“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”
-- Luke 9:23
This Monday America will recognize the birthday of a man who bore the cross of Jesus and it cost him his life. Perhaps a warning label on such a cross is needed.
The late Mennonite John Howard Yoder once quipped:
"The believer's cross is, like that of Jesus, the price of social nonconformity.”
Such was the case for Martin Luther King, Jr whose social nonconformity and political activism cost him his life. He resisted the Powers that insisted upon the injustice of racial segregation and the inequality of people of color.
He carried the cross of social nonconformity and it cost him his life, just as it did Jesus.
Yoder, I believe, was correct. The cross was a brutal instrument of death. It was not encased in gold and hung around Jewish necks, nor was it adorned in liturgical colors and hung in places of worship. It was not just a symbol of salvation, as it has become for so many today (it is but, it is so much more).
The cross in Jesus’s day was the result of all those who resisted the Empire; it was an instrument reserved for zealots and political activists. Social and political nonconformists were executed on a Roman cross.
When Peter cut off the Roman soldier’s ear Jesus rebuked him not because he was afraid that Peter’s actions might prevent him from fulfilling his main mission, which was to die for lost souls and get them to heaven when they die.
This tunneled vision understanding of why Jesus died has contributed to our misunderstanding of what it means to bear the cross of Jesus. MLK, Jr. did not make this mistake nor should we.
If Jesus is portrayed accurately in the four Gospels, which I believe he is, then it seems pretty clear to me that he was a political figure; or to say it another way:
He engaged the political Powers and agitated them to no end.
It cannot be denied that he was crucified on the grounds of sedition, which by the way was a political crime. To claim that Jesus wasn't political is a serious mistake.
Bearing the cross of Jesus in the public arena may carry with it serious consequences; for one to do so is to live as a nonconformist to the prevailing political and social norms of the day.
Whenever a Christian opposes political policies that are harmful to people, especially people who live on the margins of society (the poor, the immigrants,the homosexuals, the weak, and even women), Christians are responsible for calling out those who implement harmful policies towards those whom Jesus referred to as “the least of these.”
To do so sometimes evokes painful consequences and this is what is meant by bearing the cross. This is what I believe Jesus himself meant by the phrase.
It has been said that Jesus came to comfort the afflicted. This is true but unfortunately so many Christians have come to believe that this is all he came to do, and that the Gospel is all about making people feel good about themselves.
He also came to afflict the comfortable—To call out those leaders whose political actions bring harm to those they are sworn to protect.
Perhaps it may be more appropriate to consider Jesus a political agitator as opposed to an activist. Perhaps he was both. I believe he was. It cost him his life simply because he painted a picture of an alternative political and social order that the Powers (both religious and political) could not and would not accept.
The same may be said of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Christians are needed today more than ever to become political agitators/activists right where they live. Not in a partisan way, but as agitators on the fringes of normal political agencies. Resist if you must. Revolt peacefully if necessary. But also realize, as have so many such as Martin Luther King, Jr, and the German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, that cross bearing can be hazardous to one’s life.
Being apolitical was not an option for Jesus nor should it be an option for Christians today.
It cost Jesus and Martin Luther King, Jr. their lives and it could very well cost us ours as well.
Who said Christianity is a comfortably safe religious practice?
No comments:
Post a Comment