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Of
course, one of the big news stories of this past fall was the “Occupy”
movement that spread from city to city, around the world really,
starting around the middle of September. Primarily directed against
economic and social inequality, the movement began with a protest in
New York City’s Zuccotti Park, and soon spread to protests in 82
different countries worldwide, including hundreds of communities across
the United States. By the end of the year, estimates were that there
were more than 2800 “Occupy” communities worldwide.
It was (and still is, really, because it is still certainly going
on in many places), was a widespread movement, certainly, and difficult
to summarize in just a few words. Its list of demands varied from city
to city, as did the particular makeup of its cohorts. But the Occupy
Movement seemed to focus on the question of growing economic disparity
in modern society, and the sense that (no, the fact that) more and more
wealth was being concentrated in the hands of an economic and social
elite (the so-called “1 percent”), to the detriment of the vast
majority of society (hence the slogan, “We are the 99%.)
But whatever we think of the politics of the Occupy Movement (and
I am sure that most of you can guess what I think of its politics:
Along with Cornel West, I am hopeful that it does, indeed, represent
the birth of a great “political awakening” in American history; I am
hopeful,. If not convinced), I think that its modus and methods—its
overriding ethos and spirit—can help us as we consider other deeper
issues, as well. It provides us with a framework for viewing different
aspects of our lives, not just politics or economics. It is useful, I
think, to ponder what it means, truly to “occupy” something—to take it
over; to seize control of it; to reclaim something that has been taken;
to liberate once confined, or restricted, places or concepts for the
common good. For in so doing, we liberate ourselves to new
possibilities and new growth. We become occupied then, with a wondrous
new vision that changes everything, and restores our hope for these
lives we lead.
For those of us who care about
matters of faith in this world of ours, and who care about the abiding
truth of the Christian message in particular, the time has certainly
come to “Occupy the Gospel”: to reclaim the abiding message of the life
and teachings of Jesus; to liberate the Gospel message from the heavy
hand of narrow-mindedness and the marginalization of sentimentality; to
throw off the bonds of misogyny and homophobia which have too often in
the past corrupted the liberating message of Christianity, and changed
it into a tool of continued oppression.
God help
any religious prophets for the actions taken in their names by the
generations that followed them. How badly used an abused that name can
be. That’s true of Moses; it’s true of Mohammed; and it’s certainly
true of Jesus.
“Jesus saves” we’re told, by
bumper stickers, and billboards, and t-shirts and refrigerator magnets
and coffee mugs and what have you. And I don’t question the workings of
God’s grace, through Jesus Christ, in the hearts and souls of
individual believers throughout the centuries. The power of Jesus—his
example, his teachings, his grace—has saved countless souls and has
transformed untold lives. I don’t question that for a minute.
But all too often, the cross of Jesus has been turned on its
side, and has become a sword of conquest. All too often, the Bible has
been used as a cudgel to force free spirits into obedience, or as a
battering ram to force the institutions of the Church into places where
they have no business.
“They will know we are
Christian by our love,” the old Gospel hymn proclaims. If only it were
only true! The jury is still out on the efficacy of the Christian
church in this world of ours, and of its influence, for good or ill,
down through the past two thousand years. “The evils of the church that
now is are manifest,” Emerson said in his Divinity School Address in
1838. Were he alive today, he would have no reason to tone down his
comments.
As the Secretary General of the
Anglican Council in Great Britain said a few years ago: “In certain
parts of the world, the word ‘Christian’ has become an embarrassment
because it has been aligned with movements which are contrary to the
loving Christ that is at the heart of the [gospel] message. I hold my
head in shame to hear the name of Jesus being affiliated with political
movements that isolate, inhibit, and breed hate and discontent among
human beings.”
Let’s be honest: When someone
goes out of his or her way, as people will, to introduce himself
or herself to you as a “Christian” at a social or civic event, don’t
you start looking for a bush to hide behind? Aren’t the words that
start popping into your head most likely to be things like
“judgmental”, “narrow-minded”, “holier-than-thou”, or “intolerant”?
I don’t say this as someone who is out to bash either
Christianity or Christians. I say this as someone who loves the
Christian tradition, who has a deep affinity for its culture and
symbols and ritual and history. Nothing warms my heart more than
entering a church, and the older and more traditional that church is,
the better. I call myself a Christian, and I feel drawn more and more
to the Christian tradition, the older I get.
But in the perception of the world today, we know that “Jesus
saves” has become translated too often in the public mind as “Jesus
saves—if you think the way I do.” “Jesus saves—if you belong to my
particular church, and accept my particular interpretation of
scripture.”
“Jesus loves you—as long as you’re not a
liberal.” “Or a Democrat.” “Or believe women should have an
untrammeled right to control their own bodies”. “Or believe that people
of the same gender have the right to marry.” “Jesus loves you—as long
as you have all the ‘correct’ answers on this fifty-question survey of
your political and social attitudes.”
Christian fundamentalism is not Christianity.
Narrow-mindedness
which preaches that women should be subservient; that gays and lesbians
are perverts; that those who deviate from certain narrow social norms
(as defined by them) are bound for the fires of hell—this is not
Christianity, any more than the economics of Wall Street is social
justice and those who greedily hoard the world’s wealth for themselves
are “job creators”.
And just as we need to Occupy the citadels of
economic injustice and eventually liberate them, so too, the mantel of
“Christian” has to be wrenched from the hands of these self-serving,
self-righteous hypocrites.
But why should it even matter? Why
bother occupying the Gospel, trying to reclaim it? Why should we even
care if Jesus has been kidnapped by the Religious Right? Why, in this
post-modern, post-Christian world, should the gospel of Jesus even
matter to us anymore?
Because, very simply, to those of us who
consider ourselves Christian-- or even who consider ourselves, somehow,
in some way, to be descendants of the Jewish-Christian heritage-- or
even for those of us who think of ourselves as religious-- or even
“spiritual” beings, who refuse to surrender the whole of reality over
to a monolithic secularism— even for all of us who believe that there
is a spiritual side to this existence of ours—Jesus is important to us.
He is our religious brother, as much as he is the Christian Coalition’s
and the Religious Right’s.
“What matters [about Jesus],” David
McFarland writes, “are the deep truths put into the telling of his
life.” It is Jesus who teaches us how to stand up to authority, how to
speak truth to those in power, how to comfort the afflicted and afflict
the comfortable. “It is the Jesus who stood up to authority,” McFarland
continues, “who challenged the status quo, who wouldn’t let anyone
claim spiritual authority or material superiority or political
superiority”.
It is Jesus who reminds us that, when all is
done and said, that we all stand as equals as neighbors, as brothers
and sisters to one another, as sons and daughters of one Abba—Father--
“Our Father, which art in Heaven.”
The heart of the Gospel isn’t
about who to vote for, or who to sleep with, or who to marry. The heart
of the gospel consists of four things, four precious gifts which the
Christian faith offers.
First is the coming of
the Kingdom of God—the coming of an entirely new way of being with one
another, that will transform all relationships, transcend all barriers
that divide people from one another, and turn the old hierarchies and
pecking orders on their heads.
Second is our need to love one
another. Just as divine love and divine mercy beat at the heart of
creation, Jesus taught, so we respond to God’s love by loving one
another as ourselves. That is how we grow into the very image and
likeness of the God who created us.
The third lesson Jesus taught
was our need to hold concern for the poor and the downtrodden at the
center of our hearts. Te Gospel could not be clearer about this: “As
you have done to these, the least of my brethren, you have done unto
me.” Jesus never mentions homosexuality in the Gospels. He mentions
caring for the poor, the oppressed, the downtrodden, dozens of times.
It boggles my mind how people can call themselves Christians, and yet
turn their backs on the poor.
And the fourth call of Christianity
is the call to do justice: to seek to act with fairness and
righteousness and in all aspects of our lives, in every one of our
relationships.
This is the heart of the gospel: caring,
compassion, justice, and love. Those are the building stones from which
the kingdom of our hearts can be built. Those are the sacred spaces we
must occupy if the Christian faith is to be redeemed.
Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, religion editor for the Huffington Post, puts it this way:
“The
Gospel isn’t something that you ‘get right’ and then get on with
becoming godly. The gospel is an entire story of God’s ruling love over
creation and his activity to restore it to his original intent. The
gospel is a story that is meant to be occupied. Lived in. Soaked in…
The gospel is meant to be occupied. You have to… let the truth of it
sink down into the core of your being. Then it will change the aim of
your heart. Then it will change the way you think. Then it will change
the way you act.”
The example of Jesus is still “precious to the
world,” Theodore Parker once said, because Jesus “dared to live fully
and love deeply.”
Perhaps this is what “occupying the gospel” ultimately mans: daring to live fully and to love deeply.
If
we do that, and dare to occupy the gospel—or, more importantly, if we
let this good news occupy us—let it fill our hearts and souls, and
illumine our minds, and energize our bodies-- then that spirit that was
in Jesus can transform us, and transform our lives, as well, and remake
the face of this world, at last, in an image of compassion and justice.
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