Advent 4, 2011

Advent Readings for the 4th Sunday in Advent:
2 Samuel 7:1-11, 16; Luke 1:47-55; Romans 16:25-27; Luke 1:26-38

Holy God,
    the mystery of your eternal Word took flesh among us in Jesus Christ.
At the message of an angel,
     the virgin Mary placed her life at the service of your will.
Filled with the light of your Spirit,
     she became the temple of your Word.
Strengthen us by the example of her humility,
     that we may always be ready to do your will,
     and welcome into our lives Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

(Liturgy of the Hours)

Lighting of the Advent Candles: Fourth Sunday

We light this candle as a symbol of the Prince of Peace.
May the visitation of your Holy Spirit, O God,
    make us ready for the coming of Jesus, our hope and joy.
O come, O come, Emmanuel.

(From Hope to Joy, Alt - United Methodist Book of Worship)

The last three weeks we have been looking at the culture into which Jesus was born: the first week of Advent we discussed the class hierarchy, the second week we examined the nonviolent protests that were occurring around Jesus' ministry, and last week we looked at the environmental issues. Behind the background of these topics we have explored the commercialization of the rural areas - especially the Galilee.
This week, I look at what Jesus' response is to these issues, and what these issues mean for him. A few notes first: again this is a brief overview. It is important to realize that the four canonical gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) all differ on how Jesus approached his ministry. I merely wish to give some food for thought, and to allow us to ponder a bit what this life of Jesus was/is/continues to be about. In addition, I'm looking at pointing out some things that you may not have thought about before. They are issues that got me thinking when I first read them. Again, I'm going to use John Dominic Crossan's The Birth of Christianity and Richard A. Horsley's Jesus and the Spiral of Violence. It only makes sense to see how these two authors, after setting up the scene, continue in their arguments. But I also introduce another book I've mentioned in this blog before Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker's Saving Paradise* to help us look at last weeks topic of the environment.

First, I think it is important to have at the background of all our speaking about the ministry of Jesus the theological concept of the incarnation: God becomes a human in the person of Jesus, and is born a baby, grows to be a toddler, youth, young adult, and adult. There is a sense in which we celebrate God becoming incredibly vulnerable during this Advent - Christmas season.

Jesus the Carpenter has a different meaning in light of our first week's examination of class. A carpenter is part of the artisan class - which means a displaced peasant. Crossan points out to changes in story between Mark and Matthew/Luke. Mark 6:3 - "Is not this the carpenter ..." Matthew 13:55ff - "Is not this the carpenter's son?" (Notice the switch?) Luke 4:22 - "Is not this Joseph's son?" (Which avoids the question altogether.) John becomes even more evasive: "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?" (John 6:40). "I conclude," Crossan writes, "that neither of them deemed carpenter an appropriate designation for Jesus. The reason, by a conjunciton of context and text, is that a tekton or peasant artisan is but a euphemism for a dispossessed peasant, for a landless laborer" (350).
Crossan also points out that the practice of Jesus' ministry itself is a critique upon the patron - client relationship and creates communities of resistance. Jesus' own family appears to place pressure upon him to set up a healing shrine, in which they, and Nazareth) benefit from his presence as a healer. He in turn continues to wander. But this wandering itself provides healing to the large peasant community. To quote Crossan:

Two points are of importance here. First, the program Jesus outlines is not about almsgiving. It is not about food handed out to beggars at the door. Jesus could have inaugurated a kingdom of beggars, but that is not what all three texts agree in emphasizing. Second, given that the program is to be a reciprocal experience rather than almsgiving, what is the logic of that reciprocity? Itinerants need food, of course, but would not a handout suffice? Everyone needs healing, of course, but why do householders need it in particular? 

The itinerants look at the householders, which is what they were yesterday or the day before, with envy and even hatred. The householders look at the itinerants, which is what they may be tomorrow or the day after, with fear and contempt. The kingdom program forces those two groups into conjunction with one another and starts to rebuild peasant community ripped apart by commercialization and urbanization. But just as that eating is both symbolic and actual, so also is that healing both symbolic and actual. ... What the itinerants bring is ideological, symbolic, and material resistance to oppression and exploitation, and that - precisely that - is healing. Such resistance cannot directly cure disease, as vaccines can destroy viruses or drugs can destroy bacteria, but resistance can heal both sickness and illness and thus sometimes indirectly cure disease (330-31).

 At the conclusion of his work on Jesus and violence, Horsley asks the question as to whether Jesus was a pacifist (in the modern sense). He concludes with "we don't know." There was no violent revolution at the time of Jesus' ministry, nor did anyone ask (or at least record) such a direct question to Jesus. Horsely does continue with the following conclusions from his work:**

The social-historical situation in which Jesus lived, however, was permeated with violence. We can thus take a step toward a more adequate understanding of Jesus and violence by noting that Jesus, while not necessarily a pacifist, actively opposed violence, both oppressive and repressive, both political-economic and spiritual. He consistently criticized and resisted the oppressive established political-economic-religious order of his own society. Moreover, he aggressively intervened to mitigate or undo the effects of institutionalized violence, whether in particular acts of forgiveness and exorcism or in the general opening of the kingdom of God to the poor. Jesus opposed violence, but not from a distance. He did not attempt to avoid violence in search of a peaceable existence. He rather entered actively into the situation of violence, and even exacerbated the conflict. ... Jesus and his followers, ... , were prepared to suffer violence themselves and to allow their friends to be tortured and killed for their insistence on the rule of God (319).

Jesus' actions and prophecies, especially those directed against the ruling institutions of his society, suggest that he was indeed mounting a more serious opposition than a mere protest. It is certain that Jesus was executed as a rebel against the Roman order. Our examination of Jesus' prophecies and actions, moreover, has shown that from the viewpoint of the rulers the crucifixion of Jesus was not a mistake. The charges brought against him, however apologetically handled by the gospel writers, were in effect true. He had definitely been stirring up the people. Herod Antipas was reportedly already hostile to Jesus .... It is unclear just how explicitly Jesus claimed to be or was acclaimed as a king; but from the viewpoint of the rulers, he clearly was a dangerous popular leader, and from the "messianic movements" of a generation earlier they were familiar with popularly acclaimed kings as a revolutionary threat. Finally, it is less certain but likely that Jesus had in effect taken the position not only that the people were "free" of illegitimate taxation by the Temple system, but that they were also not obligated to render up the Roman tribute, since all things being God's, nothing was really due to Cesar. Taken together, these sayings and prophecies begin to sound more systematically revolutionary than an unrelated set of incidental sayings juxtaposed with a protest or two.

    Although it begins to appear that Jesus and his movement were engaged not simply in resistance but in a more serious revolt of some sort against the established order in Palestine, there is not evidence that Jesus himself advocated, let alone organized, the kind of armed rebellion that would have been necessary to free the society from the military-political power of the Roman empire. ... Jesus was engaged in direct manifestations of God's kingdom in his practice and preaching, and he was confident that God was imminently to complete the restoration of Israel and judge the institutions that maintained injustice (320-21)

Brock and Parker point out how Jesus used images of Paradise (the Garden of Eden) as resistance to and critique of the Roman Empire. They refer to Jesus' work as "ethical grace." "By using the terms 'ethical' and 'grace' together, we want to suggest that the idea of paradise carries both the grace of the core goodness of life on earth, and humanity's responsibility for sustaining it" (29).

Jesus shows ethical grace in action: love and generosity in community, care for all who have need, healing of the sick, appreciation for life, confrontation with powers of injustice and exploitation, and advocacy for freedom of the imprisoned. The New Testament presents him as the model or forerunner of a restored human community that saw its mission as sustaining ethical grace. In John's Gospel he says, "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly" (10:10), and he speaks frequently of the promise of "eternal life" to his disciples. The Gospel defines three dimensions of this eternal life: knowing God; receiving the one sent by God to proclaim abundant life to all; and loving each other as he had loved them. Eternal life, in all three meanings, relates to how life is lived on earth. The concrete acts of care Jesus has shown his disciples are the key to eternal life. By following his example of love, the disciples enter eternal life now. Eternal life is thus much than a hope for postmortem life: it is earthly existence grounded in ethical grace (29-30).

This ethical grace continues to hit home for us, too. Who grows our food? Under what conditions? What are they paid? The list continues.

My hope is that these texts give new insights into how Jesus was at work, rather than definitive answers. May we all continue to ponder these texts as we ponder and celebrate the coming of the Christ Child.

Blessed Be


______
*Crossan, John Dominic. The Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately After the Execution of Jesus. HarperSanFrancisco, 1998.
Horsley, Richard A. Jesus and the Spiral of Violence: Popular Jewish Resistance in Roman Palestine. Fortress Press, 1993.
Brock, Rita Nakashima and Rebecca Ann Parker. Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire. Beacon Press, 2008.

**I might add, that most of Horsley's book is taken up with this topic, and is well worth reading. Do to space limitations, I'm only quoting two brief sections from his concluding remarks.