Not of This World

Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked Him, “Are You the King of the Jews?” Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about Me?” (John 18.33-34)

Empire, Supremacy, and Legitimate Rule

This weekend, churches worldwide mark the end of the liturgical year with the feast of Christ the King (also known as “The Reign of Christ”). The official line on its origin holds that Pope Pius XI instituted the feast in 1925 to offset growing secularism among the Faithful, to remind them that Christ is the Sovereign Ruler and Lord of all. But numerous historians have suggested the feast was also born of political expediency. World War One effectively unraveled the last of Europe’s dynastic empires, in one case contributing to the overthrow of a monarch (Russia) and in others (Great Britain, Austro-Hungary, and Germany) reducing royal figures to ceremonial heads of state. As “anointed” rulers of vast lands, they had governed at the behest of their spiritual overseers. This paradigm would be no more. In addition to splintering the Continent into smaller, autonomous nations, the War augured the ascendance of a new world leader, the United States. Although Americans were far less consumed by secularism than their French cousins, both countries passionately upheld the separation of Church and State. There was no mistaking they signaled a wave of the future that would strip Catholic and Protestant prelates of power they’d exercised for centuries.

Pius XI’s declaration of Christ’s sovereignty over all nations and peoples was an easy purchase for Protestant bishops who typically ignored Vatican edicts. Few questioned its theological urgency. Rapid shifts in thought had thrown the balance of religion and politics off-kilter. Christianity’s role as Western civilization’s voice of justice and compassion was failing; God’s kingdom was losing ground. As so often has happened in Church history, there was more to the Feast of Christ the King than met the eye: the assertion of Christ’s Lordship doubled as reassertion of ecclesiastical influence. And its tension between religious and political power is instructive, since the same issues—empire, supremacy, and legitimate rule—bubble up in Sunday’s Gospel. (John 18.33-17) This time, however, belief threatens politics. A new wave of thought is taking hold, one that insists a Higher Authority trumps the power structure cobbled together by an uneasy alliance between Rome and Judaism. A new kingdom—mysteriously described as “not of this world”—is on the rise. And its Herald, the renegade Rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, is called to account for allegedly treasonous ideology that could (and ultimately does) overturn the status quo.

Pilate on Trial

Familiarity with the scene—Pilate’s interrogation of Jesus—offers no help with deciphering its riddles. The bluntness of their exchange is deceptive, as each man harbors doubts about about the other’s legitimacy. Jesus is charged with heresy, a matter of no concern to Rome beyond its potential to destabilize the fragile balance of power the Empire has struck with the Temple establishment. Yet the high priests are reluctant to rule against Jesus, fearing a populist backlash that would demonstrate they’ve lost control of their people and render them useless to Rome. With acute cunning, they shift the burden to Pilate, accusing Jesus of professing to be King of the Jews, which qualifies Him as an insurgent worthy of death at Roman hands.

When Jesus stands before him, Pilate doesn't mince words. “Are you the King of the Jews?” he asks, to which Jesus responds, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about Me?” (v33-34) With that, the tables turn. Jesus puts Pilate on trial. Has the Roman summoned Him because he wonders if Jesus is indeed the King of the Jews? (This possibility isn’t lost on either of them, since Pilate’s boss is also a self-avowed divine monarch.) Or is this merely a pro forma hearing to get to the bottom of baseless gossip? Neither option pleases Pilate. Genuine curiosity about Jesus’s identity would belie his faith in Caesar; investigating religious rumors would make him a puppet of the Temple elite. So Pilate deftly distances himself from the situation, admitting, “I’m not a Jew. I shouldn’t be expected to understand this stuff.”

The deflection opens the door for Jesus to assert divine authority. “My kingdom is not from this world,” He says. With daring sarcasm that brings a smile to the alert reader’s face, Jesus validates His otherworldly claim: “If my kingdom were from this world, My followers would be fighting to keep Me from being handed over to the Jews.” (v36) Since this obviously isn’t happening, the argument makes sense to Pilate. Still, its elusive nature doesn’t settle the matter. “So are you a king?” he asks again, dropping the Jewish reference. Jesus replies, “You say I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” (v37; emphasis added)

Power to Seek the Truth

The Feast of Christ the King invites us to witness the truth of Christ’s Lordship—to embrace faith in a divine kingdom that supersedes human authority. Yet accepting this belief cannot happen by taking prelates and pastors’ word for it. We can only discover the truth by listening to Christ’s voice. And I’m persuaded this realization springs from the first question Jesus puts to Pilate: “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about Me?”

Our confidence that Christ reigns supreme begins with profoundly personal questions about Who Jesus really is—and how much real power we’re willing to cede to His Lordship. As it was in Pilate’s court, so it is in our lives. Faith in Christ’s kingdom demands humility born of understanding its mysteries can never be fully understood. It’s impossible to equate Christ’s sovereign rule with earthly powers, as the kingdom of God seeks no earthly power; it summons authority by granting us power to seek the truth of Who God and Jesus really are, who we really are, and the roles we play in a kingdom unlike any ever known. Pilate’s small-mindedness is exposed in his dismissal of Jesus’s challenge. He wants an admission of power that has nothing to do with the truth of Christ’s kingdom. Clearly, he’s not listening. And we benefit from his deafness, because it opens our minds to recognize the truth of Christ’s Lordship can never be told. To experience its majesty, it must be heard. Amid all the regal adjectives tossed around in this weekend’s liturgies, hymns, and sermons, I trust we’ll hear the voice of Jesus. Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about Me?

Seen through the prism of Pilate’s interrogation, the truth of Christ’s Lordship emerges as thing that cannot be told. It must be heard to be understood.

Substance, Not Size

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities… For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of authority? Then do what is good. (Romans 13.1,3)

This election will mark the ninth time I’ve voted for president. If memory serves correctly—and I’m fairly confident it does—the size of government has been hotly debated in every contest. The candidates play to their parties’ predispositions, promising big cuts and less interference on one hand and more effective use of spending and power on the other. When elected, rarely does either side live up to its promises. And that shouldn’t surprise us, because candidates enter office with no way of knowing the challenges they’ll face. When the hoopla dissipates and the real business of running the nation takes hold, size is a phantom issue. Leaders—if they’re wise—do what must be done; expedience drives policy, not the other way around. So we should ask ourselves if all of this wrangling over size is worth the effort. Is there a better question? For believers, there is.

In Romans 13, Paul couldn’t be clearer that Christians are to respect to their leaders. This had to be tough for the Romans to swallow. At the time of his writing, they’d survived Caligula, were dealing with Claudius, and would soon endure severe persecution under Nero. Given their distrust of Caesar, Paul’s admonition that they “be subject to the governing authorities” had to sound nuts. And one struggles to imagine they found solace in his reasoning. “For there is no authority except from God,” he writes, “and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.” (v1-2) Equating submission to Caesar with obedience to God’s will—and threatening judgment for resisters, no less—sure sounds like a catch-22, a real lose-lose proposition.

What do we do with this? Can we toss it out with Paul’s other cranky bits—his misogyny, for example, or comfort with slavery? Not really. Paul’s doctrine is deeply rooted in faith in God’s sovereignty above all. God sanctions human government as the penultimate authority, reserving final say for God’s Self. Without a doubt, many rulers abuse power and visit great suffering on their nations. But Paul focuses our attention on God’s intentions and our obligation to honor them. Verse 3 tells us, “For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of authority? Then do what is good.” When we see leaders defy this ideal, promoting bad conduct rather than good, Paul’s words are no easier for us to swallow than for the Romans.

Again, what do we do with this? We are exponentially more fortunate than the Romans. We are free to choose the authorities who govern us. Thus, as believers, we should first question the substance of those we elect. Can we trust them to be “not a terror to good conduct, but to bad”? Will we be able to live out our faith while complying with their principles and policies? For believers endowed with democratic privilege, substance, not size, is the deciding factor. If we let substance guide our choice, we’ll have no reason to fear those we elect.

Faithful Acts of Hatred

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.” And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill Him; for they were afraid of Him. (Mark 11.17-18)

The Things Jesus Hated

A couple weeks ago, our pastor came across a 1950 directory from our congregation and shared some of its contents with us. From a paragraph called “The Meaning of Church Membership” she read these words:

To be a worthy church member, one must have the temper and disposition of Jesus, taking His attitude toward God and man, looking at life from His standpoint, hating the things which He hated, loving the things which He loved, and doing in cooperation with others the kind of things which He did.

Hating the things which He hated? We’re not the kind of church that ascribes hatred of any kind to Jesus. God is love. Jesus is God. Ergo, Jesus is love. Yet in this context, paired with “loving the things which He loved,” I was struck with a new awareness that Jesus truly did hate many things about our world. Prejudice, false piety, selfishness, violence, callousness, political ambition, deceit, resentment—all of the things that destroy love for God and one another—He despised. He made no room for ambivalence about them. He hated them. What's more, He wasn’t reluctant to say so, regardless how difficult expressing His hatred made His own life.

In fact, as we retrace His steps through Holy Week, we’re initially stunned by what can only be described as conscious acts of hatred from Jesus. In the wake of the Triumphal Entry, we see Him return to Jerusalem on Monday morning, not to bask in the upsurge of adulation, but to express overt hostility toward the religious and political corruption of His day. His audacity and disregard for His popularity, which is at its peak, are breathtaking. And while three of the four Gospels report Monday’s main event—the clearing of the Temple merchants—Mark and Matthew couple it with a rather bizarre incident that shocks us, as it seems completely out of character for Jesus.

On Their Side

The Palm Sunday story ends with a cliffhanger. After the crowd’s enthusiastic hosannas die down, Jesus walks into the Temple, looks around for a moment, and leaves. All that’s missing from the scene is “I’ll be back.” Sure enough, come Monday morning, Jesus’s first order of business is returning to the Temple. He doesn’t even wait for breakfast. As soon as He can get the disciples together, He heads back into Jerusalem—having spent the night in an outlying village—and along the way, He gets hungry. He sees a tree and decides to make do with one of its figs. But the tree is barren because figs aren’t in season. Jesus knows that, which makes His response to not finding fruit curiously upsetting. He curses the tree! “May no one ever eat fruit from you again,” He hisses—so loudly that the disciples hear Him. (Mark 11.14) What’s the problem here? Is Jesus in a bad mood? Is He overtired and impatient? Perhaps. He’s coming off an exhausting day and anticipating an even tougher one, given what He plans to do in Jerusalem. Still, His reaction seems weirdly out of scale.

The Temple is humming by the time Jesus arrives. It’s Passover week and many provincials have turned up early to attend to various sacrifices and offerings before the feast. In the courtyard, moneychangers and livestock traders are open for business, which is booming. As Jesus enters the Temple, He’s keenly aware of stepping into a seller’s market. It’s the ancient equivalent of a modern theme park, where out-of-towners pay ridiculous prices for things that would cost a fraction of the money at home. Jesus hates what’s going on. He goes on a rampage, overturning the moneychanger’s tables and livestock traders’ chairs. Then, in a stunning display of authority, He shuts everything down. Verse 16 says, “He would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.” You bet everyone who doesn’t yet know Who He is wants to find out what He’s all about. Jesus begins to teach right there on the spot, knitting prophecies from Isaiah and Jeremiah together as He indicts the price-gougers: “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.” (v17) Mark says when the Temple establishment hears this, it stokes their determination to kill Jesus. They’re afraid of Jesus, we’re told, because His hatred of those who exploit the worshipers resonates with the crowd. Jesus is on their side and He’s unconcerned about what may happen to Him for standing with them. His deep hatred of evildoing gives Him power to confront it head-on.

New Wholeness and Holiness

So we understand Jesus’s actions in the Temple—and we understand how they seal His fate, which will play out in agonizing extremes on Friday morning. Now, what about the fig tree? On Tuesday morning, returning again to the city, Peter notices that it’s shriveled down to its roots. It’s not dead. But it will need to be revived before it can yield fruit. When Peter points out the tree, Jesus explains the situation by saying that faith’s power is double-edged. It can build things up and make things grow. It can likewise cause things to crumble and wither away. “Truly I tell you,” He says in verse 23, “if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you.”

This mountain—the Mount of Olives, which they’re descending to reach Jerusalem—is a holy place. According to the prophets, it’s the site where the Messiah will first appear and His appearance will split the mountain wide open. (Zechariah 14.4) Jesus is saying that nothing is ever so sacred—or sacrosanct—that it’s immune to being dismantled and remade. A barren tree can be reduced to its roots to regrow and yield new fruit. A holy hill can be torn asunder and thrown into the sea to make way for a New Order. A Temple defiled by exploitation of captive believers can be cleansed and reestablished as the house of prayer that God ordained it to be. Jesus tells us when we couple hatred of what we know is unhealthy and displeasing to God with faith that it can be replaced with something better, what we say will come to pass. Faithful acts of hatred spring forth in new life and new growth—new wholeness and holiness.

As believers, we are called to hate the things that Jesus hated. But our calling doesn’t stop there. Jesus teaches us to speak to those things, to act against them—and to pay no regard for the consequences that may befall us. We are called to decry and oppose poverty, prejudice, exploitation, violence, hypocrisy, and every other ill that defiles God’s creation. Love that ignores harm or tolerates indifference is harmful and indifferent. It’s no love at all. The world’s evils justify our hatred and the actions we take to dismantle them. As we will learn next Sunday, destructive hatred will never defeat its righteous counterpart. Why? Because hating the things that Jesus hated is an act of love. And love always wins.

In cleansing the Temple, Jesus teaches us that evil merits our hatred—and nothing is so sacred or sacrosanct that it can’t be dismantled and replaced by new life, new growth, new wholeness and holiness.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/04/02/faithful-acts-of-hatred/.

Authority and Accountability

They were all amazed, and kept on asking one another, “What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him.” (Mark 1.27)

Shameful—or Shameless?

Hull House, Chicago’s legendary haven of social progress, closed its doors on Friday. Rumors that financial duress might shut down the landmark, co-founded in 1889 by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr, have been floating for a while. Those who cared about its survival waited for a big push to keep it alive. None came. Instead, Hull House just ceased to be. No one could explain how it could suffer such an ignoble fate. Who dropped the ball? Less than a mile away, the same question arose in our city morgue, backlogged with indigent corpses denied burial because of flagrant mismanagement. While Chicagoans grappled with these abominable situations, two states over—at the University of Michigan—President Obama cited poor administration as the chief reason why spiraling education costs now generate more personal debt than credit cards. The rudeness of these realities struck very real nerves in a society already scraped raw by the widening gap between haves and have-nots. We’re hard-pressed to hold someone accountable for these and other misdeeds, even though identifying villains at this late date won’t undo the harms afflicting us.

The ruder reality we won’t face is this: accountability rests with us. Our neglect permitted these problems to reach crisis level. Contentment to authorize self-serving and incompetent officials is what got us here. And we’re so far beyond fixing the system it’s time we own up to the rudest reality of all. If we don’t change our laissez-faire attitude about the least among us, sorely needed change for the benefit of all is a lifeless dream. Systemic failures on every front attest to the shameful—or is it shameless?—apathy of everyone in the system. None of us is without blame. And Sunday’s readings (Deuteronomy 18.15-20; Psalm 111, 1 Corinthians 8.1-13, and Mark 1.21-28) come along just in time to re-teach us what accountability means and how authority works.

The Delicate Balance

Stepping through the texts, we see sharp indicators of malaise—all of them wanting for greater care and courage. In Deuteronomy 18, Moses prepares Israel to move forward in his absence, telling them to anticipate a new prophet whose authority will be evidenced by his credibility. Moses quotes God directly in verses 19 and 20, warning, “Anyone who does not heed the words that the prophet shall speak in My name, I Myself will hold accountable. But any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, or who presumes to speak in My name a word that I have not commanded the prophet to speak—that prophet shall die.” Psalm 111 goes one step further, tying credibility to performance: “The works of God’s hands are faithful and just; all God’s precepts are trustworthy.” (v7) But the psalmist also shifts the focus back to us. In verse 10, we read, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding.” Knowing what’s right requires us to do what’s right in a specific way. Proof we heed Christ’s teachings is found in thoughtful care we take to live out Christ’s principles.

This idea reemerges in 1 Corinthians 8, where Paul invokes the doctrine of uniform priesthood, which authorizes every believer to speak God’s Word and vests us with responsibility to demonstrate God’s precepts in action. Addressing an Early Church controversy about diet (explored in an earlier post, Watch What You Eat), Paul calls us to balance Christian authority to overturn Mosaic Law with accountability for how we exercise our freedom. If rightful taking of faith’s liberty causes others to doubt, Paul says we’re doing it wrong. It’s not about what God’s grace allows us to do, but the grace we exemplify in doing it. Relief in knowing Christ freed us from arcane Old Testament edicts doesn’t relieve our duty to act responsibly for the sake of those who’ve not accepted freedoms we enjoy. The delicate balance between authority and accountability becomes the focal point in Sunday’s Gospel, where Jesus models how both are handled.

In the Raw

The curtain rises on Capernaum, a progressive community that welcomes Jesus. It’s the Sabbath. He enters the synagogue and Mark 1.22 says the people are “astounded at His teaching, for He taught them as One having authority, and not as the scribes.” Jesus’s unorthodox approach sidesteps traditional methods of breaking down religious legalese in order to reveal divine principles in the raw. His manner conveys godly authority, and the congregants respond in keeping with Deuteronomy 18 and Psalm 111’s expectations. When the truth of Christ’s message resonates with them, they accept it. Then something unexpected occurs to ratify their trust.

A man tormented by an unclean spirit bolts out of the crowd, howling, “What have You to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know Who You are, the Holy One of God.” (v24) Before observing Jesus’s response, we note four key details. The man’s presence speaks to the congregation’s openness. Most synagogues would ban him—and be legally and politically correct in doing so. But the Capernaum faith community opens its arms to him. Second, for his sake, it also overlooks the edict prohibiting work on the Sabbath; opposition Jesus encounters elsewhere when working miracles on the Lord’s Day isn’t raised in Capernaum. Third, the raw force of Christ’s message vexes harmful impulses holding the man captive. They hear threats, not hope, and instantly become confrontational. Finally, the man’s cry rings out in two voices: one of fear and resistance, spoken in schizophrenic plurality (“us”), and another that confesses faith and wholeness (“I know Who You are”).

Jesus immediately shuts the paranoid delusions down. “Be silent, and come out of him!” He commands. (v25) They don’t go quietly; Mark reports the man is seized with convulsions before they depart. But the melodramatic tantrum is no match for Christ’s power. Jesus’s accountability for the man’s welfare—despite his condition labeling him “undesirable”—reaffirms His authority to speak truth to power. Verse 27 reads, “They were all amazed, and they kept on asking one another, ‘What is this? A new teaching—with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him.’” We have to love that Jesus doesn’t exploit the chance to show off. He doesn’t make a case for ignoring Sabbath traditions to justify His actions. He doesn’t question the man’s right to be there. He doesn’t turn to the crowd and say, “Watch this.” He simply speaks the truth God gives Him and then acts on it. And the people are amazed.

“Why Should I Be Bound?”

Taking authority over the world’s evils—including those that seek to torment us—demands taking responsibility for the least among us. Arguing legalities and logic with those they hold captive only proves we’re not yet free to speak truth to power. Sure, it’s awfully convenient to shut out undesirables who disrupt our lives with foul thoughts and attitudes. Yet if we keep them away, how will they find help? And how will our witness prove true? Freedom in Christ doesn’t give us the right to show off. It entitles us to lift those enslaved by fear and doubt out of captivity. Today’s Gospel teaches freedom is a privilege best served by setting people free. It authorizes us by expanding our accountability beyond what’s best for us, so others may experience liberating faith and wholeness.

“The fear of the LORD” that Psalm 111 mentions is nothing to be afraid of. It’s the canny understanding that we’ve received the raw truth of the Gospel, and with it the raw power of freedom in Christ. A late friend and songwriter put it like this: “Why should I be bound, when Christ has set me free?” That’s the burning question at the bottom of our moral and political decay. Not, “Who dropped the ball?” But, “Why aren’t we changing the game?”

Teach us, O God, to weigh the delicate balance of embracing Christian authority and accountability for our deeds. Stir in us authentic passion to exercise faith’s freedoms by setting people free. Grant us audacity not only to speak truth to power, but also to act on it. Amen.

We've been given authority over evil in order to lift those enslaved by fear and doubt. Through Christ, we have the power to change the game.

Podcast link: http://straightfriendly.podbean.com/2012/01/28/authority-and-accountability/