Our subject this week is social repentance and our reading is from the gospel of Luke:
Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”
Part 1 of Social Repentance Not Private Piety
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Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’ ‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’” (Luke 13:1-9)
This time of year is the season of Lent for many Christians. Lent centers on the theme of repentance, and our reading this week is one where Jesus is calling his listeners to repentance. This year, I’d like to offer a broader way to consider Jesus’ teachings on repentance in Luke.
First, Jesus isn’t speaking about personal, individual, or private repentance for individual misdeeds in this reading. He’s speaking, like the Hebrew prophets of old, of social repentance.
The context of our reading this week is that Jesus has been critiquing the elites and powerful for their complicity with the Roman Empire. Rome’s way of extracting loyalty and resources from client regions like Galilee and Judea had a devastating economic effect on Jesus’ society. A few who were already rich but were also well-connected became even richer, at the expense of the masses. Some of the wealthy who weren’t so well connected lost their wealth and became indentured servants on the land they used to own. As those who were wealthy became richer, the poor, as is often the case, became poorer.
In our reading this week, some objected to Jesus’ critique of complicity with the Roman Empire. After all, who can stand up to Rome? Rome’s response to any noncooperation or rebellion was brutal. A little background history about resistance movements before and after Jesus is necessary here.
One insurrectionist, Judas the Galilean (Acts 5:27), led an insurrection in 6 C.E. To prepare for whatever rebellious action they were going to attempt, those involved would often reject Roman allegiance by gathering to offer sacrifices to God and God alone. Judas the Galilean proclaimed the Jewish state, independent, recognizing God alone as their king and ruler and the Torah as first and foremost. He led a rebellion in Sepphoris that the Roman army put down with harsh brutality, crucifying over 2,000 Jewish rebels in the streets. The army then burned Sepphoris to the ground and enslaved the remaining residents.
Rome didn’t slaughter these people simply because they were offering sacrifices. They were slaughtered because their sacrifices were in preparation for an insurrection against the empire. In Luke, this case from Galilee is raised to object to Jesus’ call to embrace his “kingdom of God” rather than the empire of Rome. In the face of such brutality, what can we do?
The second case in this passage is about Judea, specifically Jerusalem and the tower of Siloam. We’ll pick up there in Part 2.
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