https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/socialjesus\/2019\/10\/worth-those-margins\/<\/a>).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nThese passages repeat the encouragement not to remain silent. This is the same encouragement that we saw three passages ago. What could Jesus have meant by the phrase, \u201cSpeaking out for me?\u201d I grew up believing this was about being proud <\/i>to be a Christian, about boldly engaging others in a conversation about whether they had accepted Jesus as their \u201cpersonal Lord and Savior\u201d so that they could enjoy assurance about an other-worldly post-mortem life. Nothing could be further from the social context of this saying in the gospels.<\/p>\n
Jesus\u2019 message in the gospels announced the arrival of the reign of God in the hearts of people reflected in the societal choices they made. These choices were social. They marked a commitment to take responsibility for the care of the people around them\u2014especially those pushed to the underside and margins of society by the status quo. The \u201ckingdom\u201d in its simplest form is a societal, distributive justice where people help people. <\/i>It critiqued the present system, which privileged elite at the expense of the dominated and subjugated class. It called people to dismantle society\u2019s present arrangements and replace them with the community Jesus modeled in his shared table.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n
Why would Jesus need to encourage his followers to speak out and refuse to keep silent?<\/i> Because whenever you begin speaking truth to power, whenever you begin speaking out against the way things are, those benefited by societal bias will always feel threatened. Equity to those who are disproportionately privileged always feels like a threat to their way of life. And rightly so, because it is! Those who benefit push back against critiques, endeavoring to silence those who speak out against injustice. To those whom others are trying to silence, the Jesus of Matthew and Luke encourages, \u201cSpeak out for me and the societal vision we are casting before the imaginations of any who will listen.\u201d Adolf Deissmann in his classic volume, New Light on the New Testament From The Records of the Graeco-Roman Period, tells us that archaeological evidence indicates that the primitive Jesus community was \u201c a movement of the proletarian middle class.\u201d (p. 7) Jesus was a community organizer teaching his disinherited and oppressed proletariat followers how to speak up for and work towards the changes they wanted.<\/p>\nApocalyptic Worldview<\/h2>\n
Whether Jesus subscribed to an apocalyptic world view or that was the worldview of those who preserved his story, the dualism of apocalypticism is in plain view in this saying. This ancient worldview assumed that there were cosmic forces of good and evil connected to earthy conduits of good and evil.<\/p>\n
Jesus accesses the cosmic imaginations of his listeners by referencing \u201cangels\u201d on the Day of Judgment, one of the events where those who subscribed to this worldview believed injustice, violence, and oppression in our world would be put right. Jesus\u2019 gospel was an announcement that this long-awaited \u201cputting right\u201d had come and it was theirs if they would embrace the reign of God manifested in people choosing to take care of people. It was a deeply held belief that the Day of Judgment was a breaking in of the cosmic world into this world: a day of reckoning, a day of reward and punishment, a day of reversal when the oppressed would be liberated and oppressors would be removed from their places of domination. The last would be first and the first would be last. In our saying this week, this vision of a future day of judgment is used to motivate the early followers of Jesus. Jesus says that those who speak out would be spoken for on that day, and those who remained silent in the face of injustice would be repudiated.<\/p>\n
This may have been a deeply motivating idea for the first audience of the Jesus story. Today, we can use other motives to inspire one another to take care of each other. We are interconnected. We are each other\u2019s fate, and what affects you, affects me. Whether one subscribes to the apocalyptic worldview of the 1st Century or a more naturalistic 21st Century worldview, the truth of our interconnectedness is universal. We are in this life together. If I do not speak out for those being marginalized and pushed under, it will come back to negatively affect me as well. The world we create for others is the world we are creating also for ourselves.<\/p>\n
Son of Humanity<\/h2>\n
I trace the \u201cSon of man\u201d title for Jesus back to the political imagery of Daniel 7. In this piece of Jewish apocalyptic sacred resistance literature, the Son of Man is seen:<\/p>\n
\u201cComing with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.\u201d (Daniel 7:13-14)<\/p>\n
\u201cThen the sovereignty, power and greatness of all the kingdoms under heaven will be handed over to the holy people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him.\u201d (Daniel 7:27)<\/p>\n
This is not imagery where the rulers are destroyed or annihilated, but rather they are gathered into Jesus\u2019s ethical vision for the world, and they follow it.<\/p>\n
This imagery is picked up in the Christian scriptures in the apocalyptic book of Revelation:<\/p>\n
\u201cAll nations will come<\/p>\n
and worship before you,<\/p>\n
for your righteous acts have been revealed.\u201d (Revelation 15:4)<\/p>\n
\u201cThe nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it.\u201d (Revelation 21:24)<\/p>\n
We could reclaim some of this imagery today, but not in the way that the colonial nations or the modern Christian Right have used it. We don\u2019t imagine a world where everyone embraces the evangelical Christian religion and its Western White theology\u2014or else. We could reclaim this imagery in a much more compassionate, holistic way: a vision of human societies being transformed as they embrace the universal truth that Jesus taught: we are connected. In the \u201ceverlasting dominion that will not pass away,\u201d human society chooses to end racism, to end classism, to end sexism, to end heterosexism, and more. Humans cease their endless efforts to gain power over others in order to preserve a world that\u2019s safe for them, but not safe, compassionate, or just for others. Our differences are not met with fear but embraced as part of the beautiful human kaleidoscope that we all are.<\/p>\n
Taking Hold of Life<\/h2>\n
The passage of the gospels we are considering this week is Jesus\u2019 repeated call to \u201cspeak out.\u201d A statement that I have referenced before and will be referenced repeatedly over the next few weeks is Joanne Carlson Brown\u2019s and Rebecca Parker\u2019s statement on the myth of redemptive suffering. I can\u2019t get this statement out of my head. It deeply challenges the way I have applied the teachings of nonviolence in the past as a person who benefits from the status quo.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not the acceptance of suffering that gives life; it is a commitment to life that gives life. The question, moreover, is not Am I willing to suffer? but Do I desire fully to live? This distinction is subtle and, to some, specious, but in the end, it makes a great difference in how people interpret and respond to suffering.\u201d (in Christianity, Patriarchy and Abuse, <\/i>p.18)<\/p>\n
In our passage above, Jesus calls those being intimidated into remaining silent to speak out anyway. He calls them to take hold of life and keep holding onto life even if they are threatened with a cross for doing so.<\/p>\n
This strikes home for me. One of the countless stories that come to mind is how I was once shut out of a network of Christian churches in North Dakota, a region that has been experiencing a gold-rush like financial boon over the last few years. I was told that because of my solidarity with and support of Native people\u2019s NoDAPL movement, they do not want me speaking in their churches at this time and so my meetings in North Dakota for this\u00a0month have been canceled.<\/p>\n
When I heard this, I had a choice to make. Do I let go of my solidarity with Native people to be able to speak, or do I maintain my hold on life (and my humanity for that matter) in spite of the negative consequences? Many people have written to me over the past few weeks have experienced social media silencing, on Twitter and Facebook. They\u2019ve shared stories of friends telling them they are being \u201ctoo political\u201d when they have spoken out or acted in defense of people being made vulnerable in the U.S. today.<\/p>\n
To those experiencing that silencing, I would say, keep speaking out. People matter, and therefore politics matters. Politics is much more than arguing over individual candidates, too. Don\u2019t misunderstand me: the character and policies of politicians matter. Yet these policies and how they affect the most vulnerable among us also matters.<\/p>\n
The subject of politics is the discussion of how power is distributed and who gets access to resources. Jesus, like the Hebrew prophets, spoke of distributive justice and an order where power and resources are distributed in a way that ensures a world that is safe, compassionate and just for all, including the most vulnerable, and the vulnerable are no longer exploited, evicted, or excluded. People matter, and therefore we should be speaking out.<\/p>\n
Jesus\u2019 gospel, as we have defined over and over again, was about people taking care of people. This is what it means to speak out for Jesus. When we speak out, it isn\u2019t in defense of Christianity, but in defense of Jesus\u2019 vision of a world where people matter and we choose to take care of each other rather than being afraid of one another.<\/p>\n
Over the past few years, I\u2019ve repeatedly experienced backlash for affirming the lives of my LGBTQ, Black siblings, Ingenious siblings, the lives of women, cis and trans, and the value of immigrant lives. And the small pushback I\u2019ve encountered as an ally isn\u2019t even to be compared with the real and genuine crosses that these communities face themselves for having the courage to \u201ctake hold of life,\u201d stand up for themselves and stand up against bigotry, racism, classism, heterosexism, xenophobia, and host of other phobias. As someone whose starting point in both theology and politics is Jesus\u2019s gospel to the poor, I\u2019m reminded of how many social movements have also been demonized by those in power and those benefiting from the present structure. They, too, were threatened, and those who sympathize with their \u201ctaking hold of life\u201d were misrepresented and became the focus of misinformed prejudice.<\/p>\n
But to every group seeking to affirm their selves and thrive in life, to those who are tired of the sun and rain God sends on all (Matthew 5:45) being systemically prevented from reaching them too, speak up and stand up. Whether you realize it or not, you are accessing the same courage that the Jewish Jesus sought to have his first followers find and take hold of as well.<\/p>\n
Speaking out has a long tradition, and the Jesus of the gospels belongs to that tradition. These historical moments give us pause and a possible way to reclaim and reframe these sayings of Jesus.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The subject of politics is the discussion of how power is distributed and who gets access to resources. The gospels speak of distributive justice and an order where power and resources are distributed in a way that ensures a world that is safe, compassionate and just for all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[732,696,666,101,729,702,7,699],"tags":[1848,1851,1854,73,1857,1860,1881,1863,76,16,134,1884,876,1866,1869,1872,13,1875,1878,1773,1806,10,873,70],"class_list":["post-1371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economic-justice","category-feminism","category-immigration-justice","category-lgbtq-affirmation","category-liberation-theology","category-racial-justice","category-social-gospel","category-womanism","tag-blacklivesmatter","tag-confessing","tag-denying","tag-feminism","tag-heartgroups","tag-i-cant-keep-quiet","tag-immigrant-justice","tag-issues","tag-lgbtq","tag-liberation","tag-life","tag-native-lives","tag-people","tag-policies","tag-policing","tag-political","tag-resistance","tag-silencing","tag-silent","tag-speaking-out","tag-speaking-up","tag-survival","tag-vulnerable","tag-womanism"],"yoast_head":"\n
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