Photo credit: Ryan Kosmides<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThis week we end our consideration of the final warnings in Luke\u2019s version of the Jesus story and how they might relate to our society. In Luke 23, we read:<\/p>\n
\u201cJesus turned and said to them, \u2018Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children. For the time will come when you will say, \u2018Blessed are the childless women, the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!\u2019 Then \u2018they will say to the mountains, \u2018Fall on us!\u2019 and to the hills, \u2018Cover us!\u2019 For if people do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?\u2019\u201d (Luke 23:28\u201331)<\/p>\n
In this passage, Jesus addresses women weeping for him as Roman soldiers march him toward Golgotha. Jesus is just moments away from being crucified here. Luke tells us that \u201ca large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him\u201d (Luke 23:27). Days earlier this same crowd had ushered Jesus into Jerusalem. White Christians today who still trust in militarized saviors in our current social climate miss a lot of the details in Jesus\u2019 entrance into Jerusalem.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nLuke\u2019s gospel borrows imagery used by Rome itself, which referred to Caesar as the \u201cson of God.\u201d He was called \u201cthe savior of the world.\u201d Through the victories of Rome (i.e., Caesar), the political propaganda of Jesus\u2019 day proclaimed, \u201cpeace on earth\u201d would come. They called that peace the Pax Romana<\/i>, the \u201cpeace of Rome.\u201d And when Caesar would approach a city in the Roman Empire, emissaries from the city would go out to meet the dignitary and escort him on his way into their city. They would welcome Caesar and the \u201cpeace\u201d that Roman occupation brought to their lives.<\/p>\n
The fact that Luke\u2019s gospel used images of honor thought to be due only to the \u201cLord\u201d Caesar would have deeply subverted Rome\u2019s political gospel. As Luke\u2019s Jesus approached Jerusalem, the crowd cries out, \u201cBlessed is the KING<\/b> who comes in the name of the Lord!\u201d and \u201cPEACE<\/b> in heaven and glory in the highest!\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nYet there is a difference between Luke\u2019s Jesus and Rome\u2019s Caesar. Where Caesar would have ridden a warhorse in his triumphal entry, Jesus came riding on the foal of a colt, or a young donkey. At least two literary agendas are present here: a contrast to Rome\u2019s militarized methods toward peace and Jesus\u2019 path toward peace through distributive justice rather than policing, and the writer pointing readers\/listeners to the words of the prophet Zechariah:<\/p>\n
\u201cRejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your KING<\/b> comes to you, righteous and having salvation, lowly and riding on a DONKEY, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. I will TAKE AWAY<\/b> the CHARIOTS<\/b> from Ephraim and the WARHORSES<\/b> from Jerusalem, and the BATTLE BOW<\/b> will be broken. He will proclaim PEACE<\/b> to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.\u201d (Zechariah 9:9, emphasis added)<\/p>\n
Attaching Jesus to Zechariah\u2019s words put the violent imagery of Caesar riding a warhorse in direct confrontation with the nonviolent Jesus riding a donkey, calling for those on the margins to be centered and for the elites\u2019 wealth to be redistributed to the poor. What we have here is two paths toward peace. One was enforced by militarized power and the other addressed the root causes of injustice that lead to the lack of peace.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll look at both of these paths in our context today, next.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What we have here is two paths toward peace. One was enforced by militarized power and the other addressed the root causes of injustice that lead to the lack of peace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4129,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[732,729,702,7],"tags":[31,405,624,28,2629,242,16,25,2626,777,753,19,13,37,58,10,2533,22,402,2301],"class_list":["post-2432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economic-justice","category-liberation-theology","category-racial-justice","category-social-gospel","tag-action","tag-black-lives-matter","tag-change","tag-compassion","tag-defund-police","tag-equity","tag-liberation","tag-love","tag-militarized-policing","tag-racial-justice","tag-racism","tag-reparation","tag-resistance","tag-social-gospel","tag-social-justice","tag-survival","tag-systems","tag-transformation","tag-violence","tag-white-supremacy"],"yoast_head":"\n
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