A Partisan Jesus
Why do you suppose that such different historic leaders as
the Prophet Mohammed (Peace be upon him) and Mahatma Gandhi found something
compelling in the figure of Jesus? What do you suppose would move someone like
the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh or the East Indian spiritualist Eknath
Easwaran to draw on Jesus as a presumptive model and authority for their
meditation practice? For that matter, why would such disparate personages as
Albert Einstein and Mikhail Gorbachev find themselves enthralled by the figure
of Jesus as a moral guide?
The quick answer is that each, in their own way, found a
Jesus tradition that was relevant to them and served to enlarge their own
consciousness of their world; something about this historical figure shaped the
way they perceived their context and offered an insight into how they might
make it better.
Now suppose we were to do the same. Suppose we were to
attempt to find a useable Jesus, a Jesus rooted in the biblical tradition but
situated within our own context. What might our circumstances in the U.S. in
the latter part of 2017 look like and where might we be led with an embrace of
some aspect of the Jesus tradition? Or perhaps more specifically: What would
Jesus think about the intention to deprive millions of citizens of healthcare?
Is there a hint in the Jesus tradition that would shed light on whether faith
commitments can legitimately be the basis for differential and discriminatory
treatment? If we could interview Jesus, how might he answer the question of how
we should regard and deal with people whose presence in our country is unlawful?
For an itinerant figure who apparently had neither a permanent domicile nor a
steady income stream, what would Jesus think about a national economy that
allowed child poverty to cost $500 billion a year in lost earnings potential, crime,
and healthcare costs?
To be sure, it is difficult—if not impossible—to construct
or discern a Jesus view on any matter of contemporary public policy in the U.S.
We have to account for the differences in time, space and culture between then
and now. Additionally, such an effort assumes that we have access to the mind
of Jesus, and that he has knowledge of our socioeconomic and political
situation. Truth be told, if we want to know what Jesus thinks, we have to go
looking in the tradition for the convictions and principles he expressed about
social life, then translate these into the idiom of our context by use of
analogies and their limits, and identify some reason why this constructed view
of Jesus has relevance. Make no mistake: This is an interpretive reconstruction.
My interest in the politics of Jesus grows out of my
curiosity about what he has to say concerning life in this world. We know that his world was one of imperial occupation,
extreme economic inequality, hereditary privilege, inflexible socioeconomic
stratification, gender and sexual exclusion, and innumerable forms of
acceptable cruelty and injustice. It was, by any measure, a horrific world for
vast numbers of people, and few they were who could effectively challenge it.
And yet it was into this world that Jesus came preaching a message of universal
freedom and equality by drawing the attention of his hearers to the
extraordinary power of an all-embracing love and an unquenchable peace. We operationalize
and encapsulate the fundamental message Jesus offered as The Golden Rule, a maxim shared by all religions of the world,
whose intent is to extend freedom and equality into all the spheres of life.
Jesus’ message addressed what is seen in the light of day – and now to be seen
differently – and what is hidden under the cover of darkness – and now to be
exposed before all. What he contended for was a community of good will and the
common good, the pattern of our shared life as it provides and promotes for all
the general conditions – economic, social, cultural, political, and religious –
of human flourishing.
It may be useful to make an important distinction here. Over the centuries, much has been made of
Jesus as a religious and spiritual figure whose teachings reveal a path to
another world beyond this one. Throughout the history of the Christian
tradition, there have also been those who asked about the organization of
society and whether the teachings of Jesus have applicability for this world.
Is it possible to accept and live by values and principles expressed in Jesus’
life and work as they are applicable to life in this world? I believe the
answer is yes, but this does not mean that we should endeavor to make either society
or government Christian. Nonetheless, it does require recognizing Jesus as a
partisan advocate for some and a social critic of others.
The Jesus narrative that is handed down in the received
gospels leaves little doubt that he was viewed as one who identified with those
whose circumstances in life were oppressive and characterized by suffering.
Those who were ill and diseased, maimed, blind and deaf, and, like widows and
orphans, otherwise incapable of providing economically for themselves, or those
whose human life was characterized by conditions and relations judged by others
as befitting of social rejection, these were precisely the ones to whom Jesus
was most drawn. Those who were weak and innocent and otherwise discounted and
discarded in the society into which Jesus came were the fellow human beings
whose tenuous claim to life was perceived by him to be worthy of honor and
recognition. Indeed, these disposable ones were also the human beings whom
Jesus beatified in his Sermon on the Mount; he addressed the mass of people
gathered before him by the audacious claim that they were “blessed.”
In Greek, the word translated into English as “blessed” is a
word that in the first instance referred to the conditions in which the gods found
themselves. They were the Greco-Roman deities who enjoyed the fullness of life
with a kind of special honor and wisdom that rendered their existence
unfettered by suffering or burdensome responsibilities. With respect to human
beings in ancient Greece, the notion of blessedness could refer to the freedom
and absence of responsibilities that those who are wealthy could enjoy. In the Hebrew Scriptures, this blessedness is
characteristic of God, who may share this condition with those whom God loves
and cares for. Thus, in a kind of second instance, blessedness can accrue to
human beings as they participate in the blessedness of God. Ultimately, for the
human partners in a relation with God, blessedness is buttressed by trust,
forgiveness, and ultimately the promise of deliverance from the vexatious and
arduous conditions that dominate daily existence. Thus, for deity, “blessed” underscores
a freedom and transcendence of the divine life well beyond the care, labor, and
death that marks all earthly sufferings; it is an affirmation of the essential
impassibility of God. For the well-to-do among us humans, being blessed is
characteristic of the wealthy whose riches make it possible for them to remain
above the cares of bric-a-brac humanity.
But from those who are pronounced “blessed” by Jesus there
emerges a distinctly different picture of others; to hear Jesus assert the
condition of blessedness is to discern what can only be called a great reversal. It is not the privileged
who see others as beneath them who are blessed, but rather those who are
impoverished, poor in circumstances and in spirit. It is not those who have
gained much to garner a life of stability and comfort who are blessed, but
rather those who have lost and who therefore know only mourning. Blessed refers
not to those who are high-handed, autocratic, and in control, and therefore
complacent with their privilege, but rather to those who are gentle and
unassuming, and who yearn to be acknowledged and justified as virtuous. It is
not the ones who exploit their advantage over others and use deception in
pursuit of their own gain who are proclaimed as blessed, but rather those who
enact mercy and embody benevolent love and compassion for others. Those who
create and aggravate conflict, who wreak devastation and vengeance in their
path, are not the blessed; that is a condition reserved for those who enact
peace and seek equanimity in their relations with others.
It is uncomfortable for many of us to think that this great reversal has any reality or
staying power in a context where wealth and privilege seem to dominate our
socioeconomic and political worlds. Having observed the rise of an oligarchy in
our own country, we think it preposterous to suppose that a day might come when
a reversal might actually occur and those who have been relegated to the social
and economic fringes of our society are actually strengthened and empowered to
take up a more just, equitable, and sustainable leadership in the effort to
create a society – indeed, a world –
where the prevailing conditions make it possible for all to flourish.
Perhaps one way to address this discomfort is to make the
decision to look at values and beliefs that, to this point at least, have
undergirded our way of life, and see in them and their practice a potential for
life-giving reversal. “Do not pay too much attention to fame, power, and
money,” said Rudyard Kipling to a graduating class at McGill University in
Montreal. “Some day, you will meet a person who cares for none of these, and
then you will know how poor you are.”
If we wish to share in the reversal, to contribute to its
arrival and its becoming ensconced in our shared world, we will need to revise
our understanding of the characteristics and virtues that we seek to cultivate
in ourselves and in each other. We cannot think of ourselves as autonomous and
self-determined, living in isolation from others. Instead, we must think of
ourselves as standing with one another, seeking each other’s well-being,
experiencing our encounters with one another as life-giving and love-making. We
are inextricably entangled with one another, interwoven to a degree that no
pleasure, accomplishment, advantage, or satisfaction can be worthwhile if it
comes or is taken at the expense of another.
This attitude will mean, among other things, that we too
will have to become not less, but more
partisan. Like the exemplar whose life embodies a moral and partisan regard for
those whose ability to fend for themselves and defend their inherent right to
flourish in company with others is seemingly constantly suppressed, so we too
must extend our advocacy and activism and partner with others whose cause is the
instigation of a more just, more impartial, more authentic social and economic
existence. For unless we are willing to commit to seeking the well-being of all
and the common good for all, our joys and comforts, successes and
accomplishments, are just so much dust in the wind.
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