THURSDAY OF ADVENT 1

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.

MATTHEW 21:45-46

In his book, Jesus and the Disinherited, theologian Howard Thurman explores the significance of Jesus to people who stand “with their backs against the wall.”

Israel, in Jesus’ time, was dominated by Rome. Therefore, its people endured political oppression coupled with economic exploitation.

As its people struggled for survival under the yoke of Roman rule, they often turned on each other.

Tax collectors, for example, were fellow Jews who worked for the Roman government. Their wealth came at the expense of their fellow citizens. Corruption, for them, was an ordinary business practice. They profited dishonestly from their own people.

Then there were the religious leaders – the Pharisees. They were devout Jewish religious experts dedicated to observing the law. The Roman government would allow Israel to practice its religion so long as it didn’t inspire or promote insurgence. To that end, it was the Pharisees who were charged with the responsibility of keeping the people in line.

But Jesus made them uneasy. A close reading of the parable Jesus tells in the Gospel reading will reveal why.

Jesus came to bring hope to the poor, the marginalized, and the vulnerable – the same people the Pharisees were in charge of controlling.

Thurman’s little gem of a book, originally published in 1949, can be considered as a precursor to what we know today as liberation theology.

Thurman’s asserts that Christianity, in its modern interpretation, seems incapable of dealing with issues of discrimination and injustice. Whereas Jesus came to bring good news to the poor, the oppressed, and the disinherited, his message has become misconstrued by the powerful in society into an instrument of persecution and control.

“Too often,” Thurman writes, “the price exacted by society for security and respectability is that the Christian movement in its formal expression must be on the side of the strong against the weak.” [1]

We are seeing these perversions today in the Christian nationalist movement, which seeks to define the United States in religious terms, conflating love of God with love of country, and stressing loyalty to the flag as much as to the cross.

Many politicians have aligned themselves with the Christian nationalists, scapegoating immigrants, people of color, middle eastern refugees, Muslims, the LBGTQ+ community, and anyone who looks, speaks, acts, or believes differently from what they perceive America must continue to be in the future.

In the eyes of many, the church has become like the Pharisees. It sees what is happening but fails to speak out against these injustices.

The church is God’s chosen instrument for accomplishing God’s mission here on earth, but something seems to have gone terribly wrong with that instrument, like the religious leaders in scripture who ignore the cries for help and compassion from those whom God has called us to care for.

As he called the Pharisees, Jesus calls us to not turn a blind eye to the cries of the oppressed.

Jesus calls us, his church, to be an alternative vision of society, to open our world by taking down the walls and barriers that divide us and make us strangers to each other. The challenge to the church is to be the presence of Christ for the vulnerable.

Advent would be the opportune time to recommit ourselves to that mission.

Let us pray:
God of love and mercy, you gather us into your church as the body of Christ in the world. May we, by the guidance of your Spirit, seek to heal the brokenness of this world, that it be turned to love and hope. Amen.

[1] Thurman, Howard: Jesus and the Disinherited (Boston: Beacon Press, 1976) p. 12

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