The Politics of Jesus: Prophets, Poets and Peace

Luke 6:20-28; Micah 4:3-4

October 21, 2012

So, did you see the pictures of J Lo strutting her stuff in Azerbaijan? They accompanied a story in the Post last week about the ways that Western pop culture is challenging the conservative ruling mullahs in Iran.

I’m not going to claim that J Lo is what the politics of Jesus looks like in action, but I will say this: the politics of Jesus play out a lot more like a dance than they do like a drone attack, and during a political season in which being “tough on Iran” seems to be an important measurement of, well, of something in national politics it’s worth pausing to consider what really changes hearts and minds.

I put my money on the prophets and poets of peace well ahead of presidents and other politicians.

The politics of Jesus begins in the search for shalom, for the peace that the prophet Micah described in his poetry:

“They shall beat their swords into ploughshares,
   and their spears into pruning-hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
   neither shall they learn war any more;
but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees,
   and no one shall make them afraid” (Micah 4:3-4).

Last Sunday, I noted Walter Brueggemann’s observation that the prophets of ancient Israel were primarily odd and poetic voices who understood that the facts on the ground did not accord with the lofty rhetoric of the powers that be. In a national political season when any serious candidate must pay fealty to a notion of American exceptionalism that brooks no honest criticism, it’s worth pausing to listen for some odd and poetic voices who find the facts on the ground at least worthy of passing note even, and especially, when they might suggest that America has, well, some exceptional issues.

A politics of Jesus, in our American context, might resound in phrases such as this, from the great Langston Hughes:

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

Hughes invites us to consider a politics of love. Any politics of Jesus must be spoken in faith, hope and love, and it draws upon the rich well of poetic language in scripture and beyond. For example, such a politics looks to the Beatitudes, and rests on the deep conviction that these blessings are more than happy thoughts. They are, instead, deep and abiding challenges to the world as it is and invitation to the world that might yet be.

A politics of Jesus in our time would must recall Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, and remember that Luke includes woes along with his blessings, and thus inspires, perhaps, other odd and poetic voices deeply disturbed by the facts on the ground.

Wendell Berry wrote this poem in January, 1991, during the first Gulf War. Hardly a day has passed during the ensuing 21 years – the entire lifetime of my eldest child – when the words of this poem did not ring sadly true. Berry’s remains a singularly prophetic voice, and one that anyone pretending to articulate a politics of Jesus ought to study with care.

The year begins with war.

Our bombs fall day and night,

Hour after hour, by death

Abroad appeasing wrath,

Folly, and greed at home.

Upon our giddy tower

We’doversway the world.

Our hate comes down to kill

Those whom we do not see,

For we have given up

Our sight to those in power

And to machines, and now

Are blind to all the world.

This is a nation where

No lovely thing can last.

We trample, gouge, and blast;

The people leave the land;

The land flows to the sea.

Fine men and women die, the fine old houses fall,

The fine old trees come down:

Highway and shopping mall

Still guarantee the right

And liberty to be

A peaceful murderer,

A murderous worshipper,

A slender glutton, or

A healthy whore. Forgiving

No enemy, forgiven

By none, we live the death

Of liberty, become

What we have feared to be.[1]

Last week, on behalf of the National Committee of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, I drafted a letter to Governor Romney and President Obama calling on them to halt the lethal use of drones. We published that letter as followers of the nonviolent Jesus, but even as I put the words together I knew that I was operating much closer to the practices of politics as usual than to a disruptive politics of Jesus.

It is far too easy to ignore the voice of one crying out in the wilderness if that voice tries to sound like a policy insider.  One thing I have learned along the way is that politics as usual works just fine for powerful voices, but if voices from the margins wish to disrupt the way things are they have to speak on many levels at once.

Remember the AIDS quilt. No policy papers nor scientific studies changed as many hearts and minds as did the squares on that quilt. In the same way, the Shower of Stoles project has carried reminders to the church of the great violence done by the church to LGBT candidates for ministry, and of the great loss to the church. Those stoles have resounded far louder than all the good and great sermons on LGBT equality preached over the long years of struggle.

Sure, it’s important to articulate a position with clarity, and ground it in the best of one’s tradition. I still believe in the practice of preaching, and the drones letter I just mentioned lifts up the great Confession of 1967 with its call to the nations to pursue peace even at risk to national security. But to a significant extent, no matter what policy one urges, when one speaks in the language of position papers the structures of power remain fixed and unchallenged.

If, as I suggested last week, a politics of Jesus begins in liturgy, in worship, then perhaps the voice of nonviolence is heard most clearly when it sings. A politics of Jesus will also be sung.

“I’m gonna lay down my sword and shield, down by the riverside … ain’t gonna study war no more.

“I’m gonna shake hands around the world, down by the riverside … ain’t gonna study war no more.

“I’m gonna walk with the Prince of Peace, down by the riverside … ain’t gonna study war no more.

We opened worship singing the old hymn, Crown Him with Many Crowns. That song ought to remind us of the uneasy relationship between the Prince of Peace and the princes of this world in every time and political context. “Crown him the Lord of Love,” is not a phrase that will show up any time soon on a bumper sticker of any candidate for public office. Yet that title, “Lord of love,” harkens back to the basic affirmation of Christian faith from the earliest church. That affirmation remains incredibly important to hear, to understand and to affirm in the present age: Christos Kurios, in the Greek, or Christ is Lord.

We don’t live in an age of lords, and, in fact neither did Jesus. He lived in an age of emperors, and the earliest affirmation of Christian faith was both subtly political and a remarkably subversive affront to the powers that ruled that world. For Caesar Kurios, or “Caesar is Lord,” was the basic oath of citizenship in Rome.

To say “Christ is Lord,” was to say to Rome, in essence, “you’re not the boss of me; Jesus is.” It was to say to Rome, you demand at the point of a sword allegiance to an empire of death forged in the blood of enemies defeated and killed, but I swear allegiance to the empire of the Lord of Life forged in the blood of one who risked the forgiveness of enemies, and called upon his followers to love those same enemies.

I’m not going to hold my breath waiting to hear any presidential candidate any time soon giving voice to forgiveness of enemies, much less exploring ways to demonstrate love of them, but any authentic politics of Jesus begins right there, in the longing for shalom and the determined, faithful, dancing, singing and praying work of building a culture of just and lasting peace. Let it be so for us, amen.

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[1] “The Years Begins In War,” in Wendell Berry, A Timbered Choir (Washington, DC: Counterpoint, 1998) 125-6.