In his commentary on Luke’s gospel, New Testament scholar and former Anglican bishop N. T. Wright points out that when the angels announced Jesus’ birth, they claimed the titles of the emperor, Augustus Caesar, for Jesus. The baby lying in a manger in Bethlehem, not Augustus Caesar, is the world’s Savior, Lord and Peacemaker. This bold and treasonous declaration of the angels, Wright tells us, sets up a confrontation that runs throughout the whole gospel of Luke between the Commonwealth of God proclaimed by Jesus and the Empire of Caesar.
In light of the stories that follow in Luke’s gospel, the angels’ claim seems absurd. There is nothing imperial about Jesus’ life and teaching. They are, in fact, anti-imperial. The emperor has many palaces. Jesus has no place to lay his head. The emperor’s greatness is reflected in the glory surrounding him, and in his power to demand that others serve him whenever and however he pleases. No earthly glory surrounds Jesus. Born in a barn, he comes among us as the servant of all and teaches his followers that those who want to be great must be the servants of all, especially the most vulnerable among us. We see the contrast between Jesus and the emperor most dramatically at the end of their lives. The emperor is buried with the most elaborate of ceremonies in the most impressive of tombs, then deified and worshiped. Jesus is executed as a felon naked on a cross and buried in a borrowed tomb. If that were the end of the story, Empire would prevail in this confrontation, hands down.
If we’re I honest, don’t we have to admit that sometimes what’s going on in the world brings us to the brink of despair and tempts us to believe that Empire will, indeed, prevail. In those time we are on the verge of losing hope.
But then come the festivals of the Great Fifty Days—Easter, Ascension and Pentecost! These festivals celebrate mysteries we don’t fully understand, but their fundamental message it clear. They insist that neither the story of Jesus nor the struggle between the Commonwealth of God and Empire ends with Good Friday. They remind us that there is a more powerful force in the universe than violence, fear, and death on which the Empire relies to maintain its control. This is the power of the Spirit, the power of Love. Jesus promises us, his followers, that the Spirit will come and dwell in us and will give us this power. Through the power of the Spirit, the power of love, working in us, the Commonwealth of God will prevail in the world. Is this promise credible?
Paleontologist, priest, and mystic, Teilhard de Chardin, believed that it is. For him, love is not just as a quality of human relationships but a cosmic force. He wrote, “Love is the most universal, the most tremendous and the most mysterious of the cosmic forces…God is the divine, transcendent source of love that energizes evolution and… draws an entire universe… not just human history, toward an unfathomable fulfillment.” This fulfillment is the unity of all things in God. Teilhard believed that the cosmic force of Love, rooted in God, has been creating this cosmic unity by drawing together the isolated particles of the universe created by the Big Bang 14 billion years ago. He asserts that this unifying process is continuing today on the political, psychological and sociological levels, as evidenced by developments like the United Nations system and the globalization of consciousness and culture.
Where do humans fit in this cosmic process of integration? Teilhard believed that with the emergence of humans, a new era in evolution began. Humans can fight against love’s unifying power. Indeed, modern humans can blow up the whole planet and return it to the state of tohu-ve- bohu, the formless void and darkness that existed before God said, “Let there be light.” We have not yet done that, but powerful forces of fear, hatred and violence are doing all they can to undermine efforts toward global understanding and community and to delay or prevent the emergence of God’s Commonwealth on earth. Empire is the most powerful source of organized resistance to God love. Empire seeks to prevent the coming of God’s Commonwealth on earth by creating incomplete and false tribal unity based on force that pits “them” against “us.
Humans also have the power to cooperate with God’s love that is moving the world toward the Reign of God. Many have done so in small or large ways and they have made a difference. That is the mission Jesus gives all of us in today’s readings. We are to go bring Jesus’ message of love and the coming Reign of God to the ends of the earth, teaching all people the embrace the love commandment and welcoming them into the Commonwealth of God.
Individuals and communities caught up in this love movement inevitably come into conflict with Empire. Jesus warns us of this. “You will be brought before kings and governors because of my name,” he tells his followers. Over the centuries, many of Jesus’ followers have indeed been and continue to be persecuted. The hardest of all Jesus teachings is that we are not only to stand up to Empire, but to love even those who persecute us and seek to do us harm as he did when prayed from the cross for those who nailed him there.
Unfortunately, Jesus’ message about the coming of God’s Reign to earth has often been wrongly interpreted both politically and spiritually. Politically, it’s been interpreted as just one more Empire. That interpretation is still with us in Christian Nationalism. It has also been interpreted in a completely other-worldly way. Both dangers are addressed in today’s reading from Acts. “Is now the time you are going to restore the rule to Israel,” the disciples ask Jesus. “You don’t need to know that,” Jesus replies. “What you need to know is that you are to be my witness here on earth.” A little later, two men in white appear and say to the disciples, “Why are you looking up into heaven. This Jesus will come as you saw him go.” Your job is to be his witnesses, to go to ends of the world with his message of the coming Commonwealth of God, to challenge the power of violence and brute force with the power of love. But first wait and open yourselves to the Holy Spirit. Then go, full not of yourselves and your own power but of the Holy Spirit and the power of God.”
Heaven and earth. Contemplation and action. Faithful Christian discipleship requires both of these things in proper balance, according to the situation. May God give us the wisdom and courage to find that balance individually and as a community, and to be faithful witnesses to Jesus.
Amen