Satan's Throne - Part 5

In the best tradition of Hebrew prophets, Jesus was a threat to the social order. His teachings defied accepted wisdom, he hung out with all manner of outcasts, his interactions with women were remarkable for that time, and his message carried an egalitarian flavor. He defied religious traditions and placed people above rules, above profits, above power. Religious leaders considered him a heretic and blasphemer, and Rome eyed him as a potential insurrectionist. Talk of an alternative reign to that of Caesar was not acceptable on any level. His rejection of every form of exploitation challenged the way things were. Jesus was a troublemaker.

The new society that he proclaimed was a threat to entrenched structures. Alliances of “church” and state that worked for mutual enrichment of the very few at the apex of the social structure and left all others at their mercy had no place for Jesus alternate vision.

By now, no matter how intriguing this background may be to some, the reader is wondering why I have spent so much time on it all. Well, here is where the rubber hits the road.

What do these competing visions have to do with our lives today? Where do we see the way of Jesus and the way of Caesar? How do they operate and how do we disentangle ourselves from the way of Caesar in order to follow Jesus?

An empire built on military force has been tried throughout the millennia, but no matter what divine blessings they invoke upon themselves, the Law, the Prophets, the Writings, the Gospels, the Epistles, and the Apocalypse all call empires to account before God. They must give an account of how they treat the least among them, for Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats is, if we trust what Matthew writes, a judgment not only of individuals but of nations.

All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one
from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put
the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. (Matthew
25:32-33)

Hillel the Elder, whose life overlapped that of Jesus, preceded Jesus in noting the criterion of pleasing God:

That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation. Go and study it. (Babylonian Talmud, tractate Shabbat 31a)

Jesus spoke similarly:

When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" He said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." (Matthew 22:34-40)

Empires are not run on love. The reign of God is. Since we cannot equate earthly nations and empires with the reign of God, I do not propose we evaluate them in terms of love. But I do believe we must hold them to the standard of justice, and that involves treatment of the “last and least.”

The friends and followers of Jesus should be working for liberation of the oppressed, care of the sick, feeding of the hungry, shelter for the homeless, equitable treatment of the marginalized. Jesus did not treat anyone as dispensable or irrelevant.
What does it say for our nation if laws are passed and budgets structured that favor insurers over the insured, pharmaceutical giants over the sick, energy conglomerates over those who cannot afford fuel to get to work or heat for their homes, banks and financial institutions over their customers? How can we brag of higher standards for our schools when we do not provide the means to meet those standards and the attention our children need to learn and thrive? How can we leave the people one of America’s great cities to languish while bragging about our efforts to rebuild New Orleans? How can we extend the service of our troops in battle and cut spending on the Veteran’s Administration that cares for them when they come home? How can we send young men and women to fight for the United States when do not provide them with adequate armor? How can we reduce society’s safety net for the poorest while the gap between rich and poor widens obscenely and the level of those living below the poverty line increases?

Where are our national priorities when we extend our military and economic presence without taking care of our own poor, sick, elderly, and young? Why are we reducing the burden on the very wealthy while increasing it for everyone else? What does it say about the value we place on our children and our children’s children when the nation goes deeper and deeper into debt?

What does the way of Jesus have to say about corruption, secrecy, and lies? Where are today’s prophets who will stand up and speak boldly on behalf of the dispossessed? Who will be our next Martin Luther King, Jr.? Our Mohandas Gandhi? Our Desmond Tutu? Our Oscar Romero? Our Harriet Tubman or Elizabeth Cady Stanton? Our Chief Joseph or Sealth? Our Isaiah, Amos, Micah, Hosea? Our Mary?

When the Soviet Union held nations under its thumb with ruthless brutality and suppressed all freedoms, Ronald Reagan named it an Evil Empire. The Soviet Union collapsed and for the moment there is one superpower on the planet, though China may be able to challenge that before long. Have we become an empire or aspire to do so? What does this say about our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution, and our Bill of Rights? What are our national ideals today, our goals? If it is our deeds that tell the truth and not our words, where do we stand?

I believe Jesus challenges us today to remake our society. That does not mean we can create the reign of God on our own and it certainly does not mean we should restructure our nation to conform to ours or any other belief system. It does mean we, as Christians, have a duty to help shape the structures of our society so they favor justice, freedom, and the common good. We must oppose injustice, oppression, and the greed and lust for power that ignores the wellbeing of all. Jesus or Caesar—whom do we serve?

Conclusion in Part 6