bert

Despite the war in Iraq having spun out of control several years ago and become completely unwinnable by the U.S. and coalition forces, the U.S. Senate just voted for another $150 billion more in funding for it (actually, part of the money goes for the war in Afghanistan, also out of control and unwinnable – the UN reports that violence there is up 30% this year making it the most violent year since the invasion six years ago). This senatorial behavior fits perfectly the definition of insanity that has been making the rounds in recent years: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Compounding this sense of insanity is the reality of the domestic scene where we have tens of millions of Americans without health insurance and the most incarcerated citizenry of any nation on earth. You’d think that such stark realities would be a wake up call to our leaders. And weren’t the Democrats supposed to rescue us from all this craziness after we voted them in?

I live in a city that has long been controlled by Democrats, ours is one of those color-coded blue cities on political maps, and maybe that’s why I never really placed much hope in a Democratically-controlled congress. Our city has experienced intense gentrification in the last five to seven years, resulting in the exodus of hundreds of low income families who can no longer afford to live here. In anticipation of this dramatic displacement, some of us banded together and lobbied our liberal city council, begging them to pass meaningful affordable housing legislation that might avert this disaster. We testified at council meetings, brought in experts, handed them petitions, conducted post card campaigns; we even wrote and performed a theater piece to illustrate the situation to them. They chuckled at our theater and wrote us off as a fringe element, hard core activists and misinformed poor people with little understanding of how economics really works. They listened instead to the developers and other moneyed interests, passed a weak inclusionary zoning ordinance as a token gesture of their concern for the poor, and stood by for the next seven years as the poor were displaced from our city in droves. I found out later that one of the most liberal council members was sold a house for $1 by one of the developers soon after the failure of our campaign.

So much for liberals and Democrats. It seems that money, not proclaimed ideology, is the ball that we should have kept our eye on.

The U.S. congressional representative for our district was initially elected in what was then the most expensive congressional race in American history. He’s a Democrat. He voted for the war. His largest single contributor is Parson’s Engineering, a firm based in our liberal city and one of the foremost war profiteers in Iraq. This example, I think, gives us some idea as to why the Democratically-controlled Congress continues to effectively support the war. Both major parties rely on Big Money to maintain their power. Jesus warned us long ago, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:21)

This very sort of heart condition is precisely why Jesus, in the Gospel of John, informs the Judean leaders that they cannot follow him. Speaking in the manner personified Wisdom, Jesus tells them, “Where I am going, you cannot come.” In the Hebrew wisdom literature, the sages ask rhetorically, “Learn where wisdom is…Who can find her location?” (Baruch III 14-15). In Proverbs 1:28-29, Lady Wisdom cries out, “they will call on me, but I will not answer, they will seek me diligently, but will not find me because they have hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord.” In the fourth gospel, Jesus takes on the persona of Lady Wisdom, telling the leaders, “You will seek me but you will not find me, where I am going, you cannot come.” (7:34). The Judean leaders are too invested in their positions of power to be able to follow Jesus. They pretend to lead the people, but they benefit from the Roman occupation. They are not good shepherds; they “steal, kill and destroy” (10:10). Jesus is going to the cross in holy triumphant defiance of the powers of evil, but the Judeans, rather than follow him, hand him over to the powers, declaring their allegiance to those powers: “We have no king but the emperor!” (19:15)

Hearts corrupted by money and power cannot find wisdom, cannot see the truth, and cannot follow Jesus. Even when their actions appear completely insane to others, they are still blind. They proclaim their allegiance to evil powers. They fund crazy wars. The insanity of their behavior does not wake them up.

But Jesus says to his followers, I go to prepare a place for you. In the narrative of John, that place is the cross, the doorway to the Kingdom of God. The cross is where worldly power dies and God’s reign begins. The cross is the defeat of the powers and authorities of this world. The cross is the beginning of wisdom, the beginning of sanity.