I am not a Christian, but I find many of the sayings and teachings of the man known as Jesus to be quite profound. And I am amazed at how often the Bible is used as a tool of division and hatred.
Our time is not so different than the time of Jesus. We still have war and disease, the greedy and the ambitious, the poor and the exploited. Our society still stigmatizes people on the basis of gender, race, and sexual orientation. Look at how our self-righteous leaders separate society through the issues of illegal immigration and gay marriage, doing little more than talking about such things so as to bring out the worst in people.
Yet I wonder, would Jesus be condemning gays and talking about green cards and amnesty? Or would he be urging that we see their basic humanity under the labels imposed by corrupt politicians? According to the Bible, Jesus did not eat with the rich men of his time, but sat and broke bread with people who were ordinarily hated and ignored. “When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ On hearing this, Jesus said, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’ (Matthew 9:10)
The same principle holds for the most reviled people in our society. Think of the child molester, the murderer, the terrorist — how easy it is to look at such people as monsters, as less than human, as deserving a fate worse than death. Yet the message of Jesus was that even those people who commit the greatest offenses against the community are due some basic level of dignity. In stopping the death sentence imposed on Mary Magdalene for adultery, Jesus said, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:7)
In fact, Jesus’s ministry emphasized that at all times, people ought to take the higher path of love, even in the face of vile persecution. Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.” (Matthew 5:38) What a truly revolutionary message even in our own time, when we are so quick to see prisons as the answer to crime and executions and invasions as the answer to violence.
Jesus continued, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:43) Such a message is the exact opposite of what comes from the mouths of so many American leaders, who insist that we kill the terrorists and wage war on every evildoer. Jesus stood for something quite different.
So much of the current social and political environment of our time finds ready resonance within the New Testament as well. We live in an era where wealth is increasingly concentrated in ever fewer hands, where the rich and powerful cavort at the expense of the great mass of the people. Jesus himself saw such things in his own time and was honest that greed and wealth were great obstacles to self-knowledge and compassion. He made his disciples sell all their possessions and give to the poor and reminded them, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” (Luke 18:22)
The current money-making that takes place in the name of religion would have saddened and angered Jesus. We will never see Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell give up their wealth in solidarity with Jesus; nor can we hope for any humility from their tremendous personas. But we know how Jesus would have felt about such exploiters of faith, for it was Jesus who “entered the temple area and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, ‘Is it not written: My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations? But you have made it a den of robbers.’” (Mark 11:15).
He admonished them, “How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!” (John 2:13)
The political context of the New Testament is also quite relevant to today. During the time of Jesus, the area of the world in which he preached was occupied by the Roman Empire, and the people were burdened by an oppressive military regime. The New Testament relates how some “Pharisees and Herodians” attempted to get Jesus in trouble with the Romans by asking him seditious questions about whether they ought to pay taxes to an occupying power. Jesus, not falling for the bait, first scolded them by saying, “Why are you trying to trap me?” Then he asked one of them for a Roman coin and as he held it, he said, “Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. Then he responded, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” (Mark 12:16) To anyone alive at the time, such an answer would have been as enlightening as it was subversive. In comparison to God, no man, not even Caesar, has any claim over anything. Jesus’s answer is based in common sense: If you want to be a slave to Caesar, then give him your allegience. But if you would follow a higher power and bow to no human authority, then give to God.
There is much wisdom in the holy books of various faiths. With Jesus, especially, there is a sense of a man who sought to break the yoke of repression in any form, be it spiritual, social, or political. In a country as religious as ours, it is unfortunate that the message of Jesus is so ignored. Perhaps what this country needs is fewer “Christians” and more people who follow the teachings of Christ.
