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Theologian and biblical scholar John Dominic Crosson wrote in: God and the Empire:
The residents of the Bavarian village of Oberammergau have staged a Passion Play every decade on the decade and also on special anniversaries in gratitude for protection from a 1634 plague. When I saw the second production after World War II, in 1960 , it was the same one that Hitler had seen in 1930 and 1934, before and after he became Chancellor of Germany. Later, in July 1942 about the time the German armies were beginning their fateful push toward Stalingrad, Hitler commented on what he had seen a decade earlier:
“It is vital that the Passion Play be continued at Oberammergau; for never has the menace of Jewry been so convincingly portrayed as in this presentation of what happened in the times of the Romans. There one sees in Pontius Pilate a Roman racially and intellectually so superior, that he stands out like a firm, clean rock in the middle of the whole muck and mire of Jewry.”
I’m starting here, not for the shock of a Hitler quote at the beginning, but one of my commentaries started by basically saying, preachers either love preaching the passion, or the arrest, trial, and execution of Jesus narrative told John or hate it. I haven’t decided yet, but what I do know is that how we tell, enact, teach, imagine what happens in these 2 chapters has live and death implications for many today. Throughout John’s telling of the story of Jesus, we have seen him use the phrase “the Jews” over and over again. It could be used as the Jews who gathered to listen, the Jews who were in the synagogue, the Jews who tried to stone him, the Jews who were feed by him, the Jews who mourned and wept with Mary and Martha. It is not all good or all bad. Often it’s assumed to the Jewish leads but that’s not always true either. I am wondering, and this week decided (though I have no scholarship to support it) that maybe the Jews could be translated as: the Jews who happen to be in the area at the moment that this story takes place, those Jews standing yonder, these Jews right here, because remember, they were almost all Jewish and when they weren’t, we were told–the Roman official or the Samaritan woman.
There is no less than a 1000 years of violence, abuse, and genocide on the Jewish people because of the way Christians, we, tell this story. As if Christians claim that every Jewish person who alive in that moment, that had ever lived, and was yet to come stood at Pilates’ courtyard crying out for Jesus’ death. They did not. It seems, in this moment, it was the available religious officials and maybe some of Barabbus’ friends that they found on the way.
If telling this story is difficult, I think it’s the baggage of hundreds of years of passion plays that pointed a finger, that lead to the pointing of a sword, that lead to the misery and death of millions more Jews after the one we come together to learn from and worship.
Jesus and Pilate are having this conversation, or maybe they are having 2 different conversations at each other? Pilate is looking for a reason why Rome should execute Jesus–a claim of Jesus’ that might be considered a threat to the empire. Is Jesus claiming to be a king? There is only one King, it’s Augustine. That is the kingdom. That is the one that Pilate is appointed to support.
The kingdom or Empire of Rome has one cause, one purpose–serve Rome, not the whole empire, rather the city itself. Well, not all the city, the wealthy, property owning, men of Rome. Everything the Empire did was to bring into the center all the benefits, wealth, and peace. In Latin it’s called the Pax Romana, so that’s what we still call it today. And you maintain the peace in Rome by any means necessary. There were part of the empire that were never peaceful. If the margins of the empire need to remain under the sword, if hundreds have to die to prove a point, if you want to maintain a sword over the necks of everyone else… through violence, war, deceit, and death, Rome will have peace.
Historically, Pilate was not a kind or compassionate man. He was brutal and cruel, but that doesn’t mean he was stupid. We don’t know Pilate’s motivations, but early in the morning he was told the Religious leaders were there, get up, they are calling for you. Maybe he realized that these folks are going to get him up again at some ungodly hour and he just didn’t care enough about any of them to do something different, he didn’t care who died as long as it didn’t make him look bad to Rome, and as long as he could sleep in tomorrow.
Jesus was killed to maintain the delicate peace, to maintain the status quo. And in the years to come, Christ followers would be killed for causing trouble, not obeying orders, not getting married like her dad wanted her to. Several “hers.”
So living in that fear, it doesn’t surprise me when the Empire made some offers to keep them safe, if the followers were make some consessions, they agreed. It was a move that took Christianity from the margins of society, from refuge for the poor and the vulnerable, to the center of power. And over time, it wasn’t compromises to keep them safe but to maintain power. Empires crowned popes and popes crowned kings, the venn diagram of Empire and Christianity were a circle. They had armies, fight wars, taking lives, acquiring wealth. Martin Luther wasn’t the first reformer–we wouldn’t have Sts. Francis, Ignatius, or Claire if the Church were living into the call from Jesus.
Happy St Patrick’s Day but Ireland is still dealing with the consequences of 2 groups of Christians vying for power and authority.
It cannot be denied that too often the weight of the Christian movement has been on the side of the strong and powerful and against the weak and oppressed–this, despite the gospel.” Howard Thurman
THE GRAND INQUISITOR
In his literary masterpiece, The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky tells the tale of three brothers who are very different. Each reflect a different aspect of their complicated father.17 There is a memorable scene towards the middle of the novel in which the eldest brother, Ivan, an atheist intellectual, is talking about religion with the youngest brother, Alyosha, who is a deeply devout young monk.
Ivan’s point of view is that institutional religion represents a kind of enslavement that runs counter to Jesus’ original message of spiritual freedom. To make his point, he spins a parable which has become known in literature as THE GRAND INQUISITOR.18
In Ivan’s story, Jesus returns to earth, not in the clouds with glory, but quietly. He returns to Spain during the time on the Inquisition. He walks into Seville Cathedral and the people flock to him because of his warmth and compassion. Recognizing they have a serious problem on their hands, the church has him arrested the next day and he is sentenced to death by burning.
While Jesus languishes in his dark jail cell, the Grand Inquisitor comes to visit him by night. It is then that he gives Jesus a shocking explanation for the church’s decision to arrest and execute him: “We don’t need you anymore.”19
As Jesus remains silent, the Grand Inquisitor explains.20
“When you came to earth the first time, you came to give people spiritual freedom. When you were in the wilderness being tempted by the devil, he asked you to turn stones into bread but you knew that if you used your power to end hunger for the poor and supply them with infinite food, they would have no choice but to love you. So you refrained. You let the world go hungry so they could have freedom.
Then, when the devil asked you to throw yourself off the roof of the temple and be caught by angels, you knew that if people saw you perform such a feat in the most public place and way, they would have no choice but to worship you as a god. So you refrained. You kept your miracles private so people would be able to choose you without manipulation.
And when the devil offered you all the kingdoms of the world, you knew that people would be forced to bow to you and praise you whether they wanted to or not. So you refrained. You made your Kingdom a spiritual one. One that could be freely chosen by believers without coercion.
But was that really the right choice, Jesus?”
Jesus remained silent.
“It wasn’t,” the Inquisitor continued, “Because in choosing freedom you doomed half the world to lives of suffering followed by afterlives of spiritual oblivion. If you had only the courage to decide for them, and to impose your Kingdom upon them, they would be happy and assured of their salvation.
Well, we the Church, have accepted the Devil’s deal. Centuries ago, we abandoned your call and cast our lot with him. And we are doing just fine. We have spread the Kingdom throughout the earth by domination, winning souls by coercion and the promise of material gain. We keep the population fat, ignorant, and happy. They don’t have to make any choices, simply obey. They gladly relinquish to us the terrible burden of freedom because they don’t want it! We made the hard choice you refused to make in the wilderness and the world is better for it. We simply have no use for you and we can’t risk you messing it all up! That’s why you have to die!”
When the Inquisitor finished speaking, he waited for Jesus to respond. But he just sat there looking into the Inquisitor’s eyes with patient love. Then, after a long silence, Jesus stood up. He walked across the room and kissed the Inquisitor on his bloodless old lips. The Inquisitor shudders. There is a twitch in the corner of his mouth.
Silently, the Inquisitor walks to the doors of the cell and opens them.
“Go,” he says, “Go, and return no more. Do not come again. Never. Ever.”
Then the prisoner vanished into the dark night.
When Ivan finished his story,21 Alyosha, who had listened patiently, asked, “And what became of the old man?”
Ivan answered, “The kiss burns in his heart but he remains firm to his own ideas and beliefs.”
“And you with him,” Alyosha responded.
Ivan laughed and asked Alyosha whether he thought his older brother was a heretic. Silently, Alyosha stood up, walked across the room, and kissed Ivan on the mouth. Then he walked out the door.
Ivan called after him, “That’s plagiarism!”
~ Retold from THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV by Fyodor Dostoevsky
When Jesus talks about his kin-dom, he says it is not of, not from, does not originate from this world. It’s like a planet that functions on entirely different physics than earth–the rules of gravity and motion don’t exist. We see it when Jesus is arrested in the garden and Peter pulls out a sword and Jesus stops him, tells Peter to put away his sword. We see it when Jesus says if my kin-dom worked on your kingdom’s rules… they’d be fighting right now.
As it is, Jesus’ empire isn’t from here, and doesn’t work like the empires of this world. Its power isn’t rooted in violence, oppression, destruction, death, and deceit. It is from God, from the Spirit and its power and peace is found in love, liberation, justice, compassion, and truth.
And these two empires cannot merge and maintain their distinctness, their values.
“Mixing religion and politics is like mixing ice cream and manure. It doesn’t do much to the manure but it sure does ruin the ice cream”, Tony Campolo likes to say.
In case I am being too subtle:
An empire that is unrepentant of being founded in denying the dignity, humanity, image of God-ness of another;
an empire that continues to deny the dignity of vulnerable, the young, the old, the marginalized, and the sojourner
an empire that that uses violence as a first way to control the population
an empire that is willing to lie, oppress, imprison, and kill for the benefit of the powerful, to maintain the powerful, to increase the wealth the powerful
on the backs of the poor, the marginalized, the vulnerable, the different, the compassionate, the sick, …
is not a Christian nation.
Jesus was willing to die, walked willing into the hands that would kill him, refused to place his hands on a weapon that could have saved him, did not walk away, Jesus died to reveal to us, to show us how different his kin-dom is from the ones of this world that demanding our allegiance.
Jesus doesn’t demand our allegiance to his kin-dom. but you cannot whole heartedly follow both.
This is probably also why these passion narratives are sometimes difficult to preach, they don’t easily fit into the clear pattern of Good News from God and a Call to action for us. It’s all a little discouraging knowing where they story is going and knowing where the centuries of Church is going and living in a world that is sometimes… discouraging.
But may we also know, and may we always remember, that the story of Jesus is one in which the weapons of the empire, the tools that the empire wields, fail in the light, the love the life, the truth of Christ. And when the church, the church this is the people, the followers of Christ, lives in the ways of the kin-dom of God, the kin-dom that is not from this world that doesn’t follow the laws of this world’s empires, that comes from, that originates from God and in revealed in and is ruled by peace, love, truth, liberation, justice, mercy, compassion, kindness, grace, forgiveness, dignity, life,
we have to know and we have to remember that the empires of this world may do their worst, but they do not win.
So do not be overwhelmed by powers of this world. and do not be weary of sharing love. May we be those who reveal Christ’s kin-dom through love, compassion, kindness, hope, liberation, and truth.