The establishment in Jesus’ day had the same problem. The gospels record that Jesus’ initial clashes with the authorities arose from their opposition to his healing ministry, especially his healing on the Sabbath (Matt. 9:34, Mark 3:6, John 5:16). Rather than rejoice in the healings, they found reason to attack Jesus, attributing to him an evil spirit or focusing on their petty, legalistic concerns regarding Sabbath while missing the greater meaning of Sabbath (the Sabbath laws were largely about rest for workers and the earth and redistribution of wealth). Jesus charged them with neglecting “the weightier matters of justice and mercy.” In exasperation he exclaimed, “you strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!” (Matt 23:23-24).

Today the tendency of public figures, and even of churches, is to moderate their message when they come under attack so that they might avoid further criticism. Jesus, however, responded differently: He actually waged a counter attack; he took the battle to the establishment. He criticized their practices (e.g. Matt 23:1-36) and told parables against them (e.g. Mark 12:1-12). He marched on Jerusalem, hailed as a popular king, and then went to the temple, the seat of the Judean establishment, and shut it down (Mark 11:1-19).

The mainstream political and media establishments of our world obfuscate the truth by focusing on petty and irrelevant issues. As a result, we may be tempted to give up and allow them to reframe reality, but Jesus calls us to follow him in actively opposing their deception. Let us, in the footsteps and Spirit of Jesus, continue to speak the truth boldly and prophetically so that the world might be set free from its bondage to falsehood.

Confronting lies and murder is risky business. Not confronting such evil is, however, also dangerous and, in the long run, may result in even greater destruction. Left unchecked, the spirits of deceit and murder will corrupt and overwhelm whole societies.

In these days of endless war and its multiplying justifications, we find ourselves battling these same spirits. The worldly powers that wage war and injustice have always relied on sophisticated systems of deceit to perpetrate their crimes, but we have witnessed in these last few years something more brazen: The lies are more blatant, their speakers more arrogant. A quick search on Youtube will produce multiple videos (such as this one) showing clips of administration officials flatly contradicting themselves as they deceive a whole nation to wage war.

Against such an assault on truth, we must continue to stand firm. In John 7-8, Jesus models for us how to stand firm. He does not allow the deception to define reality but persists in reframing reality according to God’s truth.

Jesus moves according to God’s schedule rather than when others think that he should: He does not go to Jerusalem when his brothers urge him to but instead goes in his own “time” (7:1-10). He does not let the authorities arrest him because it is not his “hour” (7:29).

Jesus also redefines his death as going somewhere that the Judean leaders “cannot come” (7:32-36). He refers to his crucifixion as a victorious event in which he is “lifted up” (8:28).

Throughout all of this, Jesus stubbornly sticks to his message, shining his light in the darkness, even though he is ridiculed and even attacked.

In these times of mass deception, let us also define our reality according to God’s truth. Let us move in God’s timing, not merely reacting to events. Let us discern in the Spirit what our lives are about rather than allowing them to be shaped by nationalism, materialism, and militarism. And let us continue telling the truth, relentlessly confronting lies and murder. The truth we speak, the lives we live, and the actions that we take are the seeds that we sow in the world, and their fruit will be born in God’s time.

“Why do I speak to you at all!” Jesus yells at the Judean leaders (John 8:25). He has tried to speak to them in metaphor and parable, but they cannot hear. So he tries to speak to them plainly, yet they are still deaf to his message. Although he desperately wants to reach them, he has to face the reality that the truth he speaks is very difficult for people of power and privilege to comprehend.

The masses of the common poor are drawn to his wisdom, but they do not immediately understand it either. Sometimes he has to explain it to them, as with the parable of the sower. (Mk 4:1-20, Matt 13:1-23) In John 16:29, his disciples say to him, “Now you are speaking plainly.” They begin to understand.

Truth, the kind that changes people and heals the world, cannot usually be spoken plainly because it sounds, in this world, like insanity. A world steeped in falsehoods cannot tolerate plainly spoken truth. Truth has to sneak in through parables and riddles. It has to gain entry through a back door.

But there comes a time when it must be spoken plainly. When Jesus spoke plainly to the authorities, he was accused of being demon-possessed (John 8:48) and was finally crucified.

Today we live in similar world where truth often sounds insane. A world steeped in the falsehoods of war and injustice rejects the Word of Truth. Sometimes we must speak in parable and metaphor, as we did last year in the Palm Sunday Peace Parade. Since Palm Sunday coincided with April Fools Day last year, the parade became a performance of absurdist theater, contrasting the “foolishness of God’s wisdom” with the wisdom of the world that leads to war and misery. The theme was “Fools for Christ.”

This year we will try to speak plainly. We are currently forming an “Iran Study Group” that will examine the Bush administration’s case for war against Iran. The findings will be publicly presented to various authorities who represent us in government. We do not know what they will do with the information, but our job is to be faithful to the truth and to continue to speak it, whether in parable or plainly. And this we will do.

I’m not merely making an issue of the incongruity between our sentimental yuletide rituals and the actual content of the original Christmas story; I’m concerned about how this incongruity plays out in our society. A CBS News poll this past June revealed that a whopping 77% of Americans believe that the Bible is either the “inspired” or “actual” Word of God. That sort of widespread faith in the Bible would lead one to expect that one of Bible’s major stories might be taken more seriously, especially since our biggest holiday purports to commemorate it. Yet not only are its horrific details glossed over and its subversive thrust entirely missed, even the more popular Nativity lessons of charity and “peace to all” are sentimentalized into the innocuous décor of the season. The birthday of the peasant child who threatened, by his very existence, the power elite of his day becomes for us an occasion for shifting into high gear our over-consumption of the earth’s resources. Meanwhile our nation’s military attacks peaceful people the world over so that our over-consumption can continue for many Christmases to come. Our easy believism exacts a high cost on the rest of the world and on our own souls as well.

I’m not suggesting throwing out the Christmas trees and hot chocolate. Christmas should be a celebration. We should celebrate God’s entry into the human experience. In this peasant child, God experienced the poverty, the helplessness, and the wonder of what it means to be one of us. God entered into our world, our reality, and gave us hope, gave us faith, that things can change, that our world can be reborn. This gift of faith calls for tremendous celebration! But the faith that we celebrate is not an easy faith. Believing that the world can be different than it is, believing in a “new heavens and a new earth,” and living out that belief, means hard work, perseverance and sacrifice. It means letting everything we know and trust be challenged. It means standing up against injustice and war. It means being a threat to the power elite and possibly incurring the wrath of that establishment. Christmas may very well be the hardest and most costly thing we’ll ever believe in.

So let’s keep the Christmas trees and hot chocolate, but let’s also read the Christmas story more honestly and admit that it is not an easy story to read or believe in. God’s incarnation among us is no easy feel-good tale. The story of Emmanuel, God-with-us, brings us hope, turns our whole world upside down, and shakes the very foundations of our existence.

]]> http://urbvil.org/blogs/bert/2007/12/09/christmas-faith/feed/ http://urbvil.org/blogs/bert/2007/11/07/where-i-am-going-you-cannot-come/ http://urbvil.org/blogs/bert/2007/11/07/where-i-am-going-you-cannot-come/#comments Thu, 08 Nov 2007 06:59:56 +0000 bert Biblical Reflections http://urbvil.org/blogs/bert/2007/11/07/where-i-am-going-you-cannot-come/ 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.

You’d think that all of the trendy shops and eateries, all of the latest shiny electronic gadgets, all the current fashions in clothing, would distract them from their fighting, make them think about assimilating into the rest of society so they can live the good life like the rest of us. But apparently our way of life doesn’t appeal to them; they already have phat clothes and ipods, and they’re doing very well in the drug business, thank you.

Meanwhile, voices throughout the city call for better parenting, community policing and more programs for youth, which, when viewed from the perspective of the larger forces at play in our society, appear as mere bandaids that we’ve applied before and to little effect since the malady runs much deeper than the surface. Historic and systemic causes of this mayhem go largely unexamined partly because we’re tired of talking about racism and partly because the moral and spiritual harvest of a free market, capitalist empire gets virtually no play in mainstream media and culture.

We seem to be aware that consumerism and materialism daily undermine the more authentic human values that we wish our young people would somehow absorb from us. Reports often warn us of the ever greater and greater disparities of wealth and power in our society. Occasionally we are reminded of the incredible and unprecedented power that has been accumulated by the large corporations who now seem to mold just about every aspect of American life. We have even come slowly and painstakingly to the conclusion that our nation is once again mired down in a completely insane and unwinnable war for no good reason. But seldom is any of this put together to explain why disaffected young people in our beautiful city might want to gun each other down in the streets. We seem to think that our plunder of the world’s resources and the wars we wage against civilian populations elsewhere should have no moral repercussions here at home.

We can play off these larger societal concerns as impractical for us to address given the very local problems right in front of us, but we will find ourselves returning over and over again to the same community forums to discuss the latest wave of violence. And there are things that we can do to confront the larger forces arrayed against us while also putting the necessary local programs in place. We could, for example, severely limit corporate advertising in Pasadena - on billboards, cable and elsewhere. We could ban from Pasadena corporations that profit from exploited labor or war (e.g. Parsons). We could stand continuously and unequivocally against imperial war, not just with a city council resolution (and our council has refused to do even that), but also with constant parades, marches and public statements and making ourselves a sanctuary city for soldiers who refuse to deploy. We could get rid of the military recruiting centers that are positioned right across the street from our community college, beckoning the young adults from low income families to leave their education and go kill even poorer people somewhere else. Then our real commitment to justice and peace would eventually reshape the soul of our city, and our messages of nonviolence to our young people would not ring so hollow. One city can do things to transform its moral core. The question is whether we have the moral and spiritual determination to make the sacrifices necessary – we would have to forgo the kind of economic prosperity that we are used to. No more Iraq war money flowing down through Parsons.

A society that promotes overconsumption of the earth’s resources on the backs of the world’s poor and then makes war against anyone who gets in the way should expect to find moral decay and violence among its youth. And a city that participates in or colludes with such savage behavior should not expect to be spared the same spiritual consequences. The road to spiritual transformation will not be quick and easy, but neither did our society, begun with slavery and genocide, get to this place overnight. Spiritual and moral transformation is our only hope for real and lasting change.

Jesus warned us about the boomerang effects of our choices when he declared that “the one who takes up the sword will die by the sword.” He also called us to be spiritually transformed, “born again,” into a society, not of violence, patriarchy and nationalism, but of love, justice and mercy. May we soon acquire the honesty to repent of our sinful collusion with the powers of evil and hear once again the Gospel of Peace that can transform our souls.

If you google his name, you will find over 300 listings of his peace activities. He hosted delegations for Christian Peacemaker Teams in his village in the West Bank. He co-founded an organization that brings together Palestinian and Israeli parents who have lost children in the conflict. He led nonviolent protests and nonviolent direct actions against the occupation. He has spoken all over North America and Europe for peace and an end to the U.S.-funded Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. And now, if he goes back to Palestine, the Palestinian Authority may likely arrest him on suspicion of being a collaborator because he collaborates with Israelis and American Jews to bring an end to the violence and an end to the increasingly brutal occupation. So he has applied for asylum in the U.S, but that means, according to his attorney, that if he tries to leave the country, he will be arrested at the border or airport.

On July 29, The Peace Center @ CAL hosted him for yet another talk about peace in Palestine. With a fairly knowledgeable small crowd, he shared stories of growing up under the occupation, losing two brothers who were shot by Israeli soldiers, being himself detained and questioned by the Palestinian Authority, and his journey towards asylum in the U.S. His asylum process has dragged on for over two years now, during which time he has struggled financially. The Urban Village, which hosted the event on July 29^th, has been raising money for his support and helping him find work (He is an electrician by trade and adept at many types of handiwork).

If you want to contribute toward his support or find out more about how you can help him, contact Bert Newton at elbertwalkernewton@yahoo.com or 626-793-1103.

]]> http://urbvil.org/blogs/bert/2007/08/13/from-occupation-to-asylum/feed/ http://urbvil.org/blogs/bert/2007/07/19/apocalyptic-reflection-and-praise/ http://urbvil.org/blogs/bert/2007/07/19/apocalyptic-reflection-and-praise/#comments Fri, 20 Jul 2007 03:37:16 +0000 bert Biblical Reflections http://urbvil.org/blogs/bert/2007/07/19/apocalyptic-reflection-and-praise/ This past December, the last bit of the island of Lohachara sank beneath waters of the Bay of Bengal. The first inhabited land mass to succumb to the rising sea levels caused by global warming, its 10,000 inhabitants have been gradually evacuating to neighboring islands over the past 20 years. The islands that these environmental refugees now inhabit are also predicted to succumb to the rising sea levels over the next 14 years. This remote island tragedy unfolds far, far away from the urban U.S. mainland where I live.

Where I live, I bike or walk to work most days. When I walk, I am able to take the time to notice the city around me, both its beauty and its tragedy. Starting from my house, I walk down a beautiful tree-lined street. A few years ago, our neighborhood played unwitting host to a local street gang, several drug dealers, and many homeless people. Gentrification has eliminated much of that. Thanks to the economic prosperity of our city, I walk through a neighborhood that is now safer, quieter and less affordable to many low income families who have been forced to move away. These economic refugees have moved to other neighborhoods that may also one day be gentrified.

As I reach the end of my block, I pass day laborers, economic refugees from countries to the south. I cross a parking lot where some remaining homeless people spend their days. I cross over a major freeway, its traffic roaring with the sound of economic activity and the emissions of smog and global warming. I then pass through the center of the city with its building boom of luxury apartments and condos. I reflect on how the economic engine that brings prosperity to many also causes global warming and creates refugees all over the world. I reflect, and I pray for New Day.

Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise from the end of the earth!

Let the sea roar and all that fills it, the islands and their inhabitants. (Isaiah 42:10)

For I am about to create a new heavens and a new earth; the former things shall not be remembered . . .

I am about to create Jerusalem as a joy and its people as a delight . . .

No more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it or the cry of distress . . .

They shall build houses and inhabit them, they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit . . .

They shall not labor in vain or bear children for calamity . . .

The wolf and the lamb shall feed together . . .

They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, says the Lord. (Isaiah 65: 17-25)

]]> http://urbvil.org/blogs/bert/2007/07/19/apocalyptic-reflection-and-praise/feed/ http://urbvil.org/blogs/bert/2007/03/19/can-we-see-the-work-of-the-cross-do-we-understand/ http://urbvil.org/blogs/bert/2007/03/19/can-we-see-the-work-of-the-cross-do-we-understand/#comments Mon, 19 Mar 2007 13:46:58 +0000 bert Biblical Reflections http://urbvil.org/blogs/bert/2007/03/19/can-we-see-the-work-of-the-cross-do-we-understand/ John 12:1-8

Jesus returns to the home of Lazarus . . . and Mary and Martha. Martha serves them, and Mary anoints Jesus feet with expensive perfume and wipes his feet with her hair. The fragrance of the perfume fills the house, and Judas objects saying that the perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor. Jesus defends Mary saying that she is anointing him for burial. Then he adds, “You always have the poor with you but you do not always have me.”

This is a powerful passage . . . and, I want to suggest, a widely misunderstood passage. And I want to suggest also that there is innocent misunderstanding and not so innocent misunderstanding. Jesus had much to say about understanding, or hearing, the Gospel, about who understands and who doesn’t. He had harsh words for those who could not understand, for those who could not hear his message, for those who could not see what he was doing. These harsh words were not for those whose misunderstanding was innocent, who merely needed more time to ponder the message or merely needed to have it explained to them differently.  His harsh words were for those who misunderstood, could not hear his message, because it challenged them in a way they did not care to be challenged, because it upset their world.

In the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke), Jesus tells the parable of the sower, and then, right before explaining the parable to his disciples, he pronounces judgment on those who don’t understand because they are spiritually deaf and spiritually blind (but not on those who merely need further explanation); He says to his disciples, “The reason I speak to them in parables is that seeing they do not perceive and hearing they do not listen, nor do they understand. With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says, “You will indeed listen, but never understand, and you will indeed look, but never perceive. For this people’s heart has grown dull, and their ears are hard of hearing, and they have shut their eyes; so they might not look with their eyes and listen with their ears and understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.” (Matthew 13:13-15).

In another place Jesus rejoices at who has heard his message and how the hearing of this message reverses the established order in society.. He says, “I thank you Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned and have revealed them to infants.”

The Gospel, the hearing of the Gospel, reverses everything. Those who are normally thought to understand and know everything are revealed to be deaf and blind, and those who are normally thought to be ignorant and foolish, are the ones who can see and hear. What we understand, what we hear, reveals a lot about us.

So as we look at this passage in John 12, I want to keep in mind this idea of understanding, of how we understand this text, and why we understand it the way we do. And I want to keep in mind who understands what in the text itself.

As the scene opens, the text tells us that Jesus’ hour is almost upon him. It is 6 days before the hour. The text says that it is 6 days before Passover. Six more days, the work week, six more days before the Sabbath rest.  Six days of work and then Jesus can rest in death  . . . before his resurrection. Six days before Passover.

The Passover celebration bookends the Gospel of John.  Jesus goes to Jerusalem for Passover at the beginning of the Gospel and then again at the end of the Gospel. And he goes once in between as well as to two other Israelite feasts in Jerusalem. These celebrations root the ministry of Jesus firmly in the Israelite story. Passover celebrated the liberation of the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt, leading to their subsequent birth as the nation of Israel. The Passover occurrences in the Gospel of John work literarily to underscore Jesus’ call to Israel to be reborn, to be liberated from their spiritual slavery within the Roman system. Just as the first Passover called them out of slavery in Egypt, Jesus calls them out of their spiritual slavery within the Roman system.

I say that it is “spiritual slavery within the Roman system” because it is often taught that Jesus was apolitical and that the exodus/Passover theme in gospels is about Jesus calling people out of their spiritual slavery rather than national slavery, and that the spiritual slavery has nothing to do with the Roman occupation but is rather only for individuals. But, if we read John closely, we can see that the spiritual slavery from which the Judeans suffered was very much connected to the Roman occupation.

You see, it is 6 days before Passover, and Jesus is at the house of Lazarus. This is Lazarus, whom he had recently called back from death, called right out of his tomb.  Lazarus’ resurrection had led to a special meeting of the San Hedrin, the Judean government, where they hatched a plot to kill Jesus. Jesus ministry of life posed too much of a threat to the Roman rule of death. They feared that Jesus’ ministry of Resurrection would bring Roman wrath down on their heads. (You can read about it in John 11:45-57.)

This second visit to the home of Lazarus in John 12 results in the San Hedrin hatching a second plot, this time to kill Lazarus (vs. 9-11). The reason they want to kill Lazarus is that the testimony of his resurrection is causing “defections” from their rule to Jesus. Jesus ministry very much affects the political situation and calls people out from under oppressive powers and authorities.

So Jesus is at the home of Lazarus, 6 days before Passover. Martha serves them.  And then Mary comes in, and it is as if the Holy Spirit has overtaken her because she does a most irrational, a most beautiful, a most poignant act.  She pours a pound of expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet and then wipes his feet with her hair. This extraordinary, perhaps even scandalous behavior takes everyone by surprise, and leaves them all speechless . . . . all that is except for one. But Mary, it seems, is too caught up in this holy, sacred moment to notice or care about what anyone else might be saying or thinking. It is as if she understands something that no one else has quite yet understood. As we read that the fragrance fills the house, we feel the power of her act, the pregnancy of this moment. The Greek word used here for fragrance is the same root word that  a few pages earlier is used when Martha warns Jesus of the stench coming from Lazarus’ grave. What they all smell is at once the fragrance and the stench of death.

Then Judas makes his objection.  Jesus responds by first explaining that her action constitutes a symbolic embalming.

What!? What does he mean by that? In John’s gospel, Jesus has not yet said straight out that he is about to be killed. He has said that he is “going away” to some place where his enemies cannot follow, but that’s as clear as he’s been. In the synoptic gospels, he is much clearer about his impending crucifixion, but what’s the difference really? In those gospels, the texts are also clear that his disciples don’t understand what he is saying. So, there is no difference really. The author of John has Jesus talking cryptically up to this point and then here Jesus dramatically drops the bomb. The disciples are stunned; the meaning of the fragrance begins to hit them like a ton of bricks.

(Pause)

Then Jesus adds the most famous words of the passage, words that have echoed down two millennia, frequently twisted by those who do not have ears to hear, those who are unable, or unwilling to hear the Gospel. He says, “You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

So forget the rest of the Gospel testimony to Jesus’ concern for the poor and the oppressed. Forget that in Luke 7, Jesus says that the kingdom of God is given to the poor and not the rich. Forget that in Matthew 25 Jesus says that only those who minister to the poor, the sick and the imprisoned will inherit the kingdom. Forget that in Matthew 11, Jesus refers to the Gospel as good news for the poor. Forget that in Luke 4 Jesus inaugurates his ministry by declaring the year of Jubilee, a radical vision of land reform that would have liberated the poor from debt bondage. No, forget all that. All of that is not to be heard, but only, “the poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me.” And with this one partial statement, social justice is pitted against the pious reverence of Jesus Christ. It is asserted that having Him is what is first and foremost the most important thing and that social justice is at best a second order concern, or at worst a distraction from true piety.

But I want to suggest that this interpretation of the text fails on two counts:

First, it fails to notice or examine the Hebrew scriptures that Jesus alludes to when he says, “The poor you always have with you.” Jesus refers to a passage in Deut. 15 concerning the Sabbath year legislation that was set in place to maintain economic justice. The text states that these laws are set forth so that “there will be no poor among you.” Then a few verses later the text makes room for reality that despite these laws, there will in all likelihood always be poor in the land – “the poor will always be with you.” So it encourages a liberal attitude toward giving and lending to the poor.

Jesus cites this passage because it is the one familiar to those around him that would justify Judas’ claim that they should be thinking about the poor.  But Jesus is also very aware, in fact he has made the point in his ministry, that the Sabbath has not been kept holy, that the Sabbath laws of wealth redistribution have been ignored, causing an abundance of poor people in the land.  He is aware that alms giving, charity giving to the poor, the minor note of that Deuteronomic passage, has come to serve as a poor substitute for holy Sabbath justice, a way of enabling those of means to feel magnanimous without really surrendering their power and privilege over the poor, without observing the justice that God demands.  And so Jesus is not much impressed with this kind of hypocritical charity. He knows that the people need, and God demands, justice.  And so he emphasizes his own mission: “She bought it so she might keep it for the day of my burial. The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me”

And that brings us to the second failure of the interpretation that pits piety against social justice: It fails to comprehend why Jesus took up his cross and was crucified.

With the fragrance of death filling the house, Judas deceptively declares his desire to do charity for the poor. Jesus ignores the deception and dismisses the sanctimonious inadequacy of charity, drawing attention instead to why he is there. The hour is almost upon him. In 6 days the hour of his glory will arrive (all of the gospels refer to the crucifixion as the hour of his glory). In 6 days he will strike a blow at the very structures of domination and oppression that grind the face of the poor and blaspheme the very name of God.

In 6 days he will offer his body as a sacrifice, as a Passover lamb (the text in John describes Jesus’ crucified body in the terms of a Passover lamb).

In 6 days the full force of the empire will come against him to crush him, but in doing so it will reveal its own beastliness, it will reveal its satanic nature. And it will reveal Jesus victory over it.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus refers 3 times to his crucifixion as being “lifted up,” an extremely positive euphemism for what would normally be a tragic and brutal occurrence. This “lifting up,” this crucifixion, Jesus declares, will give hope and salvation to the world, it will draw all people to him, and it will shine a light in the darkness, revealing the evil of his enemies.

The shining of a light in the darkness and revealing the evil of his enemies becomes stunningly clear, in John, when, in their cry for Jesus to be crucified, Jesus’ Judean enemies reveal their true allegiance, crying, “we have no king but Caesar!” Such a cry was blasphemy for the pious Judean for whom, if they were going to talk about one King, it would have to be God, certainly not the king of the hated Romans who maintained a brutal occupation of their land. In this cry, Jesus’ enemies reveal themselves for who they are: Traitors to their own people and traitors to God.

The early church came to understand the cross as place of victory over the powers and authorities that crucified Jesus. 1 Colossians 2:15 says that Jesus “disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in the cross.”

The cross was the hour of Jesus glory, when he was lifted up, drawing all people to himself and defeating the powers and authorities of this present darkness.

The victory of the cross is the secret of the Gospel; it is the door to resurrection.

It is in the cross that the powers are disarmed. It is in the cross that we are reborn. It is in the cross that we are liberated from our spiritual slavery to the systems of domination and oppression.

The Judeans, especially the Judean elite, resisted being liberated from their spiritual bondage to Rome. They resisted being led by Jesus in a new Passover, a new exodus, to reborn, born again as a prophetic community that would shine its light to the nations.

Christians in America today, I want to suggest, are not much different. The American church engages in the same resistance to Jesus the liberator who would lead us out of our spiritual bondage in the American system. We also resist being born again.

We in the United States of America bear the inheritance both of the Bible and of Rome.

The Bible, I believe, has much to do with our concern for human rights and democracy. But there are other influences as well, such as that of Rome, clearly seen in the abundance of Roman architecture in Washington, and the Latin inscriptions on our money. It is this kind of influence that has led us to empire and the building of the largest military on the planet, as large as the next 20 largest militaries combined (in terms of budget).

But the legacy of empire is not merely a matter of foreign policy. It is more than that. It is a spirit that pervades our entire society. It influences how we live, what we buy, how much space we think we need, how we tread on the earth, how we raise our children.

The spirit of the cross of Christ is a spirit of courage. The spirit of empire is a spirit of fear. It tells us that we must dominate or be dominated. That we must increase or we will decrease. That we must have more, and bigger and larger things to fill the ever widening chasm in our soul.

And we have to ask ourselves, is this who we really want to be? Is this how we want to raise our children? Always needing more; always afraid; afraid of the terrorist, afraid of the stranger, afraid of the alien and the poor?

The cross leads us in a different direction. It leads us toward courage. It leads us toward justice. The cross does not lead us along an easy road. It is a road of sacrifice. It is a road where we encounter death. But it is a road that Christ travels with us.

And we can learn from Mary. When she washed Jesus feet, she did it, I’m sure, in part out of gratitude for what he had done for her brother Lazarus. But, according to Jesus, she also did it because she understood something. She understood, on some deep, maybe precognitive level, that Jesus was about to be killed, that his clash with the authorities was ultimately a clash with Rome and that it would be fatal. But she didn’t try to dissuade Jesus. Rather, she anointed him for the mission. She anointed him because she understood that there was something in Jesus more powerful than Rome. She understood that Jesus was not going to play by Rome’s rules. She understood that he was going to do something that the powers and those under their spell would not be able to comprehend. She understood that what he was going to do was going to cost him far more than the perfume that she used to anoint his feet. She understood the stench of death, and she understood the fragrance of resurrection, and that the two go hand in hand.

The cross does not play around with cheap acts of charity. The cross of Christ strikes at the very foundation of our world and the very foundations of our lives, calling us to be born again, to be a prophetic community, shining our light in the darkness, daring to understand and to see what many around us are afraid to understand and to see. It calls us out of slavery and fear and darkness and lifts us up with Jesus into freedom and courage and the marvelous light of God.

]]> http://urbvil.org/blogs/bert/2007/03/19/can-we-see-the-work-of-the-cross-do-we-understand/feed/ http://urbvil.org/blogs/bert/2007/01/28/jesus-rod-a-donkey/ http://urbvil.org/blogs/bert/2007/01/28/jesus-rod-a-donkey/#comments Mon, 29 Jan 2007 05:50:25 +0000 bert Biblical Reflections http://urbvil.org/blogs/bert/2007/01/28/jesus-rod-a-donkey/ A Theater of the Oppressed

Matthew 21:1-11

Mark 11:1-11

Luke 19:28-40

John 12:12-19

What do country bumpkins do when they come to the big city? The city folk are so much more sophisticated: Their clothes are trendier, their speech more urbane, their transportation flashier. The country folk stick out like a sore thumb and draw contemptuous looks from the city folk. Such was likely the experience of the Galilean peasants coming into Jerusalem for Passover. They must have felt a strong impulse to try to just blend in, to assimilate. That is until one of their local heroes arrived; then suddenly they were willing to make their presence known and proclaim their own regional candidate for king. They did not care how pathetic and absurd their candidate appeared to the city folk; in fact, they reveled in the absurdity, in the simple down home candor of their champion.

Jesus of Nazareth came in peasant clothes, riding a donkey. When Roman dignitaries came to Jerusalem, they would arrive with an impressive procession of war horses and chariots. In absurd contrast, Jesus rode this lone, pathetic beast of burden. He needed no army. He needed no chariots and war horses. He needed only the singular weapon of the common poor: the word of God, the prophetic word that cuts like a double-edged sword. His absurdist theater sent forth a word of revelation: It revealed the absurd cruelty of the Roman occupation; it laid bare the foolish complicity of the Jerusalem elite with their Roman overlords; it revealed the defeat of the kingdoms of this world and the coming victory of the in-breaking Reign of God. The disciples recalled the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9-10:

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!

Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!

Lo, your king comes to you;

Triumphant and victorious is he,

humble and riding on a donkey.

He will cut off the chariot from Ephraim

and the war horse from Jerusalem;

and the battle bow shall be cut off.

And he shall command peace to the nations!

(NRSV)

Following the example of Jesus, On April 1^st at 3 in the afternoon, The Peace Center @ CAL will sponsor the 5^th annual Palm Sunday Peace Parade. We will march from a historically marginalized neighborhood in Pasadena to the economic center of the city. There we will sing and pray for peace. We will witness against the powers and authorities of this world that make war against God’s poor ones, and witness for the in-breaking Reign of God, a reign of justice and peace. Come join us on this April Fools Sunday as we engage in absurdist theater to reveal the foolishness of war and the wisdom of God which is foolishness to the world (I Cor. 18-25). For further information, contact Bert Newton, bnewton@pmcweb.org or 626-793-1103.

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