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Jesus Radicals Blog 2005-2017
By: Brian Miller “I knew my actions were wrong, but I convinced myself that normal rules didn’t apply. I never thought about who I was hurting. Instead, I thought only about myself. I ran straight through the boundaries that a married couple should live by. I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to. I felt that I had worked hard my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me. I felt I was entitled.” These are the words of a man on a journey of descent. It is not for us to judge whether these words are real or not—or where this descent will lead. The life of Tiger Woods over the last number of months illustrates the universal principle for the human situation, that if we want to experience healing and hope, our journey requires descent. Either we humble ourselves and choose descent, or descent chooses us (because of our own choices). Our gospel lesson calls us again to embrace descent. Luke’s gospel situates the narrative of the temptation of Jesus directly after the “mountain top” experience of his baptism. Now, full of the Holy Spirit, Jesus is led into the wilderness. Somewhere in the course of a forty day fast, Jesus became famished. Jesus is utterly human. He is weak. He is vulnerable. He is dependent on the Holy Spirit. The devil comes to him. Jesus, turn this stone into bread… Jesus, turn this tax return into the good life… Jesus, bless me and expand my territory–my right to buy and use my way to happiness. And while you are at it Jesus, why don’t you take care of the bread problem. You could have such an effective ministry as the Son of God if you would just solve the bread problem in the world. And besides, you look a bit hungry yourself.
The first temptation is framed around the most basic issue of human life—bread. This first temptation (and the other two) are based on a false premise—that Jesus needs to prove he is the Son of God. Jesus is concerned about the bread problem in the world, but this is not the way it will be solved in his kingdom—by miraculous acts of stone into bread. His kingdom IS about bread—both physical and spiritual, but it will require an alternative way of thinking about bread. Bread is the source of life. Every culture, every system, every ideology tells some story about bread and our relationship to it. Capitalism teaches us how to make bread (or anything) and sell it for a profit in the market. Socialism attempts to artificially control the bread market so that all will have an equal amount. On the streets, you do whatever it takes to turn stone into bread. Each of these approaches to bread provides a different way of thinking about our relationship with bread. What does Jesus say about bread? Jesus says that one does not live by bread alone. Jesus says it is not so much about the bread, but about the word of God—the framing story through which we make sense of our lives and the world. The Gospel of the Kingdom is about a different way of being in relationship with bread. So much violence in our world…within ourselves has to do with living in framing stories which establish a distorted relationship with bread. Both with Jesus and with the physical things which are necessary for human life. Questions:
So we don’t depend on Jesus to turn stones into bread to solve the bread problem of our world. Jesus, in his Kingdom, calls us to share our loaves and fishes…or pennies. Second temptation: Glory and Authority in exchange for Power… Jesus, here are all the kingdoms of the world. I will give their glory and all this authority to you… Jesus, here is a list of candidates we need to get elected so your kingdom can come… We have the right candidates in place, the media outlets, the organization to go all the way this time. We have included all the Christian churches in the communication blitz. It’s all set up for your kingdom to come this election…if you just worship me. Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” The devil shows Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world.” I’m pretty sure this included the United States of America. Jesus rejects the temptation of bringing his reign in the clothes of the emperor. For much of church history, those who claimed the name Christian have acted as if Jesus got this one wrong. Christendom tried to baptize the state and the way of the sword. We have rejected the way of the cross. We have even thought we can put scripture on our weapons. This is not new. This is all from the same playbook. I’m just not sure it’s the playbook of Jesus. The second temptation is about worship. It is a question of whether we will worship the way of empire—which is always power over. Or, will we worship Jesus, who embraces the way of the cross as the way to bring the Kingdom. Do we recognize the political implications of our worship? Our worship is not an escape from the real world. Quite the opposite, it is a way of coming to grips with an invasion of another life from another world into the present age. Walter Brueggemann says it so well: “The lectionary is unrelenting in its narrative about another life in another world, the one that God wills and gives. Readers are endlessly in the process of deciding, always yet again, for the alternative, refusing the seductions of the ‘belly’-propelled regime.” – Sojourners, February 2010 So this place we are meeting is an embassy of the kingdom of Jesus. Through our baptism, we are made citizens in the kingdom of Jesus—which is a revolution of cross-bearing love. We are given credentials and invited to live as ambassadors of reconciliation. This is our primary identity as disciples. This is what ourbaptism means. This is what it means to be a part of covenant community. This is why it is so important to gather together for common worship—so that we actually are discipled—formed—into this alternative life. Question: How does our common worship center us in a different narrative and equip us to “always yet again” decide for the alternative narrative which rejects the temptation to go after the glory and authority of the current age as a way of bringing the Kingdom of Jesus? Third Temptation: Market-driven Christianity Jesus, why don’t you go up to the temple and throw yourself off. God will protect you. That’s what the Bible says… Jesus, you need to make a name for yourself. How do you expect to have a successful ministry, if you don’t do something spectacular…something to draw a crowd…a following. Jesus, this is just the kind of thing people are looking for. We could really market this. Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Jesus does not opt for the gimmick—jumping off the Temple. Jesus is not driven by ego, or the need to make his ministry appealing to the masses. He is not about putting on a good show. Jesus rejects the temptation to extract the Good News of the Kingdom from ordinary life to the artificial medium of religious antics. His kingdom represents a descent from market-driven Christianity into the messiness of crowds where there are unclean spirits. He calls us to descend with him from our illusions of invincibility and entitlement to the earthy…ordinary way of crosses, suffering-love, humility and repentance. It is appropriate that our gospel reading on this first Sunday of Lent centers around Jesus fasting. Did you see the question in the Saturday paper? Say What (Sat. paper) question/responses: If you had to go a week without technology what would you miss the most and why? The fasting discipline of Lent helps us follow Jesus in resisting the temptations all around us. So hear this invitation from The Book of Common Prayer: I invite you in the name of the Church (Jesus), to self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word. Like Jesus, may the fullness of the Spirit sustain us as we are led into the wilderness—in our lives and in the world. This too is part of the journey. AMEN
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By: Michael Iafrate The publication of Tripp York’s Living on Hope While Living in Babylon marks a significant contribution to the recently re-emerging interest in the connection between Christianity and anarchism and for that reason should be celebrated. Very little scholarship exists regarding these questions, and the less these concerns remain marginal to political theology the better. The book is a revised version of York’s master’s thesis on anarchism and Christianity. Chapter one describes why Christianity and anarchism resonate with one another. Chapter two seeks to go beyond what York calls a merely “revolutionary” type of Christian anarchism toward what he calls an anarchistic “apocalyptic politics.” Chapters three through five each describe Christian individuals or movements whose praxis subverted the “triple axis of evil” of imperial politics described by Martin Luther King, Jr.: materialism, racism, and militarism. These chapters focus, respectively, on the Catholic Worker movement, Clarence Jordan of the Koinonia movement, and the Berrigan Brothers. 2/11/2010 Comments Shalom and Pre-Historic Utopia“They grow no food, raise no livestock, and live without rules or calendars… What do they know that we’ve forgotten?” This is an excerpt from the beginning of a National Geographic article on the Hadza, a small hunter-gatherer tribe in northern Tanzania. Reading this challenged the usual assumptions I’ve had celebrating civilization. As I read about the strange, austere life described in National Geographic, I also felt an odd sense of longing, despair, and hope. This wasn’t the first time I’ve felt this way. In my anthropology and sociology classes in college a lot of my assumptions about the “progress” of civilization was challenged and I became more sensitive to the pervasiveness of these assumptions in Western culture’s mythology. I remember spending a summer in Swaziland and having a conversation about how, in spite of all the negative effects, colonialism was ultimately a good thing because it saved Africans from their unprogressive culture. Just recently, I heard the argument that, in spite of the oppression that resulted from the hierarchy formed in the patristic period (in church history), it was ultimately a good thing because it saved Christianity from remaining a “folk religion.” This disturbs me, and despite many of my concerns about sometimes ideological nature of “primitivism”, I nonetheless think it presents an important challenge to civilization that needs to be wrestled with. Consequently, I will (with a hesitant mistrust of labels) come out now as an advocate of the primitivist critique. I say that simply meaning that I think our love affair with the civilization needs to be questioned, and so far I’ve enjoyed the depth of questioning that results when we are willing to go so far as to engage the idea that a pre-civ lifestyle is the healthiest alternative. |
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The viewpoints expressed in each reader-submitted article are the authors own, and not an “official Jesus Radicals” position. For more on our editorial policies, visit our submissions page. If you want to contact an author or you have questions, suggestions, or concerns, please contact us. CategoriesAll Accountability Advent Anarchism Animal Liberation Anthropocentrism Appropriation Biblical Exegesis Book Reviews Bread Capitalism Catholic Worker Christmas Civilization Community Complicity Confessing Cultural Hegemony Decolonization Direct Action Easter Economics Feminism Heteropatriarchy Immigration Imperialism Intersectionality Jesus Justice Lent Liberation Theology Love Mutual Liberation Nation-state Nonviolence Occupy Othering Pacifisim Peace Pedagogies Of Liberation Police Privilege Property Queer Racism Resistance Resurrection Sexuality Solidarity Speciesism Spiritual Practices Technology Temptation Veganism Violence War What We're Reading On . . . White Supremacy Zionism ContributorsNekeisha Alayna Alexis
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October 2017
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