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Our reading this week is from the gospel of Luke:
Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said, “As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.”
“Teacher,” they asked, “when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that they are about to take place?” He replied: “Watch out that you are not deceived. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is near.’ Do not follow them. When you hear of wars and uprisings, do not be frightened. These things must happen first, but the end will not come right away.”
Then he said to them: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places, and fearful events and great signs from heaven. But before all this, they will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over to synagogues and put you in prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of my name. And so you will bear testimony to me. But make up your mind not to worry beforehand how you will defend yourselves. For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. Everyone will hate you because of me. But not a hair of your head will perish. Stand firm, and you will win life. (Luke 21:5-18)
The lectionary reading from the gospels this weekend has a very long, antisemitic history, but we can understand this passage in ways that are faithful to the Jewish ethic that Jesus’ centered of in his teachings and help us love our neighbor as ourselves.
Remember that the Jesus movement did not begin as Christianity. Early Jesus followers were Jewish and the Jesus movement didn’t set out to create a new religion. So the teaching that later became these verses did not come from a context of Christianity versus Judaism, but were one Jewish perspective among many on Roman imperialism’s negative impact on Judaism and on the Temple aristocracy’s complicity with Rome. Many marginal Jewish voices during Jesus’ time were opposed to the Temple state because of its complicity with Roman imperial economic exploitation. Rome determined who would lead the Temple’s aristocracy, and so those in political power in the Temple state in Jerusalem cooperated with Rome to survive and keep power in Jewish society. Because of this political calculation, the High Priesthood lost the confidence of the masses who suffered economically.
Josephus tells us of a multitude of rebel prophets promising liberation from Roman imperialism. Here is just one example:
“These people [six thousand people who Rome killed] owed their demise to a phony prophet. He was someone who on that very day announced that God had ordered the people in the city to go up to the temple area, there to welcome the signs that they would be delivered. Many prophets at that time were incited by tyrannical leaders to persuade people to wait for help from God. . . . When humans suffer they are readily persuaded; but when the con artist depicts release from potential affliction, those suffering give themselves up entirely to hope.” (Josephus, Jewish Wars, 6.285-287)
I understand the Jesus movement beginning as one of this kind of Jewish liberation movements. Jesus’ preaching of the “kingdom” of God over and against the empire of Rome offered the people a way to return to and restore fidelity to the Torah, centered in love of God and love of neighbor.
Our reading this week also heavily depends on Mark 13, perhaps as a way to harmonize Mark with the tensions between Jewish and Gentile Jesus followers and between Christianity and Judaism that are expanded later, in the book of Acts. Through these stories, anti-Jewishness could grow into these passages and interpretations of those passages that have been deeply destructive to our Jewish neighbors and friends.
This is where we need to begin this week, next.
(Read Part 2)
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