By Brent Woodard
Windermere Valley Shared Ministry
In 2004, when George Bush was re-elected President of the United States, after he led the country into a horrific and unjust war with Iraq, I remember thinking that ministers and pastors like me need to do a better job of teaching the message of Jesus. I thought this because so many Christians in the United States supported Bush and the war in Iraq.
Might is not right and war is not the way toward peace, according to Jewish/Christian scriptures. The United States was acting like empires of old. It was a “superpower,” and it was going to take revenge, even if 600,000 people had to die.
A major theme throughout the Bible is that the way of empire is not the way of God. This is the message of the story of the exodus, where God sees people in slavery and oppression and leads them toward freedom. This is the story of the prophets who indicted their own leaders for re-creating empire in the land of Israel, oppressing the poor and taking advantage of the marginal. “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream,” said the prophet, Amos.
This is the story of Jesus and it is the central message of his birth stories. Mary and Joseph are poor, peasant people who are required by a decree from Emperor Augustus to be counted in a census. A census was a step in the process of taxing a desperately poor and oppressed population.
The angels sang “peace on earth, goodwill to all people.” What peace is being heralded? Not the peace that comes after conquest and victory, but peace that comes after compassion and justice.
At the time of Jesus, the emperor was called “Son of God,” “Saviour of the world,” “the one who brings peace.” It was believed the emperor was conceived because of the sexual union between the god Apollo and the human mother Atia (this was a common motif back then for honouring a hero). The birth stories of Jesus were written using all the language and motifs for the emperor. Jesus was being presented as a new leader and his way of living was offered as a new way of being in this world. The birth stories of Jesus subverted the dominant narratives of empire.
A part of the birth story of Jesus involves King Herod. In real life Herod was a terrible man who killed his own sons because he saw them as threats. In the birth stories of Jesus, Herod tells the wise men to find the Christ child, so that he too can go and worship him. He was lying. (Is lying the currency of those who rule unjustly?) He wanted to kill the child. (Ignoble leaders fear opposition). The story says Herod had all the male babies two years old and younger around Bethlehem killed. (What horror has been visited upon innocent people because of unconscious leaders?) The message in the birth stories of Jesus is this: Those who come in the name of God, of truth, light and love threaten those who rule unkindly and unwisely.
Do the birth stories of Jesus pertain to us today? Do we live with would-be emperors and within empire? Are people drawn to follow emperors and is there something about empires that seduces us?
The war in Iraq has passed. But apparently Christian nationalism is on the rise in the United States. Some Christians want to align themselves with empire. We ministers and pastors need to do a better job of teaching the message of Jesus.
