Who would Jesus tear gas?
Just think about that for a moment. Because what we are seeing in America isn't just ignorance about what qualifies as greatness, it is also a confusion about what constitutes strength. (And don't get me started about those folks who "hate socialists" but can't define conservatism, let alone socialism, accurately, if they are pinned down.)
But back to the question: who would Jesus tear gas? If you said, "no one, because that's not how Jesus operates," that's the answer a lot of us Christians would accept as true. But let's dig deeper.
Why wouldn't Jesus tear gas people? He got angry enough at abuse of His temple he overturned the chairs and tables and drove the money-changers out. He certainly hates evil, and those weren't really the actions of a true pacifist.
You see, we need to look deeper than the pat answers. Some folks are going to conclude from what I just said that maybe it really is Christlike to tear gas protestors. That to promote the Bible as the foundation of a nation is important enough that tear gassing protesters is ok and perhaps even the moral and justifiable thing to do. To that I say, what utterly warped ethics and morality: that is totally antiChrist.
The point is this: we have a fundamental cultural confusion about what strength (and greatness) looks like. We also have a fundamental misconception about how people should respond to abuse. Both of these misconceptions are freely and fully endorsed and supported by your local evangelical community today, on some level, I guarantee it.
First: what does strength look like in Jesus?
To answer that, we have to ask what did He do when he was on earth? What did he do when faced with death on the cross? How did he interact with harassed and helpless human beings?
Jesus is presented to us at Christmas as the meek and mild little Baby Jesus everyone likes to pray to, because he isn't threatening. He doesn't come with a whip of cords, and he is gentle. Christians often err on the side of pacifism precisely because Jesus came so humbly, lived so calmly, and loved so many. He healed people. He specifically said he was not here to condemn but to save. Jesus definitely was meek and mild, and Christians are told to imitate His gentleness because the Lord is near. When he was faced with death on the cross, He humbled Himself. He had compassion on the harassed and helpless. He was capable of being firm, but gracious. Jesus wept at death. He felt with us.
Strength, from what I can deduce of Christ's life, meant humility, submission to the will of the Father, even at great personal cost, love for the helpless and gentleness in perfect control. He knew when to act and when to be silent. Jesus' strength was in self-mastery (I agree with N. T. Wright that the word control in association with the Lord is deeply problematic. The whole point of Jesus' strength is that He didn't abuse power or grasp for control.)
But there's still that whip of cords.
So: what is the meaning of that Temple scene?
To answer that question, we have to put it into the context of how God would have people respond to abuse. Context is extremely important. Jesus didn't just arbitrarily start a riot in the temple, nor did He sit back and say that's how things work here, let it be.
Jesus, in the Temple, was responding to abuse!
Jesus gave his people an example of how to respond to abuse! You can argue with me about whether it was the right thing to do, or you can suggest that because He is God, He can do no wrong, but at the end of the day, Jesus was responding to abuse of the rankest sort. His own people were disobeying the stated responsibility to the poor in the Old Testament Scriptures by profiting off a hostage audience desperately longing to worship the living God. (If that's not spiritual abuse, I don't know what is.) To be faced with this in His temple enraged Jesus on a visceral level. It was a righteous anger. And it teaches us certain things about how those of us who are Christians should respond with strength to abuse.
Are we Christians prepared to be arrested or thrown out for responding to abuse? Are we prepared to be tear gassed or worse? Are we so entirely devoted to God, that abuse of His Scriptures to sell anything, enrages us on a visceral level?
You see, Jesus' strength in that moment was in refusing to accept the status quo. These money-changers were trampling all over His holy place, so he threw them out. Similarly, American protestors, peacefully exercising their right to protest murderous abuse and injustice within the status quo, follow His example in standing up to abuse, by their protest.
Now let's turn to Trump and Barr and this administration up in Washington DC. Let's ask the question: who would Jesus tear gas? Because not only have these people tried to defend their directives as righteous, they have blamed peaceful protestors for violent actions such as burning down the church at St Johns (which occurred the night before and is unrelated), while their own police were involved in tear gassing church members without warning, and causing an international incident on live tv.
Let's review Jesus' actions here on earth. Could He have come in power and violence? Absolutely. Some still think that is His way, but it is clearly not the Way of the cross delineated in Philippians 2. How did he come? As a humble, dependent baby, to a poor and necessarily refugee family, ending up as a homeless prophet and a crucified enemy of the religious right of his day.
Jesus had all power, but he grasped no power here on earth; instead, He humbled Himself. He sided with the protestors of injustice, and he told them to put away their sword, to live a life of love. Jesus stood against the abuse of power, per the Scriptures I grew up reading.
What Trump and Barr and others in the Trump regime have defended as righteous is clearly antiChrist and cruel. Those people, however many Bibles they hold up, do not understand what strength is. They were fine with St. John's church members being tear gassed and removed from their own church front. The Trump administration is too weak to admit wrong or apologize or resign over their failure to protect the peaceful among US. They would rather smear peaceful protesters as rioters and tear gas church members.
Strength is in humbly rebuking abuse and refusing to be controlled by evil. Strength, according to Jesus, is seen, not in abusive displays of power and control, but in sacrificial love and a willingness to suffer so that others may live and love, too.
Per the Scriptures Christians read, Jesus humbled Himself out of sacrificial, self-mastered love for others. That's a show of genuine strength in the face of appalling abuse and evil.
So you can ask your evangelical pro-life voter friends this for me: who would Jesus tear gas?
I'd be interested to hear what they've said to you in the comments below.
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