Sermon: Empires

Isaiah 1:10-20; Romans 12

The Southern Kingdom of Judah. Date: approximately sometime between 783 and 686 BCE. The kings during this period: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. The international situation: Neo-Assyrian empire controls much of the Fertile Crescent. 

The kingdom of Judah is under threat from the powerful Assyrian empire. But they, the Judahites, are a chosen people and a nation that has Yahweh on their side. They have the temple and they faithfully conduct worship and offer sacrifices to Yahweh. They observe the festivals as required by the Torah. So why are they under threat and fear?

The prophet Isaiah is given a vision and explains what Yahweh has revealed. 

You think you are more righteous and moral than the peoples and nations around you. But you aren’t. Your rulers would be entirely at home in Sodom. And lest the rest of you common folk think that you’re not like your rulers, guess what? You would fit right in with the people of Gomorrah. (About a century after Isaiah, another prophet, Ezekiel, will proclaim, “This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.” [Ezekiel 16:49])

You think that your pious worship and regular offerings are what I want. But they’re not! You make a show of attending worship, of asking for my blessing at public events, saying pious public prayers, and making offerings at the temple. But aren’t they really all about you? You want to paint a picture to outside observers about how good and faithful to me you are. You want to use my name to “sanctify” your words and deeds. You want to assure yourselves that I’m on your side by invoking my name.

But I’m not! I despise your offerings. Your worship is an abomination. Your prayers are like cursing to my ears. 

Your hands are covered in blood: the blood of widows and orphans, the blood of those who are starving, the blood of those you overwork for too little pay. And it’s not just those who are the rulers and those who are powerful who are guilty. The rest of you are too. All of you who benefit from the status quo, who remain silent in the face of evil – you are complicit and guilty, too. 

“Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.” (Isaiah 1:16-17)

If you turn away from evil, I will forgive. I will take away your guilt and restore your community. But if you continue to refuse, you will reap the consequences of your injustice. Your injustice will be returned to you. 

Jumping forward 700 years, we come to the early Christian church in Rome. The Apostle Paul has not been here, but he has written a letter to them. Christians, particularly modern ones like us, have interpreted this letter to be a theological treatise on justification and righteousness through faith. But in the then-historical context, good argument can be made that Paul is writing the Roman church to entreat them to be a people of Christ-like justice in the middle of an empire that is unjust. The word translated into English as “righteousness” equally has the meaning of “justice.” In fact, in many non-English translations, such as Spanish, the word used is “justice.” The word that in English is translated as “wickedness” should really be read as “injustice.”

After eleven chapters of historical and theological arguments for why the gospel of Jesus Christ is about justice, in chapter 12 Paul exhorts the Roman church to be the kind of people who live these principles of justice and thus create a new community of love against the powers of the empire. 

Jumping forward again, now to the present day. We too, are people living in the middle of an empire. In that way we are like the community to which Paul wrote. But also like the ancient kingdom of Judah, we are living in a society and a nation that has traditionally believed to have been specially chosen, even ordained by the will of God. Rulers and commoners have and continue to appeal to God and invoke God’s name in public. Leaders have sought the blessing of the religious, and the religious have been more than willing to offer their blessings in return for future access to power. Politics has sought to “baptize” their actions through appeal to scripture and God. 

What would Isaiah say to us today if he received a vision from God? What would the contents of Paul’s letter say to us if he were writing to us? 

We might protest that we aren’t like the people of ancient Judah, and we might disagree that our society is anything close to pagan Rome. But do we have grounds to protest and disagree? 

As I see what is going on in this nation and the world today, I am dismayed and angered. We do have blood on our hands. We are complicit in the evils of our society. We are living in an empire dedicated to powers of death and destruction: destruction of life, creation, community, relationships. We have redefined “justice” to merely mean “following the law.” 

What Paul wrote to the Roman church remains valid for us.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect… Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good… Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; do not claim to be wiser than you are. Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all… ‘If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.’” (Romans 12:2, 9, 13-17, 20-21)

In Romans Disarmed: Resisting Empire, Demanding Justice, Sylvia Keesmaat and Brian Walsh offer an updated reading of Romans 12 and 13 that might be imagined if Paul were addressing present-day North American Christians. This is based on the Jewish practice of targum where the reader of scripture does not simply read, but explains and reinterprets scripture as they read. This is necessary to both explain ancient contexts that were lost, words and concepts that might be alien, and to offer application of the text to the present day. 

I wish we had the time to read all of it, because it is very powerful, but it is very long. So I’ll read portions of it in the remaining time that we have.

Therefore, sisters and brothers, friends in Christ,

If it is true that Jesus the Messiah is Lord,

and that no other leader,

or nation, or ethnic identity,

or institution, or system of economics,

or political structure can demand your ultimate allegiance;

If it is true that the gospel of Jesus is truer, more radical,

and more transforming than any other grand narrative or worldview on offer;

If it is true that this gospel has the power to disarm all legitimations of violence,

to overthrow all scapegoating, ethnic exclusion,

through the loving and inclusive embrace of Jesus;

… 

If it is true that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Messiah Jesus, our only rightful Lord;

neither death nor life, 

neither persecution nor the surveillance mechanisms of the state,

neither violence nor unemployment,

neither deportation nor imprisonment,

neither ridicule nor terrorism;

If it is true that in a post-truth world

the depths and riches and wisdom and knowledge of God are unsearchable;

and if it is true that in a world of Market supremacy

that glorifies brash displays of gold-plated opulence

we stubbornly confess that all things are from God,

through God, and to God,

and that all true glory is God’s and God’s alone;

If all of this is true…

Then I urge you with everything that I have,

I appeal to you,

I call out to you,

in response to this radical, life-transforming good news of Jesus,

To offer up your bodies,

not simply your piety and your devotional life,

but your very bodies;

To offer up your bodies,

not your Twitter account, nor your online signature,

but your bodies put on the line for the sake of the gospel;

To offer up your bodies,

not your armchair punditry,

but the totality of your embodied existence;

Indeed, to offer up your bodies,

the body of Christ,

the body politic of the incarnate Word,

assembling here and there in cells of resistance,

gathering to be formed in subversive discipleship,

coming to worship the One who liberates in the face of oppression,

the One who embodies justice and calls us to

lives of his inclusive and costly justice;

… Offer up your bodies as nothing less than a living sacrifice.

While you know that your whole economy is rooted in self-interest,

and you have heard from the most recent emperor

that we are to put our own interests and the interests of the nation first,

I call you to sacrifice those interests.

We are not called to sacrifice the most vulnerable in our world.

We are not called to sacrifice compassion through closing of our doors to the most marginal.

We are not called to sacrifice creational care through the quick extraction, movement, sale, and use of fossil fuels.

We are not called to sacrifice truth for the sake of deceitful lies.

We are not called to sacrifice neighborliness on the altar of ethnic and racial scapegoating.

We are not called to sacrifice generosity before the false god of the Market for the sake of the enrichment of the 1 percent.

We are not called to sacrifice justice in the name of a violent patriotic nationalism.

No, my friends, if there is to be a sacrifice,

then, following the crucified One, we are it.

Indeed, without a discipleship of living sacrifice, 

we make a mockery of the cross,

cheapen the riches and depths of God’s mercy,

domesticate and tame the radicalism of the gospel,

and tragically miss the meaning of the “therefore”

with which we have begun.

… 

Living sacrifice.

That is a life acceptable to God, true to the call of the gospel.

And that, my friends, is spiritual worship.

That’s right, bodies offered as living sacrifices is the heart of spiritual worship,

while bodies conformed to the consumptive patterns of this world

can never be living sacrifices. 

…

So don’t be conformed to the empire, my friends,

but be transformed by the kingdom.

Do not have minds conformed to the reigning ideologies,

but experience, in this praxis of living sacrifice,

nothing less than the renewing of your minds.

…

Renewed minds,

liberated imaginations,

for a restored creation,

for a discerning resistance,

for lives of justice,

for subversive hospitality,

for radical peacemaking.

Renewed minds,

imaginations no longer shaped by dead-end narratives 

of progress, colonialism, civilization,

but transformed by the grand story of redemption.

Renewed minds,

rooted in the story of Jesus, not the president,

the story of creation, not our nation,

the story of love, not self-interest.

…

In the face of an identity politics that wants to separate us from one another,

the body of Christ consists of a beautifully diverse and inclusive membership.

In the face of the fragmentation and divisiveness of our times,

we are “re-membered,” made whole and one, through our membership in this body.

…

In this time of divisiveness, we need to be members of the body.

In this time of crisis, we need all the gifts that we bring

to be placed in service of the body of Christ,

not the dominant body politic of our time.

…

Let’s begin by getting beyond a pious sentimentality of love.

If love is genuine,

if love is really willing to go the distance for the beloved,

if love is to be more that a secondhand emotion,

then to deeply love we must learn how to hate what is evil.

That means that love requires the naming of names.

Love does not play nice.

There is too much at stake for that.

If we are to love in a time of hate,

then we need to paradoxically hate that hate

and name it for what it is.

If we are going to love women,

we must hate misogyny.

If we are going to love our Muslim neighbors,

we must hate Islamophobia.

If we are going to love the Indigenous peoples of this land,

we must hate colonialism, its persistent wound, 

and the way that we remain the beneficiaries of colonial systems.

If we are going to love our LGBTQ+ siblings,

we must hate homophobia and transphobia.

If we are going to love those of different ethnicities than our own,

we must hate racism.

If we are going to love the voices of our neighbors,

we must hate systems that disenfranchise voters. 

If we are going to love generosity and equality,

we must hate economic structures that willingly sacrifice the poor

and a caste system that enriches the very few at the expense of the very many.

If we are going to love those who suffer displacement and injustice,

then we must hate the geopolitical and economic-military forces

that render whole peoples homeless and refugees.

If we are going to love kindness,

then we must hate forces of violence and torture,

whether they by ISIS, CSIS, or the CIA.

If we love our creational home,

then we must hate ways of living that cause its rape and destruction.

You see, my friends, if love is genuine,

then we must hate what is evil

and hold fast to what is good.

…

And if that way of living brings persecution,

if online trolls, vigilantes in the neighborhood,

or the security apparatus of the state should come down hard on you,

then invite them in for coffee,

invite them to the potluck dinner,

ask them to share their story with you.

I know that this is dangerous.

It may be that they will murder you while you pray.

But it is better to bless them,

to open the hand to them,

so that they might be ashamed for their hatred

and perhaps converted to the way of love.

We are all about hating evil,

but we are called to the hard work of loving evildoers.

And since we are all about blessing,

we do not call down curses on our enemies.

…

Like the Pax Romana before it, the Pax Americana 

was always a fraud.

And as its façade falls off,

as the ugly face of empire is revealed,

the violence will escalate.

In the face of such violence,

we embrace the gospel of peace,

the reconciliation of enemies,

the disarming of the empire

as it collapses all around us. 

…

So, dear friends, in these violent times,

in the face of enemies who will seek to overwhelm you,

remember this:

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

You see,

Goodness is stronger than evil,

Love is stronger than hate.

Light is stronger than darkness,

truth is stronger than lies.

Peace is stronger than war,

reconciliation surpasses revenge.

And generous hospitality

disarms enmity.

…

I know that for many of us it feels like the night is endless,

and there is no day in sight,

no slight glimmer or dawn on the horizon,

not even the morning star is visible to you.

I know that even the morning star can be hidden

in the clouds of despair and sadness,

blocked by the overcast of deep darkness.

But if you can see just beyond the range of normal sight,

if you can see with the eyes of faith,

if your imagination has been set free,

if your minds have been renewed,

if you can discern the times…

you will see against the grain of the times,

against the imperial evidence amassed against you;

you will see that the night is indeed far gone

and the day is near.

So living in faith

and embracing the politics of love,

let us say to the darkness, “We beg to differ,”

and live as in the day.

Romans Disarmed: Resisting Empire, Demanding Justice; pp. 297-319.