Friday Story
[Ed. note: written in 2005, a half-year after the election victory of George W Bush and the political forces behind him.]
They in power took great pains to make sure everyone knew about their religious piety even as they ignored justice, compassion and mercy. They made lengthy prayers in public, even as they devoured the homes of poor widows in private. With their authority, they were more concerned about making sure *their* interpretation of their religion was imposed on people than actually caring whether those people were better off or not. When even the courts turned against them and ruled repeatedly against their hypocrisy, they steamrolled the courts to move their own agenda forward. And finally, the judge gave up, washed his hands, and gave Jesus up to them to be crucified. Religious hypocrites, their twisted morality, and their private agendas have been around a very, very long time.
Demagogues throughout history have mis-portrayed the Gospels as Christ vs. the Jews, or said that it was the Jews who crucified Christ. Christ himself was a Jew, born a Jew, raised a Jew, and never denied himself as such; his Father was -- is -- the God of Abraham, Moses, David and Elijah; and to say Christ was challenged by and crucified by the Jews is about as meaningful as saying Christ was challenged and crucified by humans. No, who Christ most opposed, taught against, and in one specific example, literally threw out of the temple Solomon built, were the religious hypocrites and profiteers. The religious hypocrites in power who -- loudly and repeatedly -- took God's name in public, who literally wore God's word on their sleeves (google phylacteries), yet ignored His justice and mercy in private, placing first the protection of privelege and the pursuit of profit and power.
The four Gospels -- that which makes Christians Christians -- isn't the Son of God vs. the pagans. It isn't the Son of God vs. the Jews. It isn't the Son of God vs. the prostitutes, thieves, or tax collectors. It's the Son of God vs. the hypocrites. Repeatedly. The frustration people have today with religious hypocrites in power is understandable. Jesus felt the same way. And it wasn't the "pagan" Romans or Samaritans who ultimately demanded Jesus' crucifixion. It were those who claimed to be the religious elite of God who demanded -- and got -- the death of His son; a point all four Gospels are explicit and united upon [1]. Jesus understood exactly what it was like to suffer under the lash of religious hypocrites. After all, religious hypocrites hounded Him, had Him arrested, imprisoned, beaten bloody, marched through the streets, and then nailed, hands and feet, to the cross. That's the story of Good Friday.
Jesus made it explicitly clear what must be done by those who claimed to follow His way, and it certainly didn't have anything to do with using God's word as a tool of political advantage. 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. He made it even more explicitly clear to us Christians exactly what that entailed with almost His very next breath, in the tale of the Good Samaritan. Where the elite Priest, leader of congregations, walked on by; where the Levite, learned lawyer of the religious rules, walked on by; a Samaritan, a "pagan", took mercy on the wounded traveller and gave the injured man aid. Go, Jesus commands those of us who claim to follow His way, and do likewise.
- ‘Lord [Jesus], when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
[Jesus] will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these children of mine, you did for me.’"
- - Matthew 25:37-40
Christ is risen. Hallelujah and Amen.