Monaghan, and a slew of other billionaires linked to the Knights of Columbus and conservative Catholic Cardinals – all of whom enjoy favor with Breitbart’s Steve Bannon and the Trump administration.
Seeking to replicate the rise of the Evangelical right in
the 1980s, the group advocates a Catholic version of the prosperity gospel
described by Roberts as “a hybrid of traditional pieties wrapped in
American-style excess and positioned most conspicuously in service of
free-market capitalism.” It is “. . . ‘in your face Catholicism’ . . . often
expressed amid multi-course meals followed by wine and cigar receptions,
private cocktail parties for the especially privileged, traditional Catholic
devotionals, Mass said in Latin for those so inclined, ‘patriotic rosary’
sessions that include readings from George Washington and Robert E. Lee, and
the occasional break for a round of golf.”
Doctrinally, the goal is to bury more deeply than ever what many have called “the best kept secret of the Catholic Church,” viz. its progressive social teachings. Since Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical, Rerum Novarum, those teachings have repeatedly criticized the abuses of both capitalism and socialism while advocating workers’ rights, labor unions, fair wages, social security, and (especially with Pope Francis) care for the earth in the face of human-caused climate chaos.
The billionaire cabal in question finds especially offensive not just Francis’ emphasis on social justice themes, but the 1983 pastoral by the USCCB questioning the morality of modern warfare and of nuclear weapons. They resent above all the bishops’ 1986 letter entitled “Economic Justice for All” which disagreed specifically with the economic policies of the group’s great hero, Ronald Reagan.
In place of such teachings, the billionaires in question
think that the Catholic social narrative should focus exclusively on sexual
issues: abortion, contraception, gay rights, and the rights of divorced and
remarried people within the Catholic Church. They want the church to be more
celebratory of individualism, entrepreneurship, and of free market fixes for
society’s problems. Their goal is to shrink government in general and diminish
its services to the poor and marginalized in particular.
Doesn’t that sound completely like the Republican agenda?
And with the Catholic Church currently weakened and reeling
from its sex-abuse scandals, the billionaire conspirators are convinced that
the time is completely ripe for their hostile takeover.
But could anything be further from the teachings of Jesus
which a few weeks ago, our Gospel reading summarized as “good news to the poor?”
There, Jesus announced his program with the following words: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”
This was a proclamation of a new order (what Jesus called “the Kingdom of God”) directed towards improving the lot of the poor, the imprisoned, the ill and oppressed. It was the proclamation of the Jewish “Jubilee Year,” where debts would be forgiven, slaves freed, and wealth redistributed.
Now in today’s Gospel reading, the Master expresses the same
sentiment, only this time in even a more in-your-face manner. Here, it’s worth
quoting the words Luke attributes to Jesus.
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for the kingdom of God is yours.
Blessed are you who are now hungry,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who are now weeping,
for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you,
and when they exclude and insult you,
and denounce your name as evil
on account of the Son of Man . . .
But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
Woe to you who are filled now,
for you will be hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now,
for you will grieve and weep.
Woe to you when all speak well of you,
for their ancestors treated the false
prophets in this way.”
Shocking words – all of them, don’t you agree? They are part
of the great reversal in the new order proclaimed by Jesus. There, the values
of the world will be turned on their heads. The poor will be in charge. They
will have food to eat. Laughter will replace their tears.
But the rich will experience great misery (woe). That’s because they have been led astray by
false prophets like those cardinals participating in the billionaire hostile
takeover of the Catholic Church. Those fake prophets console the super-rich
with honeyed words about their specialness
But according to Luke’s Jesus, the rich may be enjoying those
multi-course meals, private cocktail parties, cigar receptions and rounds of
golf now. But when the Kingdom’s new order comes, they will find themselves
hungry. They may be laughing now, but then they will weep and cry. Their false
prophets may praise them now but come the new order, the wealthy will be cursed
as the most wretched of men.
Obviously, Jesus’ teaching contradicts our culture’s worship
of the rich. We think of the rich as heroic entrepreneurs. Jesus sees them as
worthless wretches. We see the poor as losers. Jesus sees them as objects of
God’s special favor.
In other words, Jesus turns our thinking upside down. As Marianne Williamson puts it: Jesus’ truth (God’s truth) is 180 degrees opposed to what our culture values and teaches.
That realization should be Christians’ fundamental guide in reading the news and thinking about world events. It should be the confident guide of our activist efforts.
Everything is the opposite of what our culture claims!
