Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Two Case Studies
Part 3: Serpent = Satan?
Part 4: What is Satan's Real Name?
Part 5: Accuser
Part 6: A Son of God?
Part 7: God's State Prosecutor
Part 8: God’s Sifter
Part 9: Azazel
Part 10: Desert Temptation
Part 11: What Does a Jewish Messiah Look Like?
Part 12: Bow Down to the Domination System
Part 13: Proclaiming Jubilee
Part 14: The Evil One
Part 15: The Angels of the Nations
Part 16: The Gerasene Demoniac
Part 17: Further Lessons on Exorcism in the Bible
Part 18: Driving Satan from Heaven
Part 19: The Unveiling of the Beast of Rome
Part 20: Unveiling the Beast Today
Part 21: Jesus and the Domination System
Part 22: Violence
Part 23: Death
Part 24: The Advocate
Part 25: Conclusions?
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Jesus and the Domination System
In an earlier section of this series, we explored the Jewish expectations for a Messiah. At this point, I would like to flesh these expectations out a bit more - because not all Jews had the same expectations.
However, when Jesus was born into the world, the Jews were all asking the same question: how is the Kingdom of God (which most of them thought was a physical restoration of Israel to her former glory) going to be established?
There were three main camps of thought in Jesus' day. The first group followed the Politics of Violence. For the Jews, these were called Zealots - and the Zealots believed that the Kingdom of God was going to be established by violently overthrowing the Roman empire.
What's interesting about this is that the Zealots were not all that different from the Romans themselves in this manner - as the Romans believed that it is only through violence that peace may be established. Both camps thought that peace could be established through the sword - and really, the only difference between the Zealots and the Romans was who got to be in charge.
The second camp followed the Politics of Purity. They believed that if the Jews would remain pure, and follow every jot and tittle of the law (Torah), God would establish His Kingdom. The Pharisees were one sub-group of this school of thought - and they were extraordinarily legalistic. And as a result, the Pharisees would isolate certain groups of society as outsiders for failing to be as rigid in their application of Torah. The reasoning of the Pharisees was that if they included these "sinners", God would not be faithful to the Jews and establish His Kingdom.There was another sub-group of this camp - the Essenes. Now, the Essenes did have their differences with the Pharisees, to be sure. But they basically had the same thought - God's people must be pure, and then the Kingdom will come. The difference between the Pharisees and the Essenes was that the Essenes thought there was no hope for society - in fact, if a pure man tried to live in society, he would surely be sullied. And so the Essenes withdrew into their own sub-cultures out in the wilderness where no one would bother them. (That doesn't sound familiar at all, does it? Nothing at all like any Christian sub-cultures I know....)
And the last camp followed the Politics of Collaboration. These believed in the old adage: "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em." The Collaborators were made up of the Sadducees and the tax collectors, who would become part of Rome's System in the hopes that through their mere presence within that System, Jews would be able to establish their own Kingdom.
These three camps didn't think there was another viable option. And yet, Jesus contradicted all three, while at the same time he seemed to incorporate elements from all three. It's almost as if he took the best of all worlds, but rejected all errors.
The best phrase to describe Jesus' politics, in my mind, is: the Politics of Compassion.
To those who followed the Politics of Violence, Jesus taught to love your enemies and pray for those who persecuted you (Mt. 5:43-48, Lk. 6:27-36). And when he taught to love enemies, he followed this up by saying that this is the way God was - "be merciful, just as your Father is merciful" (Lk. 6:36). Jesus is indirectly quoting a very popular Jewish scripture here - Lev. 11:44. Except that Jesus changes it. The original verse said to be holy as God is - but Jesus implies that mercy (often translated as compassion - the original word for which interestingly comes from the same word for "womb", and thus might be translated "womb-ish") is the very sign of holiness (this message would also be striking to the purists, who thought holiness was following all the rules perfectly).
The message couldn't be clearer - the Zealots are wrong. Violence is not how the Kingdom is established.
Jesus also contradicted those who followed the Politics of Purity. Unlike the Essenes, who had withdrawn into the desert to establish their own society, Jesus' ministry was built within the cities and towns - right in the hustle and bustle of society. And whenever the Pharisees saw Jesus, he seemed to be eating, and talking with, and touching the sinners and the unclean. Jesus says that those who follow the purity codes are like unmarked graves (Lk. 11:44). In Jesus' day, the most unclean thing a Jew could do was to come into contact with death. So Jesus is saying that while those who follow purity codes look clean on the outside, they hide death within themselves. It might be a more accurate modern translation for Jesus to tell the Pharisees that they are full of shit. Jesus said that the religious "experts" of his day were "blind guides" who "strain out a gnat and swallow a camel" (Mt. 23:24) - indicating that their rigid purity codes actually blind them and prevent them from seeing the truth! Jesus contradicted the purity system's model of ritual cleanliness when he said that it is not our outside actions, but what is in our heart that makes us unclean (see Mk. 7:15 / Mt. 15:11, Mk. 7:21-23). Paul picked up on this theme, and seems to imply that it is the very structure of religion itself which makes people unclean (see Rom. 14:14).
The message couldn't be clearer - the Essenes and the Pharisees are wrong. Rigid purity codes are not how the Kingdom is established.
And to those who followed the Politics of Collaboration as well, Jesus had a message. Mark 12:13-17 tells a story where some of these collaborators are trying to entrap Jesus. They wanted him to either show his followers that he was not part of the resistance movement - so that they would all leave him - or get Jesus to tip his hand so that he would be arrested by the Romans. The passage has these collaborators flattering Jesus as they set up their trap: "we know you're a man of integrity", they say. "But tell us - is it right to pay the imperial tax to Caesar?" And the trap was set - if Jesus says "yes", his audience sees that he is not part of the resistance movement and leaves him. But if he says "no", right in this very public place with Roman guards around, he would be arrested and thrown into a deep, dark hole, only to come out for his execution.
Jesus' response is very interesting. He starts by saying "bring me a denarius" - this is the coin that would have been used for the imperial tax. What's interesting is that Jesus didn't have a denarius of his own. Why wouldn't Jesus have one of his own sitting in his own pocket - why would he have to ask someone to bring him one?
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| A Roman denarius |
Jesus said "give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s" - the way this is worded indicates that if you have received benefits from Caesar, you should pay him back according to your debt. In other words, if you want to protest the unjust taxes, you have no right to do so if you are living off of the benefits of the government. If you want to protest the unjust system, you should remove yourself completely from the ways that system operates first - which we see that Jesus has done, since he possesses no money at the time he is asked this question.
The second half of the statement in Mark 12:17 is also very interesting - Jesus says to give to God what is God's. This statement is a parallel statement - in the first half of the statement, Jesus says to give a coin which bears the image of Caesar back to Caesar. In the second half of the statement, he makes a parallel statement - the Jewish belief is that all people are made in the image of God. As the coin bears the image of Caesar, so all people bear the image of God. So what Jesus is saying in this statement is that we should give the whole of our being over to God! Jesus is implying here that there is an authority greater than Caesar, because some things do not belong to him! Indeed, the Jewish belief was that everything belonged to God:
Psalm 24:1The message couldn't be clearer - the Collaborators are wrong. Collaborating with the current Domination System is not how the Kingdom of God will be established.
The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it.
How were the people of God to resist the empire of Rome and establish this Kingdom, if not through any of these three methods?
The Blueprint For the Kingdom of God
To understand Jesus' plan for building the Kingdom of God, we must first understand his blueprint - what did this Kingdom look like, in Jesus' mind?
The first thing I want to do is to lay out - or rather, to let the scholar William Barclay lay out - three different ways Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God (from his commentary on Matthew):
We find that Jesus spoke of the kingdom in three different ways. He spoke of the kingdom as existing in the past. He said that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets were in the kingdom (Luke 13:28; Matthew 8:11). Clearly, therefore, the kingdom goes far back into history. He spoke of the kingdom as present. ‘The kingdom of God’, he said, ‘is among you’ (Luke 17:21). The kingdom of God is therefore a present reality here and now. He spoke of the kingdom of God as future, for he taught the disciples to pray for the coming of the kingdom in this his own prayer. How then can the kingdom be past, present and future all at the one time? How can the kingdom be at one and the same time something which existed, which exists, and for whose coming it is our duty to pray?To answer his own question, Barclay points out how Hebrew poetry almost always uses a form of parallelism - a statement is made, and then another statement is made that is synonymous but at the same time expands on the first. And Barclay believes that the following lines from the Lord's prayer are an example of this kind of parallelism:
Your kingdom come,So, Barclay concludes:
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven
The kingdom of God is a society upon earth where God’s will is as perfectly done as it is in heaven. Here we have the explanation of how the kingdom can be past, present and future all at the one time. Anyone who at any time in history perfectly did God’s will was within the kingdom; anyone who perfectly does God’s will is within the kingdom; but since the world is very far from being a place where God’s will is perfectly and universally done, the consummation of the kingdom is still in the future and is still something for which we must pray.Likewise, the medieval German mystic Meister Eckhart wrote of this passage:
To be in the kingdom is to obey the will of God.
"Thy kingdom come" means "I shall have nothing, know nothing, and value nothing but they reign." So the gospel also says: "Blessed are the poor in spirit," meaning those who are poor as regards will of their own.In contrast to this, George MacDonald writes in his sermon "Kingship" that:
[T]he one principle of hell is—'I am my own. I am my own king and my own subject. I am the centre from which go out my thoughts; I am the object and end of my thoughts; back upon me as the alpha and omega of life, my thoughts return. My own glory is, and ought to be, my chief care; my ambition, to gather the regards of men to the one centre, myself.'
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| Luke 17:21 - the Kingdom of God is within... |
But Jesus undercuts this image of what kind of person is valuable. The best blueprint for Jesus' model of what kind of person is important or valuable, in my mind, comes from the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 5:3-12 and Luke 6:20-23, Jesus presents a radically different view of personal value - for Jesus, it is the poor, those who mourn, the hungry, those who do not consider themselves to be righteous, the merciful, the peacemakers, and those whom society persecutes that we should consider blessed. These are the leaders of Jesus' Kingdom of God. It is this kind of person we should find authority in. The radical paradox of this teaching is that this is exactly the type of person who would not desire power.
And Jesus points this out elsewhere as well. Luke 22:24-27 tells us that Jesus' disciples were arguing over who would be considered the greatest in this new Kingdom. Who was going to hold a position of power within this new power structure? But Jesus answers (in verses 25-27):
The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who have authority over them are called "Benefactors." But it is not this way with you, but the one who is the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like the servant. For who is greater, the one who reclines at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at the table? But I am among you as the one who serves.This is a polar opposite from the ways of the Domination System. Jesus was saying that it was not the one who asserts himself (or herself) over others in a dominating relationship who is the greatest - it is the one who serves. The Kingdom of God does not have emperors and kings, but servant leaders.
In Jesus' model of the Kingdom of God, as we see in Matthew 23:8-10, the leaders are not even allowed to claim titles! They are to have no label that asserts their authority over others! But rather, they are to call all men "friend", as Jesus instructs his disciples in John 15:15. (The last reference leads me to question hierarchical authority structures within churches and the titles that go with them - perhaps the Quakers got this one right?)
In Jesus' time, when there was a feast, whomever held the highest position of authority at the feast would sit at the head of the table - the seat of honor. And people would fight over this seat, as well as the seats next to it. But in Luke 14:7-11, Jesus tells his audience that in the Kingdom of God, the reverse is true - the citizens of this Kingdom fight to put others in the seat of honor.
And Jesus radically contradicted the patriarchy within his society. The significance of the story of Mary and Martha in Luke 10:38-42 is often lost on us, because we do not understand what it meant for a woman to sit at the feet of a Rabbi. Imagine it like this: a distinguished Professor is giving a presentation at a University. This Professor has published many popular and well-read books. Because this Professor is regarded so highly, and opportunities to hear him speak are rare, the seating arrangement is important. And so during his presentation, you find the Doctoral candidates at the front of the room, the Master's students behind them, the undergrads next, and any outside guests behind them. It was the same when a Rabbi taught - sitting at the feet of a Rabbi meant that the one who did so was training to be a Rabbi. By allowing Mary to sit at his feet while he taught, Jesus was undercutting the Domination System within the patriarchy.
Jesus also contradicts the patriarchy before the Last Supper - in Mark 14:13 and Luke 22:10, we find that he has prearranged to have a man carrying a pitcher of water. This act of service was strictly reserved for women in Jesus' time, and so this is an act of subversion of the patriarchy. Walter Wink notes (in "Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination") that Matthew omits this detail, and presumes that perhaps Matthew (who wrote from a very Jewish perspective) found this to be intolerable.
While children held no status, no rights, and no independent identity in his historical context, Jesus prizes children (Lk. 18:15-17). He also criticizes religiosity that gives higher status to those who do a lot for show (Mt. 23:1-12), and instructs his disciples to live by a higher system of justice (Mt. 5:20).
And the King of this radical new Kingdom presents a strange picture indeed - the human being who has no place to lay his head and no possessions (Lk. 9:57-58/Mt. 8:19-20) is the ruler of the world!
The message presented through all these passages couldn't be much clearer - authority within the Kingdom of God is radically redefined in a way that removes all domination and instead focuses on service.
Kingdom Economics
Jesus recognized that all too often, our economic structures serve the Domination System, reinforcing it from within. In one of the earlier sections of this series, I briefly explained how the lending system of Rome had caused many problems - the high taxes had driven farmers to take out loans, and the lenders had then raised their interest rates to exorbitant levels, forcing the farmers into foreclosure and turning them into poor workers (not much better than a slave) on their own land. And this played right into the Domination System as a "divide and rule" strategy of law - as long as the people are divided against each other, they will not be resisting empire.
But before Jesus' ministry even begins, John the Baptist - the one who prepared the way for Jesus - declares that "the man who has two tunics is to share with him who has none; and he who has food is to do likewise" (Lk. 3:11).
We can put the story of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) within the context of Job and the Deuteronomic code, and see that Jesus is turning everything upside down on his audience by showing that this rich man who refused to show compassion - who would have been seen through the lens of the Deuteronomic code as being rewarded for righteousness - is actually the one living a hellish life.
It is fear which drives the economics of the Domination System, and so Jesus comes against this perpetual anxiety. He teaches his disciples not to worry about physical needs, but to seek first God's Kingdom and righteousness (which, as we saw in Job, is expressed through compassion towards the poor), "and all these things will be added to you." (See Mt. 6:25-34, Lk. 12:22-32)
Mark 10:17-27 (parallels Mt. 19:16-26 and Lk. 18:18-27) tells the story of a rich man who asks Jesus what he must do to inherit the aionian life of the Kingdom. The man believes he has obeyed all the commandments, but what is curious is that he omits the commandment against covetousness when he lists them off. Jesus tells the man that he must sell everything he has and give it to the poor - and this reveals that covetousness is the rich man's pet sin (even though the man thought it wasn't even a temptation - since he had everything). It is his grasping which prevents him from experiencing the love of God which would have caused rivers of living water to flow from his heart (see John 7:37-39). But in case you think that Jesus' prescription shows a condemnation that leaves no hope, Mark 10:21 says that Jesus looked at this man and felt love for him. And when the disciples express dismay over how hard it is to enter the Kingdom, Jesus declares that "all things are possible with God" (Mk. 10:27). It is important to see how Jesus is not declaring wealth itself to be a sin here, but is showing how wealth can become an idol and rule over our lives - it possesses us. And the only remedy is to give our wealth to God.
Jesus overturns the dominating economy of empire, and instructs his disciples to lend without interest, and without even expecting to be paid back (Lk. 6:35). And Jesus modeled an alternative society along with his disciples - Walter Wink writes in "Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination":
Jesus and his disciples lived from a common purse (Luke 8:1-3; John 12:6; 13:29). He sent them out preaching the new order without food or money or extra clothes, relying on God's providence through the generosity of hearers (Mark 6:7-11 par.; 10:29-30 par.). They "had all things in common, and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need" (Acts 2:44-45; 4:32-5:11). They were not to give special status to the rich among them (1 Cor. 11:20-22; James 1:9-11; 2:1-7).Jesus even instructs his disciples to avoid the court of law, and arbitrate disputes among themselves (Lk. 12:57-59, Mt. 5:25-26). Jesus saw that the System's courts and prisons were an engine of Domination - the Domination System's form of justice is mechanical, and does not see you as a human being, but as a cog in the wheel which can be thrown away when it becomes "defective". It is not concerned with reconciliation, but quick fixes - so he instructs his disciples to handle their issues outside of this dehumanizing machine.
And note how the title "The Unrighteous Steward", which appears in most Bibles above Luke 16:1-15, reflects more on the translator's prejudice than the passage itself - Jesus implies through the follow-up teaching (verses 10-13) that this man was handling his wealth properly! And we see in verse 14 that this teaching upset the Pharisees - who were lovers of money. You see, Jesus does not view this story the way the title reflects - he views the whole system as unjust, so for a manager to reduce debt is not unjust in Jesus' view. Jesus saw that our economic systems uses us, and as soon as we become less economically valuable, it throws us out like garbage - so Jesus is pointing out that to be generous and forgiving frees us from this inhumane way of living. The system is “detestable in God’s sight” (vs. 15), but the Pharisees act as its apologists.
In our day, much fuss has been made over "individual salvation", and this has played right into the Domination System of Theocapitalism. We have acted as this System's apologists because we think Jesus was only concerned with us "getting to Heaven". But throughout the Gospels, we see him coming up against systemic injustice, and this is quite possibly what got him killed.
It is surprising to compare the modern theology which has led to the "Prosperity Gospel" to the words of early church fathers. In comparison, they sound almost like communists. For example, Basil of Caesarea (sometimes called "Basil the Great") said:
While we try to amass wealth, make piles of money, get hold of the land as our real property, overtop one another in riches, we have palpably cast off justice, and lost the common good. I should like to know how any man can be just, who is deliberately aiming to get out of someone else what he wants for himself.Similarly, John Chrysostom had many things to say against even owning private property. For example:
It is not for lack of miracles that the church is stagnant; it is because we have forsaken the angelic life of Pentecost, and fallen back on private property.
It is the living separately that is expensive and causes poverty.Along with preaching against private property, he felt that it is our attempts to control others which is the foundation of other problems:
The desire to rule is the mother of all heresies.When we compare these sayings to modern Christianity in affluent cultures, it seems obvious that there is a disconnect.
We are going to take another break here, and continue the exploration of how Jesus answered the Domination System in the areas of violence and death next time.
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Table of Contents:
Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Two Case Studies
Part 3: Serpent = Satan?
Part 4: What is Satan's Real Name?
Part 5: Accuser
Part 6: A Son of God?
Part 7: God's State Prosecutor
Part 8: God’s Sifter
Part 9: Azazel
Part 10: Desert Temptation
Part 11: What Does a Jewish Messiah Look Like?
Part 12: Bow Down to the Domination System
Part 13: Proclaiming Jubilee
Part 14: The Evil One
Part 15: The Angels of the Nations
Part 16: The Gerasene Demoniac
Part 17: Further Lessons on Exorcism in the Bible
Part 18: Driving Satan from Heaven
Part 19: The Unveiling of the Beast of Rome
Part 20: Unveiling the Beast Today
Part 21: Jesus and the Domination System
Part 22: Violence
Part 23: Death
Part 24: The Advocate
Part 25: Conclusions?
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