I stumbled across an interesting post on Facebook today,
passed along by a fellow Episcopalian who lives in New England and is also an
expert on fountain pens. I’ve only begun, on this Good Friday of 2015, to
explore the website, “Patheos: Hosting the Conversation on Faith,” and I like
what I see so far. It contains conversations about Christianity from a perspective
of progressive Christians — something we don’t hear often in a public square dominated
by the shouting fundamentalists. Perhaps I like it because it confirms some of
my own bias. It is also someone, a Presbyterian minister, far more qualified as
a biblical scholar than I, to support some of the thoughts I’ve long held.
In “FollowingJesus Means Being Political and Advocating for ‘The Least of These,’” Rev.
Mark Sandlin’s point about Jesus’ crucifixion is that Jesus didn’t die to atone
for our sins. Jesus was executed as a threat to the state by advocating for “the
least of us” and threatening the social order, a social order run by a theocratic
government enforced by the Roman legions in occupied Judah. Sandlin draws disturbing
parallels to today’s United States.
The climactic moment that dooms Jesus to the cross was
attacking the moneychangers at the temple during Passover, Sandlin writes. “He
confronts the corrupt system that misuses its power and oppresses those in
need. He literally and figuratively begins flipping tables on the powerful.”
For me, this essay is stunningly powerful, the more so on
the morning following a dramatic Maundy Thursday service at the end of which
the altar is stripped, the clergy shed their vestments and the church goes
dark, literally and figuratively, and symbolic reminder of how Jesus’ clothes
and life were stripped from him.
I have often wondered, especially in the face of being
called hateful and angry, how I reconcile that with my efforts to be a good and
faithful Christian. And in Sandlin’s closing line I now understand: “You simply
can’t fully follow Jesus if you aren’t willing to be political and stick out
your own neck, challenging the hypocritical power structures and leaders on
behalf of the oppressed.”
