This is an excerpt from A Conspiracy of Love: Following Jesus in a Postmodern World / Second Edition
© 2024 Kurt Struckmeyer

a child is born

Just four miles south of the Roman city of Sepphoris, across a fertile valley and up in the rolling hills of the Galilee highlands, lay the small village of Nazareth. There, Jesus was born to a poor peasant family.

We do not know exactly when Jesus was born. Scholars cannot specifically place the month or year. He was most likely born sometime before the spring of 4 BCE when Herod the Great died. (That would make him about ten years old when the census of Quirinius occurred in 6 CE, which is the date Luke proposes for his birth. Matthew’s gospel places Jesus’ birth while Herod the Great still ruled. If Matthew is to be believed about Herod slaughtering male infants up to two years old in Bethlehem, Jesus could presumably be born as early as 6 BCE, putting a 12-year discrepancy (6 BCE in Matthew and 6 CE in Luke) as to the birth year of Jesus.

In spite of what Matthew and Luke contend, Jesus was probably born in the village of Nazareth, not in the village of Bethlehem, located five miles south of Jerusalem. In the Hebrew Bible, Bethlehem was identified as the birthplace of King David. The gospels of Matthew and Luke speculate that it was also the birthplace of Jesus based on nothing more than a writing of the prophet Micah that declares that a future ruler of Israel would come from there.

Situated in the region of Galilee, Nazareth was a small community nestled in a hollow in the hills at the site of an ancient spring. It was surrounded by olive orchards and cypress trees. Archeological evidence suggests that the village was less than 200 years old in the first century. It stood at an elevation of about 1,200 feet and commanded a panoramic view of its small corner of the world. Its population has been estimated as just over 200 people.

Jesus was probably the first child of an itinerant construction worker named Yosef (yo-SAFE)—Joseph in English—and his wife Miyram (meer-YAWM)—Miriam or Mary. When Yosef had Jesus circumcised, eight days after birth, he named his son after Moses’ successor, Joshua. In Hebrew and Aramaic, the name is Yehoshu′a (yeh-ho-SHOO-ah), which means “Yahweh helps” or “Yahweh saves” or “Yahweh is salvation.” In those days the name was usually shortened to Yeshu’a (yeh-SHOO-ah) or even to Yeshu (yeh-SHOO), which is how Jesus was popularly known. The Hebrew Bible records Joshua as a mighty warrior who led the destruction of the city of Jericho and defeated the Canaanites by convincing God to halt the sun’s passage in the sky and send hail upon his enemies to turn the tide of battle. Yeshu was a common name in the first century. To the Jews, the name meant salvation, liberation, and possession of land.


See my blog post Born of the virgin Mary (not)


living under domination

As he grew into manhood, Jesus experienced three despotic structures of government organized for a privileged few at the expense of the common good of the majority. Galilee was a monarchy ruled by Herod Antipas. After the removal of his brother Herod Archelaus by Rome in 6 CE, Judea was ruled directly by a Roman Procurator who reported to the governor of Syria. However, the day-to-day operations were entrusted to a wealthy oligarchy (meaning the ruling few) of the Sadducees (SAD-dzhoo-seez), sometimes referred to in the gospels as “the leaders of the people,” or “the chief priests and the elders.” In conquered territories, it was always Rome’s practice to find indigenous collaborators to rule on their behalf. And they always chose people from the wealthy class who saw it in their personal interest to support power when it advantaged them. On top of these structures was an emperor in Rome who was essentially a self-appointed dictator. So, Jesus was confronted by a monarchy in Galilee, an oligarchy in Jerusalem, and a dictatorship in Rome.

People living under the oppression of a domination system generally respond to the situation in one of four ways. They may become part of the establishment; but that course is only available to a few of the most wealthy and powerful. They may simply try to cope or compromise to some degree with the ruling authorities—go along to get along—in order to survive. Others may emigrate or withdraw from society in isolated communities. The fourth option is to take up arms and revolt. The people of first-century Palestine certainly fit this pattern of multiple responses. There were several different influential groups or parties active in the culture: Sadducees (establishment), Pharisees (compromise), Essenes (withdrawal), Zealots (revolution). Except for the Sadducees, the other three groups all hoped for a political savior to drive out Rome and set up a new rule.

These parties were notable factions with various political impacts, but they represented only a small minority of the population. Except for the Zealots, they were mostly composed of more-or-less literate elites who had the luxury of engaging in overt positions of political and religious cooperation or opposition. The majority of the people were subjugated and defeated peasants who were buffeted by political winds and degraded by poverty. They just tried to survive until events pushed them to the point of subversive action and rebellion. According to the Talmud, these uneducated peasants were commonly known as am ha’aretz (ahm hah-AHR-etz), meaning the people of the land. This was a derogatory term suggesting that they were ignorant and uneducated rubes. In John’s gospel, they are referred to as the “rabble who know nothing about the law.” The peasants found it hard to make any significant response to oppression when they were trying to eke out an existence from the land. But as some saw their lives spiral out of control and they lost lands, homes, and employment, violent rebellion must have been a tempting option. Jesus was born into this class of peasants.

exploitation

In an agricultural economy, land is the only real source of wealth. The Hebrew people considered the land of Palestine to be a gift from God. The stories of the Hebrew Bible recount the invasion and conquest of the land under the leadership of Joshua and the subsequent division of the land among the twelve tribes and their families. The land was considered a patrimony to be passed down from generation to generation. Inherited land was not to be sold since the land belonged to God alone. However, land could be lost through indebtedness. The misfortunes of illness and drought, or the flaw of personal failings, could result in the need to borrow money against the land. Foreclosure by lenders was a tool commonly used to extend the property holdings of the wealthy. The pervasiveness of indebtedness was a major issue for first-century Jewish peasants.

By the first century, the globalization of empire was transforming the economic landscape. The Roman economy of commercialized agriculture was impoverishing the peasants of Palestine at an alarming rate. For centuries, the Hebrews had a traditional agrarian economy, raising sustenance crops on small farms. In this type of economy, the Hebrew elites who lived in the cities and who controlled the Jerusalem Temple took about 30 to 50 percent of agricultural production from the peasants in the form of religious tithes and political taxes. But when the Romans introduced commercialized agriculture, the elites took the land itself. Commercialized agriculture depends upon consolidation of farms and pastures into large estates, so that agricultural production becomes more efficient. The benefits go to a small number of wealthy landowners in greatly increased profits, resulting in a luxurious lifestyle at the expense of those who work the land as tenants.

The wealthy elites needed cash to support their lifestyles, so they looked for agricultural exports that could be traded in the economy of the wider Roman Empire. They converted small farms into extensive vineyard estates and shipped wine back to Rome. Only the rich had the means to establish large vineyards because they required tending for at least three years before they produced a usable crop.

When peasants no longer possess their own land, they cannot grow food for their own subsistence. As a result, they must work for wages to buy the food they need. But a commercialized agricultural economy does not support as many people as a traditional one. It creates a large class of expendables, people who are simply superfluous to the economic system and who must compete with one another for meager resources. Large numbers of peasants were forced to become bandits and armed revolutionaries out of desperation.

Freshwater fishing was also becoming commercialized under Rome. Archeologists have discovered the ruins of fish processing plants around the Sea of Galilee. In these facilities, fish was either salted or pickled, or prepared into a kind of salsa called “garum” for shipment to Roman markets. The commerce was again controlled by wealthy elites who managed the market for fish and set prices.

The poor fishermen and agricultural laborers to whom Jesus spoke were faced with these dehumanizing realities. They needed some good news because all the news they had was increasingly bad and getting worse.

the wilderness prophet

The years during which Jesus preached—perhaps somewhere between 24 and 30 CE—were moments of relative calm at the eye of a political hurricane. Jesus lived in a time between rebellions. But the pot was simmering. This was the seething social context when Jesus met the wilderness preacher known as John, the son of Zechariah—whom we know as John the Baptizer (c. 7 BCE–c. 30 CE).

Matthew’s gospel tells us that it was John the Baptizer who introduced Jesus to the message of the kingdom of God.

In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.”

Old Testament scholar Walter Bruggemann (b. 1933) tells us about prophets, including John the Baptizer and Jesus: The prophets are essentially uncredentialed people, without pedigree, who don’t arise from within established institutions. These are people who speak from the outside, looking in, with life-giving disruptive force. John’s prophetic message was a simple one: God was angry with the chosen people and planned to punish them unless a dramatic change took place. The Hebrew Bible declared that God had acted previously in Jewish history using the armies of foreign empires as God’s means of national punishment. God’s anger was not due to individual sins, or even over a nation that had turned away from the worship of God. Instead, John declared that the issue that angered God was a lack of social justice, as prophets of earlier times had also proclaimed. John was a social prophet in a long line of social prophets who called the nation of Israel to reaffirm the just society required by their covenant with God.

Peasants were losing their land. Poor people were going hungry. Children were suffering from illness and deprivation, and many were without adequate clothing. In a dog-eat-dog society, people refused to help one another in the face of desperate circumstances. Those who had more simply congratulated themselves, closed their eyes, ears, and hearts, and were indifferent to the needs of those who had less. It was an oppressive and unjust society with no system of communal support for those who suffered the most. Judean society exhibited a disregard of the ancient covenant of a contrast society, no commitment to the common good, no obligation to being one’s brother’s or sister’s keeper.

In John’s vision, God’s judgment would bring massive destruction. John pictured these events as a great forest fire before which the snakes of the forest flee, in which trees and chaff are burnt, and in which people are engulfed in a baptism of fire. He also made use of the metaphors of the axe and the winnowing fan used to separate wheat from chaff. There is no reason to think that John was referring to a burning hell in the afterlife. The forest fire he described is an image of hell on earth. He foresaw not the cataclysmic end of the entire world, but the Roman destruction of Jewish life, culture, and political hopes in Palestine.

It did not take special insight to see that the Jewish people were on the verge of a suicidal uprising against the Roman Empire. Recurring episodes of violence were leading toward a dramatic confrontation with the most powerful military force on earth. The shadow of catastrophe hung over the land and the signs could be clearly seen for those who paused long enough to read them.

Change or be destroyed, John cried. When confronted with John’s dramatic words of impending doom and a call to personal conversion, the people asked, “What then shall we do?” John’s response was that religious rituals could not save them. Only acts of charity and justice could avert God’s anger and wrath.

And the crowds asked him, “What then should we do?” In reply he said to them, “whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, “Teacher, what should we do?” He said to them, “Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.” Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what should we do?” He said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation and be satisfied with your wages.”

These are the words of charity that John addressed to those who came to hear his message. But the call for justice was addressed to others who were far away, living in luxurious homes and palaces. In Jerusalem, it was the Sadducees and the aristocratic families they represented who needed to change. Closer to hand, it was Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee and Perea, who required a new heart. John believed that it was these uncaring rulers of the people and their economic system of domination that must embrace justice for the poor to forestall a simmering peasant rebellion and a massive Roman military suppression.

Jesus was attracted to the message of John the Baptizer. When he was about 30 years old, he traveled to the Judean wilderness along the Jordan River where he was baptized by John and became one of his disciples. While camping nearby, he met several others who were also attracted to John: Simon Peter, Andrew, Philip, and Nathanael. They would soon become followers of Jesus.

When John began to criticize the aristocracy, Herod Antipas arrested him and had him beheaded. The Jewish historian Titus Flavius Josephus (37–100) wrote: “Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion, (for they seemed ready to do anything he should advise,) thought it best, by putting him to death.”

Jesus, the prophet of justice and hope

After John’s arrest and execution, Jesus picked up the mantle of leadership from his mentor. He not only carried on John’s message of the kingdom of God, but it became the center of his own message and mission.

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; transform your lives, and trust in the good news.”

As he carried on John’s work, Jesus began to form a new vision. John was right, of course. If the situation did not change drastically, many people would lose their lives in a futile struggle against the power of Rome. The suffering of many poor and oppressed peasants would only increase. The institutions and culture of the Jewish people would be wiped out and replaced with Greek culture and Roman institutions. And the worship of Yahweh would be replaced by or absorbed into the pantheon of Roman gods.

Unlike John, Jesus did not feel called to save Israel by bringing everyone to a baptism of repentance in the Jordan. He decided that something else was necessary, something that had to do with the poor, the sinners, and the sick—the peasants who were the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

It appears that Jesus and John had different images of God. John saw God as a judge who was angry about human injustice. Jesus saw God as a compassionate and nurturing parent who was constantly forgiving and accepting. As a result, Jesus modified John’s message of catastrophe. Jesus began to find a new way to address the coming devastation. He developed an alternative vision, a way out, a way to avoid violent confrontation.

John preached actions of justice, but with his emphasis on the coming catastrophe, these actions would have been motivated by fear of judgment. Jesus no longer preached John’s message of doom. Instead, he preached a vision of the way things could be, the way they would be when God’s rule was established on earth. Like John’s message, it had to do with acts of compassion and justice. But the way of Jesus was based on hope, not fear. Jesus believed that the reign of God operates by invitation, not coercion. Unlike John’s vision, which seemed to associate the kingdom of God with judgment, Jesus proclaimed that God’s coming reign was “good news.”

Jesus proposed that if people would begin living out the just, compassionate, and nonviolent values of God’s in-breaking reign today, the inevitable destruction of violent confrontation could be avoided. It was not necessary to eliminate Roman armies to live justly. An armed rebellion would not accomplish the kingdom of God. Jesus now saw clearly the way God’s ruling style could be implemented among human societies, and it began with a message of love and compassion for the least in our midst.

Jesus gathered the timeless hopes of humanity for a world of peace, justice, and equality. In words and actions, he demonstrated that the time had come for a new way of living together. The mission Jesus now embarked on was to make his vision of God’s new reign clearly visible to the people of his day, and to invite them to enter as participants. John the Baptizer had relied upon a baptism of conversion and expected fruit worthy of that conversion in the lives of his followers. In a similar way, Jesus looked to the transformed lives of individuals to bear fruit in transformed homes, communities, and societies.

Scholar Walter Bruggemann described the vision of Jesus in this way:

This vision is about God’s reign coming on earth . . . God’s rule where the practices of justice and mercy and kindness and peaceableness are every day the order of the day. It is a vision of the world as a peaceable neighborliness in which no one is under threat, no one is at risk, no one is in danger, because all are safe, all are valued, all are honored, all are cared for. And this community of peaceableness will come only when the vicious cycles of violent accumulation are broken.


See my blog post the politics of Jesus


a political vision

If we take our spiritual blinders off for a moment, we can begin to see Jesus in a new light. Imagine him in the context of a struggle for social and economic equality similar to the struggles of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr as they addressed their respective domination systems. According to Luke’s gospel, Jesus began with an inaugural speech in Nazareth—his “I have a dream” speech.

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:

The spirit of Yahweh 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,
to proclaim the year of Yahweh’s favor.

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Jesus announced that he had come to establish the ancient Hebrew concept of the Jubilee year in which the economic debts of the poor were forgiven, debt-slaves were released, and land that had been taken in foreclosure for peasant indebtedness would be returned by rich landowners to the dispossessed. Every 50 years, Jubilee offered an economic amnesty for the poor who had lost everything to debt. Jesus essentially announced that he saw himself as an agent for change, transformation, and liberation. Yet he never claimed the messianic role of a military liberator who effects regime change through violence, but rather he established himself as a voice for radical nonviolent social and economic reformation. Jesus proclaimed himself to be a prophet, not a messiah.

When Jesus announced the coming of the kingdom of God, he was announcing a social revolution. Jesus saw himself as the messenger chosen by God to deliver the good news of God’s powerful new activity in the world. God’s kingdom of justice was coming to replace the authority of ingrained systems of domination. The kingdom of God, as proclaimed by Jesus, was clearly political. Its very name implies the politics of God. So, at the synagogue in Nazareth, Jesus announced he was launching a political movement to bring relief to the suffering and dispossessed peasants and to re-establish God’s reign of justice in Roman Palestine.

Jesus was not naive. He knew that the call for Jubilee restoration would be rejected by the rich and powerful. It had little chance of succeeding if it required the willing participation of those at the top of society. So, he addressed the domination system in a different way—a revolutionary way of living by those at the bottom of society. Jesus rejected the politics of violent revolution. Instead, he developed a nonviolent approach. He would not try to overthrow the kings and oligarchs. Instead, he and his followers would create alternative communities—a new social order in the midst of the old. And, Jesus taught, the kingdom of God was beginning immediately, starting with powerless groups at the bottom of society. The poor and the outcasts would model life in the kingdom of God for the wealthy and powerful. The least would be the greatest in the kingdom, the last in this world would be the first to arrive. The poor would welcome the change, but the wealthy would not.

Then he looked up at his disciples and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh . . . But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who are laughing now, for you will mourn and weep.”

a movement for change

Jesus quickly formed a political movement to create an alternative social reality. The coming of God’s new social order requires a committed people with a new vision and new values. The founding of a new social reality is not a threat to the status quo when it is only a vision in the head of one person. Jesus knew that his call for Jubilee economic redistribution would threaten the rich and powerful and would likely result in a violent reaction. He also knew that it would be relatively easy to silence a single voice. But a movement empowered by a shared vision is much more difficult to stop. When a movement galvanizes the hopes and aspirations of a larger community, authorities begin to worry. Movements can quickly get out of control.

Jesus gathered a core team of 82 disciples, with twelve in a leadership role. (Imagine King’s Southern Christian Leadership Council.) Then he sent 70 of them out to the villages and towns of Galilee to prepare for his forthcoming political campaign tour to engage the peasants in a grassroots effort of social change and their mutual welfare. In Luke’s gospel we read:

After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them . . . “Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’”

Sharing food, healing the sick, and announcing the kingdom of God: these were the three assignments to the disciples as they carried the Jesus movement to the villages and towns of Galilee.

The message they shared was that God’s economic justice was arriving, and it was important for every individual to get on board. How? By living out the vision of a new economic and political reality immediately. Jesus taught his followers to trust God, to create a compassionate community to provide for each other’s needs, and to respond when called upon to care for and share their resources with their brothers and sisters. He taught his followers to reject selfish concerns and to pray for sufficiency—just enough for tomorrow, “our daily bread.” The kingdom of God creates a social safety net for the poor, the hungry, and the homeless. The community that gathered around Jesus formed what is known as a “fictive family,” not connected by blood ties, but by a common vision. Jesus claimed that they were now his new brothers and sisters—no longer followers, friends, or acquaintances, but family.

Jesus began to model the new society for his followers and critics. For Jesus, the beginning of community was the sharing of food. But Jesus emphasized that the sharing of meals was intended to go beyond close family and friends. His table fellowship included the outsider and the marginalized, the despised and those who are socially-defined enemies. Since Jesus had no home, no wealth, no banquet table, and no food to offer, he modeled inclusive table fellowship by publicly accepting invitations to dinner from others—often from those considered “sinful” people.

Jesus began to teach others the ways in which the kingdom of God would be radically different from normal society. Love and compassion were at the center of his political reality.

I say to you that listen, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

the march to Jerusalem

According to the gospels, sometime in his third year of healing and teaching in Galilee, after building the core of his movement, Jesus set his sights on Jerusalem in Judea. He decided to go here to confront the Sadducees—the rich and powerful rulers of the people—at their symbolic seat of power. He would interrupt the operations of the Jerusalem Temple with a popular demonstration for economic justice.

Jesus clearly understood that arrest and death are always potential and likely consequences of the pursuit of justice in an unjust society. He cautioned his followers that in order to follow him, they must be willing to risk public execution on a cross—the penalty for civil disobedience and insurrection by common people. It was a time of decision. Jesus was heading towards a confrontation with power that risked his life and the lives of his followers.

Jesus’ entry into the city on the Sunday before Passover was a noisy demonstration that attracted wide attention. According to Mark’s story, Jesus was hailed as a messiah with leafy branches cut from date palm trees and strewn in his path.

Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna!”

Hosanna was originally a Hebrew cry for help, meaning “save us now!” As an exclamation of adoration, it became more of an expression of thanks: “our salvation has arrived!”

On Monday morning, Jesus headed straight for the Temple and created a public disturbance in the Court of the Gentiles in full view of the Sadducees and the Roman garrison in the Antonia Fortress. The earliest gospel recounts the episode this way:

And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold doves; and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. He was teaching and saying, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”

On the surface, Jesus seems angered about commerce in the Temple precincts. Some interpreters think that Jesus disapproved of the Temple’s use of animal sacrifice. Still others believe that his demonstration was against the Temple as a symbol of the Jewish religion itself, as if Jesus was rejecting the religion he was raised in and was replacing it with a new one based on himself as the center of devotion. But most likely, this demonstration at the Temple was a demonstration against the people who managed it and benefited from it—the Sadducees,

The Sadducees were a small group of affluent aristocratic families that formed the ruling upper class in Judea. They were enormously wealthy and lived in great luxury and splendor. Included in their ranks were the high priests of the Jerusalem Temple and a few families of great political influence. The chief priests lived off a Temple tax and the tithes collected from the peasants. By the first century, the lay nobility in Jerusalem had gained ownership of much of the arable land in Judea and other regions—the key to wealth in that agrarian economy. Together with the chief priests, they were in charge of the Temple treasury—essentially the national bank. Thus, they controlled the entire economy. Members of the elite Sadducee party also formed the Sanhedrin (san-HEE-drin), the high court and legislative body of the Jewish people. Although Judea was now ruled by a Roman procurator, the day-to-day operations were entrusted to this wealthy oligarchy (meaning the ruling few) of the Sadducees.

The Sadducees were given a free hand to rule the local population as long as they were loyal to Rome, maintained order, and collected the tribute due to the emperor. They cooperated closely with the Roman governor and kept a tight lid on any potential liberation movements in the country that might threaten the status quo and their own privileged positions. There is no question that the Temple was an instrument of the state as was the case in any other ancient temple-state where priest and king are allied.

Peasant indebtedness was the tool by which the wealthy acquired land for their large estates. Small farmers needed money, not crops, to pay the taxes collected by both temple and state. During times of drought or poor harvests, they were often forced to borrow from the wealthy elites who loaned money to them at interest, which was a clear violation of the traditional Hebraic laws. Their patrimonial land was often given as collateral on these loans. When the farmers could not pay their debts, their property was taken from them. The debt records for all of these transactions were kept by the elites in the Jerusalem Temple, providing us with a clue to Jesus’ angry criticism of those who controlled the temple precincts when he entered it.

All of the objects of Jesus’ anger in his demonstration were legitimate operations in the huge Court of the Gentiles that surrounded the central areas reserved for Israelite women, men, and priests alone. The Temple required bird and animal sellers on site so that pilgrims would be able to offer sacrifices that were ritually acceptable. Money changers were required to change foreign currencies into the approved coinage (Shekels) for payment of the temple tax. Jesus upset these operations by driving out those who were selling and buying and not allowing “anyone to carry anything through the temple.” But the real objects of his protest were not low-level functionaries.

We are told that Jesus addressed the crowds in the Temple with these words:

Don’t the scriptures say, “My house is to be regarded as a house of prayer for all peoples”? But you have turned it into a hideout for crooks.

Jesus was not condemning the Temple as a place of robbery, but as a hideout for the robbers. A den is not where the robbers rob, it is the place where they count their ill-gotten gains. It was not a few moneychangers or dove sellers who were the target of Jesus’ anger, but the thieves, robbers, and brigands at the top levels of society who perpetuated a system of economic injustice, who robbed people of their land, their wealth, and their livelihoods. But the governing Sadducees understood his message clearly.

The Sadducees had decided that they needed to shut Jesus up before he instigated a rebellion, either violent or nonviolent.

So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council, and said, “What are we to do? This man is performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.” But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all! You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.” . . . So, from that day on they planned to put him to death.

When Jesus was arrested late on Thursday night and brought before the chief priest on Friday morning, the Sadducees sought evidence for a capital crime. The chief priest asked Jesus if he was the messiah—a warrior king intending a violent revolution. When brought before Pilate, Jesus was asked if he claimed to be king of the Jews. In both cases, Jesus turned the accusations back on the accusers and never answered directly. He was charged by the Sadducees with blasphemy, but Rome executed him for sedition. On the cross was a sign that listed his anti-government crime—King of the Jews. The cruelty of his crucifixion revealed what imperial authorities do to one who attempts to subvert the domination system. For those who witnessed this event, the cross was not a symbol of divine sacrifice or the taking on of unmerited suffering—it was the price of resistance to the social and economic devastation of empire.


See my blog post the death of Jesus


Six agonizing hours after his crucifixion began, on a spring afternoon in the year 30 CE, Jesus died. His heart stopped beating and his brainwave activity ceased. The spirit of life that had animated him at birth, left his body. The biblical tradition says that the body was then removed from the cross and placed in a tomb, sealed with a large stone. But the Roman practice of crucifixion did not usually allow for burial. The corpses of lower-class criminals or revolutionaries were not buried. Instead, the naked bodies of crucified victims were left hanging on the cross, to rot as they were exposed to the elements, and be eaten by carrion, a meal for crows and hungry dogs. In any event—whether he was left on the cross or buried in a tomb—we simply do not know what eventually became of Jesus’ corpse. In the gospel accounts, the women who went to the tomb on Easter morning were unable to find it. It was never seen again. The earthly Jesus, the pre-Easter Jesus, was gone from history. But he was not to be forgotten.


See my blog posts Did Jesus claim to be the Son of God and Did Jesus claim to be the apocalyptic “Son of Man”


the Resurrection as an uprising

The resurrection accounts of Jesus in the New Testament are not stories about a resuscitated corpse. What the first disciples of Jesus experienced was far more than an earthly body that was revived. What they experienced was something completely new and different. The resurrection was a mystical experience of the living presence of Jesus among those who knew him, loved him, and followed him.

The wealthy and powerful thought that the execution of Jesus would eliminate the threat he posed. But the movement he created did not end with his death. In a very real sense, Jesus was resurrected in the people who believed in his message of hope and justice and who followed his example. They felt his presence among them, and this presence gave them the courage to transform their lives with passion, zeal, and courage for the sake of the world. They began a small but passionate uprising in the confident hope that they could create a better world.

Biblical scholar Burton Mack (b. 1931) believes that the resurrection of Jesus was really a process of remembering and retelling the life and message of Jesus—a process that kept him alive within and among the people of the movement that he created. Jesus’ life did not end with his death. That, of course, is the message of Easter. In these early communities of Jesus’ followers, his life continued in his ideas and teachings. The resurrection occurred in the activity of a group who sought to understand and then live out the message of Jesus. The spirit of his teachings was kept alive, but, as with all life, these teachings grew and changed with time. Clarence Jordan, a New Testament scholar and translator behind the “Cotton Patch Gospels,” once wrote:

The proof that God raised Jesus from the dead is not the empty tomb, but the full hearts of his transformed disciples. The crowning evidence that he lives is not a vacant grave, but a spirit-filled fellowship; not a rolled-away stone, but a carried-away church.

Easter means that in the face of defeat, we will arise and stand once more. In the face of overwhelming odds, we will rise yet again. In the face of deepest despair, we will continue to rise. For in the darkest days, hope rises and will not be extinguished. Love rises and will not die. In and through our struggles against threatening powers and principalities, whenever we rise, Jesus too rises again, and again, and again. He rises through our protests against war, injustice, and suffering. He rises in our uprisings for justice and peace. Jesus rises through us and in us. Only when we stand up, speak out, and act with passion, zeal, and courage can we boldly proclaim to the world: “He is risen! He is risen indeed!”


See my blog post the Easter uprising


the political stance of the Jesus movement

The political nature of the Jesus movement and its threat to the status quo of empire is unmistakable. Blasphemy and sedition were frequent charges aimed at the followers of Jesus in the first three centuries after his death and capital punishment was the fate of many of the key leaders of the movement. According to tradition, Peter was crucified in Rome and Paul was beheaded there by the emperor Nero (37–68). The Jewish historian Josephus reports that Jesus’ brother James (the Just) was stoned to death by Temple authorities in Jerusalem. Legends reported by Christian historians Hippolytus of Rome (170–235) and Eusebius (263–339) say that four other disciples met similar fates: Andrew and Bartholomew were crucified, Stephen was stoned, and James, the son of Zebedee was beheaded. Something was going on in the early Jesus movement that clearly threatened authorities of the domination system.

So, did Jesus have a particular political stance? I think that if one reads the gospels in the context I have just described, the answer is “yes.” The kingdom of God that Jesus announced is a political reality that is meant to be lived in the present. This is the core of the gospel of Jesus. It is wrong to simply view Jesus as a spiritual savior with a heavenly goal. He was concerned about our lives on this side of the grave.

When Jesus announced the kingdom of God, he was putting forth a vision of communities governed by love. Planted deep in our hearts, this dream defines our mission as followers of Jesus. We are called to transform the hearts, minds, and politics of our cities and towns, our states and nations, and the entire global community so that children everywhere will be fed, clothed, healed, and educated.

 

 

MISSION AND MESSAGE