Winning in Last Place: Power and Position
Upside-Down
January 12/13, 2008
Digging Deeper (Questions are on the last page)
Upside-Down: Winning in Last Place
(Robert Ismon Brown)
Background Notes
Key Scripture Texts: Matthew 5:11-12, Matthew 5:38-48, Matthew 6:14, Matthew 5:7, Matthew 6:1-8, Matthew 20:25-28, Philippians 2:1-11.
Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy (Matthew 5:7).
11 "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you (Matthew 5:11-12).
38 "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' 39 But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. 41 If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. 43 "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44 But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:38-48).
Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. … For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you (Matthew 6:12, 14).
1 "Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2 "So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 5 "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him (Matthew 6:1-8).
Jesus called them together and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. 26 Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first must be your slave-- 28 just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:25-28).
1 If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-- even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:1-11).
Introduction
When is power important to you? Had we put that question to the audience who heard Jesus' words in the texts cited above, we would have no doubt gotten the simple response: "When you don't have it." That's a frequent answer from people who live under Roman occupation. The Jewish community in Israel, particularly those in Galilee and Judea, knew little of self-determination. Their Roman overlords made sure of that. It was true that Herod the Great had found ways to accommodate the Jewish state to the Roman authority, but in the eyes of observant followers of Torah, too much had been surrendered in allowing for this uneasy peace with the pagans. Herod's efforts to refurbish the Temple put Israel on the map for architectural beauty, but it did little to lessen the humiliation of living under someone else's king. As we noted in our previous study, most of the population in Israel were peasant farmers, and the rest served at the pleasure of the rich elite. It was also troubling for those responsible for the worship of the Temple that the High Priest could not wear his sacred vestments except with the leave of Rome's governor.
Examining Power in the World of Jesus
For all of his unorthodoxy, Herod still laid claim to a title of honor: "King of the Jews". That may have been some solace to Jewish people longing for their former glory days, when real kings sat on the throne. Yet, everybody knew that this king did not descend from David, and, at the end of the day, many still yearned for the promised Messiah whose kingdom would be better than Herod's. He was, after all, ambitious and ruthless, refusing competitors any ground, and occasionally spread the wealth around, such as giving free corn during famines, and even cutting the tax burden during difficult economic times. But he could not hide his propensity to sidle up to the Romans, subsidizing pagan temples right along with the one in Jerusalem. Nor did he particularly embrace Jewish worship and ritual, though he put up with it. On one occasion he fastened a golden Roman eagle above the eastern gate of Jerusalem, inciting retaliation from the faithful who tore it down. In return Herod, wielding his power with Rome's nod, burned the offenders alive. Yes, Herod understood the pagan use of power, and maintained his kingdom from 37 to 4 B.C.E.
But that would abruptly end in 4 B.C.E. with his death. Power was distributed to his three sons:
Herod Antipas ruled Galilee, and would use his power to one day execute John the Baptizer, while later giving approval to the death of Jesus.
Philip assumed authority over Israelite lands northeast of Galilee, and was an unremarkable ruler.
Archelaus ruled Judea, including Jerusalem.
Nothing was automatic about their appointments to these positions. The Roman emperor (Augustus) would need to ratify Herod's will. Yet, even before the official sanction could take place, Archelaus was already flexing political muscle, defrocking the high priest and putting his own man in power. The populace did not take this sitting down. Raising a mob they demanded lower taxes, the release of prisoners, and the return of the high priest. Soldiers seeking to enforce Archelaus' rule were killed by the riots. The offenders were promptly captured by Archelaus and three thousand were put to death He then sailed for Rome and, for what he hoped would be, his confirmation.
While he was gone, more outbursts erupted in Israel, requiring the Roman Syrian general to completely put down the uprisings which had plundered the town of Sepphoris in Galilee, seizing weapons from the armory. From these varied attacks rose "kings" who claimed to rule various parts of Israel. Rome could not allow this and crushed their efforts, killing thousands and burning Sepphoris to the ground. The scene of Jerusalem was also grim, with rebels attacking Roman soldiers from the walls of the Temple and seeking to destroy the Roman fortress. In retaliation, the Romans fired the Temple and stole from the treasury. When Rome rules, no one's treasure is secure.
Upon his return, Archelaus inherits a powder keg of revolutionary activity. During these early years of Archelaus' reign, Jesus grew up in Nazareth, not far from Sepphoris, the site of so much violence and bloodshed. Archelaus was not loved. Most people wanted him removed. Oddly, Augustus gave in to these demands, and, in 6 C.E. he was exiled. For a moment, the people rejoiced. But their jubilance was short-lived. In place of a client-ruler with nominal Jewish connections, the Emperor placed a procurator instead, often called a "governor". Rome had upped the power ante. The procurator ruled directly, responsible to the Emperor. No more political games with Herod's family in Judea: governor Pilate would see to that!
So what did the power of Rome look like in Judea? Pilate reported directly to Caesar and could discharged the army, the courts, and the finances at his own command. He oversaw five cohorts of 600 soldiers each, and placed them in garrisons around his province. In Fort Antonia, in Jerusalem, Pilate placed some 500 troops as permanent guardians of the Temple area. For himself, Pilate made his home in Caesarea, a comfortable distance from Jerusalem on the Mediterranean Sea. During high holy days, the troop levels in Jerusalem were boosted, as thousands of pilgrims thronged the city.
Roman power also meant Roman taxes. The same year Pilate took charge, the Syrian procurator Quirinius executed a census for taxation, immediately triggering more riots. Loyal Jews challenged Rome's land-grab, arguing that Yahweh's land belonged to Him alone, and that the Emperor did not deserve his revered titles of soter and kurios (Savior and Lord). Roman money was defiled by the images it bore, and the rebels refused to trade in it. During some fifty years, including the time of Jesus' ministry, some thirty different resistance groups appeared, encompassing public protests, would-be prophets, would-be messiahs, and miscellaneous bandit groups. Politics, poverty and religious power struggles prompted these movements. And the war cry was the same: "No Lord but God". Power was met with power, blood was shed, professing Messiahs were seized and crucified, and those who took up the sword perished by the sword. If this was the kingdom of God come to earth, it didn't look anything like what the prophets foretold. Eleven bandit groups emerged before the fatal war of 66-70 C.E. Freedom fighters, terrorists, social bandits, local peasants--these became uncomfortable allies in the call for independence from Rome and from its Jewish lackeys like the Herods. Even at the time of Jesus' own trial, the lestes ("brigand"), Barabbas, had been arrested and was only released because the Temple authorities had infiltrated the mob calling for Jesus' crucifixion.
By the time Jesus inaugurated his public ministry in the late 20's C.E., Israel seethed with revolution, with each of several groups advocating for this or that means of bringing justice back to God's chosen people. In each instance, the effective use of power played a key role. Those were times of the power brokers. Each had an agenda to advance, and each sought the means of power to accomplish it. Unfortunately, those who should have wielded legitimate power, the high priests, were under the thumb of Pilate. They could not wear their vestments unless he said so, and that was only on high holy days. To add insult to injury, Rome required a daily sacrifice in the Temple on behalf of the Emperor--this in lieu of having to worship the Emperor in some other unacceptable fashion, which would have been idolatry!
Jesus knew about power and its pitfalls. During his childhood, he had lived in the shadow of revolutionary activity not far from Nazareth. Roman soldiers frequented his hometown when they were on leave. Rome was all around him. He also witnessed the various efforts to defeat Rome using the weapons of war to do so. He knew that violence begets violence. His life was not peaceful. And so when cousin John was immersing would-be citizens of a new kingdom in the Jordan River, Jesus shows up to be baptized himself, fulfilling, in his own words, "all righteousness" (Matthew 3:15). From that moment, the Jesus movement was born--a movement destined to first of all renew Israel under a new definition of "power", and then to spread this message, this "good news" to the ends of the earth. No sooner did the Jordan water drip from his body than Jesus made his way into the wilderness to encounter power in its darkest and most insidious forms. He went to meet the Devil himself. While the tempter offered him things like bread and glory, he at last took Jesus up to a high mountain and, in Matthew's words, "…showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 'All this I will give you,' he said, 'if you will bow down and worship me.' 10 Jesus said to him, 'Away from me, Satan! For it is written: "Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only."' 11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him" (Matthew 4:8-11).
The Devil sought to dazzle Jesus with visions of power and glory, the kind found in "the world", the kosmos, the political state organized by human beings and which obeyed the laws of power. But Jesus said "No", rejecting raw power as the true instrument for governance. Jesus knew the creed of political power and its approval of force, violence, and murder. From that moment on, Jesus' mission would involve the revelation of a new power, a new way of ruling. Rejecting the old power plays, he chose to be king in such a radically different way, so that at his crucifixion, Pilate, in an upside-down gesture, places this title over his cross: "King of the Jews".
And so, when Jesus ascends the Mount and proclaims his "Sermon" (Matthew 5-7), he goes somewhere that symbolizes God's power, not man's. Harkening back to Exodus 20-24, when Moses met Yahweh on Sinai, Jesus announces the arrival of a kingdom that has none of the trappings of pagan power at all. In place of it, he teaches mercy, meekness, purity of heart, and peacemaking. By climbing the Mount, Jesus illustrates the power of God and His presence. His words reject violent force. One thing became clear: the leaders in his kingdom must become as little children and ministering servants. He would become a revolutionary without using the customary means of power to accomplish his purposes. Speaking in ways entirely upside-down, he rejected all forms of coercion, and in its place, urged forgiveness and love of enemies, even to Roman soldiers! Yet he was no weak-kneed, cowardly king. Faced with the misguided interpretations of Torah by the ruling elite, Jesus rejected their Sabbath laws, greed, ostracism of "sinners", and their false understanding of ritual purity. He equally rejected the accommodations made by the left-wing Pharisees and the Sadducees, along with the hirelings of Herod's family. He once called Herod Antipas, "that old fox" (Luke 13:32). In so doing he rattled the status quo for traditionalists and revolutionaries alike. So, yes, one might mistake him for a revolutionary, but his uprising was upside-down. Compassion replaced weapons. And in the hands of Jesus, Torah took one a whole new meaning, becoming the true creed for his upside-down kingdom.
However, on the day of Jesus' temptation by the Devil, he also found himself on the pinnacle of the Temple. Next to Roman power, this building held significant power of its own. Mystery surrounded it and filled it. If Israel sought forgiveness, it was here. The Devil wanted Jesus to make a scene in the Temple and thus preempt the power it represented for Israel. The Temple was a huge structure, after all, 100 feet by 35 feet, rising 60 feet into the air. Thirty-five acres were filled by its various structures. Built of marble and in places overlaid with gold, it shown brilliantly at noon-day. Even Jesus' disciples marveled at the place (Mark 13:1). Long after Herod the Great began its reconstruction, work on the Temple continued until 62 C.E., scarcely eight years before its destruction at the hands of the Romans.
Who managed this place of "religious power"? Day-to-day operations were handled by some 18,000 priests (and Levites). But the elite High Priests oversaw the whole complex. Much was at stake, not only for the souls of the faithful, but for the wealth of Israel, since the treasury was kept here. The power of its money reached into the lives of peasant farmers who worked the lands owned by it. The Temple housed the ritual for Israel's forgiveness. Blood regularly flowed from its great altar, caught in ductwork designed to manage its flow away from the Temple.
At the head of this religious operation was the High Priest who, spiritually, ruled nation and religion. His power also extended to the Sanhedrin, the supreme council holding the final say on internal matters of the Jewish nation. Once Pilate became governor, the role of the High Priest was enhanced, now that no other Jewish ruler held power in Jerusalem. Between 6 and 67 C.E. sixteen High Priests came from the elite families of Jerusalem. Beneath the High Priest were other officials:
Captain of the temple who handled the temple staff.
24 priests who oversaw 24 groups of ordinary priests, comprising some 7,000 men.\
156 manager priests who took care of the work of the daily priests.
Administrative affairs were handled by 7 permanent "overseers".
Three treasurers took care of the Temple treasury, collecting taxes, tithes, purchasing the animals for sacrifices, and retailing these animals to the pilgrims who came to worship during the great festivals.
Ordinary priests, like Zechariah, the father of John the Baptizer (see Luke 1:5, and our previous Notes).
Taking up the rear were 10,000 Levites who did the dirty work: guarding the Temple, and cleaning up garbage and refuse.
Outside the ritual duties, were others who served as scribes, clerks, accountants, and otherwise performing the clerical roles required for Temple efficiency. Not the least were those who copied the Torah and other sacred texts.
Such was the power and position of the Temple.
Then there were the various political parties who competed for power among the people. Some were intricately connected to the Temple establishment. Others were inherently opposed to it, resisting it openly or simply withdrawing. The two power brokers were the Sadducees, who largely ran the Temple and the Sanhedrin, and the Pharisees, who had a significant hand in the synagogue and the schools who studied Torah. Of these, the Sanhedrin took a "live and let leave" approach to Rome, owing in large degree, to the fact that their power derived from Roman permissions and appointments. The Pharisees were a divided lot. Some, the more conservative, argued for strict purity laws and pressured Israelites into strict Torah observance in such matters as tithe, Sabbath, and relationships to the Gentiles. On the left, other Pharisees were more open to the work of God in their own time, and were less committed on the role of Rome in their national life. "If God wills" might well have been their motto.
Counter to these establishment power brokers, were the separatists and the zealots, known as Essenes and Zealots respectively. The Essenes said "No!" to the Temple system, believing it had become corrupted by pagan contacts, vis-à-vis, Rome. In the deserts, south of the Dead Sea, they formed communal enclaves, copying the Scriptures, commenting on them, and waiting for the day when Yahweh would send His Teacher of Righteousness and Messiah from both Judah and Levi. Then, in a great battle, they would join the forces of righteousness and herald the arrival of Yahweh's rightful kingdom. Until then, they lived together, prayed, studied, and hoped--in the desert. But the activists were found among the Zealots. Their movement had its roots in right-wing Pharisaism, particularly with men like Judas the Galilean, who led a revolt in 6 C.E. in response to Quirninius' census. The Romans met such revolts with equal power, crucifying the perpetrators. Those who hung alongside Jesus on the cross, as well as Barabas, where examples of such freedom fighters.
But the idea of Messiah and the Messianic expectation lay in the background of these movements. Even the New Testament bears early witness to the idea that one day Yahweh would once more bring his King to David's throne, a Savior who would deliver Israel from her enemies and grant mercy to sinners in her midst. And so, perched as he was on the Temple pinnacle, Jesus is asked by the Devil to jump down, perhaps in a Messianic display of glorious arrival to Jerusalem, sending a thrill through the hearts of Israelites who would finally welcome his coming. And to this invitation Jesus says "No!" He would come to Israel only in the way consistent with the form of the kingdom His Father was now giving to him. And so the Devil leaves him "for a time", but the struggles over power and how it should be used will follow Jesus until he breathes his last on the cross, that horrific symbol of Rome's fatal power.
In the meantime, Jesus would launch his ministry, and in his words and deeds, would use power in a very different fashion than his contemporaries.
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Sermon on the Mount: Upside-Down Power
When Jesus announced the coming of the kingdom of God, he supported that claim with fresh new interpretations of Israel's Torah. From the beginning of Yahweh's relationship with His people, He communicated his words through a covenant document. Jesus did the same, renewing the covenant through the words found in the so-called "Sermon on the Mount". Through it old truth received new meaning for a new generation of Israelites. Central to this reinterpretation of Torah was the understanding of "power" and how it was to be used by God's restored community. And such teaching didn't come too soon in light of the "power structures" found in Rome and Jerusalem. This new teaching would overturn the old order of thinking about power. None of the political or religious solutions offered by the various groups within Judaism were adequate to implement the kingdom program Jesus offered to his people. Our study will examine the Scriptures chosen for this weekend, and uncover this new thinking. A number of key affirmations about power rise from this material. These will comprise the greater part of our study.
1. The blessings of God are greater than status above others.
They are called the "beatitudes" for a reason! Derived from the Latin, beatitudo, beatus the root meaning of our English word is simply "happy". Further, the notion of beare, "to bless", points to an even more settled condition, in the future, of those who have been exalted by God in the afterlife. Medieval writers, such as Augustine and Aquinas, spoke of the "beatific vision of God", referring to heaven and the final state of those who are "blessed" by God. Matthew wrote in Greek, and his Gospel uses the Greek word makarios, which has an interesting history in the language.
Lutheran scholar Stoffregen notes that in ancient Greek times, makarios referred to the gods. "The blessed ones" were the gods. They had achieved a state of happiness and contentment in life that was beyond all cares, labors, and even death. The blessed ones were beings who lived in some other world away from the cares and problems and worries of ordinary people. To be blessed, you had to be a god. Makarios took on a second meaning. It referred to the "dead". The blessed ones were humans, who, through death, had reached the other world of the gods. They were now beyond the cares and problems and worries of earthly life. To be blessed, you had to be dead. Finally, in Greek usage, makarios came to refer to the elite, the upper crust of society, the wealthy people. It referred to people whose riches and power put them above the normal cares and problems and worries of the lesser folk -- the peons, who constantly struggle and worry and labor in life. To be blessed, you had to be very rich and powerful.
This reminds us of an old Jewish account: The old Rabbi said, "In olden days there were men who saw the face of God." "Why don't they any more?" a young student asked. "Because, nowadays no one stoops so low," he replied. Who wants to be a lowly person? Who wants to be stooped down? Most of us spend a good part of our lives trying to pull ourselves up. We want to walk tall in society. But, according to this rabbi, it is the lowly – those stooped low – who see the face of God. According to Jesus in the Beatitudes, it is the lowly – those stooped low – who are blessed by God. This is an upside-down interpretation of our word for blessed, makarios.
When this word, makarios was used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, it took on another meaning. It referred to the results of right living or righteousness. If you lived right, you were blessed. Being blessed meant you received earthly, material things: a good wife, many children, abundant crops, riches, honor, wisdom, beauty, good health, etc. A blessed person had more things and better things than an ordinary person. To be blessed, you had to have big and beautiful things. In all of these meanings, the "blessed" ones lived in a higher plane than the rest of us. They were gods. They were humans who had gone to the world of the gods. They were the wealthy, upper crust. They were those with many possessions. The blessed were those people and beings who lived above the normal cares, problems, and worries of normal people.
Matthew, in his account of The Sermon uses this word in a totally different way. It is not the elite who are blessed. It is not the rich and powerful who are blessed. It is not the high and mighty who are blessed. It is not the people living in huge mansions or expensive penthouses who are blessed. Rather, Jesus pronounces God's blessings on the lowly: the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, the meek, the mourning. Throughout the history of this word, it had always been the other people who were considered blessed: the rich, the filled up, the powerful. Jesus turns it all upside-down. The elite in God's kingdom, the blessed ones in God's kingdom, are those who are at the bottom of the heap of humanity.
In his commentary on Matthew's Gospel, M. Eugene Boring makes these additional observations about the importance of this word:
Neither Jesus nor Matthew invented the beatitude form, which occurs in the Old Testament and in both Jewish and pagan literature. Jesus and early Christianity, including Matthew, reflect the use of beatitudes in the Jewish tradition, where they are found primarily in two settings: wisdom and prophecy. The setting gives the form a distinctive function and meaning: In the wisdom tradition, "makarisms" declare the blessing of those in fortunate circumstances, based on observation and experience (e.g., Sir 25:7-9), and declare their present reward and happiness. In the Prophets "makarisms" declare the present/future blessedness of those who are presently in dire circumstances, but who will be vindicated at the eschatological coming of God's kingdom (Isa 30:18; 32:20; Dan 12:12). In the New Testament outside the synoptics, most beatitudes are found in the prophetic book of Revelation (1:3; 14:13; 16:15; 19:9; 20:6; 22:7, 14).
Put concisely, "being blessed" is the result of God's actions, His declarations, and His new arrival in the kingdom that Jesus is announcing. When the disciples of Jesus genuinely follow his commands, and live the life he calls them to imitate, they find themselves under the favor of God's blessing. By seizing a word already rich with meaning, Matthew's account of The Sermon turns upside-down every preconception about what it means to be "blessed". The kingdom which finally, at last, has broken into human history, brings with it the blessings that people thought would only come "at the end of days". No, Jesus seems to be saying, you don't need to wait for death to experience the state of blessedness. And this new way of being blessed does not entail being better than other people. Instead "the blessed" are the poor, the merciful, the meek, the persecuted, the hungry, the mournful, and the peacemakers. All of which looks quite different, quite upside-down, from the way the power-brokers of the Empire or Second Temple Judaism would have seen it.
The followers of Jesus don't need to deal into the power game. In fact, Jesus says, they should not grandstand their positions or try to remedy their deficits using the ordinary means of power. For example, when a person confronts another human being who is in desperate need, rather than gloating over one's own good fortune, and say, "I'm grateful I'm not like that person", he should exclaim, "But for the blessing of God, I might well be in that predicament", and then take the next step, and be merciful. No follower of Jesus should walk over the fallen lives of the unfortunate. No follower of Jesus should see the failure of another as a sign of divine disfavor. No follower of Jesus should take solace in the loss of another while consoling favor in themselves. Mercy lies at the center of the nine beatitudes in Matthew's Gospel. In numerous ways, it embodies the meaning of "blessedness" and how being blessed renounces the ordinary uses of power. Julia Upton comments:
Mercy is the compassionate care for others whereby one takes on the burden of another as one's own. It is an active quality of the virtue of charity, motivated by love. While mercy is often treated as a rather benign term, its power is conveyed more accurately by looking at it in a scriptural context.
"Mercy", and the Greek word, eleemon, is used as the translation of three Hebrew words, the most common one being hesed, which has a broad range of meaning. It is the covenant love between Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 20:13), David and Jonathan (1 Samuel 20:8), and Yahweh and His people (Exodus 20:6). It is mutual and enduring, implying action on both parts. Rahamim, the plural form of "womb," is also translated as "mercy." God's mercy is a nurturing womb, implying a physical response and demonstrating that mercy is felt in the center of one's body. This dimension of mercy also requires action. Also translated "mercy" is the Hebrew hen/hanan, meaning "grace" or "favor." Unlike the other terms, this is a free gift, with no mutuality either implied or expected. Not necessarily enduring, this quality is dependent solely on the giver and usually occurs between unequal persons. Taken together, these three roots give us an understanding of God's mercy in the Old Testament. It is best demonstrated by Hosea and Jeremiah, who use the analogy of marriage between Yahweh and Israel, showing us that mercy is the fruit of the covenant, forgiving as well as caring and nurturing.
Jesus is the most eloquent witness to mercy in the New Testament. He is never vague in his proclamation of God's mercy, but he reveals God's mercy in his everyday relations with people from all strata of society. Jesus is an active agent of God's mercy — confronting the crowd about to stone the woman taken in adultery, meeting the Samaritan woman at the well, weeping with the other mourners at the death of Lazarus, and ultimately taking up the cross laden with the sins of the world and being led to his death. According to Matthew 25:31-46, mercy will be the quality on which the Christian will ultimately be judged. This "upside-down" quality of mercy requires the follower of Jesus to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, care for the sick, visit those imprisoned, and bury the dead. The spiritual works of mercy include admonishing sinners, instructing the ignorant, counseling the doubtful, comforting the sorrowful, bearing wrongs patiently, forgiving injuries, and praying for others. These build on the biblical foundation that one must "do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8).
Mercy grows in us as a result of our personal experience with the merciful God. It is an important element toward making an effective witness that we share a relationship with Him. Notice these truths from the Psalms:
"The righteous shows mercy and gives" (37:21).
"All the paths of the LORD are mercy and truth, to such as keep His covenant and His testimonies" (25:10).
"For You, LORD, are good, and ready to forgive, and abundant in mercy to all those who call upon You.
"But You, O LORD, are a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in mercy and truth" (86:5, 15).
John W. Ritenbaugh remarks that "Mercy is not a quality we expect to see much these days. Instead, our eyes, ears and emotions are assaulted daily, even hourly in the case of radio and TV news items, by violence, injustice, willful stubbornness, intransigence, bigotry, scams, prejudice and intolerance. Acts of mercy are so rare that, when they do occur, they make headline news, replete with pictures, in newspapers and magazines and on television. This is not to say that mercy is not admired. It indeed is, which accounts for it making headlines when the media hear of it happening. Though people admire the merciful and wish they were more like them, they rarely take the opportunity to express mercy when such a chance arises".
Perhaps because the Bible is so readily available in the Western world, our culture admires mercy. Ancient Rome did not share our admiration. Romans spoke of four cardinal virtues: wisdom, justice, temperance and courage—but not mercy. The Interpreter's Bible reminds us that the Romans despised pity! The Greeks held similar views, thinking that mercy indicated weakness rather than strength. Aristotle wrote that pity was a troublesome emotion. The Pharisees, harsh in their self-righteous judgments of others, showed little mercy. Jesus saying of them in Matthew 23:23, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. These you ought to have done, without leaving the other undone." This difference makes apparent how far apart God and men are on the value we should place upon specific qualities of character.
We need to remind ourselves from time to time that the Beatitudes represent signs of those who are truly Christ's disciples. They help identify those upon whom God's blessings rest to aid them in living joyfully. From another angle, they describe the nature of true happiness.
How much different they are from what the secular mind, driven by appearance, strives to use to achieve happiness! The secular mind desires to possess things, power and social standing because it thinks happiness resides in them. God reveals that the ultimate sense of human well-being comes from possessing and cultivating spiritual qualities that derive from a relationship with Him. These are the elusive characteristics that sinful mankind is looking for and cannot find.
One final caution. We must not be misled into believing that, because Jesus says that the merciful will obtain mercy, this somehow proves salvation by works. Nothing anywhere in the Bible supports this conclusion. Jesus does not describe the foundation of a sinner's hope of receiving God's mercy, but traces the spiritual features of His people.
2. The forgiveness of God is greater than the settling of scores.
An Episcopalian writer, Gale D. Webb, wrote in The Night and Nothing:
The only way to conquer evil is to let it be smothered within a willing, living, human being. When it is absorbed there, like blood in a sponge or a spear thrown into one's heart, it loses its power and goes no further.
M. Scott Peck makes the same point in his conclusion to People of the Lie:
A willing sacrifice is required...He or she must sacrificially absorb the evil...There is a mysterious alchemy whereby the victim becomes the victor...I do not know how this occurs. But I know that it does...Whenever this happens there is a slight shift in the balance of power in the world.
Resentment for wrongs suffered can run deep. Some human beings have photographic memories when it comes to ways people have offended them. They somehow cannot let go, but nurse the hurts of past misdeeds done against them. In a sense, this is also a form of power brokering. If I can keep alive the injury you did to me, it becomes a weapon against you whenever I feel the need to put you down. Nothing you can ever say to me will be accepted "because of what you did to me". My superiority to you lies precisely in your sins against me. You are a sinner, and I intend to keep you that way. Herein lies the difference between kingdom thinking and the secular mind. Those who deal in power always want to keep a few skeletons in the closets of their opponents, particularly when "pay-back" time arrives. "You owe me, big-time", we are inclined to say. All of this sounds devious and mean-spirited, but realistically it belongs to the life-style of power. Jesus disagreed, and in place of score-settling and account-keeping, he thrust the unlikely virtue of forgiveness. For him, nothing disarms the wrongdoer more than extending the possibility of forgiveness. What, then, is the kingdom teaching of Jesus on this essential subject?
The Scriptures understand "forgiveness", not as a rule or spiritual duty, but as a form by which the people of God embody their mission to live as a people who are reconciled to God. Since the Church's very existence is formed by God's forgiveness it operates as a people of forgiveness, forgiven and forgiving, inextricably tied to peacemaking and justice. Philip D. Kenneson, in his book Life On The Vine, "God's intent was not that this one divine act of forgiveness in Jesus Christ would itself magically transform the creation into God's intended paradise. Rather, this supreme act of forgiveness in Christ is the very large rock dropped into the middle of a pond. .. If I refuse such forgiveness for others in the name of justice, is it possible that my view of justice falls short of God's view, where justice, shalom, wholeness and salvation are not opposing goals, but different names for God's singular desire?"
When Christian forgiveness is discussed, it is primarily within the context of God forgiving man. In his book Balancing the Scales of Justice with Forgiveness and Repentance, Randall J. Cecrle makes the point that both forgiveness and repentance focus on the satisfaction of justice, each one side of the two-sided scales that addresses the human need to have justice satisfied. He writes that the means for humans to forgive other humans is the same means as God’s forgiveness of mankind, the substitutionary death of Jesus. When God through the Apostle Paul said “Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” (Colossian 3:13), he was giving clear instructions on how to forgive. The author goes on to say “Forgive as God forgave you. Forgive in the same way, using the same means and power that God used to forgive you and me. And God forgave you and me how? He forgave by accepting the blood of Jesus (death at the hands of the executioner) as the substitutionary satisfaction of His justice. To forgive those who have caused us harm, have injured us, caused us loss, we are likewise to: Accept Jesus’ Death as the Satisfaction of Justice!”
Here are some key texts which call for a life of forgiveness:
"Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors" (Matthew 6:12).
"Peter came to Jesus and asked, 'Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?' Jesus answered, 'I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times (or seventy times seven)'" (Matthew 18:21-22).
From Jesus' parable of the unforgiving servant, "In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart" (Matthew 18:34-35).
"And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins" (Mark 11:25).
From Jesus on the cross, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34).
"Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you" (Ephesians 4:32).
Understanding the Hebrew and Greek words for forgiveness clarifies these passages. Our New Testament uses the word aphesis or aphiemi to communicate the ideas of: "letting go, release; of persons, dismissal; quittance from murder; discharge from a bond; exemption from attendance, leave of absence; exemption from service; remission of a debt; forgiveness; relaxation, exhaustion; divorce; starting of horses in a race; hence, starting-post itself; metaphorically, the first start, beginning of anything; discharge, emission; discharge, release of an engine; release; hence, in concrete sense, conduit, sluice" (Liddell and Scott, Lexicon).
Three Hebrew words in the Old Testament translate as "forgive" in English.
1. "Look upon my affliction and forgive all my sins" (Psalm 25 :18). The word "forgive" in this passage is the Hebrew word, nasa or nasah. This word means "to lift or bare". Nasah is used for undertaking the responsibilities for the sins of others by substitution or representation. In this passage, David is asking God to lift the responsibility for his sins from him. He is asking God to forgive the sins that are causing his affliction and pain.
2. Then there is the Hebrew word sallah, which means "placable or ready to forgive". In Psalm 86:5, we find this word used: "For you, Lord, are good and ready to forgive; and abundant in mercy to all those who call upon you." That is, Yahweh is placable and ready to forgive.
3. Finally we have salah which means "to forgive, forgiven, pardon or spare". Salah is found in Jeremiah 31:34, "And they shall no longer teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." The word salach is reserved especially to mark the pardon extended to the sinner by God. It is never used to denote that inferior kind and measure of forgiveness that is exercised by one man toward another. It is the divine restoration of an offender into favor, whether through his own repentance or the intercession of another. God is always the subject of forgiveness.
For human beings, forgiveness means "letting go" of wrongs sustained from others. It means the willingness to have those wrongs made right. Although an injustice may require restitution, yet the heart of a forgiving person shows a readiness to, in the end, make things right. Emotionally, we may not be able to settle our anger or console our sorrow over wrongs done to us. Practically, we may even believe that it is unwise to merely overlook what has happened to us at the hands of another person. Realistically, we must not avoid dealing with the serious issues of such an injustice. But--and this is a huge caveat--we must be willing to have a process put into play which will eventually lead to reconciliation and peace with others. Even Jesus, in his words from the cross, appealed to his Father when he extended forgiveness to his executioners: "Father, forgive…" Jesus let go of personal retribution and handed over the remediation for the wrongs done to him to God. If our Lord did this, how can we do less?
Once more, we see how forgiveness involves foregoing the application of "power" to resolve a breach between ourselves and others. Tempting though it might be to seek revenge, we forgive by letting go of the means of power to coerce a resolution. Within a society which refuses to "let go" of any scandal or moral indiscretion, such "letting go", seems upside-down. It certainly seemed that way in Jesus' day.
3. The love of God is greater than the injustices of evil persons.
Within Second Temple Judaism, the kind Jesus knew, the concept of "love" was closely joined with the idea of being God's chosen people. Consider these sample Old Testament texts:
37 Because he loved your forefathers and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of Egypt by his Presence and his great strength, 38 to drive out before you nations greater and stronger than you and to bring you into their land to give it to you for your inheritance, as it is today (Deuteronomy 4:37-38).
But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt (Deuteronomy 7:8).
Yet the LORD set his affection on your forefathers and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations, as it is today (Deuteronomy 10:15).
It was not by their sword that they won the land, nor did their arm bring them victory; it was your right hand, your arm, and the light of your face, for you loved them (Psalm 44:3).
He chose our inheritance for us, the pride of Jacob, whom he loved (Psalm 47:4).
But he chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which he loved (Psalm 78:68).
The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness (Jeremiah 31:3).
When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son (Hosea 11:1).
Yahweh made it plain to Israel that He chose them, not because of their moral superiority or political power, but because He loved them: "The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples" (Deuteronomy 7:7). To be "the chosen people" was due entirely to the love of God, not to anything intrinsic. Early in its history Israel learned the "power" of God's love to embrace, to receive, and to transform human lives.
And so, when we hear the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:38-48, and his admonition to "love your enemies", this should not have been a great surprise. But it was. The people of Israel had many enemies, some wanting to destroy the national life of the chosen people. The Romans. The privileged elite. The tax collectors. The household of Herod. What's not to hate among all of these? In Donald Kraybill's words, "Is Jesus calling us to be sponges that absorb any insult or injury?" A bit of cultural background sheds light on Matthew 5:38-48, our next passage for consideration.
In Jesus' time masters who slapped the right cheek with the backside of the right hand intended to discipline or humiliate the servant. Moreover, the left hand also had a connotation: it was considered appropriate only for unclean work. If I struck you on the right cheek it meant contempt. Should I do this to an equal, not a servant, it could mean a fine. If I did it with the back of my hand, the fine increased a hundred-fold. But if I did all of these things to a servant, there was no recourse under the law. And so, when Jesus speaks of slapping the cheek, he addressing the problem of insults, not some bar room brawl--insults to persons of lower social status by someone of higher standing, with greater power. The possible scenarios could include: husbands and wives, masters and slaves, owners and renters.
What options would a "lesser" party have when insulted in this way? They could retaliate, leading to a merciless beating, or, they could submit, groveling at their superior's feet. Jesus offers a third option: the upside-down kingdom option, namely, to offer the other cheek and, in so doing, deprive the attacker of his power to shame the subordinate. The servant, in effect, was communicating a not-to-subtle message: "Hit me again. I won't let you shame me." We would call that nonviolent resistance. It gains its power, not from coercion, but from the public exposure of an evil act, putting the master at risk. No, the servant does not comply passively, but actually shows resistance: not from hate, but from love. The other examples Jesus uses underscore the same idea: walk the extra mile, offer a second piece of clothing, etc. These acts of nonviolent resistance do not automatically shame the aggressor, but instead, give him a chance to "repent". Luke 6:27-30 develops similar themes and provides an extended list of persons who might ill-use us:
Aggressor
Non-Kingdom response
Upside-Down Response
Enemies
Haters
Cursers
Abusers
Strikers
Beggars
Thieves
Kill
Hate
Curse
Exploit
Slug
Avoid
Prosecute
Love them
Do good to them
Bless them
Pray for them
Turn the other cheek
Give to meet needs
Do not request return
What does Jesus intend by so radical a turn-about of ordinary values? He wants love to become a transforming power in its own right, but not the sort of power that demands, forces or coerces its opponents. In place of those responses, love truly seeks to change the balance of power, not in favor of us or them, but in favor of the restored relationship. And, reminds Jesus, we are the children of the Father if we act this way. Why? Because God deals with human beings in just this way: he sends sun or rain on human beings irrespective of their moral record. Nature uses no moral metal detectors before offering its seasonal blessings. Perhaps the wicked farmer will one day turn to God because He has been faithful in yielding fruitful crops and preserving prosperous herds, even when the farmer least deserved it. In the same way, argues Jesus, we ought to imitate our Father by loving our enemies, knowing that our Father does nothing less for the whole world.
Oddly, traditional Judaism had muted this message. Jesus precedes his instructions with the words "You have heard that it was said…", an expression used six times in Matthew 5:21-43. Scholars refer to these six statements by Jesus as the "Antitheses" (see Robert Guelich, The Sermon on the Mount). In Jesus' time there were two powerful threads of authority which ran side-by-side: written tradition and oral tradition. The oral tradition equaled "what was said", and could be found in numerous teachings of the Rabbis who tried to interpret the other tradition found in Torah and the other writings of the Hebrew Bible. What Jesus challenges is the accepted understanding, found in oral tradition, of many sayings in the Old Testament. He overturns that interpretation with his own words, "But I tell you" (Greek: ego de lego humin, "I, to the contrary, tell you"). He makes no bones about telling his audience that the "official understanding" of these written texts is patently false, and that he, Jesus, offers a fresh, new oral tradition--a living one which commands human beings to live by a richer and fuller understanding of Scripture. This living "tradition" is the power of love to transform the enemy, the beggar, the thief, the unjust master, or the brutal spouse. Upside-down? Absolutely!
4. Hidden righteousness is greater than public piety.
Unless people see you doing religious things, how will they know you are a righteous person? That might well have characterized the thinking found in official circles in Jesus' time. The authorities of Second Temple Judaism, who hammered out ritual and creed for the people to follow, imagined that God would only accept righteousness if it dotted every "I" and crossed every "T". Embedded in that thinking was the depressive fear that Yahweh had turned away from Israel because of her national sins, and only a coordinated effort to orchestrate a new national religion, disciplined by a strict interpretation of Torah could bring Israel back from exile and into the favor of God. Thus, the devout were encouraged to pray publicly, make a hearty show of their charity to the poor, and do all of these things in precisely "the right way". It was not so much that the Pharisees were killjoys and didn't want people to enjoy their lives. They weren't, in the words of N.T. Wright, "official thought police" who made sure everybody toed the line. One could actually say that they truly believed much of what they taught, but in so doing, they betrayed a miserable view of what God was really like. What sort of deity is so blind that he cannot see our quiet, hidden deeds of love for others? What sort of deity is so deaf that he cannot hear our simple prayers, without shouting or repeating the words over and over again?
You may recall the story of Elijah (see 1 Kings 18:26-29) who held a contest with the prophets of the pagan god Baal. Elijah taunted them mercilessly when their god did not respond to their various rituals and incantations. "Shout louder!" he said. "Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is asleep and must be awakened" (18:27). Here's the irony in relationship to what Jesus has been teaching. The people of his day seem to view the true God, Yahweh, much the way pagans viewed Baal. And Jesus says as much when he chides his audience: "babbling like the pagans" (Matthew 6:7). The word "babble" is from the Greek battalogeo, a verb derived from the name of a king from Cyrene who was known for his "stammering", and so his name "Stammerer". Some scholars see it as onomatopoetic, that is, the sound of the word is like the sound of the praying. It may also have reference to pagan prayer formulas, much like our "abracadabra". Jesus lays stress on the "many words" (Greek: polulogia) used, as if the person praying believed that the more words they used gave greater power to their prayers.
Once again, Jesus challenges his audience to rethink their view of what God is like. Does He need to be impressed by the volume or the quantity of our prayers, our songs, or other religious forms? Do we imagine that He is so far away in His great universe, that only if we stir an uproar, He will cup his ears and listen to what we have to say? Repeatedly Jesus reminds us: that God is our Father who, although He is "in heaven" (Matthew 6:1), still "sees what is done in secret" (6:4); that God is our Father who, although is He "unseen" (6:6), yet he "knows what you need before you ask him" (6:8).
The power of religion does not lie in the complexity of its worship, but rather in the connection of its worshippers to God. The faith of Jesus involves no magical incantations or mystical charms. The Father of Jesus, who is also our Father, does not require coercion to attract his attention. If anything, the use of such methods insult the honor and assault the majesty of the one true God who desires a relationship with His children. God's favor cannot be "bought" with the currency of compulsive religious acts. Indeed, His favor is muted by such human efforts. God does not need to be impressed. And for the people of Jesus' day, that truth came with the force of revelation, since they had become so accustomed to coaxing God their way, but had lost sight of their covenant connection to Him. For Jesus, true piety sprang, not from works but from wonder; not from ritual but from relationship; not from magic but from mystery. Judaism had started to look like paganism, Jesus was telling them. The reliance on right words or approved gestures to attract the favor of God had an eerie animistic feel about it. Pagans broker the forces of nature to fulfill their will. Jesus challenged such use of power, and, in its place, called for a renewed faith in the Father who even then cared about his children and wanted the best for them. And all of this seemed quite upside-down at a time when most people imagined that God was very far away.
5. Service to others is greater than coercive authority.
"It's not what you know, but whom you know that matters." And the "whom" is normally someone in the place of authority, power or influence. The disciples of Jesus lived in a world where position counted, as we have noted in our introductory sections. To someone like Herod the Great, it mattered that he knew Caesar and could extract from him favorable policies toward Israel. To someone like Pilate, the Roman governor, it mattered that he kept the balance of power between High Priest, Emperor, and the various resistance groups in Israel. Economically, you were better off being a landowner than a land-leaser; a tax-collector, than a tax-payer. And so when Jesus preached the coming of the new kingdom, even his followers had some heady ideas about what that could mean for them. In the eyes of the general population, at least in Galilee, Jesus was enormously popular. His message offered hope, and it challenged the many forces which held them down. Although Jesus increasingly spoke of his coming death, they seemed to fixate on the kingdom scene, and where they might fit in.
Matthew 20:20-28 tells the story of a Jewish mother who wants the best for her sons. That's not so unusual, and the reader easily chuckles at her efforts to find a special place for "the sons of Zebedee". "Grant that one of these two sons of mine may sit at your right and the other at your left in your kingdom" (20:21). That was a perfectly comprehensible request in light of how other kings ordered their palaces. She wanted the same for her sons, and her boldness impresses us. Jesus does not scold her, but turns to the two men, who could just as easily asked for themselves (The Gospel of Mark's account, 10:35-45, says they did!), and poses the decisive question: "Can you drink the cup I am going to drink?" (20:22), to which they reply, "We can". Later in the Gospels, the writers will connect the "cup", dramatized in the Garden of Gethsemane, with suffering and death--in Jesus' case, on the cross. But then Jesus turns the tables. He accepts their answer, "Yes, you will drink my cup", that is, you will meet up with suffering and death. Yet, he declines their request on the grounds that only God the Father may grant such special places in the kingdom that is coming. Notice what Jesus does: he lets go of his own power and yields to his Father's will.
"Those places", says Jesus, are "prepared" by my Father. In a single stroke, Jesus sweeps away any presumptuous claim, even one he might endow on them. He then turns to the principle at work in what he tells them. Prompted by the irritation of the other disciples, Jesus engages in a special "huddle" with the Twelve. Matthew tells us that he "gathered them together" (Greek: proskaleo, "to summon", "to call", often used of official meetings). His action may have symbolic value. By gathering them together, he places them in peer relationship to each other, so that he can teach them about how power should be handled when they are together in community. After all, Jesus is forming a covenant community, drawn from the ranks of Israel, a renewed nation, citizens of the new kingdom now taking shape on earth. And what does he tell them about power and position?
1. Using a clever rhetorical method, Jesus invokes the name "Gentiles" and talks about their rulers. That would have gotten a rise out of any Jewish audience who belonged to the 90% peasant population! Just the mention of such persons would have elicited emotions of anger, contempt, and resistance. Nobody likes those Gentiles, especially the leaders of the occupation, governor Pilate, his cohorts, the military attaché, and Herod Antipas, Caesar's puppet.
2. Having successfully provoked such reactions, no doubt, Jesus skillfully proceeds to say, "And you don't want to be like those guys, do you?"
3. In making this rhetorical argument, Jesus uses the language of power:
a. Rulers: Greek, archontes, "ruler, commander, chief, captain, magistrate"
b. Lord it over: From the Greek, katakurieuo, "to gain dominion over", effectively describing the well-known power-plays employed by political figures jostling for positions within the Empire. Buried inside that verb is the word kurios, the word for "Lord".
c. High officials: Greek, megaloi, from the root megas which includes the meanings "big, great, vast, high, strong, mighty, greatness (as in, "the king rose to greatness"), violent, prevailing, important, esteemed".
d. Exercise authority over: From kataexousiazo, "to exercise lordship over". The word exousia is its root idea, meaning "power, authority to do a thing, abundance of means, an office."
At the conclusion of this detailed exhibition of terms for "power", Jesus says, in effect, "Forget all of that. It's not for you: ouch houtos estai en humin, "not thus shall it be among you". The stress falls on the "among you" which differs from the pagan "above you", "below you", "over you", or "under you". No, Jesus tells them, power lives "among you", even "in you", but not in some hierarchical layering of authority. "Peer power" replaces "pagan power".
4. Jesus presses the argument to its startling conclusion, by laying out the positive side of the point he is making.
a. Ironically, though Jesus eschews the pagan forms of power brokering, he acknowledges that his followers will "wish to be first", "wish to be great". What he seems to be avoiding is a herd mentality about the community, as if each follower looks like every other follower--the height of mediocrity! But to be "first", in an absolute sense, or to be "great", in the highest sense--these have no place among the followers of Jesus. He carefully includes the words "among you" each time he mentions "first" or "great". There is a "first-ness" among the community, and there is a "greatness" among the community as well. But the emphasis is placed on the "among you", not on some imagined hierarchy of power.
b. How then does the Christ follower experience such "greatness" and this special kind of "first" place? Jesus speaks of the master-slave role under new auspices. Earlier, in his Sermon, Jesus made references to servants being struck on the cheek, and how they should respond to their aggressors. Here, he brings the idea of servant (Greek: diakonos, "servant, minister, deacon") and slave (Greek: doulos, "born bondman, slave") into focus. We need to be cautious about the degree of distinction Jesus intends as Matthew uses these two different words. There is some poetry in the saying Jesus crafts:
He who would be great (Greek: megas)
A servant he must become [choice]
He who would be first (Greek: protos)
A slave he must be [continuing status]
What Jesus does here is begin with a change in attitude, with Matthew using the Greek verb "to become", implying an alteration of status or situation (Greek: ginesthai). To become a diakonos simply means to serve at the behest of another, whether as "man-in-waiting" or as "messenger". The emphasis is on why we live in community: that we might serve each other, and not, as the pagans so amply illustrate, dominate others. But then, the four line poem takes a shocking turn. This is no temporary change, but drills deeply into what we are: "bond slaves", that is, slaves from birth, although a new kind of birth. In this case, Matthew captures Jesus' meaning with the verb "to be", einai. We become servants, but we remain slaves. It is our true being, our true nature, as new-born children of the Father. And, unlike slaves of pagan masters, we gladly choose to be what we are. In the days of Jesus, a servant might well earn the right of emancipation, and his master could choose to grant it, allowing the servant to freely go his way. But if a deep relationship had grown up between master and servant, the servant might request that his ear be pierced by the master, and a ring inserted placing him in life-long servitude to the master--not out of obligation, but from love. In the same way, once the disciple of Jesus chooses to lay aside the ordinary means of power, and adopts a servant role toward his fellows, he takes the next, more dramatic step, of binding himself forever in covenant love to his brothers and sisters in the Christ community.
Letting Go of Power: Celebration of the Christ-Hymn
For our last comments, we turn from the Gospel accounts and look at a single passage in the letters of St. Paul. As is the case elsewhere in his writings, Paul provides thoughtful reflections on the meaning of Jesus for our own lives. While Paul is known for his theology (that is, his doctrinal studies), he rarely places it by itself, but draws from it serious implications for living in the Christ-community. The passage before us, in Philippians 2:1-11, is not exception. Coincidentally, we will be examining the entire book of Philippians as the next major topic, and so our comments here will be limited to the theme at hand, namely, how power is turned upside-down in the teaching of Jesus. Nevertheless, it's difficult to skimp on the details, since they form the heart of Paul's argument.
First, we can divide our text into two distinct parts, variously labeled, 1) Instruction to live a life of humility (Philippians 2:1-5); 2) Illustration of humility in the life of Jesus (2:6-11). In other words, Paul begins with a command, and then goes on to support it by drawing on the life of Jesus himself. He starts with ethics, and then argues from doctrine in support of the ethics. That being said, we don't want to leave the impression that ethics and doctrine relate to each other like some proof in geometry. For Paul, the heart of theology was Christ and the cross. And, at the same time, the heart of living the life of faith was also found in Christ and the cross. What I believe and what I do are both found in Christ's finished work on Calvary. It is in Philippians that we see this conviction spelled out clearly, when Paul writes:
10 I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead (Philippians 3:10-11).
Notice how the ideas of "power" are intimately tied to suffering and death. Resurrection power only appears after the fellowship of suffering and death. It is in this spirit that Paul pens the text we will briefly consider, namely, 2:1-11.
The Ethical Instruction
Paul presupposes the existence of the Christ-community in his opening words: "being united with Christ", "from his love", in "fellowship with the Spirit" (2:1). This three-fold affirmation about the unity of the church lies at the basis of what Paul is about to say. To be concise, Paul is saying, "We are united with Christ by his love and in the Spirit." Those are rock-solid facts. And so when Paul uses the conjunction "if", he really means "since", which is how the Greek word often operates in such contexts.
But, says Paul, if we are already in the body of Christ, certain things flow from this:
encouragement: paraklesis, "a calling alongside of", compare the word Jesus uses for the Spirit in John's Gospel: "the paraklete". The community brings us alongside each other.
comfort: paramuthion, "address, exhortation, assuagement, abatement". The community is where we hear helpful words from each other.
fellowship: koinonia, "commonness, communion, partnership". Through the community we share with each other.
tenderness and compassion: splagchna and oiktirmoi, words which communicate deep, inward feelings which get expressed through merciful and compassionate actions. Comes close to our notions of sympathy and empathy. The first of these Greek words actually refers to the visceral organs of the body, kidneys and liver!
Already, Paul is telling the Philippians, you have become a community marked by these qualities because of your connection to Christ and the Spirit. They are your birth-right, your legacy, and your fundamental identity.
However, Paul is simply building up to something more significant. After this string of "ifs" (which are really a series of hidden "sinces"), the apostle wants to press for his "then", which he describes as the fulfillment of his joy. Now for a Jewish thinker like Paul, "joy" has strong connections to the arrival of the Messianic kingdom. This is no ordinary, personal, subjective feeling of happiness. Paul is not saying, "Hey, folks, make me happy, humor me here…" The idea of "joy" goes deeper. Because God's kingdom has arrived in Jesus, the Messiah, joy has returned to Israel and is even now flowing out into the Gentile world. It is the "joy of salvation" (Psalm 51:12) after a long night of sin and despair. Paul uses the verb pleroo, "to fulfill, to fill full", to express his meaning. God's promises for the restored community have been fulfilled in the coming of the Messiah, Jesus. And along with this fulfillment, joy. Paul wants the community life of the Philippians to consistently demonstrate that this is actually true in their own lives.
So what more does Paul want from them? His burden is "unity", the genuine fruit of the Jewish notion of "shalom", "peace". "Wholeness" of mind, spirit, purpose, and love. In other words, "live together", "love together", "think together", and "be together". That's what community means. All of the wonderful endowments Christ has given them in 2:1 should enable them to live this way. Apparently unity was a sticking point with the Philippians, and Paul now gives them instructions for resolving this problem. How so?
Paul rejects a series of very pagan values, "power values", and in their place he installs Christ values.
selfish ambition: eritheian, that is, "one who electioneers for office, courting popular applause by trickery, courting distinction, desire to put oneself forward, partisan and factious spirit". A word which embodies the quintessential power broker, maneuvering himself into first place against a field of competitors.
vain conceit: kenodoxian, that is, "empty glory, vain self-estimation". The Greek term kenos means "empty". The person who proclaims his own glory, but the claim is empty and without merit. Paul strategically uses this word negatively in this section, so that later, he can juxtapose it to the attitude of Jesus in which he "emptied himself of the glory".
look to own interests: ta heauton ekastos skopountes, that is, "to observe, contemplate, look at, care for, have regard for" one's own private "things". The privacy of such a person's concerns isolates them from the collective concerns of the whole community.
Had there been "electioneering" at Philippi? We know from Philippians 4:2 that two members of the community had yet to resolve their differences. But we also hear of the conflict between those who follow Christ fully, and those who, in Paul's words, "have confidence in the flesh" (Philippians 3:3-4). This is a not-so-oblique reference to the "Judaizers", certain purported followers of the Jesus community who still relied on the mandates of Torah as interpreted by the rabbis. Paul calls them "enemies of the cross of Christ" (3:18). This lingering threat to the purity of the gospel took great pleasure in "boasting" of its religious achievements, seeking to outdo each other in the fulfillment of strict Torah interpretations. Paul himself, after offering his credentials in 3:4b-6, proceeds to "count as loss" all these false advantages, as he puts it, "for the sake of Christ". That said, Paul's remarks in chapter 2 follow closely with the "party-spirit" prevalent within the Judaism of his time. Since the Christ-community welcomes the new kingdom of God, all of these old credentials are so much "excrement" (3:8), but unfortunately they are the driving values which threaten the unity of the Jesus followers at Philippi.
The Christ Example: Power Laid Aside
The catalogue of selfish values which Paul lists seem impossible to overcome. What "power" is strong enough to displace them? Paul responds, "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus" (2:5). The Greek is a bit more terse: touto phroneite en humin ho kai en Christo Iesou. The word "attitude" in the NIV translation does not appear as a noun in this passage, but rather as a verb, from phroneo, having this range of meanings: "to have understanding, to feel, to think, to have an opinion of oneself, think of oneself, to direct one's mind to a thing, to seek or strive for, to seek one's interest or advantage, to be of one's party, to side with, to be intent on". The scholar has much food for thought in this list. I am inclined toward the meaning, "have this opinion", used in conjunction with "among yourselves" (translating en humin as a collective, since the word for "you" is in the plural). "Think about yourselves", "form an opinion of yourselves", in the same way Christ Jesus formed an opinion of himself in relationship to others.
Paul proceeds to explain what that opinion was by incorporating what has come to be known as the "Christ Hymn", 2:6-11. In stair-step fashion, Paul shows how Christ Jesus descended from his exalted position in relation to God his Father, and, at last, died as a common criminal. The whole passage is written like a poem, and most good translations typeset it in that fashion. It appears to have three stanzas, the first two developing the theme of Christ's "humiliation", while the last one reaches a crescendo with his final exaltation. Frankly, the dissecting of this hymn seems pointless, since it brims with beauty and overflows with majesty. It was no doubt sung in the early Christian communities, and this was likely the reason Paul gave it to the Philippian church. Perhaps Paul believed that what the believers required was not a lengthy dissertation, but a hymn which they would sing again and again. And each time they sang it, the implications of its message would sink in yet deeper. The music of the community often accomplishes what prosaic exposition cannot, namely, it saturates the heart and soul with the truth of its words through the grandeur of its melody and lyric.
Some simple observations rise from this part of the text:
1. Unmistakably, Christ was God in His essence, or, as Paul phrases it, he was God morphically (from the Greek: morphe). Lightfoot long maintained that this word expresses the essential and intrinsic nature of Christ--that he was truly God. And if Christ was truly God, he could not be anything greater than that! No need to strive or contest for a higher place. No need to seek a better role.
2. Confident of who he really is, Christ did not view "equality with God" something he had to "seize" or "rob" or "held fast" as if it would slip out of his hands. Why? Because Christ had the abiding confidence of his own divinity, grounded as it was, in the reality of his relationship to the Father. He knew he was God, and so there was no additional need to compete for that status.
3. "He emptied himself" (Greek: heauton ekenosen). Of course, he could not cease to be God, but he could choose to lay aside the prerogatives of God. That is, he chose to not avail himself of the privileges of Godhood, even though they were plainly his. Recall how Paul used the idea of "empty glory" when he was describing the pagan values his readers were to lay aside? In this passage, Christ empties himself of the glory.
4. "Form of a servant". Paul uses the same Greek word as he does when he speaks of "the form of God". Christ was just as truly a servant, as he was truly God. To be the one does not preclude the other. That is, of course, Paul's point. The assuming of the servant's role in no way compromises a Christian's identity, any more than Christ's taking the form of a servant meant that he ceased to be in essence, God.
5. Paul uses two different words to underscore Jesus' relationship to his humanity:
a. "in human likeness": Greek, homoiomati, meaning, "that which has been made after the likeness of something, a figure, image, likeness, representation, equality, identity". Anyone looking at him, interacting with him, and being around him would find a true human being in every respect. There was nothing "plastic" about Jesus becoming a human being. He was no demi-god or mythical half-god, half-man creature. As the creed expresses, "Fully God, and fully man".
b. "in human fashion": Greek, schemati, meaning, "habit, figure, bearing, discourse, actions, manner of life". So as to reinforce the first term, Paul invokes yet another word that validates the true humanity of Jesus, and certifies that Jesus became a human being beyond dispute.
6. Why is so much emphasis placed on demonstrating the true humanity of Jesus? Much of Paul's argument that Christians should set aside prideful ambition rests with the truth that Jesus did much more than that. Ironically, there were some teachers who would claim that Jesus did not really "come in the flesh" (see 1 John 4:1-3), that the idea of God becoming human was preposterous, and even blasphemous. Among the Jewish community it sounded like idolatry. Among the Greeks it seemed outright ridiculous that gods would freely choose to become human beings except as actors. To counter this resistance to the incarnation, Paul makes himself quite clear through the language he uses.
7. But isn’t the incarnation enough? No, Paul goes on to affirm, he humbled himself even further by accepting the shameful death of the cross. The "humiliation" of Christ (Greek: etapeinosen, from tapeinoo, meaning "to make low, bring low, to bring to humble condition, reduce to meaner circumstances, assign a lower rank or place, ranked below those who are honored, to cause to blush") made him lower than even his common humanity required. If leaving behind the majesty and privilege of being God was not enough, Jesus voluntarily submitted to the basest form of death in the Roman Empire, namely, that of a criminal. To the Roman mind, he was a enemy of the state, and threat to the Empire. To the Jewish mind, he was a failed Messiah, and an embarrassment to the nation of Israel. Yet, in spite of this lowered reputation, Jesus accepted his situation freely. Of course, Paul's point is simple. If the heart of our gospel is the incarnation and humiliation of Christ, God's Son, how can we, the Christ-community, live any differently? Must not we lay aside our claim to "glory"? In the service of others and for their sake, should we not be willing to humiliate ourselves even further? And does not the knowledge that we are "God's children" serve as sufficient confidence for us, allowing us to let go of power when the needs of others demands it?
8. Finally, Jesus does not remain in his humiliation, though he chooses it without coercion. "God highly exalted him" (2:9), Paul writes, and invests him as King with the "name above every name" (Greek: to onoma to huper pan onoma). Paul has in mind both the resurrection of Jesus and his enthronement at God's right hand. The language used in this passage echoes Old Testament texts such as Isaiah 45:23 in which all of creation will bow before Yahweh. In Paul's argument, the final vindication of Jesus comes when all bow before him and confess that he alone if kurios, "Lord". And for whose glory does all this happen? Eis doxa theos patros, "unto God the Father's glory". While it might seem reasonable that the glory is given to Jesus in his exaltation, Paul wants the argument to place God the Father in the role of glory-getter. It was Jesus who laid aside everything to redeem lost humanity and thereby bring glory to his Father. Likewise, Paul wants his readers to absorb the same truth: they are to lay down their lives in service for each other, so that their community life may bring glory to God.
And so Paul places the capstone on our discussion of power and position. For God to become human is an upside-down event. But for the people of God to imitate the servant-hood of Jesus requires no less an adjustment of values as they pertain to the use of power. The only power we truly embrace is that which God graces His people. We lay aside all other claims to personal prerogative or pursuit of self-serving position. And we do it, not because power is evil in itself, but because it is an offence to the glory of God. It is not what we do, but what He does through us that counts as true achievement. Paul offers no other argument for this radical change in values than that presented in the cross of Jesus. That remained his only glory, his only boast, and the source of his only accomplishments. Consistent with the teaching of Jesus in Matthew, Paul's account of the incarnation reinforces that instruction and places it squarely in the midst of real flesh and blood Christian communities. More than a slogan, it puts flesh on what could be a tired cliché: "What would Jesus do?" And it extends one octave higher: "What would Jesus have us do?"
Glory to God! Amen.
Digger Deeper: Upside-Down: Winning in Last Place
(Bob Brown)
To gain a deeper understanding of Upside-Down: Winning in Last Place, carefully read the selected passages below. To aid you in your study, we invite you to visit the website http://notes.chicagofirstnaz.org, or pick up a copy of the notes at the Connect desk, or from your ABF leader. Now consider the following questions, as you ask the Lord to teach you.
Special Note: The Background Notes are especially useful in working through some of these questions. You are encouraged to secure a copy as you begin.
1. Matthew 5-7 contains the "Sermon on the Mount". Read 5:1-12 and pick out groups of people for whom "power" is a significant problem. Why do you think Jesus calls them "blessed"? In what ways does Jesus turn their situation "upside-down"?
2. Jesus asks his followers to practice forgiveness. Read Matthew 6:12, 14. In what sense is offering forgiveness or withholding it a question of "power"? How does the refusal to forgive become a form of coercion?
3. When people practice their religion "publicly", what sorts of risks do they take? Consider Matthew 6:1-8 in your answer. Identify the different religious "acts" described by Jesus in this passage. How can each of them be a "chip" in the religious power game?
4. What do religious practices reveal about a person's view of God? How does Jesus try to correct that misunderstanding of God's true character?
5. In Matthew 20:25-28, Jesus refers to "Gentiles" as examples of the improper use of power. How might Jesus' audience react when he mentions "Gentiles"? What negative power strategies does Jesus identify in the lives of Gentile rulers?
6. According to Jesus, how should his followers differ in their relationship to power and position?
7. What role does Jesus see for himself in the "power game"?
8. Paul, in Philippians 2:1-11, provides additional insights on how Christians should relate to each other in community. Outline this passage, breaking it into at least two main sections.
a. What is the main theme of the first section?
b. Why does Paul write the second section?
9. Paul, in the first section, lists both positive and negative values which apply directly to the use of power in the community. List these and try to give some basic definitions of the words Paul uses for these values.
10. To support his argument that we should live harmonious lives within the church, what major example does Paul give?
11. In what ways does Jesus give "moral force" to Paul's argument in Philippians 2? See if you can trace the "stair-like" steps Jesus takes from heaven to earth and back again, according to Paul.
12. Why do you suppose Paul chose to write the second section as a "hymn" or "poem"?
13. Using Jesus as an example, who is suppose to gain the glory from the way we manage power and position?
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