Jesus, Power, Rebellion, and Elections

This is a piece I've written last year, and thought of posting it up in view of the 12th General Elections to encourage more theological contemplation on socio-political engagement. I have modified some of the parts for this reason. This is more 'reflection' than 'academic' although I draw heavily from academic sources. I am not entirely pleased with how I've develop my thoughts here but for my present and immediate purpose of encouraging us to look to Jesus in the face of intense power-play and heated debates, it should be sufficient.

[Updated]

Check this out too: BK's Christian and political engagement summary

Jesus the Rebel
Added to the decorated display of books in the marketing section of book retailers like Borders and MPH is a book written by Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter with the pregnant title ‘The Rebel Sell’ illustrated on the front cover the face of Che Guevara imprinted on a mug, indicating certain commercial purposes. Indeed, the idea of a rebel sells – pairing Jesus with Che Guevara, or any rebel for that matter, is refreshing and radiant given a church that has grown so structured and dull in its portrayal of Jesus.

But this is also where my problematique begins. While personally drawn to such non-conformist ideas, I do not wish to infuse popular imagination into Jesus simply because it sells. Was the historical Jesus really a rebel? If so, what were the characteristics of this rebellion? What are the implications for us who are called to follow him today? These are the critical questions that underpinned my mind-boggling reflections on Jesus, the rebel. Mind-boggling because I found myself traversing two vastly different but intimately intertwined worlds, separated by two millennia of multi-layered interpretations. Mind-boggling because I stumbled upon new dimensions of Jesus I have never considered before.

My quest for rebellion led me to the enquiry of power, both of which should be understood in tandem. There can be no rebellion without an existing power structure to rebel against, no possibility of revolution without a dysfunctional government. Put in another way, rebellion must be given its due context of power that gives rise to its varied forms. For example, one has to understand a bit of China-Soviet relations fuelled by deteriorating domestic social conditions in China to make sense of the Cultural Revolution in 1966. Similarly, one has to map out British colonialism and landscape the caste system in India to find the way to Gandhi’s pacifist resistance.

The best starting point then for my present task is the Old Testament, which contains events and stories hugely influential in shaping the hopes and aspirations of first century Jews, a crucial context of power with immediate relevance to the study of Jesus. I must confess that I used to find the Old Testament dry and hard to grasp. I only began to appreciate its beauty when I realized that the Old Testament is not just tales to derive moral lessons from, but a particular historical interpretation of international power relations by a community who declared Yahweh as God. This community, Israel, was deeply involved in the events spun from this web of power relations. Newbigin said it better, “As I have re-read and pondered the chapters in the book of Isaiah in which the portrait of the servant is outlined, I have been struck, as I am sure you have been, by the fact that the whole context of these chapters – the background of the portrait – is the world of international affairs. The rise and fall of empires, the pride and humiliation of civilizations, marches and invasions, these form the background of the picture – and indeed more than the background, they are part of its substance.”

Set against this backdrop of different powers at play, Israel’s emergence as a distinctive community came as a result of Yahweh’s deliverance of them from an oppressive Egyptian regime recorded for us in the book of Exodus. Laws were consequently laid down to undergird the common life and social outlook of this distinct community. I used the word ‘distinct’ with much regret however as it has the connotation of ‘exclusiveness’ when the motivation of Yahweh’s salvation was His promise made to Abram in Genesis 12 which had the entire world at heart, “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves.’”(Genesis 12:1-3, emphasis mine) Yahweh’s faithfulness gave birth to the exodus.

The story of Israel had a tragic end when they, as a community, departed from the intentions of Yahweh, whose consequences were foretold in Deuteronomy 27:15-27. The temple in Jerusalem was plundered, destroyed and Israel fell into captivity, dominated by a foreign, Babylonian power. But with the exile also came a note of hope when we read in Isaiah 40:3-5, “A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’” In the same way that Yahweh’s faithfulness gave birth to the exodus, it was again Yahweh’s faithfulness that deliverance from oppressive powers would arrive, this time in the promise of a saviour-figure, a redeemer, a Messiah.

With this, enters the New Testament world. Not unlike the Old Testament, the international power play continued with new actors displacing the old ones, Romans displacing Babylonians as the ruling regime. The first century Jews held on, with much intensity, to the promise of a Messiah. But this post-exilic community was split by the different interpretations offered for the nature and characteristics of the Messiah. On one side, we have the Pharisees and Sadducees who, while agreed to reluctant submission to the ruling power, kept the Law in high regard (although not without important disagreements between them). The Messiah would deliver them from their present state of affairs as they waited in eagerness and strict obedience to the Law. On the other side, the Essenes and the Zealots chose to be separatists, withdrawing from public life, differed markedly in the latter taking up arms against the Romans, with hope of reviving the Maccabean revolt. The Messiah was the inspiration and ultimate deliverer of their cause.

I was further enlightened by Yoder when he helped me to see that Mary’s magnificat in Luke 1:46-55 was not a song of domesticity from a docile, motherly figure. This was a radical song laden with political implications and social change expected from the Messiah, with the language of one familiar with the Maccabean uprising. The Messiah was to ‘show strength with his arm, scatter the proud in the imagination of their hearts, put down the mighty from their thrones, etc.’

Therefore, when Jesus came and proclaimed himself to be the Messiah, there was no escape from getting entangled in the power-play and upsetting the power-structure of the day. His proclamation and actions offered a radical interpretation of history and provided a new framework for comprehending the present and the future. NT Wright put it brilliantly when he wrote, “His action in the temple functioned like burning a flag or like tearing up a contract. His action in the upper room functioned like running up a new flag, like writing a new contract, or, in his language, like establishing a new covenant.” The threats to the protagonists in the narrative, Pilate and Herod, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, further confirmed that the ‘kingdom of God’ embodied by Jesus had placed their cherished positions on dangerous grounds.

Hence the intriguing question: what was the positive message that Jesus embodied that was so ‘dangerous‘ and ‘threatening’ to the powers that be? A friend suggested to me that the root of Jesus’ power was powerlessness. In the on-going power struggle for political control, social actions and interpretations, Jesus stood on the side of the powerless. The beautiful paradoxes of Luke 6:20-23 served as a hopeful glimpse of the future for the poor, hungry and persecuted in their participation of the new community defined around Jesus. His message was an invitation for all to share in his preoccupation with the powerless, marginalized, and oppressed.

But there is a stronger point to be made. The invitation to participate in the movement’s preoccupation and involvement with the powerless was by means of the disciples becoming powerless themselves. In Luke 9:23, Jesus said, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Not fully comprehending this, the disciples broke into an argument after the transfiguration concerning who was the greatest among them. However, Jesus with these sharp words reminded them that the root of his power was powerlessness: ‘for he who is least among you all is the one who is great.’

However, the ultimate act of powerlessness must take place in Jerusalem. Power must meet powerlessness on the cross, with the former crucifying the latter. The Pharisees and Sadducees felt ridiculed by the reversal of principles advocated by Jesus, the idea of a powerless Messiah was repugnant, an unforgivable blasphemy. The ruling coalition perhaps misunderstood the political ambitions of Jesus or preferred not to rile-up the voices of the powerful and disturbed the present hegemony of power. All these led to the one, climactic act of the relinquishing of power – the death of the Messiah on the cross. The vindication came three days later in the resurrection, altering the course of history forever with the community of the powerless becoming the coalition of conscience for a world deeply imbued in unbalanced power relations.

Today, the story continues with the invitation to participate in the preoccupation of Jesus, to be part of a community whose understanding of power has been redefined on the cross. International power relations have evolved after two world wars and a cold war, with the war on terror ever since 9/11 and the burgeoning rise of technology defining much of what we see today. Time’s magazine in the 2006 edition has a fairly accurate assessment, in my humble opinion, to award the prestigious Person of the Year title to ‘You’, individuals whose power of choice has never been so influential before with the advent of blogs and the like. Indeed, the dominant political philosophy, the liberal paradigm, rooted in the social contract tradition believes that rational, autonomous human beings must be given the freedom to pursue their own conception of the good. Even when religions hold a specific conception of the good, this must be appropriated through the conscious decisions of the pursuers. The power of such individual choice forms collective decisions which subsequently shape the arrangements of society on a macro-level. Power relations then must be seen as the structure borne out of individual choices that are, ironically, not entirely independent of the very power relations it seeks to define.

I believe, then, that the challenge for the church as that visible community is to reinterpret and redefine the present context of power around Jesus, whose root of power is powerlessness. Unlike Augustine who mistakenly justified the usage of force to attain the good by appealing to Luke 14:23, Jesus’ rebellion of the present context of power does not consist of compulsion. Rather, and most intriguingly, Jesus painted his conception of the good as the relinquishing of power to help the powerless. This subverts and directly contradicts the liberal model – the power of choice as a means to the good is challenged by powerlessness as a way to the cross. Power relations must be reordered by collective choices to ‘open our mouths for the mute, for the rights of all who are left desolate, judge righteously, maintain the rights of the poor and needy’ through self-denial and abandonment.

Looking at an immediate power context in the coming general elections in Malaysia, I must say that one has not fully grasped the challenges of building the plural and just Malaysia until one realizes that the problems are systemic, structured by the unbalanced power relations between political parties that run along ethnic lines. Corruption, nepotism, racial polarization, police brutality, suppression of religious freedom, increasing inequality, media lies and blackout – all these, and more, contribute to the impasse we see in our country today after 50 years of independence. Individuals are said to feel disempowered in a globalize world but it is the reverse that is true. Our individual choices directly and indirectly shape the concerns and issues brought to the public square. And this is even more evident in the forthcoming general elections where individual votes are to a large extent a demonstration of civic consciousness in realigning power relations.

The question is, how will these choices be exercised? And I think this is a critical question for individuals to ponder and act upon, and collectively as a church, on how to emulate Jesus in his powerlessness in this entangled web of power relations. While I do not want to be overly prescriptive, I believe we can draw two general lessons in our contemplation of Jesus. Firstly, the powerlessness of Jesus is not a once-off event but a life-style of sacrificial choices made on a daily basis in the same direction. Similarly, we are not called to be ’informed voters’ once-off. We are called to be a community of the powerless and for the powerless before and after the elections. We do not decide overnight to vote wisely. It must be preceded, and followed, by the small sacrificial choices made in the same direction. Secondly, the ’how’ is equally as important, if not more, as the ’who’ to vote. Are we voting primarily based on ethnicity, personal gain, economy, status, or political affiliation? Or are we voting based on the impulse of Jesus - the realignment of power relations that is preoccupied with the weak, vulnerable, oppressed, marginalized and powerless?

Powerlessness will be crucified, ridiculed but vindication will arrive. Jesus, the rebel, has redefined power on the cross by his death and rose victorious vindicating the powerless and the weak. Such is his rebellion, and we must now participate in this story that has, and will continue to shape the course of human history.