Some soldiers, who died not in active service, but afterwards, haven't been remembered by the sanctioned historians of the twentieth century's wars. Some ordinary people are making up for that, and revealing these hidden histories. It's a work of the heart with gospel resonances. Hence my talk at the Dedication of the War Memorial Plaque of Servicemen of the Parish who died of their wounds in November and December 1918, at Sourton, today.
… We should not be surprised that we live in a judgmental society. For this is the way of the world. It is the way that the ruler of this world, the devil himself, wants us to be. He wants us to be like those guests smiling politely at their host around the meal table on Come Dine With Me, and tearing their host apart as soon as she leaves the room, for human conflict, division, and distress are the goal of the ruler of this world. What is the opposite of human flourishing? Where people diminish each other and tear each other apart. That’s the intention of the ruler of this world. And that’s why we live in a judgmental society.
Sadly we listen too much to the ruler of this world. Our churches are by no means immune to judgmentalism and divisiveness. Stop a moment to consider how you talk about those in the pews around you, or in the village you live in. But today, Passion Sunday, encourages us to listen to another voice on this subject. The voice of one condemned by the judgements of the world, condemned to die a dissident’s death by crucifixion, the voice of one who turned around the judgements of the world against him, turned those very judgements back onto the ruler of this world. No statement in any court of law at any time in history has greater significance than the words which Jesus told his disciples about the meaning of the cross:
‘Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.’
Jesus on the cross is the judgement of this world. For Jesus on the cross reveals the ways of the world for what they are – the opposite of human flourishing, where people diminish each other and tear each other apart. The onlookers at the cross knew they were watching an innocent man die – a man innocent of malice, innocent of hatred, innocent of anything except his claim to be the architect of a new way of life for the world, a way which put God at the centre and where the consequence for people’s lives would be to live in love for each other – the kingdom of God, a world of of human flourishing. …
Today's talk, Now is the judgement of this world: probably my best stab so far at a talk about the intelligence of the victim, without using the term 'the intelligence of the victim', but talking about Simon Cowell instead.
Bridestowe, Lydford, Passion Sunday 25/3/2012
‘Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’
‘Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’
We live in a judgmental society. Take our Saturday evening TV entertainment, for instance. Where once the nation may have settled down together to watch a variety show hosted by a comedy double act, we now observe talent competitions which are as much about the stratagems and intrigues of the panel of judges as they are about the performers on stage. Britain’s Got Talent – but it’s the judges who have power; The Voice – where the performers are judged on their vocal talent alone, but the focus is on the judges and their reaction to what they hear. If you can’t stomach the sight of Simon Cowell sending another hopeful back into the wings condemned to obscurity, you can turn over to Come Dine With Me, where four ordinary people become judges of each other as each in turn plays host to the group, and a dinner party becomes a combat zone.
These might seem trivial examples but they are at the heart of our popular culture, so they actually tell us a lot about the sort of people we are. You will be able to think of other areas of life where our judgmental nature is revealed; in popular attitudes towards civil servants (judged as ‘inefficient’), NHS staff (judged as ‘incompetent’), or towards those who are struggling on low incomes (judged as ‘scroungers’), or towards outsiders – asylum seekers judged as ‘gold-diggers’, travellers moved on from yet another site having been judged to be ‘dirty’, ‘disruptive’ by others watching their every move with suspicion. By our judgemental attitudes, words and actions we condemn others to all sorts of deaths in this world. Many people even condemn themselves by the judgements of this world: and conditions such as anorexia nervosa, various forms of depression, suicide, are the consequence.
We should not be surprised that we live in a judgmental society. For this is the way of the world. It is the way that the ruler of this world, the devil himself, wants us to be. He wants us to be like those guests smiling politely at their host around the meal table on Come Dine With Me, and tearing their host apart as soon as she leaves the room, for human conflict, division, and distress are the goal of the ruler of this world. What is the opposite of human flourishing? Where people diminish each other and tear each other apart. That’s the intention of the ruler of this world. And that’s why we live in a judgmental society.
Sadly we listen too much to the ruler of this world. Our churches are by no means immune to judgmentalism and divisiveness. Stop a moment to consider how you talk about those in the pews around you, or in the village you live in. But today, Passion Sunday, encourages us to listen to another voice on this subject. The voice of one condemned by the judgements of the world, condemned to die a dissident’s death by crucifixion, the voice of one who turned around the judgements of the world against him, turned those very judgements back onto the ruler of this world. No statement in any court of law at any time in history has greater significance than the words which Jesus told his disciples about the meaning of the cross:
‘Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.’
Jesus on the cross is the judgement of this world. For Jesus on the cross reveals the ways of the world for what they are – the opposite of human flourishing, where people diminish each other and tear each other apart. The onlookers at the cross knew they were watching an innocent man die – a man innocent of malice, innocent of hatred, innocent of anything except his claim to be the architect of a new way of life for the world, a way which put God at the centre and where the consequence for people’s lives would be to live in love for each other – the kingdom of God, a world of of human flourishing.
Jesus’ death on the cross is the ultimate judgement on the ways of the world. The crucifixion acts like a mirror: the accusations thrown at Jesus return to accuse the accusers, as they see the wrong in themselves for the first time. The torment they put Jesus through returns to torment the tormenters, as they feel the pain of the wrong they have done to him and to each other, throughout their lives. Those who only days before were shouting ‘hosanna’ are now shocked to hear themselves chanting ‘crucify!’.
The crucifixion judges the world – and it is not Jesus who is condemned, it is the ruler of the world who receives the force of the death sentence at the cross.
‘Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.’
Jesus conquered death on the cross by rising again from the dead, to live again, to show us that death itself died on Calvary that day. The deep meaning to the cross and resurrection is this: on the cross the architect of the way of the world has been driven out; in the resurrection the way of the world which accuses and condemns people loses its grip on humanity, and the new way, the way of God’s kingdom of love and human flourishing, emerges triumphant.
It is this cosmic battle between good and evil which makes the crucifixion such a fascinating event for those of us who throughout history have looked on at it and wondered. Jesus said,
‘I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’
Jesus has indeed drawn us to himself, tens of millions of us, in a way that no-one else could, by being lifted up on the cross, raised from earth by the Roman guard. Jesus has drawn us in fascination to this event which looks like the very pivotal point of human history.
Jesus has drawn some of us to mock and deride, as is the way of the world. He has drawn others to look on in admiration but not to learn anything from what he did – for the ruler of this world, though driven out and disempowered, still has his way with many of us.
But Jesus has drawn others of us to listen, to learn, to understand the significance of what he has done for us, the power of the cross for human flourishing, for our own well-being.
And for those of us who have grasped this, the power of the cross means the transformation of our lives. The ruler of this world has been driven out of our hearts; the Saviour of the world is there instead. There is no more condemnation for us – and there is no condemnation in us for other people. Jesus people are not judgmental people – we are people gifted with the spirit of human flourishing, the Spirit of God in us which fulfils us as we build each other up, as we love and serve together in harmony. This is not wishy-washy niceness; that’s not what Christianity is about. This is the consequence of a man’s decision to go through an execution for us, this is the power of life over death.
What this means for us in practice is that, in Jesus, we can remove ourselves from the judgmentalism of the world. We can still enjoy our Saturday evening TV entertainment, for instance, but we don’t need to adopt the same poses as the judges. We can watch Come Dine With Me with fascination, understanding more keenly what it is about, using it maybe as a mirror on ourselves. And we can challenge judgmental attitudes towards others, when we feel them rising in ourselves, and hear them voiced by us and others; we can work out our salvation by asking Jesus to help us replace those attitudes with thoughts and words and actions which lead towards human flourishing. Jesus said,
‘Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life’.
‘Those who love their life’ – their judgmental life, dead set against others – ‘lose it’ – for that sort of life comes from the ruler of this world, and he has been driven out.
‘Those who hate their life in this world’ – those who see the destructive forces at work in their society and in their hearts and want to challenge and reverse them – ‘will keep [their life] for etern[ity]’.
The world judges us in ways which drain life from us and condemn us to all sorts of deaths. But Jesus judges us in absolute love and forgiveness and brings us into an eternal life of human flourishing. His actions on the cross and the resurrection make it possible for us to turn to him. We who have chanted ‘crucify!’ can now sing ‘halleluia!’. Thanks be to God for the power of the cross of Jesus Christ.
During the trial of Ken Dodd for tax evasion, held in Liverpool in 1989, Dodd’s representative in court George Carman QC famously quipped, "Some accountants are comedians, but comedians are never accountants". [1] The trial revealed that Dodd had very little money in his bank account, but did have £336,000 in cash stashed in suitcases in his attic. When asked by the judge, "What does a hundred thousand pounds in a suitcase feel like?", Dodd made his now famous reply, "The notes are very light, M'Lord."
While this court case rumbled on I was working in an office block which overlooked the main entrance to Liverpool’s Queen Elizabeth Law Courts, which opens out into a large public square dominated by a massive monument to Queen Victoria. I worked for the Department of Trade and Industry but the two floors above us housed the regional offices of the Inland Revenue – and the officers who had put together the case against Ken Dodd.
Every day of the trial Ken Dodd’s exit from the court was met with a large crowd of supporters cheering him through the square, and above them from the tax office, lines of civil servants hanging out of open windows booing and jeering him. On the day that Dodd was acquitted of all charges the boos from the tax officers were louder and bitter; but the crowd on the square was enormous and in great celebratory mode. Beneath Queen Victoria’s stern gaze an impromptu street party took place with the vindicated Ken Dodd at its core. As I watched this astonishing scene through our office windows I thought, it shows just how much ordinary people love seeing someone turn the tables on the taxman.
Preparing for this talk this week, I got to thinking that the scene I’ve just described has a very strong gospel feel to it. For one of the great themes of the gospels is Jesus turning the tables on the taxman. He did it in the Temple, as we just heard (and we’ll return to that story in a short while). And he did it many other times too. In his exchange with the Pharisees about paying taxes to the emperor; in the observation he made about the widow’s contribution to the treasury; in the call of Matthew and his meals with tax-collectors and sinners; Jesus turned the tables on the taxman. …
From today's talk, Turning the tables on the taxman.
John 2.13-22, Exodus 20.1-17, 1 Corinthians 1.18-25
Bridestowe, Lydford, Lent 3, 11/3/2012
During the trial of Ken Dodd for tax evasion, held in Liverpool in 1989, Dodd’s representative in court George Carman QC famously quipped, “Some accountants are comedians, but comedians are never accountants”. [1] The trial revealed that Dodd had very little money in his bank account, but did have £336,000 in cash stashed in suitcases in his attic. When asked by the judge, “What does a hundred thousand pounds in a suitcase feel like?”, Dodd made his now famous reply, “The notes are very light, M’Lord.”
While this court case rumbled on I was working in an office block which overlooked the main entrance to Liverpool’s Queen Elizabeth Law Courts, which opens out into a large public square dominated by a massive monument to Queen Victoria. I worked for the Department of Trade and Industry but the two floors above us housed the regional offices of the Inland Revenue – and the officers who had put together the case against Ken Dodd.
Every day of the trial Ken Dodd’s exit from the court was met with a large crowd of supporters cheering him through the square, and above them from the tax office, lines of civil servants hanging out of open windows booing and jeering him. On the day that Dodd was acquitted of all charges the boos from the tax officers were louder and bitter; but the crowd on the square was enormous and in great celebratory mode. Beneath Queen Victoria’s stern gaze an impromptu street party took place with the vindicated Ken Dodd at its core. As I watched this astonishing scene through our office windows I thought, it shows just how much ordinary people love seeing someone turn the tables on the taxman.
Preparing for this talk this week, I got to thinking that the scene I’ve just described has a very strong gospel feel to it. For one of the great themes of the gospels is Jesus turning the tables on the taxman. He did it in the Temple, as we just heard (and we’ll return to that story in a short while). And he did it many other times too. In his exchange with the Pharisees about paying taxes to the emperor; in the observation he made about the widow’s contribution to the treasury; in the call of Matthew and his meals with tax-collectors and sinners; Jesus turned the tables on the taxman.
Turning the tables. Reversing the positions of adversaries. The phrase is often used when the weaker position subsequently becomes dominant. Jesus turning the tables on the taxman doesn’t mean him breaking the law. It means him operating from another system of law altogether – a law of love which puts God and neighbour first. It means him challenging those who claim to be operating under God’s laws but who are actually caught up in the ways of the world in which the tax system is a mainspring.
Jesus challenged the scribes, who, he said, ‘like(d) to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the market-places, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honour at banquets!’ Jesus noted how they inherently supported the system of temple tax, which kept the poorest people in poverty – a situation which the scribes piously ignored. Jesus said, ‘They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.’
Jesus turned the tables on these advocates of the temple tax on the day he sat down and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury, watching many rich people put in large sums, and a poor widow coming and putting in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Mark’s gospel records Jesus calling his disciples and saying to them, ‘Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.’ (Mark 12.38-44)
In the event we now call the story of the Widow’s Mite Jesus reveals the injustice in the temple tax system which took the last pennies from the poor widow. And he turns the tables on those who appeared to be pious but whose inherent support of the system implicated them in her poverty. His criticism of their unjust behaviour made him very unpopular with them and their allies, and they began looking for ways to trip him up.
And so to the story of Caesar’s coin when the Pharisees and the Herodians, plotting to entrap Jesus in what he said, asked him whether or not it was lawful to pay taxes to the emperor. These proponents of Jewish renewal, wrapped up in the complex politics of their day, were trying to turn the tables on this Jesus who had been challenging their faithfulness to the laws of God, by getting him involved in their political conflict.
They wanted him to say something which either incriminated him as a supporter of Rome – and thus against the Jewish people, or as an opponent of Rome – and thus fair game to be either enlisted as a partner in their political struggle or handed in to the authorities as a dissident. What Jesus said sidestepped the trap they set for him, and revealed that the worldview of the Pharisees and the Herodians depended on their opposition to Roman taxation, rather than on an obedience to the laws of God. Asking them to show him the coin used for the tax, he said to them, ‘Whose head is this, and whose title?’ They answered, ‘The emperor’s.’ Then he said to them, ‘Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ (Matthew 22.15-22)
Jesus turned the tables on those who opposed the tax system but would use it to try to score political points over him. More than that, his words revealed that he was disinterested in the internal and oppositional politics of his day, but keenly interested in the greater laws of God. These laws transcend all earthly politics whilst at the same time deeply influence the social and political behaviour of those who obey them. Jesus turned the tables on those obsessed by taxation by reminding them that love for God and love for neighbour is not factional but universal, teaching them that whilst the kingdom of God operates here on earth it does so completely independently from any earthly kingdoms.
The Widow’s Mite makes it clear that tax systems hurt people who live on the lowest incomes; the story of the call of Matthew, a tax-collector, reveals that others caught up in the system get damaged too. Tax-collectors were Jewish people reviled in Jewish society because their daily work involved them taking money from their people and passing it on to Rome. It didn’t help that some of them relished their role, for it could be lucrative. Shamed, despised, treated with contempt, tax-collectors were people to avoid. So imagine the effect of Jesus, one day seeing a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and saying to him, ‘Follow me.’ (Matthew 9.9-13).
Jesus turned the tables on the tax-collector Matthew whose expectations of others towards him were rock-bottom but who found in Jesus one man who showed him trust, one man who would lift from Matthew the veil of shame which shrouded him and enable him to hold his head up again, affirmed in the love of God and neighbour which Jesus showed him. And he turned the tables on those who controlled the laws which caused the shame which tax-collectors and sinners had to endure.
The Pharisees questioned Jesus’s practice of eating with tax-collectors and sinners, who were all contaminated people in the eyes of those who set the rules over debt and purity, but he turned the tables on the Pharisees by suggesting that it was their attitude that was toxic, saying, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’
When Jesus went up to Jerusalem before the Passover festival, and found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money-changers seated at their tables in the temple, he drove them all out, sheep and cattle and all, with a whip of cords. He poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, ‘Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a market-place!’
This was a different sort of table-turning altogether. A set of aggressive actions by One who was greatly angered by the way the people had permitted the worship of God in the temple to become secondary to the system of taxation which the cattle, sheep, doves, and money-changers represented. Shocked by his actions Jesus’ disciples remembered the words of scripture, ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.’ Jesus was zealous for the temple where the commands of God – commands to love God and love neighbour – should be upheld above all. Jesus was angry for the disobedience of the temple authorities claiming to be operating under God’s laws but who had subjected themselves to the ways of the world in which the tax system is a mainspring.
His opposition to the temple tax system got him crucified in the end. Those who set the temple tax laws destroyed the One who in his very body represented the laws of God – the laws of love for God and neighbour. But they didn’t have the last word. ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up’, Jesus said to them, speaking of the temple of his body. (John 2.13-22).
The resurrection of Jesus was his ultimate table-turning act against the taxmen. For the ways of the world manifested in the tax system died with him on the cross; and since his resurrection the ways of God open out for eternity in the lives of those who embrace his law of love.
Many Christians today give time and energy to turning the tables on the taxman: anti-poverty campaigners seeking to change tax rules which today in this country impoverish the most vulnerable members of society [2], pensioners, taxi drivers and road hauliers together lobbying parliament about fuel tax rises [3], conscientious objectors campaigning to have the military part of their taxes diverted to a peace fund [4], supporters of Christian Aid campaigning on the issue of tax dodging by multinationals [5], and advocates of the Robin Hood Tax on the banks, which could raise tens of billions to help protect public services, fight poverty and tackle climate change at home and abroad [6].
Christians involved in activities such as these are showing their concern to follow God’s laws of love in which our obligations to God and to others are paramount, overshadowing our own desires or anxieties about our financial position or place in the world. Injustice in all its forms crumbles before the God who liberates all who follow Jesus from the crushing, limited, joyless ways of the world into the eternal ways of love.
Next week our government will set a new budget. It is natural for us at such a time to be worrying about our financial situation, our tax position. It might drive some of us to hide banknotes in our attics. But we needn’t resort to such desperate mesaures. Instead, be assured, Jesus turns the tables on the taxman. Be affirmed by him, be loved by him this week – and take your perspective on all these things from him.
Notes
[1] Wikipedia: Ken Dodd’s tax evasion court case
[2] Church Action on Poverty’s General Anti-Avoidance Rule campaign
[3] Fuel tax campaigners lobby MPs, UK Press Association 8/3/2012
[5] Christian Aid’s Trace the Tax campaign
The expression, ‘Take up your cross’ has been greatly spiritualised and taken out of context over centuries of preaching. But as a statement of what Jesus requires of his followers it cannot be clearer. For as the writer Ched Myers puts it, ‘The “cross” had only one connotation in the Roman empire: upon it dissidents were executed.’
Jesus left Peter and the other listening disciples with no room for misunderstanding when he instructed them to ‘Take up [their] cross’ – the cross was a political and military punishment for those who opposed the forces of empire, the military and administrative establishment, the structures and powers of death. That was then, and is now, the calling for those who want to follow him.
This is very political. It demonstrates to us that to follow Jesus means making a clear choice between two incompatible powers – the power of death or the power of life. That if we choose life then we cannot but oppose the powers of death at large in the world. And that if we do that then we will be made to suffer, alongside others suppressed and punished for their opposition to the powers of the world.
‘Taking up our cross’ means identifying and standing up against injustice in all its forms; but it equally means renouncing the temptation to react by using righteous violence. ‘Taking up the cross’ is an act of radical nonviolent love in the name of, and in the company of, the One, the only One, who overcomes the power of death and will bring us into resurrection life.
Perhaps one of the most powerful ways to take up your cross is to speak up in opposition to those who brutalise others by calling them names – speak up against the playground bully, speak up against the business manager manipulating jobs to get rid of employees he dislikes, speak up against the crowd scapegoating a man proved innocent of a sexual crime.
From today's talk, What's in a name?
Genesis 17.1-7, 15-16, Romans 4.13-25, Mark 8.31-38
Sourton, Bratton Clovelly, Germansweek, Lent 2, 4/3/2012
What’s in a name? Quite a lot, you would say, if you were parents of a newborn faced with the crucial decision of what your child should be known as throughout his or her lifetime.
What’s in a name? A great deal, if you consider the complete untruth in the defensive playground chant, ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me’. Oh yes, they will, they’ll hurt you a lot, the names that others call you in spite.
What’s in a name? People spend large amounts of their time during their young adult years trying to get a name for themselves, names like Doctor or Sergeant or Company Director. And people in later years occasionally ponder what names others will call them once they’ve passed away – the warm eulogy for the good father, the generous epitaph for the beloved mother are what we secretly hope for.
One thing that we are aware of is that the one who has the power to name a person, has great power indeed. The Queen conveying knighthoods; the principal conveying doctorates, the admirer naming his valentine – each using their power to name to positive effect. By contrast think of the negative power in naming: the business manager renaming a job title so as to make an unwanted employee redundant; the crowd outside a council house shouting ‘paedophile’ to the cowering occupant inside regardless that a court of law has cleared his name of all charges; the occupying military force renaming ancient places to invalidate the native language and subdue the native culture.
We will each be named by others, variously, throughout our lives. And we are all likely at certain points to have the power to be those-who-name, and to choose to use that power positively or negatively. Our readings today are concerned with this theme: in Genesis the renaming of Abram and Sarai at the start of a new chapter in the story of God’s dealings with humankind; and in Mark’s gospel an exchange between Jesus and Peter with some very powerful name-calling indeed.
There was promise in the names which God gave Abram and Sarai, who God addressed when they were in their nineties and told this childless couple that they were to become grandparents to a great nation. God fulfilled his promise by giving the old couple a son. And he named them Abraham and Sarah that day. There was promise in the names Abraham and Sarah – the promise of an everlasting covenant between God and their people. And with their new names this old, old couple preparing themselves for death were suddenly recipients of wondrous new life.
By contrast, there was conflict in the names which Jesus and Peter gave each other in Mark chapter 8. In a village of Caesarea Philippi the exchange between Jesus and Peter was complex and extremely powerful. In brief it went like this:
Their exchange began with Peter’s dramatic confession of Jesus as the Messiah; but Jesus counteracted this with his own double confession of himself as the Son of Man, the Human One – and of Peter as the mouthpiece of Satan. [1]
This was clearly a very important exchange, to Jesus in his self-understanding, to Peter in his knowledge of his Lord, and to Mark for the understanding and knowledge of his readers about the true nature and purposes of God.
So what does this this frank exchange, this bitterly-contested naming ceremony reveal to us about Jesus?
I think that Mark wants to show us that Jesus very firmly positioned himself not among the kings of Israel who rule with military and administrative power, but alongside those who suffer at the hands of such powers. Mark wants us to see Jesus as one of those who, seemingly powerless in the face of such forces, carry a power of another kind altogether, a gentle, gracious power fostered by the pure force of nonviolent love. The power of life over death.
Mark wants to show us how paramount this difference is to Jesus by how he responded to Peter when the disciple named him ‘Messiah’. A long time since the promise of God to Abraham and Sarah, that covenant seemingly forgotten, with the people of Israel now in subjection to Rome, the people hoped for a Messiah who would rise with force against the oppressor and use all the mechanisms of military and administrative power to restore Israel’s collective honour. Peter was one of those people, longing for the restoration of Israel, and it dawned on Peter that Jesus was the one. When Peter named Jesus ‘Messiah’ it was the dawning of a joyful recognition that Jesus had the power to save the people – but all he got from Jesus was the command to be silent and listen to the Lord unfolding the reality – that Jesus wasn’t an avenging Messiah, he was the Human One; that Jesus wouldn’t save the people through a show of military and administrative power, but that he would suffer at the hands of those who hold those powers – the elders, chief priests and scribes subservient to Rome – and be killed, and after three days rise again. The power of the suffering One was of a different sort altogether – the power of life over death.
By rejecting the name of Messiah and naming himself the suffering One Jesus was placing himself alongside those powerless ones in the society of his day, ‘people who on the whole had no rights, groups whose development had to be suppressed by all possible means to safeguard law and order in the state.’ [3] But he was doing something unheard of, remarkable, world-shattering: saying that the death scenario which he and other victims would suffer was nothing to the life to be found in sharing his resurrection.
Peter was caught up in the death-power scenario of the world, its military-administrative systems and forces, he had swallowed the lie put out by Satan the father of lies, that there is no alternative to such forces, that the best we can do as humans is prepare ourselves for death. Peter was so caught up in this that his eyes were closed to the possibility of another sort of power altogether. Which is why he rebuked Jesus.
But Mark’s Jesus holds another sort of power altogether, a strong love, a strange peace, such as the world had never seen, and that is what Mark’s Jesus makes eminently clear to Peter in the name he gave him, saying, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’ (Mark 8.33)
The name of the one who keeps the world in death through the power of military-administrative force, through its messiahs and its kings, is Satan.
The name of the one who overcome death through the power of the pure force of nonviolent love, through the loving obedience of his faithful disciples, is the suffering one, Jesus.
Let us be clear – that as far as Mark is concerned there is total opposition between these two powers, there is no accommodation to be made, no compromise to be had between the power of death in the world of Satan and the power of life in the love of Jesus.
To underline this Mark next shows us Jesus teaching us that in order for him to name us his disciples, we must be completely focussed on him, and name ourselves as opponents to the world, its powers and its systems of death. The expression, ‘Take up your cross’ has been greatly spiritualised and taken out of context over centuries of preaching. But as a statement of what Jesus requires of his followers it cannot be clearer. For as the writer Ched Myers puts it, ‘The “cross” had only one connotation in the Roman empire: upon it dissidents were executed.’ [2]
Jesus left Peter and the other listening disciples with no room for misunderstanding when he instructed them to ‘Take up [their] cross’ – the cross was a political and military punishment for those who opposed the forces of empire, the military and administrative establishment, the structures and powers of death. That was then, and is now, the calling for those who want to follow him.
This is very political. It demonstrates to us that to follow Jesus means making a clear choice between two incompatible powers – the power of death or the power of life. That if we choose life then we cannot but oppose the powers of death at large in the world. And that if we do that then we will be made to suffer, alongside others suppressed and punished for their opposition to the powers of the world.
‘Taking up our cross’ means identifying and standing up against injustice in all its forms; but it equally means renouncing the temptation to react by using righteous violence. ‘Taking up the cross’ is an act of radical nonviolent love in the name of, and in the company of, the One, the only One, who overcomes the power of death and will bring us into resurrection life.
Perhaps one of the most powerful ways to take up your cross is to speak up in opposition to those who brutalise others by calling them names – speak up against the playground bully, speak up against the business manager manipulating jobs to get rid of employees he dislikes, speak up against the crowd scapegoating a man proved innocent of a sexual crime.
This is dangerous territory but ultimately liberating. This is why the suffering of the follower of Jesus is nothing in comparison to the life of the follower of Jesus: it is indeed the difference between living under threat and sentence of death and living in the joy of having that burden removed. This echoes the full meaning of God’s covenant with Abraham and Sarah, which Paul expresses in his letter to the Romans (4.17) by saying, ‘God gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.’ The possibilities are literally endless for those named for God, those who choose to oppose the deathly power of the world and instead to write the name of Jesus on their hearts.
Notes
[1] Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man, p.244
[2] Myers, p.245
[3] Hengel in Myers, p.245
