The last thing we discover in composing a work
is what to put down first.
- Blaise Pascal
So much has happened since I last wrote ... and I'm still not quite sure why I haven't written. The topics were fertile ground, ranging from the weird and yet significant (Rachel Dolezal) to the truly historic (the SCOTUS decision on marriage equality) to the heartrending (Emanuel AME) to the inspiring (the demise of the Confederate flag at the South Carolina State Capitol) ... and yet I still haven't written. Along the way my eldest graduated from high school, a joyous occasion if there ever was one ... and yet I didn't write. Hmmm....
Some of this not writing, I suspect, has to do with fatigue: I've been working exceedingly hard at my new job for over a month now, which has taught me, among other things, that I'm human: apparently I no longer have endless supplies of energy and focus. (Is it true that crossing the half-century mark really changes things or am I just out of practice relative to driving so hard for so long that it'll come back to me, kinda like riding a bicycle? BTW, for those of you who haven't ridden a bicycle in a while, a warning: it doesn't just come back to you and you could really hurt yourself....)
And I've had a full complement of kids - actually, mostly, young adults - around, so this, too, can inspire observations and assessments ... and yet, no prose....
I suspect, too, that some of my not writing has to do with being more circumspect, wanting to experience and live life fully without the need to reflect upon it or record it ... but this runs counter to the reality that in the recording the living is appreciated anew....
So why haven't I written?
Because writing is hard sometimes, just like life. Because getting it just right in print is a sometimes arduous and seemingly impossible though loving task. Because I'm often so emotionally and spiritually drained by the sickness in our world that I don't want to deal with it anymore, especially by having to assess it closely, peer beyond it and try to make sense of it so that I can keep going forward. Because I know what I want to say but often find myself without the energy to say it (as distraught as I often am at the mess that we've made of our world and as partially restored as I am in those moments of serendipitous, eternal beauty that heal and steel the soul and beckon me forward...).
Because, because, because....
And yet life enjoins me again (and again and again and....) ... so I write....
Since I began that last sentence, my computer decided to do a forced reboot and I had my 'not writing but trying to write' vibe disturbed. ("Thanks, HP!", I say completely facetiously.) And yet perhaps this involuntary interlude is a blessing. During this interim, I picked up the tome that my reading group - The Spiritual Explorers Book Club - is enjoying this month, the excellent, powerful and provocative The Politics of Jesus by the Rev. Dr. Obery Hendricks and began to appreciate it anew. And so now I've found my topic: the Lord/the Universe/Life truly does work in mysterious ways, doesn't He/She/It?
It so happens that I'm early in the book - re-reading it for a fourth time, as it's one of my all-time favorites - when Professor Hendricks is elucidating the Hebrew people's adherence to the principle of malkuth shamayim, or the "sole sovereignty of God," to explain their desire during the period of the judges for temporary rather than permanent leadership (i.e., judges vs. a king). Centuries later, as we know, under increased pressure from powerful external enemies, the Jewish people asked for a king, and the results thereafter were mixed (to put it kindly). What struck me, though, were three realities that Professor Hendricks illumines: first, that the original leadership ethos of we Christians' founding belief system was egalitarian rather than hierarchical; second, that the term messiah, meaning "anointed leader" really referred more to an earthly ruler than a spiritual one; and third, that, as Rev. Dr. Hendricks puts it,
The Gospels portray malkuth shamayim, rendered in its Greek forms basileia ton ournanon ("kingdom of heaven") and basileia tou Theou ("kingdom of God"), as Jesus' central proclamation. ... In fact, the vast majority of Jesus' pronouncements in the Gospels characterize the kingdom of God as an entirely earthly reality.
Taking on the first of these insights, it strikes me how far we're strayed from our roots, so to speak. True, we don't have kings anymore - at least, in effect, in the western world - but we do have an unnerving reverence for imbuing our leaders with messianic responsibilities (especially, in this country, if they're white and male). In essence, we seem to want them to save us from ourselves, so we look to them to project an invincibility that belies our declining state (both within our society and with respect to our standing in the world at large) and we urge them to draw the lines clearly between 'us' and 'them' and to 'protect' us from them (as if other fellow human beings are not worthy of becoming/being 'real Americans').
Religiously, many Protestant Christians, particularly those of the fundamentalist and/or evangelical stripe, seem abjectly opposed to the principle of "radical egalitarianism" noted by Professor Hendricks. They seem dedicated to a support of the powerful and a vilification of the oppressed/the dispossessed/the Other/etc. (which stands in clear contradiction to their ostensible Patron's example). How else can one explain the rampant and defiant opposition to the recent SCOTUS ruling on marriage equality being disproportionately resonant in supposedly Christian communities of faith?
With respect to the term 'messiah,' Professor Hendricks' trenchant observations brought home a startling reality that is, it seems, widely underappreciated in modern Christianity: Jesus was a disappointment as a messiah (or, perhaps more correctly put, as the Messiah). The Jews expected and had long hoped for a King David-like ruler, a powerful military, et. al., leader who would raise them from their subjugation. Jesus, by contrast, was meek and seemingly unconcerned with formal titles, roles and rules. Jesus didn't seek to start an overt rebellion against temporal (Roman and Jewish religious) authority - even though He was crucified for just this crime - but to help His followers learn to live differently in the here and now so that they could find liberation within the structures of that oppression, so that they could find God's still-myriad blessings amidst their challenging circumstances, so that they could experience life eternal amidst the crushing temporal.
And after He died, the Jews were still subjugated, still the dispossessed of their time, still suffering ... though a few of them and a bunch of Gentiles continued to explore "the Way" and adhere to the spiritual messiah that they believe that they had found in the Nazarene. So, Jesus didn't liberate the Jews or the Christ-followers physically as they had hoped the Messiah would ... or, for that matter, as the Book of Revelations claims that he would (or will) some day. Instead, He did so spiritually, as He taught them how to live differently, more abundantly, in a more timeless way during their time-bound lives ... and that lesson seemed largely lost on them then and seems especially lost on us today....
As for the third of Rev. Dr. Hendricks' piercing insights - that Jesus' pronouncements suggest that He conceived of the Kingdom of God as a present rather than future reality - as a way to be/live rather than a place to go (i.e., heaven) - this lesson is all but lost in modern Christianity, and to our collective detriment.
Were we to try to be Followers of Jesus (to use Professor Hendricks' term) and emulate His example, we would live in a radically different way: we would be collective in focus vs. individually so; we would be loving, kind and generous with others vs. wary, standoffish and selfish; we would be peaceful vs. militaristic; we would be socialistic vs. capitalistic; we would be focused on our higher selves and supporting others in accessing theirs vs. gripped tightly to who we think we are and what we think we want and therefore to who and how others should be and what they should want; etc. In other words, were we to become true Followers of Jesus, we wouldn't be Christians in the sense that so many understand the term - especially with its fundamental and evangelical overtones - today.
And we wouldn't be waiting - patiently or impatiently - for a better next world, but would be advocating fiercely (and yet peacefully and lovingly) for a more abundant, equitable and inclusive one right now. If Jesus really did conceive of the Kingdom as a present reality, this would have to change our focus and behavior dramatically ... because the world that we live in now is unjust, too, but too many so-called Christians are fighting to perpetuate this inequity and injustice rather than to ameliorate it.
In sum, following Professor Hendricks' insights, I'd say that too many Christians have their religion wrong, both in terms of how they conceive it (i.e., focused primarily on heaven and less on this earth) and how they live it (i.e., focused primarily on the individual versus on the communal). So perhaps Jesus isn't the best patron to follow because His values don't align with those of (too) many who claim to be His followers. Or perhaps we need to change radically and become true Followers of Jesus ... which, frankly, is so(/too) hard that I suspect that we'll just stay Christians....
If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor,
either we have to pretend that Jesus was as selfish as we are,
or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us
to love the poor and serve the needy without condition
and then admit that we just don't want to do it.
- Stephen Colbert
