Christian Rebels: Jesus, Politics, and a World Without Hate

Christian Rebels: Jesus, Politics, and a World Without Hate December 5, 2016

"Ecce Homo" (Behold, the Man) by Antonio Ciseri, Public Domain, Wikimedia, United States Public Domain tag

(Below is the sermon I preached at the Lake Oswego United Church of Christ for the second Sunday of Advent, 12/4/2016)

In the first century there was a group of people who celebrated a festival called Advent. It celebrated the birth of a king. For these people, Advent filled them with hope, because they believed that this king would bring peace throughout the world.

In fact, they called their ruler specific titles, like “Prince of Peace,” “Savior,” and the “Son of God.”

Indeed, these people were the first to celebrate a season called Advent. And the ruler that they celebrated was a man named Caesar Augustus.

Augustus inaugurated a 12-day celebration on the build up to his birthday and he called it Advent. The term Advent refers to waiting, specifically waiting for the arrival of a certain person.[1] The ancient Romans celebrated Advent as a time of waiting for the arrival, or the birthday, of Caesar.

But it’s important to note that, for the ancient Romans, Advent wasn’t just a time of waiting. It was a time of participating in the Roman political and theological system. You see, Caesar encouraged the Romans to proclaim slogans that became political and theological propaganda. Not only would they claim Caesar is the Son of God, but they also claimed that Caesar is Lord, and they even claimed that “Salvation can be found in none other than Augustus, and there is no other name given to men in which they can be saved.”

Romans really thought that Augustus brought salvation. They really believed that he was spreading peace throughout the known world. But for the Roman political and theological system, peace and salvation were spread by the sword. Rome conquered more and more people to expand its empire. And if anyone protested, if anyone disrupted the “Peace of Rome,” Roman soldiers would kill their enemies with a sword, or with a crucifix. This was the way of Rome.

Christian Rebels

I think it’s important to know this historical context when we celebrate Advent. When I first learned about this context, it put the early Christians, and the season of Advent, in a new and brighter light. The early Christians called themselves “followers of the Way.” And their way was the complete opposite of the way of Rome. In fact, they hijacked Roman slogans. They walked around proclaiming that Jesus, not Caesar, was the Son of God. We progressives often have a difficult time with Son of God language, but it means that if you want to know what God looks like, look to the nonviolent, loving Jesus, not Caesar. They proclaimed that Jesus, not Caesar, is Lord. Jesus is the Prince of Peace. Whereas the Romans claimed only the name of Augustus could save, the early Christians claimed that salvation was found in the name of Jesus. Their hope was in Jesus, not in Caesar.

The early Christians were playing with political dynamite. And many of them were killed for it. They were rebels. They subverted the Roman theological and political systems. But they subverted Rome in the most subversive way. Because, Rome spread peace with the violence of the sword. To subvert Roman violence with more violence would only perpetuate the system of violence. So, following the example of Jesus, who claimed that those who live by the sword die by the sword, these early Christians subverted the Roman system with words and acts of nonviolent love in the name of justice. And in doing so, they found hope for a better world.

It’s important to realize that Advent isn’t a time of passive waiting. It’s a time active waiting. A time of actively looking at the world and seeing what’s wrong and naming it. The early Christians looked at the political and theological systems that led to violence and hatred and they subverted it with acts of nonviolent love. They said the way of the Roman Empire isn’t right and they actively showed the world a different way of being.

Isaiah and Political Subversion

But Rome isn’t the only empire or nation that sought to spread peace through violence. Our passage from Isaiah comes from another very violent time. Isaiah was a prophet when the Assyrian Empire attempted to conquer the world. Indeed, Assyria conquered the nation just to the north of Isaiah’s people in Jerusalem, but they didn’t conquer Jerusalem.

Many in Jerusalem thought it was a miracle that Assyria didn’t conquer them. But Isaiah didn’t celebrate. Instead, he had a different message. He said, “A shoot shall come out of the stump of Jesse.”

Now, who remembers who Jesse was? It’s easy for us to forget who Jesse wa. But every ancient Jew would know he was the father of King David. They would also know that when Isaiah talks about the line of Jesse, he is using loaded political language. He says the line of Jesse had become a stump. The line of Jesse referred to the kings. And those kings were virtually dead and useless, like an old stump. Why? Because the kings of Israel didn’t help the people. Instead, they ruled in a way that oppressed the poor, weak, and marginalized. Isaiah stood in a long line of Hebrew prophets who confronted the kings and pointed to an alternative way.

And that shoot that grew from the stump of Jesse would be a new ruler. Like Caesar Augustus many years later, this person would be a leader of the world. But this is a different kind of ruler than Augustus and the other kings and emperors of the world. Isaiah’s king wouldn’t rule the world through violence. Rather, this king would provide an alternative leadership. Isaiah’s vision was that under this king “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them … (and) they will not hurt or destroy on (God’s) holy mountain.”

Who’s the Big Bad Wolf?

The Bible often speaks metaphorically. This is one of those passages. The wolf, the lamb, the leopard and the kid, the lion and the calf, they are all metaphors for the nations, and for us as individuals. Last week we heard a similar vision from Isaiah, that the nations and people wouldn’t learn war anymore.

At Bible Study this last week, someone remarked, “This all sounds interesting, but I need to personalize it. There are times when I am the wolf. How can I act differently when I’m the aggressor?”

This statement is close to the pinnacle of spirituality. You see, quite often, we are the wolf. On a national level, the United States is much more like ancient Rome or Assyria than like the way of Jesus. Why? Because on a national level, we generally believe that the way to peace is to kill our enemies. And honestly, there are times when I have more faith in the way of Rome than in the way of Jesus. There are times when I want my savior to look much more like wolf, like Caesar Augustus, than like Jesus Christ.

But if the Christian story is true, then the Savior that I get may not be the Savior that I want. If Jesus is the Savior, then he saves us from the Roman, the Babylonian, the American, indeed, the human, ways of violence. He saves us so that we can live into a new way of being in the world – the way that relates to others with forgiveness, compassion, and love.

Radical Forgiveness

I’ll end with a story I heard earlier this week that gives me hope by pointing to this new way of relating to others. Rais Bhuyian is a Muslim born in Bangladesh. He always dreamed of living in the United States. In May of 2001, he moved to Dallas, Texas, where he worked at a gas station. Of course, 9/11 happened a few months later. One day when Rais was working, a man filled with hate for Muslims came into the station, pointed a gun at Rais’s face, and pulled the trigger.

Somehow, Rais survived the shooting. The attacker was placed on death row. Eight years later, Rais was on the Hajj, the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca. And it was there that he realized the truth about his faith. He claimed, “In my faith, in Islam, it says that saving a life is like saving the entire (hu)mankind … All the good things I was taught inspired me to go and do the right thing.”

For Rais, Islam taught him that the right thing was not to become a bigger, badder wolf than his attacker. Instead, for him, the right thing was to work tirelessly for his attacker to be released from death row. They became friends. His attacker wrote a letter where he confessed, “My stepfather taught me some lessons that I should have never learned. I have unlearned some of them, and I’m still unlearning … I don’t know who your parents were, but it’s obvious they were wonderful people to lead you to act this way, to forgive someone who is unforgivable.” On the day his attacker was put to death, he called Rais on the phone. Rais spoke words of forgiveness, and his attacker, Mark Stroman, said, “I love you, bro.”

Rais could have responded by becoming another wolf in this world that has too many wolves. Instead, he created a nonprofit organization called “World without Hate.”[2] Its mission is to, educate “people about the transformative power of mercy and forgiveness, based on the hope that we can build a better world. A world without violence, without victims, and without hate.”

I am convinced that conversion is no longer about converting from one religion to another. Our world is way past that. The hope of conversion is now to convert from the ways of violence and into the ways of forgiveness, compassion, and love.

So may we participate in a world without hate.

May we trust that the way of Christ’s love and forgiveness is the true way to peace.

And may we have hope that in the darkness of this Advent season, God is birthing new life in us and in the world.

Amen


 

[1] See Ethelbert Stauffer, Christ and the Caesars (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2008), pages 81-84. See also, Rob Bell, Nooma, “You,” (Grand Rapids: Flannel, 2008.)

[2] See http://worldwithouthate.org/

Image: “Ecce Homo” (Behold, the Man) by Antonio Ciseri, Public Domain, Wikimedia, United States Public Domain

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