Reclaim the Faith!
June 8, 2020
Reclaim the Faith![1]
Reclaim the radicalism of Jesus! American Christianity (and other varieties of
Christianity influenced by Americans) have removed the radicalism of Jesus Christ
from our nominally Christian faith. Indeed Christianity generally has deradicalized
the faith of Jesus Christ at least since the fourth century CE when it became
the state religion of the Roman Empire. Not all Christians have done that of
course. There have always been some who’ve gotten it that Jesus was all about
the transformation of the world from the ways of empire to the ways of God.
From the ways of violence and exploitation to the ways of nonviolence and
justice for all people. In the US Black churches have gotten it better than
most white churches have. They knew that while white Christians misused
scripture to defend slavery the faith of Jesus Christ condemned slavery
absolutely. They got it better than we white Americans did that while personal
piety may be a value of the faith, freedom and justice were far more foundational
to it. While white Christians sang about personal relationships with Jesus and
salvation as something that happens in the next life not in this one Black
Christians sang “Tell ol’ pharaoh to let me people go,” and they weren’t
singing about Hebrew slaves more than three thousand years ago. They were
singing about themselves, about the evil of all slavery, and about God’s desire
for a life of freedom and safety for all people. By the late eighteenth century
some white Christians started to get it. Many of my Congregationalist Christian
forbears and Christians of other denominations too became strong abolitionists (which
however didn’t necessarily stop them from being racists at the same time). Perhaps
they learned something about the radicality of the Christian faith from their
Black sisters and brothers. We certainly would do well to learn something about
it from our Black sisters and brothers.
What we need to learn is just how radical the faith of Jesus
Christ was. Jesus lived in a world dominated by empire, more specifically the
Roman Empire. Jesus and his Jewish people lived under foreign occupation. I
once had a parishioner tell me that she had thought that living in the Roman
Empire had been a good thing for the Jews of Jesus’ time. Wrong. Rome’s rule
was hardly beneficent. Rome ruled by violence and terror. It exploited its
occupied territories economically, taxed people unmercifully, and tolerated no
opposition whatsoever. Rome let the Jews practice their ancient and sacred
religion only because it was already so ancient and because its leaders, the
authorities of the Jerusalem temple, collaborated with them to keep the Jewish
people from rebelling, not always successfully. The Jews of Jesus’ day weren’t
slaves, or at least their legal status of most of them wasn’t that of slaves,
but their lives were hardly better than the lives of slaves. Roman occupation
was far from a beneficial thing for the Jews of Jesus’ day.
Jesus turned the world he lived in upside down. In a world in
which a very small percentage of people flourished and most lived at a subsistence
level Jesus lifted up the poor and said they were God’s beloved. In a world
governed through violence Jesus said resist, but always do it nonviolently. In
a world in which most people’s problems were external Jesus said transform the
world by transforming yourself first. In a faith tradition centered on a
temple, led by priests, and focused on sacrificial worship Jesus said God desires
mercy not sacrifice and you don’t need priests. In a religious tradition that
saw the Holiness Code of Leviticus and ritual purity as foundational Jesus
rediscovered the great cry for justice for the poor and vulnerable of the
eighth century prophets. In a world n which women were excluded from everything
except the home (and prostitution) Jesus included women among his closest
followers. If you doubt that read between the lines of the Gospels about Mary
Magdalene. In a world in which Jews considered Samaritans as lesser people to
be looked down on Jesus made a Samaritan the hero of one of his greatest
parables. In everything he said and did Jesus turned his world upside down.
That’s how radical he was.
He’d turn our world upside down too if we’d really listen to
him. He lived in a land occupied by the Roman Empire. We live in the heart of
the American empire. He said blessed are the poor. We keep cutting taxes for
the rich and maintain only a sinfully inadequate social and economic safety net
for those in need even when we aren’t in the midst of a pandemic that makes the
people’s need to much greater. He said blessed are the peacemakers. We spend
unconscionable amounts of money on the military and send our armed forces to do
violence all over the world. Jesus said live nonviolently. We live in a culture
that glorifies the gun and militarizes the police. He said live like the hated
Samaritan of his parable. We live in a deeply racist culture that denies the
full humanity of Black and Brown people and disadvantages them in every aspect
of our national life. Like I said, Jesus turned his world upside down at every
turn. He’d turn our world upside down too if we’d let him.
But we won’t. We reduce his call to radical transformation of
the self and of the world to a call to be nice. We change his nearly exclusive
focus on conditions in this life into a way to get our souls to heaven after we
die. We bastardize his call for radical inclusion of the outcast into a
Christian exclusivism that disparages and even hates people of other faith traditions.
We change his call to radical faith in God into faith in a book or a church. If
Jesus were physically alive on earth today he’d condemn our nation and most of
our religion as soundly as he once condemned Rome and the dominant version of the
Judaism of his day. We don’t think so, but that’s because we have removed the
radicalism of our faith.
It’s way past time for us to reclaim it. Many (but hardly
all) of us in the so-called first world lead far more comfortable lives than
anyone in Jesus’ world did, but both our nation and the world are still
hurting. Racism, sexism, homophobia, militarism, exploitation of other people
and of the earth run rampant. Yes, we’ve made some progress on some of those
issues in some places, but he haven’t conquered a single one of them yet. Take
American racism. We have laws that prohibit racial discrimination and protect
the voting rights of all American citizens. We’ve had them at the national
level for over fifty years. Yet all the indicators of social or economic status
show that racism is tragically still very much with us. To cite just one
example our criminal law system (I won’t call it a criminal justice system
because it isn’t much about true justice) convicts Blacks far more often than whites
accused of the same offenses and sentences them much more severely than whites
convicted of the same crime. We white people see the police as servants and
protectors who are there to arrest the bad guys. Black Americans see the police
as threat to their very lives. We white Americans take the right to vote for
granted (not that all of us by a long shot actually exercise it). Black
Americans fought and died to gain that right. Today Republican politicians
across the country do whatever they can to reduce Black participation in our
elections and through gerrymandering keep them from electing people who truly
represent them. Most Americans reject and condemn white supremacy. Our president
calls white supremacists fine people. The list of racial horrors and injustices
in America goes on and on and on.
So yes. We have removed the radicalism of our faith, and our
most urgent call is to reclaim it. Jesus doesn’t want us to be mean, but he
wants us to be a whole lot more than nice. Jesus doesn’t want pious
individualists, he wants a nonviolently revolutionary people. Jesus doesn’t
want us worrying about what becomes of us after death. He wants us worrying
about how people life in this life, and he wants us to make this life better
for those who suffer from poverty, racial injustice, environmental injustice,
and all the other ills that so beset us today. It’s way past time for us to
become radical Christians again. So let’s get on with it.
[1]
This post was inspired by a sermon with the title “The Cross and the Lynching Tree:
A Requiem for Ahmaud Arbry” by Rev. Otis Moss, III, pastor of Trinity United
Church of Christ in Chicago. In the sermon Rev. Moss said that we have removed
the radicalism from our faith. This post is a response to that absolutely
correct contention.,
No comments:
Post a Comment