Got Stuff

 

We’re going to zero in on Jesus’ parable of the rich man in Luke 12.  The setting, context and backdrop for the rich man story is Roman-Hellenistic socio-cultural milieu, first century Palestine.

 Although only the rich man is mentioned, he is not a solitary individual without obligations and responsibilities.  He is embedded in a web of relationships.  He would have been client to a more powerful and resourceful patron to whom he owed loyalty and a share of his produce.  The patron would have provided a kind of umbrella protection enabling the rich man to enjoy life within his own sphere of influence.

 Within that sphere of influence, the rich man would be a patron.  He would be served by persons dependent upon his power and resources for their own well-being.  They provide him public honor and personal service.  He provides them food, shelter and protection.

 It is consistent with a patriarchal elitist social structure to mention only one person---the “rich man.”  It would be evident to first century listeners and readers, however, that the rich man was embedded in and his very existence made possible by a social structure that included his patron and, in all likelihood, an entire village of dependent males---not to mention women and children---who, apart from the gospels, were all but invisible.

 We also need to understand how “riches” were understood in first century Palestine.  The “economic pie” was fixed.  It neither shrunk nor grew.  All the world’s goods had already been distributed.    Further gain could only come from someone else’s loss.  This is what is meant by the phrase “zero-sum.”  My gain, your loss---and visa versa.

 The patron-client system ensured that the fixed amount of goods in the world served everyone’s interests---understood, of course, in first century Mediterranean terms.  As the parable intimates, as people well knew, it just about never did.  It’s a fairy tale (the part about serving everyone’s interests) ---not unlike the one about the invisible benevolent hand that guides market capitalism.  But, I digress---a little.

 The upshot is that the rich man’s bumper crop was not simply his to hoard.  It “belonged” to the whole social structure in which he was embedded.  As a client, he had a responsibility to his patron.  As a patron, he had a responsibility to his clients.

 Next, we want to inquire about “the voice”---the one that said to the rich man “You fool!  You fool!  Tonight your life is required of you.  Then, whose treasure will be in those big barns?”  Whose voice is that?  Is it really God’s voice?

 According to Luke, Jesus tells the tale.  In the parable, the voice is God’s.  But, I’m confused.  Didn’t Jesus say that whoever calls his brother “Fool” does violence (Matthew 5:22)?  Didn’t Jesus say it was a kind of murder to call your brother “Fool

 In NRSV Bibles, several Greek words are translated “fool”.  Though differently nuanced, each Greek word is within the same “family” of meanings:  witless, clueless, empty headed.  They come to roughly the same thing.  It isn’t flattering. 

 If we take Jesus’ meaning in Matthew, each of these words for “fool” inflict a kind of violence, a murderous violence, to the ones toward whom they are directed.  So, why is God calling someone “Fool”?  Is God feeling murderous toward the rich man? 

 Is this just the way it is with God---sometimes?  In Genesis, God tells Abraham to kill his only son---then, changes his mind---just testing.  In Exodus, God tries (unsuccessfully) to kill Moses.  God (successfully) killed all the Egyptian first born.  God requires the invading Hebrew tribesmen to kill everyone unfortunate enough to be already living in the Promised Land. 

 God was angry with humankind, so (out of love) he had his own son killed (John 3:16).  God killed a man and his wife because they lied about a financial gift to the church (Acts 5:1-10)).  Jesus is coming again to send sinners off to eternal torment (Revelations).  Enough.  You know what?  I’m not buying any of this.  Are you?

 I don’t believe it is God’s voice in the parable.  I suspect the murderous voice is the betrayed, angered, and avenging voice of the rich man’s dependent community.  By hoarding his bumper crop, he steals from the social collective.  The voice sounds to me like the rebellious voice of the cheated. They cry out, “You fool.  Tonight you will die.  Then we will attack your precious barns.  Stupid fool.” 

 There is a stream of teaching in our own Bible that can only be described as “a violent God” tradition.  By composing or incorporating (either way) this story into his Gospel, Luke is merely continuing the violent God tradition he has inherited (as Matthew would say) “according to Scripture.”

 I asked a children’s Sunday school teacher if she had any problems with the God violence in the Bible.  “No,” she said, “That’s not the God I believe in.  We just don’t bring up that stuff with the children.”  Wow!  Out of the mouths of children’s teachers….

 Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer’s 2003 book Is Religion Killing Us?: Violence in the Bible and the Quran shows that when Osama bin Laden quotes the Quran in support of his call to Holy War (Jihad) against America and Israel, he is not distorting his tradition.  He is being faithful to the violent God images in the Quran. 

 When Prime Minister Ariel Sharon quotes Hebrew scripture in support of bulldozing Palestinian villages and the assassination of Palestinian leaders, he is not distorting his religious tradition.  He is being faithful to the violent God images in Hebrew Scripture. 

 When President George Bush, a public Christian, explains that his war on terrorism is grounded in his faith, he is not distorting religious tradition.  He is being faithful to the violent God images in the New Testament as well. 

 If we truly want constructive relations among all peoples, in Jesus’ name we must categorically denounce and reject the violent God traditions in our sacred texts, the Old and New Testaments.

 I’m not talking about passively ignoring certain passages after the manner of the children’s Sunday school teachers---as important as that is and as grateful to them as I am for leaving aside those images of a violent God.  Don’t you wish some prominent leader Christians had had our Sunday school teachers when they were young?

 As long as “violent God” traditions remain unchallenged in scripture, they inform, authorize, and energize whoever wants to use violence for their cause. 

 There are those who say, “You cannot pick and choose what you like in the Bible.  You must accept the whole scripture.” 

 But that’s just not true.  Jesus showed that you must pick and choose.  “You have heard ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’ but I say….”  “You have read in sacred scripture ‘love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say….”  I believe Jesus calls us to continue separating violent from non-violent images and to reject the former.

 I do not believe God plagued the Egyptians, killed their first born sons, evicted the Canaanites from the Promised Land, required the death of his Son or anyone else.  I do not believe that Jesus is coming again at the head of a host of heavenly warriors to put right all wrongs and punish evildoers.  I do not believe God said “Vengeance is mine,” authorized the Crusades, or threatened and intimidated the rich man.

 Now, where were we?  God is not going to kill the rich man to resolve problems arising from his anti-social decision.  In that case, what is to be done? 

 Where do we come in?  Let’s acknowledge that this is all relative.  Someone has written that a knight in a suit of silver armor could, upon meeting a knight in gold armor, feel that he was a “have-not.”  All of us fit the first century qualification of being rich in that we have our daily bread---and more. 

 In the wide wide world, we are certainly embedded in the privileged and powerful First World.  We are more nearly in the defensive position of the rich man rather than the have-not position of his neighbors or, for that matter, most of the world, but, as I said, it’s relative. 

 In all likelihood, there will be violence.  What we know about violence?

 We know about institutional or structural violence.  Social systems often are organized to protect the concentration of power and wealth in the hands of a privileged minority.  There was the Pax Romana.  There is the Pax Americana.  Just about all societies seem to be organized in this way. 

 This form of violence is legal in the sense that those in power make the laws and enforce them.  The consequences of this kind of violence are hunger, oppression, dehumanization of the unprivileged.  The capacity and will to exercise superior violence maintains this first kind of violence---institutional or systemic violence.  Systemic violence works---mostly.  The British Empire was able to sustain colonial interests for generations. 

 And we know that because institutional and systemic violence oppresses a majority of persons, it tends to evoke resistance---both passive and active.  Active violent resistance, rebellion, is the second kind of violence.  It just about never works since it is directed against a superior violent force.  Terrorism and guerilla wars are examples of rebellion. 

 The American Revolution, on the other hand, is an example of rebellion that was successful.  The relatively powerful and elite among victorious rebels tend to erect their own forms of institutional and systemic violence to protect their own positions of power.  An example would be the Bolshevik Revolution in early twentieth century Russia.

 And we know about the third kind of violence:  repressive violence, the overt response of entrenched powers to rebellion.  An example would be the police dog response to non violent integration efforts in the southern U.S. mid century.  This usually serves to keep the lid on a while longer. 

 Repressive violence proved unsuccessful against a number of national non-violent resistance campaigns however (for example, black civil rights in U.S., the gaining of Indian independence from Great Britain.)

 The fourth form of violence has several names but we know it well.  It arises as community breaks down.  In the work place, it’s called horizontal violence because it’s directed at peers.  Anger is shifted away from oppressive powers that be and toward one’s own community.  Crime in general and black on black violence are examples. 

 The fifth form of violence, the one that has caught my attention today, is spiritual violence.  It under girds all other forms of violence.  Even criminals believe in a God who punishes, gets even, distinguishes between insiders and outsiders.  Nothing changes.   

 Now, we got stuff.  Voices (predictably) are calling for violence.  If we reject the voice of a violent God, we have to find better ways of negotiating life on earth.

 Blessings.

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