Studying the Life of Jesus for Political Clues 


You'll just have to read this one. I can't abstract it. 

That politics was irrelevant to Jesus Christ is very clear. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, He proclaimed, and unto God what is God's. He saw clearly that the Kingdom of God would not come through a political process. He saw that help for the poor would not come through a political process. He redefined what it means to be a victor, and showed that victory is not politic. The Pharisees were outraged because He didn't scrape and bow as they thought. Judas betrayed Him for what he took to be political missteps. So how are we going to get clues for politics from studying the life of Jesus?

Well, I do think these clues are there.

I have a bumper sticker on my car that asks the question, "Who would Jesus bomb?" It seems crystal clear to me that the answer is "No one. Ever." I really don't see how, if you take the example and the life of Jesus that is described in the Gospels and the Epistles, you can come to any other conclusion. Even though it seems obvious, I am going to spell out my thinking here.

To start at the top, one of the cornerstones of Church teaching is the Passion Narrative. The careful study of Church history leads one to see that the Gospel story evolved from Mark (c. 70 CE) to John (after 100 CE). We have some of Paul's writing from an earlier time. The Passion Narrative is consistently in all these writings in one form or another. Did the Jesus Christ described therein bear His unwarranted suffering without striking back? He did. Christ may have outwitted His opponents, as when He escaped through the crowd, He may have called them to task for their idolatry and for being blinded by too literal of an adherence to the Torah, but He struck no one. Well, there was the Divine temper tantrum over the money changing in the Temple, but the impression I get was that He was trying to get their attention, and nothing else would have worked. In fact, as Stephen is frequent to point out, the disciples themselves just didn't get it, again and again.

I get from this what Gandhi and Martin Luther King got, that non-violence is the higher road.

He spoke in sayings and parables, even spelling them out to a special few. The Sermon on the Mount is also one of the earliest teachings of the church, even though it appears only in Matthew and Luke. Similar sayings are found in the Gospel of Thomas. Blessed are the poor, the meek, the peacemakers, those who are persecuted for righteousness sake. These are the people who will see God, who will inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. The rich young man wanted in, yet was possessed by his possessions. He could not follow the Man who had no place to lay his head.

I get from this that were Jesus Christ alive today, I would not likely meet Him in my comfortable living room.

But Jesus taught as much by His actions towards the people He encountered as in what He said. When people asked Him for healing, He gave it to them, again and again: to the leper, the crippled, the blind, those with cancer, those possessed by demons, even the dead.

I get from this that Jesus had the original universal health care plan.

And these were the people Jesus chose to be with. He talked to the outcast, such as the adulterous woman at the well. He held up those commonly scorned as examples of moral purity (the Good Samaritan) or occasions for rejoicing (the Prodigal Son). He ate with tax collectors, without washing His hands. He didn't get nervous when John inclined his head on Christ's breast.

I have another bumper sticker that says "The righteous were wrong in Jesus' time, too."

For much of my life I have asked the question, "What is it to follow Jesus." I have asked this question from the perspective of a person who has had a bit of a liberal education and who trusts himself and his mind to carry him to defensible conclusions. Like everyone else in this world who has asked the same question, I have pieced together my answer from things I was taught, things people have told me, and even, in my opinion, things shown to me by God.

I get plenty of political clues from the life of Jesus Christ and the teachings of His Church. What about you? 

Posted: Fri - February 3, 2006 at 08:13 PM          

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