Is Jesus Your Personal (and Political) Lord and Savior?
John Shuck
First Presbyterian Church
Elizabethton, Tennessee
November 25th,
2007
Reign of Christ
Sunday
If there is one thing that will get ministers in trouble, it
is to bring politics into the pulpit. It
doesn’t matter if they are correct to do so or not, or correct in their views
or not, mixing politics and preaching is like mixing potassium and water--it is
explosive.
Most ministers, wisely, avoid
it.
The problem, for those of us who are wise, is that we have
to ignore most of the Bible, we have to ignore Jesus, and virtually all of
Christian history. Or if we don’t
ignore it, we spiritualize it.
What I mean by spiritualize is this. When Jesus is recorded as saying,
‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’
..he meant that spiritually as in poor in spirit,
captive to sin, blind in their hearts, oppressed by personal demons and so
forth.
Theology over the centuries has largely been an exercise in
de-politicizing the Gospel.
If an alien from the far reaches of the galaxy were to visit
Earth, observe Christian preaching and report back what it is that preachers
do, the alien would say something like this:
“Earthlings do an interesting thing on Sunday morning. They pay this guy to preach from a book and
reward him when he completely misses the point.”
Or the alien might saying something like this: “The preacher preaches about a guy named
Jesus without ever saying what Jesus said.”
Christianity over the centuries turned the spirituality of Jesus into a superstition about
Jesus.
To put it one more way:
Jesus preached about the coming of the Kingdom of God on Earth. The church said, “No thanks, we would rather
just go to heaven when we die.”
I admit that what I have said so far has been pretty harsh. I
have also used hyperbole. I think,
however, my observation is valid.
Journalist Barbara Ehrenreich tells of her experience of
visiting a tent revival in Portland, Maine.
The preacher was preaching about Jesus on the cross. She looked at the audience, mostly
impoverished people, and she thought:
“It would be nice if
someone would read this sad-eyed crowd the Sermon on the Mount, accompanied by
a rousing commentary on income inequality and the need for a hike in the
minimum wage. But Jesus makes his
appearance here only as a corpse; the living man, the wine-guzzling vagrant and
precocious socialist, is never once mentioned, nor anything he ever had to
say. Christ crucified rules, and it may
be that the true business of modern Christianity is to crucify him again and
again so that he can never get a word out of his mouth.”[i]
Consider the cross.
We have one here on the wall. It
is huge. It is beautiful. Nice wood.
A work of art. I see crosses
everywhere. Madonna, the pop singer, wears
a cross. I guess now her protégé,
Britney Spears, wears one as well. I
even wear one. The cross is the symbol
for Christianity.
What does this cross mean?
Most folks would answer that the cross represents the spiritual truth
that Jesus died for our sins. Then
those with more theological knowledge will talk about the sin of Adam and Eve
that we have inherited just by being human.
This sin is so damaging that it has dishonored God. We deserve eternal death and
condemnation. A sacrifice is needed to
satisfy God’s justice, this debt to God.
We can’t pay the debt. Only God
can, so Jesus the God/Man is substituted for us. He suffers and dies on the cross in our
place.
I don’t mean to mock or belittle. That view may have its value for helping some
people come to terms with their personal issues. But this theological theory is a major move
away from what the cross was in the time of Jesus.
The cross on our wall is a replica of an instrument of
torture. The Roman Empire for centuries tortured and
executed thousands of people (perhaps tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds
of thousands) of people by crucifixion.
Jesus was one. We know
that. We know the Good Friday
story.
Yet, we know it in an incomplete way. The church has said that this one execution
was more important than the others and this one had theological
significance. With those theological
moves, we lost, and we lose, the entire significance of Jesus in my view.
Rome, its Empire, its economic system, its methods of
controlling dissidents and keeping peace, all were forgotten. Jesus, who criticized this system, who was
tortured and executed because of this system, is forgotten. The people, their poverty and their
oppression, are forgotten. The church
lifted Jesus out of his historical setting and transformed him into a dying and
rising God/Man.
The church was not concerned about the kingdom of God on
Earth, but becoming a salvation machine so that people through the church and
its sacraments alone, could enter the kingdom of God in Heaven after they
died. Of course, without the church,
they would end up in Hell.
Again, I don’t mean to belittle. It is not that that religion is a bad
thing. It is just that it has nothing to
do with Jesus. It has nothing to do
with the reality in which he lived and taught.
It has nothing to do with what
really killed him.
I would also add that this popular myth of Jesus has nothing
to do with the realities in which we live.
The real Jesus does resonate with our reality.
Religious scholar, Marcus Borg, has pointed out that
Christianity is the only religion whose founder was executed by established
authority. Think of it. The person whom we follow was a political
criminal. Such a heinous criminal in the
eyes of the government, that he deserved death by execution.
Who deserves death by execution? Really bad people, right? Murderers, mostly. Jesus wasn’t one of those. Who else gets executed? Traitors and those who threaten the peace and
security of the government. These are
political criminals. Rome might have called Jesus an
insurgent. I don’t think Jesus was
violent. His insurgency was a
non-violent insurgency.
His dream was the kingdom of God on Earth. What would our political, social and economic
life be like if we were organized by the principles of justice?
Don’t think that Jesus didn’t deserve his execution. By Rome’s standards, Jesus was a threat. He had a following. He was about change. The Gospel
of Luke records Jesus’ first sermon in his hometown. After he finished his own townspeople wanted
to throw him off of a cliff.
You know he was not preaching about seven habits of highly
effective people, how to get rich with the gospel or how to get to heaven when
you die. He preached about realities,
about injustice, and about change. He invited them to join. But they were afraid of him.
‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’
If you think that changing the health care system in the
United States is a monumental task, imagine what Jesus was up against. “Come on board,” he said. “We can do this.”
But they didn’t like it.
Too much politics in the pulpit.
Jesus ran into that wherever he went.
Jesus said, “The kingdom of God, is in your hands, let’s do
it. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. What are you waiting for?” Excuse my paraphrasing, but I think that is
what he was saying.
It got him in trouble.
He threatened the system. He
threatened progress. Rome was doing
quite well. They were building and building
and building. The Temple in Jerusalem
was Herod’s masterpiece. To fund it and
his other projects required taxes.
People had to give up their subsistence farms to huge absentee landlords
and grow crops for this landlord. It
made crop-growing more efficient. It
moved the economy. The people lost their
homes and their lands. Yet some folks did quite well. It is progress, after all.
Jesus didn’t play along with this vision of progress. He didn’t think it was the way to go.
In the gospels we find the story of Jesus’ disciples admiring
the Temple. Like a bunch of country
bumpkins from Montana visiting New York City.
“Wow,” they said. “Look at this
huge building!” Jesus wasn’t
impressed. “One day there will not be
one stone on top of another,” he said.
Jesus was not impressed with progress at the expense of
people. He was executed as a threat to
Rome and to the local authorities who ran the Temple which had been co-opted by
Rome. Jesus wasn’t that much of a
threat, probably. He was a local
problem. Rome and the temple authorities
used him as an example of what happens to those who disturb the peace.
It was good the church made a religion of him. In so doing, we preserved his story. The story has been altered beyond
recognition, but it is still there. It
has always been there. Throughout
history, people have glimpsed his real significance. It has been repressed by the bearers of the
mythical dying and rising salvation machine, but it is still there. We are at a time in our history, in which we
can hear again the real story of Jesus, if we dare.
Jesus’ setting differs from our setting of course in many
ways. Yet there are many things that are
similar. Rome needed to grow. It needed to expand. It needed to be fed. It became an ideology of progress. One thing that is similar in our time is that
we as well are supposed to value an ideal
of progress. We are supposed to value
this thing we call “the economy.”
Everything else is subservient to its growth. In every newscast we hear the numbers of how
“the economy” is doing.
I am not an economist by a long shot. But I marvel at how much we worship this
thing. It must grow. It must expand. Every year it must get larger. How much larger can it get? What feeds it? We
read the news that America is at war. I
have been told that is not true. I have
been told that America is not at war.
The United States’ military is at war.
America is at the mall. We are
feeding the economy.
A new documentary entitled, “What Would Jesus Buy?” follows
Rev. Billy who calls people to stop spending themselves into debt. He stages protests at shopping malls and big
retail outlets about the evils of consumerism for ourselves and for our planet. I think it is ironic that a fake preacher is
the one who is preaching the message of Jesus.
According to the film, last year Americans spent 455 billion
dollars during the holidays. Consumer
credit debt is 2.3 trillion dollars. For
what? A bunch of stuff that will end up
in the landfill.
What is sinister is that we are supposed to do all of this
shopping for “the economy.” The kingdom of God is not the economy at least
as the economy has been presented to us.
The kingdom of God is what life would be like if we really lived the
message of Jesus.
Today is Reign of Christ Sunday. Today we speak about the politics of
God. What is God’s economy? Jesus told all who would listen: “The kingdom of God is in your hands.” He told us through his parables and sermons
that it is a vision of life in which everyone has enough food, healthcare, shelter,
peace, productive work, and joy.
Well, I will finish my sermon with my radical political
message. Don’t play along. It is not up to us to save “the
economy.” Enjoy the holidays. Get into the spirit of Christmas. But don’t go into debt over it. The wily serpent will entice you with that
credit card at the mall. Like Eve’s
apple, it will be a delight to the eyes.
Don’t bite! Get yourself a
budget for the whole of Christmas. Plan
it out. Have fun planning it out. Do fun things. Get the kids involved. Try not to watch too many television
advertisements. Give to an alternative cause, like the Heifer
Project or something. But whatever you
do, do not go into debt this Christmas.
If we have to go into debt, trash the environment, use up
resources, for the sake of “the economy,” then perhaps “the economy” is not
worth it. Just a thought. Now I know some of you don’t have a problem
with this. But please, out of empathy,
join the rest of us. I will conclude
with a call and response. Repeat after
me:
I will not go into debt this Christmas.
I will not be stressed by Christmas.
I will deepen my
spirituality.
I will enjoy Christmas.
Halleleujah!
