Faith Works 1-9-21

Faith Works 1-9-21

Jeff Gill

Lord, grant us peace

___


We've left some things behind in 2020, but political wrangling isn't one of them.

As the new year begins, we had a runoff election in Georgia and an inauguration for Chief Executive ahead in this first month, with politics aplenty. Not having a church coffee hour after worship might be a mercy right now for many faith communities.

Speaking out of a Christian perspective, there's a question that arises from time to time about "how much is too much" when it comes to political content of speaking or preaching or activity. Where are we over a line, theologically or even supposedly legally, with endorsement and advocacy? People of good conscience can disagree, even vigorously, on this subject.

What I find fascinating is how, as I turn to the New Testament writings that are my primary guide for "how should we then live," I note that Jesus takes relatively little note of the political leaders of his day. We all know "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's" showing it wasn't that Jesus wasn't aware of Julius or Augustus, carved on the coinage as they were. Herod, the Greater and his son Herod Antipas each have a role to play in the Gospel story.

But Jesus doesn't spend much or really any time preaching against them and their policies. He does address the abuses in and stemming from the Temple authorities, including making reference to the tax collectors, all of whom were seen as enemy collaborators, if you will. Jewish tools in the hands of the Romans, or those who used Roman power for their own ends as we see in the events of Passion week with the death of Jesus.

Still, there's a political context of a very particular sort inherent in the whole arc of the Gospels. But it's not politics as we tend to frame them. Where we see the world of faith in resistance to the world of power and privilege is most clear when the latter attempts to make claims over and above those of the eternal and everlasting.

An example at the outset: everyone would have known in Jesus's day about how Herod the Great, in his desperation to keep and control absolute power in Judea, killed not one but three of his sons. Augustus Caesar himself, the emperor who kept Herod on his throne as a distant subjected ruler, is said to have observed it was better to be Herod's pig than his son. (The quip is even more ironic in Greek, actually, with the words for pig and son sounding similar.)

So while Herod killed his sons to keep power for himself in Jerusalem, God sends a Son to offer the power of grace and love to work in the world. That would have been a parallel easily heard in that world whether you spoke Greek, Hebrew, or some barbaric outland tongue. A different approach to power.

Then there's the Prince of Peace. Of course, I'm talking about Augustus Caesar. Wait, you didn't think of him first? That's a part of what the victory of Christmas is all about: that we remember Jesus, not Caesar as "Prince of Peace."

Because for a ruler of Rome, that was a goal and aspiration: to be known as the source and vessel of the Pax Romana, along with the titles that being descended from Julius Caesar already got you, honorifics like "King of Kings," "Savior of the World," and yes, "Son of God." The Divine Julius was hailed after his 44 BC death in the Roman Senate at the hands of his peers, when a comet crossed the sky and his adopted son Octavian, soon to be renamed Augustus, declared that his father had been assumed into the heavens just as he had been adopted into the Caesar family. And if your father is divine, then it only stands to reason that you can be called "Son of God."

But what Augustus really craved was the acclamation of a now cowed Senate as "Prince of Peace." While some provincial inscriptions called him that, it's not clear the Roman Senate ever did.

We do, though. Well, not him. But we have just finished a season of adjusting our political and civic and cosmic understandings about whom God has sent, and for what reason. And many of us are still singing about a Prince of Peace who is not in any earthly palace, or buried in any royal tomb.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's still in Christmas mode. Tell him about your Christmastide thoughts at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.