In biblical times, there was no divide between religion and politics, faith and the state. When Jesus taught, he taught in a political context and his teachings had political ramifications. When he told his audiences to love their enemies and pray for their persecutors, he was talking about the Romans and the Jewish establishment as much as he was about the neighborhood bully. In our time and context, we can understand Jesus' teaching concerning loving enemies as advocating an alternative political and personal practice aimed at the peaceful transformation of human life. Love is thus made holy. It is not just about sex. It is not just about family feelings. It is a manifestation of the Spirit working in our lives to help us to walk toward the Kingdom, which Jesus assured us is just around the corner. It is peace. It is dharma (ธรรมะ).The recent events in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the profound, devastating shame Donald Trump has brought on the American presidency by his immoral attempts to place neo-nazis & klansmen on the same level as civil rights protestors throws into sharp relief the fact that faith today is still about politics. It must be about politics. And it is still about transformation. In the 1950s and 1960s, we witnessed the power of the peaceable confrontation of persecution through non-violent resistance. That resistance, painful as it was, took the United States further down the road toward the Kingdom, if only a little ways. That was then. Now, the work has to be done again. Trump threatens to return us to the 1940s, to give powerful voice to racist bigotry through a shameful play at equivalency between the klan and the civil rights protest movement. (In late breaking news, A Reuter's report quotes Mike Pence as saying, "I stand with the president and I stand by those words," meaning Trump's take on Charlottesville. There is no escaping the moment; it is not just about Trump.) Given the outrage Trump (and now Pence) has sparked, we can hope that the United States, as a whole, does not want to go back to the bad old days of Jim Crow. But will it discover a new generation of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther Kings to carry it forward in pursuit of social justice and equality—in pursuit of the Kingdom? It looks like we're going to find out sooner rather than later.
In the meantime, the disciples' memories of Jesus' teachings, as recorded in the gospel, remain powerful and pertinent to our turbulent times. Thank God for their memories. Thank God our ancestors in the faith had the inspired presence of mind to get them written down. Amen
