merefaith: salvation in the desert

In recent years a movement in biblical scholarship has focused on "political" readings of the ancient texts. It has come to the attention of many researchers that the authors and compilers of Scripture did not limit themselves, as per Enlightenment demarcations of categories, to merely "spiritual" concerns over against the flesh-and-blood pains and hopes of the people around them and the world entire. Rather, as an anthology of communities frequently beaten down by the titanic forces of history, yet retaining a stubborn faith in the justice of God, the Bible repeats a refrain of opposition to the inhumane and idolatrous cruelties of the hegemonic imperial projects that come and go while the people remain.

Genesis 1 "democratizes" the image of God from a concept of the Mesopotamian kings as divine representatives elevated above the populace to a shared responsibility among all men and women to "reign" on the earth as God's representatives. Genesis 11 mocks the pretensions of Babylon with a tale of a tower built by hegemony but struck down by God's intent for diversity. Various stipulations in the legal code seek to thwart the accumulation of wealth and inequality in society. The prophets rail against the Temple ceremonies as empty ritual so long as idolatry exists and the poor are crushed.

As the Advent season draws to a close, with the eve of the feast coming tomorrow, it is helpful to consider how the three birth narratives of the New Testament continue the biblical critique against the oppression and violence of empire.

After the birth of Jesus in chapter 1, Matthew 2 continues the story with the visit of the magi or "wise men" from the Parthian Empire. They come looking for the rightfully born "king of the Jews." The very question challenges the legitimacy of Herod the Great, an Idumean client-king installed by the Romans whose faith is questionable at best. This king is no heir born to Herod's line. Moreover, that the magi have come from beyond the boundaries of the Roman Empire to honor the rightful heir of David calls into question the borders and sovereignties of both Rome and Persia and foreshadows the calling forth of a fellowship that transcends earthly barriers and divisions. As Paul would say in Ephesians 2, Christ has broken down the dividing wall of hostility.

This episode also reveals how the illusory pax Romana is maintained through oppressive violence. Herod's "severe response is typical of the ways that tyrannical rulers remove any possible threat to their power" (Warren Carter, "Matthew Negotiates the Roman Empire," in In the Shadow of Empire, Richard Horsley, ed., 119). The "golden age" that has been declared by Augustus is maintained by the paranoid exercise of force that slaughters the innocent as necessary "collateral damage" to maintain the order of things.

Luke's gospel is especially concerned with the plight of the poor and marginalized. His birth narrative is preceded by two songs of liberation and socioeconomic revolution that echo the Jubilee rules of the Torah and the Maccabean revolt against Antiochus Epiphanes 160 years before Jesus' birth. The Magnificat of Mary announces her royal son as "an agent of radical social change" (John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, 22). The strength of God's arm will stretch out to "scatter the proud" and bring down "the mighty from their thrones." Those who are humble will be exalted and the hungry will be filled, while the rich elite who control resources and command obedience will be "sent away empty." Mary's confidence in this sociopolitical role reversal is so strong that she sings in the past tense: proleptically this has already been accomplished in Gabriel's annunciation. Zechariah, meanwhile, whose wife has just given birth to John the Baptist, prophesies that God will deliver his people from their enemies so that they may serve him without fear. Light will shine in the darkness and "guide our feet into the [true] way of peace."

Luke situates the birth of Jesus as an event in history, occurring in the shadow of Caesar Augustus. The emperor commands the world at will, ordering a census for the purposes of taxation and greater exploitation. Joseph and Mary are forced to temporarily migrate for the purpose of the registration, yet Augustus becomes yet another unwitting accomplice in the purposes of Israel's God. After Jesus is born in the foretold location of Bethlehem, God's supernatural messengers appear to shepherds - marginal figures near the bottom of the socioeconomic pyramid. These poor laborers of society are the first to hear the "good news" (euangelion) of the birth of a Savior and Lord in the city of Israel's great king. A "heavenly host" (read: army) of angels then proclaim glory to God and declare, in his name, the inauguration of peace among the peoples.

Luke contrasts Jesus with Augustus and declares the lower class Galilean the rightful ruler who commands loyalty. "Savior" was a title for Caesar who proclaimed "Peace and Security" throughout his empire, but now the angels have announced an alternative to his leadership (Richard Horsley, "Jesus and Empire," in Horsley, ed., 84). Throughout the Greek-speaking majority of Augustus' empire, his accession had been announced by messengers (angeloi) as "good news" (euangelion). Now this semi-technical term declares the accession by birth of the world's rightful Lord.

Finally, Revelation 12 recasts the Incarnation of Christ in apocalyptic imagery. This interlude in the text casts the people of God as a "woman clothed with the sun" and wearing a crown of twelve stars. She "gives birth" to a male child who will, in fulfillment of Psalm 2:9, "rule the nations with a rod of iron." But the birth is greeted by a hideous, red, seven-headed dragon, the latest instantiation of the ancient Near Eastern chaos monster, known otherwise by such names as Leviathan. Here, the dragon is representative of all evil and oppression, personified as the devil or Satan. The dragon seeks to devour the child (think Herod's rage, the temptation in the wilderness, opposition by the religious establishment, and Judas' betrayal all rolled into one metaphorical moment) yet the child is "taken up to heaven" and the war that occurs there symbolizes the victory over sin and death realized in the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. The dragon goes off to "make war" on the rest of the woman's offspring, those who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Yet by sharing in his life they conquer the dragon through their witness and their willingness to be martyred for the faith.

The dragon calls up reinforcements in Revelation 13 - a beast out of the sea who imitates the dragon. The sea represents both chaos and foreign powers, and the description of the beast clearly identifies the Roman emperors as the oppressive power seeking false worship (the emperor cult of the eastern parts of the empire) and the destruction of those who refuse to honor them "properly." The rest of Revelation is a call to "patient endurance" in suffering, nonviolent resistance, and the assurance that the time given to the dragon and the beast "is short."

The beast is also a metaphor that can be extended through time to any period in need of an apocalyptic recasting of the powers and principalities at work in the world. Wes Howard-Brook and Anthony Gwyther, in their book Unveiling Empire: Reading Revelation Then and Now, propose that the Christian imagination now identify the oppression of global capitalism as the current instantiation of the beast that seeks worship and deserves resistance.

The recent financial crisis has demonstrated that global capital is indeed the beast that demands worship and support above all else, an empire that promises "peace and security" and warns that disloyalty to it will bring chaos and darkness. The Christmas story is a call to an alternative imagination and a confession that true peace and good news is found in a different sort of society and a different conception of loyalty and power. May Christians who stake their lives on this story, and fellow laborers toward justice and truth, offer a new song to sing - peace on earth, goodwill to all peoples.