Power
Luke 23:1-12
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I think it is safe to say that the trial of Jesus was something of a political circus. Late in the evening, after sharing the Passover meal with his students and friends, Jesus went out to the garden of Gethsemane to pray. The hour had come, and soon he would face his end. So, he prayed. He anguished. He begged God not to have to go through with it. He sweat blood. But soon enough they came and one of his own, Judas, betrayed him with a kiss. From there it was on to the High Priest’s house where the local religious council had gathered to make its accusation against him. He was creating a ruckus, threatening the status quo, claiming to be the Son of God of all things- blasphemy. But what could they do about it? Their hands were tied. Their hands were tied because their religious authority while considerable, and considerably influential was nevertheless limited. It was limited to the religious life, the religious sphere of the people. If they wanted something done, if they wanted this troublemaker dealt with, they would need someone with more power. They would need someone with the authority to do something about him. Which is how they ended up on Pilate’s doorstep.
Now something needs to be said here about who we are talking about, because the religious authority in question, the High Priest and the council, belong to the Jerusalem Temple. That is, they are Jewish. Of course they are. Jesus is Jewish, his parents were Jewish, his disciples were Jewish. The whole thing takes place in Roman-occupied Judea and Galilee. And what has to be said here is that what is at issue in this story, what is in play for Jesus and everyone else is not essentially about the Jewishness of these religious leaders. The tragic and shameful history of Christianity is the way in which the story of Jesus’ trial and crucifixion have been used over the centuries to justify anti-Jewish attitudes and acts of persecution and even genocide. So, before we continue with this story, I want to make it explicitly clear that any notions one may have about Jewish culpability in Jesus’ death are not only misplaced, they are dangerously misguided. It’s important to make the distinction between form and content. What I mean by that is that there isn’t anything inherent to Judaism, or the Jewish people that brought about these events. Rather it is the corruptible nature of religion in general, and the corruptibility of religious leadership of any kind that created these conditions. The variable in this toxic cocktail that will lead to Jesus’ death isn’t Judaism, it’s religion. Or perhaps even more accurately, religious power.
As writer and Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor puts it, “Jesus was not brought down by atheism and anarchy. He was brought down by law and order allied with religion, which is always a deadly mix.” The religious leadership didn’t like what Jesus was saying. They didn’t like the fact that he disrupted the commercial enterprise of the Temple system- overturning tables and chasing out money changers. They didn’t like his on-point critique of the ways they were selling out the integrity of their faith and the promise of God’s mercy in order to secure their own position and power by allying themselves with the power structure of Rome. One of the threads that runs through salvation history, one of the themes that emerges time and time again as God intervenes in the history of God’s people, is that God is rarely on the side of those who wield power in this world. God is not on the side of those who would oppress and enslave their fellow humans, deny and denigrate their humanity. God is on the side of the underdog, the overlooked, the afterthoughts. Not only does God appear to be unimpressed by the Pharaohs, the Nebudchadnezzars, the Herod's and the Caesars of this world. God is often the very one who actively subverts their power and pretense. Cozying up to that kind of leadership is a betrayal of the God who lifts up the lowly and brings down the mighty from their thrones.
And religious power is at its worst when it looks to earthly power, earthly law and order to do its dirty work, when it relies on the state to enforce and compel behavior it cannot. Jesus is raising questions that threaten the uneasy peace between the people and the occupying Roman forces. He’s undermining their authority, so the case must be made to Pilate, to the Roman governor, the one with the power to put an end to Jesus once and for all. They know they can’t get a verdict on their religious objections, so the they charge him with crimes against Rome: suborning tax evasion, challenging the primacy of the Emperor himself. Only Pilate isn’t buying it. He recognizes a fabricated charge when he sees it, and when he hears that the suspect in question comes from the region of Galilee to the North, he seizes on the chance to kill two birds with one stone.
The truth is that Pilate had absolute authority to make a decision about Jesus from the start. But the man looked harmless enough, hardly the type to lead an armed rebellion against Rome, regardless of what kind of King he might claim himself to be. And Pilate had other would-be Kings to deal with. Namely, Herod Antipas. Antipas was the son of Herod the Great, the Judean ruler who first welcomed the Magi of Matthew’s Gospel, the one who ordered the slaughter of the innocents. Herod Antipas had succeeded his father as Tetrarch of Galilee and Judea, and is the Herod responsible for having John the Baptist beheaded, the one Jesus referred to as a fax. As such he was, at least nominally, the ruler in charge of the region. By sending Jesus to Herod, Pilate didn’t have to involve himself in something that was clearly a local matter, and likely a religious one at that. It also gave him the chance to make nice with someone who wasn’t all that nice; someone who had to be reminded that Caesar was Lord, not Herod. It didn’t cost Pilate anything to put this off on Herod, in fact it looks like it may have bought him some good will. Like I said at the start, the whole thing was a political circus. To put it in terms a little closer to home, the whole thing was an exercise by the church to get the state to do its bidding, and the state trying to leverage its power to advance its own strategic interest in maintaining the status quo, business as usual.
Meanwhile, Herod just wants Jesus to do a trick for him, show him a sign. As the old song from Jesus Christ Superstar goes, “prove to me that you’re no fool/ walk across my swimming pool.” He is primarily interested in Jesus’ entertainment value, what this great Jesus Christ can do for him. And when he concludes that he can do nothing to entertain him, he too begins to mock and scorn him.
One after another, the powers of this world- religious, political, even nominal- encounter Jesus and do not know what to do with him. He defies their authority while confounding their efforts to categorize and classify him. In the end that may be the thing that is his undoing. It is his failure to conform to their expectations that ultimately gets him killed. His is a power that comes not from a religious system, or the force of arms, or the family name. His is a power that is unrecognizable to all forms of earthly power, and will not be used to advance their ends. He would rather die than let that happen. And so, he will.