The Politics of Jesus

Beneath its faithless textual criticism and theological sophistication, John Howard Yoder’s Politics of Jesus reaches strikingly faithful conclusions, and expresses them powerfully:

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His [Jesus’] motto of revolutionary subordination, of willing servanthood in the place of domination, enables the person in a subordinate position in society to accept and live within that status without resentment, at the same time that it calls upon the person in the superordinate position to forsake or renounce all domineering use of his status. This call is then precisely not a simple ratification of the stratified society into which the gospel has come. The subordinate person becomes a free ethical agent when he voluntarily accedes to his subordination in the power of Christ instead of bowing to it either fatalistically or resentfully. The claim is not that there is immediately a new world regime which violently replaces the old: but rather the old and the new order exist concurrently on different levels. It is because she knows that in Christ there is no male or female that the Christian wife can freely accept that subordination to her unbelieving husband which is her present lot. It is because Christ has made all men free and the freed man is on the same level with his slave, that their relationship may continue as a humane and honest one within the framework of the present economy, the structure of which is passing away (1 Cor. 7:31).

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The wife or child or slave who can accept subordination because “it is fitting in the Lord” has not forsaken the radicality of the call of Jesus; it is precisely this attitude toward the structures of this world, this freedom from needing to smash them since they are about to crumble anyway, which Jesus had been the first to teach and in his suffering to concretize.

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There is a most specific dialectical interplay around the concepts of vengeance and wrath. Christians are told ([Romans] 12:19) never to exercise vengeance but to leave it to God and to wrath. Then the authorities are recognized (13:4) as executing the particular function which the Christian was to leave to God. It is inconceivable that these two verses, using such similar language, should be meant to be read independently of one another. This makes it clear that the function exercised by government is not the function to be exercised by Christians. However able an infinite God may be to work at the same time through the sufferings of his believing disciples who return good for evil and through the wrathful violence of the authorities who punish evil with evil, such behavior is for men not complimentary but in disjunction. God can in his own way, in his sovereign permissive providence, “use” an idolatrous Assyria (Isa. 10) or Rome. This takes place, however, without his declaring that such action which he thus uses is morally good or that participation in it is incumbent upon his covenant people.

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The conception of a “state properly so called,” in the name of which one would reject and seek to overthrow the state which exists empirically, is totally absent in the passage [Romans 13]. In the social context of the Jewish Christians in Rome, the whole point of the passage was to take out of their minds any concept of rebellion against or even emotional rejection of this corrupt pagan government. There is no definition of the theoretical “proper state,” by contrast with which some other, “real” state would stand condemned to be overthrown.

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Whatever government exists is ordered by God; but the text [Romans 13] does not say that whatever the government does or asks of its citizens is good.

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Subordination is significantly different from obedience. The conscientious objector who refuses to do what his government asks him to do, but still remains under the sovereignty of that government and accepts the penalties which it imposes, or the Christian who refuses to worship Caesar but still permits Caesar to put him to death, is being subordinate even though he is not obeying.

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Romans 12-13 and Matthew 5-7 are not in contradiction or in tension. They both instruct Christians to be nonresistant in all their relationships, including the social. They both call on the disciples of Jesus to renounce participation in the interplay of egoisms which this world calls “vengeance” or “justice.” They both call Christians to respect and be subject to the historical process in which the sword continues to be wielded and to bring about a kind of order under fire, but not to perceive in the wielding of the sword their own reconciling ministry.

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Even if we know how effectiveness is to be measured – i.e. even if we could get a clear definition of the goal we are trying to reach and how to ascertain whether we had reached it – is there not in Christ’s teaching on meekness, or in the attitude of Jesus toward power and servanthood, a deeper question being raised about whether it is our business at all to guide our action by the course we wish history to take?

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The relationship between the obedience of God’s people and the triumph of God’s cause is not a relationship of cause and effect but one of cross and resurrection.

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[Christian pacifism] is significantly different from that kind of “pacifism” which would say that it is wrong to kill but that with proper nonviolent techniques you can obtain without killing everything you really want or have a right to ask for. In this context it seems that sometimes the rejection of violence is offered only because it is cheaper or less dangerous or more shrewd way to impose one’s will upon someone else, a kind of coercion which is harder to resist. Certainly any renunciation of violence is preferable to its acceptance; but what Jesus renounced is not first of all violence, but rather the compulsiveness of purpose that leads men to violate the dignity of others. The point is not that one can attain all of one’s legitimate ends without using violent means. It is rather that our readiness to renounce our legitimate means itself constitutes our participation in the triumphant suffering of the Lamb.

Burn Your Thorns

Jesus told a story about a man sowing seeds as a parable about the word of God. Luke’s record of this (1) says about one place where the seed of the word fell:

The seed which fell among the thorns, these are the ones who have heard, and as they go on their way they are choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to maturity.

The seed which fell among thorns represents those who hear the word of God, but are choked with “worries and riches and pleasures of this life,” or as Mark (2) says, “the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things.” These thorns choke people so that they bear no fruit; they choke the word of God out of us. And our culture consists of little more than these thorns.

Our culture rests on overconsumption, entertainment, greed, and gluttony. Covetousness fuels our economy, and defines us. For how do we spend our free time? We buy gadgets, play video games, watch sports, watch television, watch movies, watch YouTube, get high, get drunk, drink fancy coffee, eat snack food, eat fast food, eat at nice restaurants, diet, exercise, buy clothing, buy cars and houses, fix cars and houses, groom our lawns, fawn over our pets, and on and on and on. The remainder of our time is spent working for the money which buys these things, or thinking and talking about these things, before or after their consumption. For what do we say to each other about our lives, and our selves? We think and speak endlessly about our consumption. Most of us speak much more about entertainment and food than we do about anything else – let alone about personal character, or social justice, or God.

Ah, but isn’t there more to our lives than this? Don’t we volunteer, and worship, and pray? A frightening amount of this looks like simply more consumption. Our morality and our religion do not transform our lives as such things rightly should; they are merely added in as other products to be consumed, or desires to be satiated. We add to our lives a few dos and don’ts, and perhaps church attendance, but leave the whole essentially unchanged. We do not strive to be virtuous people; we buy a little virtue piecemeal. We do not follow Christ; we enjoy a little hobby Christianity.

Our normal American lives, then, center on entertainment, food, and comfort – on our desires. That is, on “desires for other things” and “pleasures of this life,” in Jesus’ words. And these things are bought by our riches, our “deceitful” riches. And as we strive to acquire these riches and pleasures, and as we hoard them, come “the worries of the world.” We work long and hard; we save up and insure; we guard constantly against decay and theft; we compare and compete with the consumption of others; we fear losing what we’ve amassed, or being unable to maintain our current consumptive pace in the future.

These worries, riches, and pleasures are the things that choke us. These are the thorns that strangle us, and rob us of the word of God. For there is no room left in our lives for anything of value or consequence – we are filled with commercials. These thorns keep those of us who profess faith from realizing its meaning or following its demands; the life of faith is crowded out by a tangle of appetites. And the thorns keep those of us who do not believe from coming to believe by making faith seem untenable – or uninteresting.

Therefore if we are to hear the word of God rightly – if we are to hear it and bear fruit – then we must free ourselves from these thorns. We must cut them down, rip them up, burn them. If we do not obey this part of God’s word, then we will be simply unable to receive that word. We must free ourselves from worries and riches and pleasures of this life. We must practice self-denial, and self-control. We must realize that life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. We must not store up treasure on earth, to be destroyed and to destroy us, but we must instead store our treasure in heaven, safe for eternity. We must stop serving wealth, and serve only God – for a person can serve just one master. Then and only then can we escape being choked and fruitless, and hope to hear God’s word in “an honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance” (3). And that fruit will include true life, with love and service growing up in place of thorns.

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1) Luke 8:4-15
2) Mark 4:3-20
3) Matthew 16:24, Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23, Acts 24:24-25, 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, Galatians 5:22-23, 2 Peter 1:5-7, Matthew 6:19-25, Luke 8:15; see also 1 Timothy 6:7-10

Life Together

Here are some excerpts from Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

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It is not simply to be taken for granted that the Christian has the privilege of living among other Christians. Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. At the end of all his disciples deserted him. On the Cross he was utterly alone, surrounded by evildoer and mockers. For this cause he had come, to bring peace to the enemies of God. So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work. “The Kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared?” (Luther).

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I have community with others and I shall continue to have it only through Jesus Christ. The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede, and more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us. We have one another only through Christ, but through Christ we do have one another, wholly, and for all eternity.

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In Christian brotherhood everything depends upon its being clear right from the beginning, first, that Christian brotherhood is not an ideal, but a divine reality. Second, that Christian brotherhood is a spiritual and not a psychic reality.

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The basis of all spiritual reality is the clear, manifest Word of God in Jesus Christ. The basis of all human reality is the dark, turbid urges and desires of the human mind. The basis of the community of the Spirit is truth; the basis of human community of spirit is desire. The essence of the community of the Spirit is light, for “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5) and “if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another” (1:7). The essence of human community of spirit is darkness, “for from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts” (Mark 7:21). It is the deep night that hovers over the sources of all human action, even over all noble and devout impulses. The community of the Spirit is the fellowship of those who are called by Christ; human community of spirit is the fellowship of devout souls. In the community of the Spirit there burns the bright love of brotherly service, agape; in human community of spirit there glows the dark love of good and evil desire, eros. In the former there is ordered, brotherly service, in the latter disordered desire for pleasure; in the former humble subjection to the brethren, in the latter humble yet haughty subjection of a brother to one’s own desire. In the community of the Spirit the Word of God alone rules; in human community of spirit there rules, along with the Word, the man who is furnished with exceptional powers, experience, and magical, suggestive capacities. There God’s Word alone is binding; here, besides the Word, men bind others to themselves. There all power, honor, and dominion are surrendered to the Holy Spirit; here spheres of power and influence of a personal nature are sought and cultivated. It is true, in so far as these are devout men, that they do this with the intention of serving the highest and the best, but in actuality the result is to dethrone the Holy Spirit, to relegate Him to remote unreality. In actuality, it is only the human that is operative here. In the spiritual realm the Spirit governs; in human community, psychological techniques and methods. In the former naïve, unpsychological, unmethodical, helping love is extended toward one’s brother; in the latter psychological analysis and construction; in the one the service of one’s brother is simple and humble; in the other service consists of a searching, calculating analysis of a stranger.

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[I]t is precisely in retreats of short duration that the human element develops most easily. Nothing is easier than to stimulate the glow of fellowship in a few days of life together, but nothing is more fatal to the sound, sober brotherly fellowship of everyday life.

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Praying and working are two different things. Prayer should not be hindered by work, but neither should work be hindered by prayer.

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Work plunges men into the world of things. The Christian steps out of the world of brotherly encounter into the world of impersonal things, the “it”; and this new encounter frees him for objectivity; for the “it”-world is only an instrument in the hand of God for the purification of Christians from all self-centeredness and self-seeking. The work of the world can be done only where a person forgets himself, where he loses himself in a cause, in reality, the task, the “it.” In work the Christian learns to allow himself to be limited by the task, and thus for him the work becomes a remedy against the indolence and sloth of the flesh. The passions of the flesh die in the world of things. But this can happen only where the Christian breaks through the “it” to the “Thou,” which is God, who bids him work and makes that work a means of liberation from himself.

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Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. He will only do harm to himself and to the community. Alone you stood before God when he called you; alone you had to answer that call; alone you had to struggle and pray; and alone you will die and give an account to God. You cannot escape from yourself; for God has singled you out. If you refuse to be alone you are rejecting Christ’s call to you, and you can have no part in the community of those who are called. “The challenge of death comes to us all, and no one can die for another. Everyone must fight his own battle with death by himself, alone. … I will not be with you then, nor you with me” (Luther).

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Each [aloneness and community] by itself has profound pitfalls and perils. One who wants fellowship without solitude plunges into the void of words and feelings, and one who seeks solitude without fellowship perishes in the abyss of vanity, self-infatuation, and despair.

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This brings us to a point at which we hear the pulsing heart of all Christian life in unison. A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses. I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner. This is a happy discovery for the Christian who begins to pray for others. There is no dislike, no personal tension, no estrangement that cannot be overcome by intercession as far as our side of it is concerned. Intercessory prayer is the purifying bath into which the individual and the fellowship must enter every day. The struggle we undergo with our brother in intercession may be a hard one, but that struggle has the promise that it will gain its goal.

How does this happen? Intercession means no more than to bring our brother into the presence of God, to see him under the Cross of Jesus as a poor human being and sinner in need of grace. Then everything in him that repels us falls away; we see him in all his destitution and need. His need and his sin become so heavy and oppressive that we feel them as our own, and we can do nothing else but pray: Lord, do Thou, Thou alone, deal with him according to Thy severity and Thy goodness. To make intercession means to grant our brother the same right that we have received, namely, to stand before Christ and share in his mercy.

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Often we combat our evil thoughts most effectively if we absolutely refuse to allow them to be expressed in words.

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Where the discipline of the tongue is practiced right from the beginning, each individual will make a matchless discovery. He will be able to cease from constantly scrutinizing the other person, judging him, condemning him, putting him in his particular place where he can gain ascendancy over him and thus doing violence to him as a person. Now he can allow the brother to exist as a completely free person, as God made him to be. His view expands and, to his amazement, for the first time he sees, shining above his brethren, the richness of God’s creative glory. God did not make this person as I would have made him. He did not give him to me as a brother for me to dominate and control, but in order that I might find above him the Creator.

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Because the Christian can no longer fancy that he is wise he will also have no high opinion of his own schemes and plans. He will know that it is good for this own will to be broken in the encounter with his neighbor. He will be ready to consider his neighbor’s will more important and urgent than his own. What does it matter if our own plans are frustrated? Is it not better to serve our neighbor than to have our own way?

But not only my neighbor’s will, but also his honor is more important than mine. “How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?” (John 5:44). The desire for one’s own honor hinders faith. One who seeks his own honor is no longer seeking God and his neighbor. What does it matter if I suffer injustice? Would I not have deserved even worse punishment from God, if He had not dealt with me according to His mercy? Is not justice done to me a thousand times even in injustice? Must it not be wholesome and conducive to humility for me to learn to bear such petty evils silently and patiently?

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My sin is of necessity the worst, the most grievous, the most reprehensible. Brotherly love will find any number of extenuations for the sins of others; only for my sin is there no apology whatsoever. Therefore my sin is the worst. He who would serve his brother in the fellowship must sink all the way down to these depths of humility. How can I possibly serve another person in unfeigned humility if I seriously regard his sinfulness as worse than my own? Would I not be putting myself above him; could I have any hope for him? Such service would be hypocritical. “Never think that thou hast made any progress till thou look upon thyself as inferior to all” (Thomas à Kempis).

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Nothing can be more cruel than the tenderness that consigns another to his sin. Nothing can be more compassionate than the severe rebuke that calls a brother back from the path of sin. It is a ministry of mercy, an ultimate offer of genuine fellowship, when we allow nothing but God’s Word to stand between us, judging and succoring. Then it is not we who are judging; God alone judges, and God’s judgment is helpful and healing. Ultimately, we have no charge but to serve our brother, never to set ourselves above him, and we serve him even when we must speak the judging and dividing Word of God to him, even when, in obedience to God, we must break off fellowship with him.