The Politics of “the Gospel”

The Politics of “the Gospel”

May, 2024

On Jan. 6 when they stormed the US Capitol, some carried crosses, flags with Christian messages, and signs with bible verses on them, making their political desires into a religious crusade.  But this was not new or surprising.  All my life I’ve known right-wing conservatives to be devout Evangelical Christians whose politics were inextricably linked to their version of the faith.  For the first half of my life, I heard the diatribes from the pulpits against “godless Communism.” Communists, after all, were atheists, anti-god, and anti-church. They imprisoned pastors, they tortured people for their faith.  I read books about bible smugglers who risked everything to nurture the faith of those poor souls who found themselves behind the “Iron Curtain.” How could you be a Christian and not understand your faith to involve the politics of opposing Communism?  

Back then, growing up in my fundamentalist home, I was too young to know about all the things my “Christian” nation was doing around the world to help God with His anti-Communist agenda: assassinating (or attempting to) foreign dictators, sponsoring coups, invading little nations, turning a blind eye to apartheid and human rights abuses, death squads, disappearances, and dirty wars.  We knew that Communists wanted to gobble up the world, that the dominos would fall, and that the Christian West could recede into a corner of persecuted insecurity. Perhaps we would end up like the early Roman Christians, furtively meeting in the catacombs and making secret fish signs in the sand with our feet to identify our comrades? (You probably had to grow up in my subculture to understand that reference).   Communists were anti-God; how could God’s A-team be non-politically neutral?  

So, the cross and the flag that co-mingled in the mobs on Jan. 6 were neither new nor unusual.  The new part was that the champion they were there to enthrone was such a non-religious, immoral man.  He famously did not even know how to say “Second Corinthians” as any child of Sunday School did. When he held up a bible in that silent scene in front of a church that he never attended, he didn’t notice it was upside down.  But, in spite of his vulgarity, infidelities, lies, and bankruptcies, he was, like the Persian king Cyrus of old, being hailed as the Messiah.  He would free the children of Israel from bondage and exile to return to the Promised Land.  He would “make America great again,”  when everyone could assume everyone else was Christian.  “Merry Christmas” could again be the greeting, without any hedging like “Happy holidays” in case the random non-Christian person were around to take offense.  

Moses and Pharaoh

But was not the marriage of politics and religion baked into the cake from the outset? Did not Moses confront the pharaoh, demanding that he “let my people go“? What was that if not direct political action? Did not the Hebrew prophets constantly confront the kings of Israel and Judah, criticizing them and demanding change? What is the cry “let Justice roll down water” if not a demand for political change? 

And did not the earliest narrative of the life of Jesus also assume that marriage? After all, the very word gospel used to describe Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of God was the word commonly used in the Roman Empire for public political announcements. The gospel of Mark uses that word, as he narrates, Jesus’ initial appearance: “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news (i.e. gospel) of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near, repent, and believe in the good news.’” (Mark 1:14-15) In a time in which the Roman Empire considered itself a kingdom, Jesus announced and alternative kingdom.  He could have called it, As Paul did, the “family of God“, or the “household of God“ but he didn’t. He chose the apparently intentionally provocative title “kingdom of God.” How can that be read any way other than politically?  

Theologian John Howard Yoder wrote The Politics of Jesus back in the ‘70s. People have been coupling the message with political agendas for a long time. By the time I was a college student, I had begun to drift away from the right-wing conservative, evangelical moorings I had grown up with. I started reading magazines, like Sojourners and books like Chad Meyer’s’ commentary on Mark “A Political Reading of Mark‘s Story of Jesus.“ I have been well used to hearing Jesus’ political agenda, sounding, if not, Marxist, then nearly so. I read Liberation Theology and reflected on the inclusive communities of table fellowship that Jesus established, which seemed similar to the Latin American base communities Gutierrez, and others described. That left-wing embrace of Jesus’s kingdom continues, as does its counterweight on the right.

So if Jesus was political, who gets to decide which politics he would embrace in America today,?  I know which side I would like him to come down on, but understanding how confirmation bias blinds a person to the data that do not agree with them makes me suspicious of my own desires.

If we were to widen the question beyond merely Jesus, the gospel, and the kingdom of God to consider more broadly religion and politics, I believe it would become clear that there’s no way out of this morass. Religion has always been hand in glove with political power from ancient Mesopotamia, where annually at the New Year’s festival, the king was reinvested with Royal Authority to rule under Babylon’s God Marduk’s authority, to the anointing of the kings of Israel, by men of God, in the name of God.  Politics and religion, have always been united. In fact, the very notion that you could separate the church and the state as our American founders dreamed, is itself an historical anomaly. Every army that has ever taken, the battlefield has imagined its’ God on its’ side. And the kings who sent them into battle were happy to know that they thought so. It was not until the French Revolution* that the very notion that monarchs were not given their right to rule directly by God occurred to anyone. The apostle Paul believed that all ruling authority came from God, and Martin Luther was happy to agree with him when he instructed the princess to cut down the peasants whose poverty had driven them to revolution.

 We are told that one of the reasons religion has persisted is its capacity to bind large groups together in a unity far beyond kinship lines. This is an adaptive advantage. A group bound together by a common God would certainly out perform smaller less unified groups in competition for scarce resources or territory.  So, religion, harnessed to politics is an adaptive advantage to us.  

But, as everyone knows, religion can also be the reason for conflict.  Religiously based wars are also ancient.  The ideology, or rather, theology operative in the ancient world was that your god always fought the enemies’ god in the heavens as your armies battled it out on earth.  The best god won, and therefore so did the army.  Constantine believed it, when he had that famous vision of the cross by which sign he could conquer.  He had his men carve a cross on their shields, and they won.  There is no way to count all the religious wars, the crusades, the jihads, and the endless conflicts of history.  We are just a new part of an old story today.

I don’t know the way out of this.  I don’t really believe there is one.  God (whomever that may be) will continually be harnessed to political agendas (even if the “god” is officially denied and is named “historical inevitability” by Marxists or whomever).   I just want to call it out for what it is.  Have your politics; defend them, argue for them, give examples, cite evidence, and ask AI for help, but leave “god” out of it.  That’s my wish.  It won’t ever happen, I know.  

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* After writing the above I was alerted by a reader that actually the church father Tertullian argued for the separation of church and state in the second century. His argument to the Roman Empire was that Christianity should be tolerated since no one’s religion harmed anyone. Here is the money quote:

For see, we are in agreement with you when we say that it is a fundamental human right, a privilege of nature, that every man should worship according to his own convictions. One man’s religion neither harms nor helps another man. It is assuredly no part of religion to compel religion – to which free will and not force should lead us – the sacrificial victims even being required of a willing mind. You will render no real service to your gods by compelling us to sacrifice. And so we are of opinion that the religious observance of one man profits another not at all. –Tertullian, Apologeticus, ch. 24:

“Render Unto Caesar…”

Sermon for Oct. 8, 2023, Central Presbyterian Church, Fort Smith, AR.

Matthew 22:15-22

Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one, for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, “Whose head is this and whose title?” They answered, “Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s.” When they heard this, they were amazed, and they left him and went away.

It is common, in some cultures, for patriots to name their children after national heroes. For example, in Croatia, or as they call it Hrvatska, the name Hrvoje means Croat, a patriotic name. 

In the first century, in Palestine, mothers were naming their sons after the heroes of the Maccabean revolution, a century and a half earlier.  Familiar names from the gospels, like Judas, which is the Greek form of Judah, along with Matthew, John, and Simon, were some of those heroes.  

Those mothers were probably hoping that their sons would lead the people to the next revolutionary victory, this time, over Rome. 

Indeed, the Jewish people kept trying. The moment seemed ripe for a revolution in 4 BC when the despised Roman client King Herod the Great died. Revolution broke out all across Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. The leader of the revolt in Galilee was another Judas — not the Judas who was one of the twelve disciples of Jesus. 

Apparently, Judas was a popular name, since, after all, it was the name of the nation of Judah, as well as a hero’s name. 

Anyway, this Judas, known as “Judas the Galilean,” led the revolt there. He rallied people to revolution by focusing on the single greatest tool of oppression that Rome used against them: the tribute tax.  

The Odious Symbol of Oppression

The “tribute” was a tax that Rome levied against its conquered people. It symbolized Roman authority, and, for that reason, it was deeply resented. 

The tribute tax paid for the soldiers and weapons of the occupation. It paid for the palaces and banquets of the oppressors. It paid for the Roman Army Standards with their golden eagles which stood within the precincts of the temple in Jerusalem, scandalizing the faithful.  

So, in 4 BC, Judas the Galilean ordered his people not to register to pay it. He and his people went so far as to burn down the houses and steal the cattle of those who did, according to the ancient Jewish historian, Josephus. 

Predictably, the Roman legions came down en mass to crush that revolt, killing tens of thousands. New Testament scholar John Dominic Crossan says that the memory of that crushing defeat would have been the subject of endless conversation among the people of that area, like Mary and Joseph. 

The wound was still fresh. Everybody knew people who died; everyone had family members who were killed. Everyone had a story of their escape.  But everyone was again, paying the tribute tax to Rome.  

The tax had to be paid in Roman coinage. The silver denarius coin had the image of the emperor, Caesar, and included the inscription “Divi Filius,” “son of God.” The god Apollo, so the legend went, had impregnated Caesar’s grandmother, making his father a god; so Caesar was a son of a god.   

The Trick Question

The tribute tax and that coin are the subject of the text we read from Matthew’s gospel. They are behind the trick question brought to Jesus, to get him to incriminate himself. 

If Jesus advocates paying the tax that everyone resents, they will walk away from him. His support will dry up. 

But if he advocates not paying the tax, he could be arrested as a traitor, and possibly executed, like Judas the Galilean 30 years before him.  

Who were the ones trying to trip up Jesus with this trick question? Matthew tells us they were an unlikely coalition. The Pharisees, or perhaps we should call them, the Puritans, since their agenda was to be hyper-vigilant about the purity laws of the Bible, had made common cause with the Herodians. 

Not much is known about the Herodians, but their name says it all. They represented the interests of King Herod, the Roman-collaborating son of Herod the Great, whose lavish palaces and lifestyle were supported by additional local taxes. 

Normally, Pharisees were completely opposed to King Herod and his godless ways, but, as they say, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” at least for the moment.  

The Artful Answer

The line that Jesus cleverly comes up with, that shuts them down, is certainly authentic, according to New Testament scholars. The same line shows up in all three gospels and in the Gospel of Thomas.  Jesus said, 

“Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” 

Jesus was not about to lead a tax revolt against Rome, but neither was he advocating passivity. Jesus’ tactics were intentional and subtle. 

Richard Rohr has recently written that some people, especially social activists, are disappointed that, except for his action to shut down the temple, he did not directly confront the oppressive structures of his day. What was Jesus’ strategy? Rohr says it was, 

“a…refusal to participate in almost all external power structures or domination systems.” 

So how did he conduct this policy? Rohr continues, 

“His primary action is a very simple lifestyle, which kept him from being constantly co-opted by those very structures, which I (and Paul) would call the “sin system.”

Jesus never said his was the only legitimate strategy, but the one time he parted with it and directly confronted the system, he paid for it with his life. 

One week after that donkey ride up to the temple in mockery of Pilate’s processional, one week after he drove out the money changers and shut it down, he was arrested, tried, convicted, and executed. 

So, we can see that his options under Roman oppression were severely limited. As long as he quietly refused to participate in the power structures of the domination system, he was safe. As soon as he confronted them, he was killed.  

Our Times, Our Role

We live in different times and circumstances in nearly every way. Our participation in the systems of government is assumed necessary by our system itself. 

We can vote. We can lobby. We can write to our leaders and express our views. We can even peacefully protest by the thousands in the streets and hold up signs demanding change. If we are able, we can even perform oppositional comedy and build partisan cable news networks.  

So, what should guide our politics? What outcomes should we advocate for? Here Jesus’ clever answer is important. What could it mean to 

“Give…to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s”? 

Let us take each part separately.

The “things that are Caesar’s”

What are those things that are the emperor’s? What can government legitimately require of us? I believe that this is an important question that every Christian in our country must wrestle with. 

I also believe that no one has the right to tell you what to do. We Presbyterians believe strongly, as our Book of Order says, that “God alone is lord of the conscience….” 

We are each individually responsible for using discernment and the wisdom we have been given, to make these decisions. For me, the guidance I look to first and foremost, is Jesus.  

Early Christians were advised by writers like Paul and Peter to keep their heads down and obey the laws of the land, given the political system they were living in. 

However, the early church concluded that there were limits. The state could go too far and demand too much. When it did, as when the state required veneration of Caesar or the worship of Roman gods, Christians said “no.” 

We would call their refusal to comply “civil disobedience.” They called it “bearing witness.” Many who resisted became martyrs. The word “martyr” originally meant “witness.” 

Throughout history, Christians in various situations have concluded that obeying the laws of the land was incompatible with their Christian faith, and so have resisted. 

Some broke the laws of the Fascists to protect human life. Some broke the laws of the Communists to worship God.  

As the New Testament puts it, our ultimate citizenship is in the Kingdom of God, in which God, not any human Caesar, is the final authority.  

The “things that are God’s”

So, what does it mean to 

“give to God the things that are God’s”? 

What belongs to God? Every faithful Jewish person would immediately have the answer. In the words of the 24th Psalm, she would say, 

“The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it;” 

We call ourselves the “beloved community” because we believe that we have been created by God, loved by God, named and claimed by God. As Paul said, 

“we are the Lord’s”.  

As the 100th Psalm says, 

“we are God’s people and the sheep of God’s pasture.” 

What does it mean to “give to God the things that are God’s” if not everything? 

I believe this is what is meant by the word “surrender.” Surrender is the act of faith that says, “I trust that I am in God’s hands.” 

It is the non-anxious conclusion I reach when I can “be still” or “cease striving” and know that God is God. 

I can let go of my ego, my defensiveness, my resentments, and my selfishness, and grow in other-centeredness. I can grow in being mindfully present in the moment. I can grow in my God-consciousness. In short, I can grow in love as I 

“give to God the things that are God’s.”  

I believe that this will lead to action, even to public action on behalf of the values that motivated Jesus’ ministry. 

I believe this will lead to a heightened sensitivity to “the least of these” as Jesus called the poor and marginalized. 

I believe it will produce greater and greater compassion, especially for vulnerable people. 

I believe it will lead to involvement in service as opportunities are available. 

For me, and I hope for all of us, it includes political action on behalf of the people who were at the heart of Jesus’ concern. In our system, in which participation is assumed, I believe we are responsible for being involved.  

This leaves many questions unanswered, like “What is the role of government?” And, “What view should we have of the Constitution?” 

Each of us has to come to the best conclusion we can. Good people will differ. That is to be expected. But our common commitment as Christians, is to do all that we can to 

“give to the emperor (only) those things that are the emperor’s, and to God (all) of the things that belong to God.”

Jesus’ Mission: the Politics of Compassion

Sermon for March 13, 2022, Lent 2 C

Video is available at the website of the Central Presbyterian Church, Fort Smith, AR. and at our YouTube channel after the service.

Luke 13:31-35

At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’ Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.’”

Killing your opponents is one of humanities oldest tactics.  The biblical story that starts in a perfect garden of peace and harmony quickly moves on to a scene of fratricide; Cain kills his brother Abel for no justifiable reason.  By the time we get to the flood story, the narrator tells us, 

“the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence.”    

(Gen. 6:11)

The tactic of killing your opponents features largely in the text we read from Luke’s gospel.  The Pharisees tell Jesus that Herod wants to kill him.  

That threat seems likely; Herod had already killed John the baptizer over fears of his crowd sizes and criticism of his practices.  Jesus brings up the killing of prophets in Jerusalem as a truism, as if it were to be expected.  

We need to remind ourselves that Christianity’s symbol, the cross, is an execution device.  Crosses were the way the Romans lynched their opponents, and they did it by the thousands according to ancient historians.  

It is important to acknowledge that Jesus died on a cross, instead of a battlefield, because he would not take up arms, even in self-defense.  He chose to die rather than to kill.

What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus today?  If we set out to follow Jesus, we must first understand him.  This text from Luke’s Gospel reveals important aspects about Jesus’ sense of his own mission and motives, so let us look at it together.

Jesus’ Public, Political Mission

First and most obviously — but often neglected or even suppressed by today’s versions of Christianity — Jesus’ mission was public, not just private.  The private aspects of Jesus’ teaching are important, but they are not the end of the story.  

Yes, Jesus cared about our prayer life, our financial stewardship, about arrogance and lust and all kinds of personal spiritual issues.  But he was also concerned about big public issues including political issues.  

If he were not, why would Herod have him under surveillance?  The fact that Herod, who ruled Galilee, was out to kill Jesus means that he considered Jesus a threat.   

No one has ever been executed for preaching about love and forgiveness.  But many prophets, as tradition has it, were killed.  Why?  Because they were unafraid to call out the people in power when they were wrong.  They called out the government that, like Isaiah said, 

“make iniquitous decrees, who write oppressive statutes, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right,” .  

(Isa. 10:102)

In that same prophetic tradition, Jesus was willing to call Herod a fox; not a term of flattery, but a critique of his duplicitous ways.  Herod had killed John the baptizer, and now, he has Jesus in his sights.

The Kingdom and Confrontation

It is important to keep in mind that Jesus chose a metaphor to describe his message that was specifically political.  Jesus purposely used the metaphor of the Kingdom of God to describe his message.  

He did not have to use that political metaphor. He could have used the metaphor of the family of God, or the building of God — Paul used both of those metaphors.  

But Jesus, in direct challenge to the kingdoms of Herod and of Caesar, said that God was king, meaning God’s agenda, God’s ethics, God’s standards were to be followed 

“on earth as it is in heaven.”  

It was a public, political act that Jesus was on his way to perform.  At this point in Luke’s gospel, Jesus is on his way out of Herod Antipas’ territory.  He had a plan.  He had a mission.  

He called it his “work”.  As the culmination of his ministries of healing and exorcism, he would go to the temple and shut it down.  They call that action an “acted parable.”  It was a teaching by demonstration.  

The temple, you will recall,  was also the national bank.  It housed the records of debts.  In a time in which thousands of peasant families were being forced off their land into debt slavery, Jesus was demonstrating opposition to that systemic oppression.  

It was public and it was political.  The threat was recognized as a threat.  The kingdom of God may not have had an army, but it did have people-power that was taken seriously by the aristocratic families that ran the temple and the Roman governor.  

It is clear from this text that Jesus accepted the risk he was taking.  He did not flinch at the news that Herod wanted to kill him, nor did he cancel plans to go to Jerusalem because of the danger there.  

Like Dr. King who suspected that he may not get to the promised land of a just and equal America, Jesus kept his eye on the prize in spite of the death threats.  If we want to follow Jesus, we must recognize this about his sense of mission.  Jesus, unlike middle class Christianity, was not timid.  

Dr. King learned from Jesus, as he answered the objections of the Southern white ministers who had urged him not to hold demonstrations for voting rights in his famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail.  They advised him to wait.  Dr. King, like Jesus, knew that waiting was timidity that the urgency of the day would not allow.

Mission Motivation 

If we want to follow Jesus, it is also important to look seriously at his motivation.  Many people who have been subjected to oppression operate out of a well of resentment.  They want vengeance.  They want to make the people who caused the suffering to suffer.  They want the revolution.  Justice, for them, is retributive.  

Resentment was not Jesus’ motivation.  As this text so beautifully shows, Jesus’ motive for opposing oppression was pure compassion.  Justice, for Jesus, is not retributive, but restorative.  He did not wish for the demise of his enemies, but for their redemption.  He cared for them.  He used the metaphor of a mother hen, saying, 

“I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings….”  It is a feminine image.  

We have been watching Ukrainian women by the thousands carrying their wrapped up little babies onto trains and busses to flee the murderous Russian attacks.  Mothers instinctively risk everything to help their children.  This is what mothers do out of compassion for their children.  

Jesus, wanted to protect his people from themselves.  Like Isaiah before him, he used feminine images of compassion.  Isaiah, speaking for God asked, 

“Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb?” 

So Jesus, like a mother bird, wanted to spread wings of protection over the  people.  

He knew, however, that he probably would not be able to help them.  He knew that they were resistant to his message.  He said, 

“I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you.”  

Jesus had been preaching, “blessed are the peacemakers.”  Jesus told people that just like the Galilean rebels that Pilate had killed 

“unless you change your thinking, you will all perish as they did.” (Lk. 13:3) 

He saw the revolt coming  that finally broke out in the year 66, and he knew it would end disastrously.  He had motherly compassion, even on the aristocratic Roman collaborators whose nation, or “house,” would be coming down around them.  

He preached non-violence, but not passivity.  He preached non-violent active resistance, because he had compassion on the people.  We must notice that even though Jesus was aware of the unlikelihood of a positive response, nevertheless he persisted.  Faithfulness, not success was his quest.

If we are to be followers of Jesus, our motives for working for justice, working against oppression, working to end discrimination, must always and only be motivated by compassion, never resentment.  

We want redemption, not vengeance.  We want restorative, not retributive justice.  And we will keep working for a just and equal society, even if chances of success, in the near term, look slim. 

Faithfulness, not chances of success prompt our action. We will not wait.  We will not be timid.  We will be inspired by  Jesus’ example.  

We will not let our faith be a matter of the purely private realm, but, like Jesus, we will allow it to compel us to public action on behalf of people in need.  

What if the Earth Is the Lord’s?

Sermon for Nov. 15, 2020, Pentecost 24A

Video is here.

Matthew 25:14-30

[Jesus said:] “For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ And the one with the two talents also came forward, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me two talents; see, I have made two more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’

“Then the one who had received the one talent also came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew that you were a harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ But his master replied, ‘You wicked and lazy slave! You knew, did you, that I reap where I did not sow, and gather where I did not scatter? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to the one with the ten talents. For to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. As for this worthless slave, throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'”

Jesus was famous for telling parables. Most of them involve situations or plot twists that are absurd or ridiculous. 

For  example, a shepherd leaves 99 sheep to fend off the wolves for themselves, so he can retrieve the one lost one; the situation is preposterous, even humorous. It gets people’s attention. It makes them think.

So, we just read an absurd parable. A talent of gold, historians tell us, weighed about 30 pounds, and was worth about 6,000 days labor; that’s over 16 years of wages. 

So, the first slave who received five talents has just been handed $2 million. In other words, Jesus is capturing his audience’s attention with a “fairy-tale” amount of money.

(Source: Crossan, John Dominic. The Power of Parable: How Fiction by Jesus Became Fiction about Jesus (p. 99). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.)

His audience would also have their attention captured by anger. Everything about this parable makes them shake their heads in anger at a system they are trapped in that is essentially unethical and dehumanizing. You will see why in just a minute.

Luke’s Version

Luke records this same parable too, but with several differences. One difference is that he starts the parable in the context of political events of the day. In Luke, Jesus begins the parable saying, 

“A nobleman went to a distant country to get royal power for himself and then return.” 

Everyone hearing that introduction would know who Jesus was referring to.

In those days, one went to Rome to receive authorization to rule, before taking up power. In Israel, both Herod the Great and his successor and son, Archelaus, both had to go to Rome for authorization to be king (Herod the Great) or ethnarch (Archelaus). 

So the parable begins with the stark political realities of the day. Local authorities were beholden to Rome, and operated with Roman ethics.

Different Assumptions

I told you that because Matthew’s parable involves political realities too, which would have been obvious to Jesus’ listeners, but we miss them. We live in vastly different circumstances in so many ways. Our fundamental assumptions about economics are different. Politics and economics go hand-in-hand. 

For starters, this parable takes for granted something we find horrific: slavery. The man going on the journey has multiple slaves. Most of the people hearing Jesus tell the story would be identifying with the slaves. They were mostly poor, landless peasants, many of them day-laborers, clients of a wealthy patron for whom they worked. 

They were not literally slaves, most of them, but not far from it. Think of how that must have felt; they were Israelites living in Israel, but practically slaves of the Roman-empire-collaborating, land-owning aristocratic families.  Of course, they were angry.

Jewish Economics

Second, this parable is told to Jewish people who had completely different ideas about charging interest than we do. 

Everyone today takes for granted that we should try to save up money so that the interest we earn from it grows faster than the rate of inflation can erode it away. To put the money under the mattress is to watch it decline in value over time. We take it for granted that we can earn interest because the bank will loan money to others and charge them interest. It is how our system works.  

But the whole concept of charging interest on a loan was seen in an entirely different light by Jewish people. The idea in the Hebrew Bible is that if someone needed to borrow money, it meant that they were in trouble. Charging interest would be to take advantage of them and make their need even worse. So, the Hebrew Bible says, 

 “Do not take interest in advance or otherwise make a profit from [the people], but fear your God; let them live with you. You shall not lend them your money at interest taken in advance, or provide them food at a profit. (Lev. 25:36–37). 

The prophet Ezekiel goes even further, calling interest an “abomination,” saying that the one who charges interest should die (Ezk. 18). 

The two versions of this parable in Matthew And Luke are the only two references to interest in the New Testament. In the Hebrew bible, interest is always bad. So the slave-owner is expecting the slaves to do something Jewish people were forbidden to do. He even rewards them for doing it, and severely punishes the one who didn’t. 

Jesus’ original audience would have been saying to themselves something like, “This whole situation is wrong. The whole system is dehumanizing, oppressive, and wrong.”  

The Wrong Conclusion

Not only is the system wrong, but the conclusion is also completely messed up. The take-away lesson is, 

“to all those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.” 

What kind of world is that? How is that fair? The rich get richer by nefarious means and the poor get poorer by design. That may be how it works, but it is messed up. The whole system is dehumanizing, oppressive, and messed up.  

The Agreement on Character

We should not miss the fact that the slave who did not invest the money to earn interest gave an evaluation of the man’s character that the man himself agreed with. They both agree that he is a 

“harsh man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not scatter seed;” 

In other words, he is a harsh, greedy thief. He steals other people’s crops at harvest time. His harshness is illustrated by how he takes away what the one slave has and gives it to the one who needs it the least and commands the torture of the other.  

A Different Vision

By contrast, the vision of common life outlined in the Hebrew Bible is the opposite. It starts with every family having their own land to be responsible for, to work and to tend so that they have enough. 

But the Law of Moses acknowledges that bad things happen, droughts, pests, premature death, and so people can get into trouble. They might have to sell their land. They might become so poor as to have to sell themselves into indentured service.  Nevertheless, every seven years, all debts had to be forgiven. Period. There could never be a situation in which the rich simply get richer and a permanent poor class gets poorer. 

And there is more. Every fifty years, in the year of Jubilee, all land was returned to its original owner.  

“The Earth is” Whose?

The concept behind this was the controlling idea that, as the Psalms says, 

“The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it.” (Psalm 24)

All of our blessings are ours on loan. We had nothing when we were born, and we take nothing with us when we die. “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.”

But of course, Moses was not in charge anymore, and the Jews were living under the Herodian dynasty under the Roman Empire. They had no democratic voice or vote; no representatives to complain to.  

So what do you do, in that situation, if you believe that “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it?” Jesus’ strategy was to form communities of people that lived differently. 

In the towns and villages he visited, Jesus established communities of inclusive table fellowship. Around those tables, the norms that kept people divided were ignored. Women sat and ate with men. People who had resources with people who were poor. Marginalized people sat and ate with people of status.  

These were tables of sharing. Some could bring much, some little, but all could eat and be satisfied. Everyone understood that “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it.” They lived as if God were king, not Herod, locally, or Caesar in Rome. 

Jesus called it the “kingdom of God” which was already present among them and within them, for those who had eyes open to seeing it, and hears open to the message. 

These communities could not solve the systemic issues they faced, but they could and did assert the dignity and value of every human being that took part. By this practice, they made humans out of slaves and other marginalized people. That is our task too. 

According to Jesus, the “Lord” to whom “the earth belongs” was of a particular character, The Lord of the earth was opposite to the slave-owner in the parable. Instead of being harsh, Jesus taught us to believe that God, was “kind” even “to the ungrateful and the wicked.” 

Instead of being punitive and judgmental, Jesus taught us that God was gracious and merciful, like a perfect “Father in Heaven” who welcomes back the lost ones with open arms. Instead of being greedy, God was the giver of sunshine and rain, and equally so, and for everyone. This was the God that inspired the communities of inclusive table fellowship.

Getting a Reaction: then and now

Jesus’ parable was set in the conditions of exploitation, greed, and oppression. It was created to make people react. It was meant to push their buttons. It was meant to start a conversation about how messed up the whole system was. As such, it is a critique of all systems of injustice. 

If the earth is the Lord’s, and if the Lord God is a God of justice and compassion, then it is our calling to call out systems of injustice and oppression and confront them. 

If, in Jesus’ times, you could say that slaves’ lives matter, and day-laborers’ lives matter today we can say black lives matter; minimum wage earners’ lives matter; housing-challenged people’s lives matter. 

We can be thankful that unlike the people of Jesus’ day, there are things we can do to bring justice and compassion to our communities. We can vote, and we can advocate, and we can petition the government and protest if necessary. 

And when we do those things, we will do them with the conviction that

“the earth is the Lord’s, and all that is in it.”