How would you like it if someone spit on you? In our cultural setting it would be a sign of disrespect, an attempt to shame and humiliate a person. But for some cultures, it has an entirely different meaning. I am reading a wonderful book entitled Christianity Rediscovered. It is written by a priest who went to minister to the Masai tribe in Tanzania. The Catholic church had been present among the Masai building schools and hospitals, and ministering to the various needs of the people, but there were no visible results. Not one convert could be pointed to, even after 100 years of ministry among them. Vincent Donovan decided to go and simply tell the story of Jesus to them. He would look for things in the Masai culture and their traditions to find links to the Christian message. One of the most unusual traditions was what happened if a person sinned against another, especially if a son sinned against his father. The son would be banished from the community and shunned by the father’s friends. Donovan explains this unusual tradition in his own words: “Sometimes the peers of the father would encourage him to ask God for the “spittle of forgiveness” so that he could forgive his son and bring blessing once again on the village. Spittle, a very sacred element of a living, breathing human, was considered the sign of forgiveness. It was not just a sign, as we might be inclined to describe it, or an empty sign bereft of meaning. It was an African sign, which means it was a symbolism in which the sign is as real as the thing it signifies. (We might call it an effective sign, one in which the sign effects what it signifies. We could even call it a sacrament.) In other words, spittle was not just a sign of forgiveness. It was forgiveness. And so the father prayed to God for that spittle. Sometimes it was not granted him. He could spend the night on a mountainside praying for it. Sometimes it is given him. Whenever it is, word is sent immediately out to the bush to the guilty son. During that same period that son might have been advised time and time again by his own peers to return and ask forgiveness of his father. . . . If word does come that the spittle of forgiveness has been granted his father, he will be earnestly entreated by his peers to take advantage of it. They will accompany him back to the village. And his father will be waiting with the other elders. The two groups will cross from different sides of the village towards each other in the center. When they arrive there together, the son will ask his father’s forgiveness, and the father will spit on him, and forgiveness comes, and there is great rejoicing.”
Because of the Masai culture and traditions, they see being spit upon very differently than those of us who live in this culture. In fact, the two understandings of being spit upon could not be further apart. That’s what cultures and traditions do. They color our understanding of things and how we respond to them. The meaning of Jesus’ statements, which come from the Jewish culture and tradition which existed two thousand years ago, can be totally misunderstood by Christians living in the United States in the 21st century. We come from vastly different cultures which see things very differently. As a small example, if you entered my home and I asked you to take off your shoes and washed your feet, and then smeared olive oil on your head, you probably would not like it. You might think I was unstable. But these were common courtesies extended to guests in Jesus’ day. They would not sit at a table, but they would recline on one elbow on the floor to eat. There may be a small, low table, and there may not. As a good Jew, Jesus covered his head when he prayed. There was a myriad of cultural distinctives that Jesus observed with which we would be uncomfortable.
And even the people of Jesus’ day reacted and responded very differently to his message. People then, as now, were very different from each other. They saw things differently. They thought and reacted differently. They behaved differently. And certainly, they were different in their religious expression. There was not one unified way of being a Jew in Jesus’ day. There was not one definitive way of living for God. People’s response to the Scriptures varied greatly, as they do today. They had different understandings of what it meant to please God and live out their faith.
Let’s look at some of the different religious groups that existed in Jesus’ day. The first was: The Zealots. The Zealots believed it was wrong for Rome to occupy Israel. They refused to pay tribute to Rome, because the only king was the God of Israel. They were, after all, God’s people. Hadn’t God given them the Promise Land? Hadn’t God called them to be his special people? How could they be special when they were occupied by an evil nation? Did they not need to be free to practice their religion without interference from the Romans? Shouldn’t God’s people be free to rule themselves, or to put it better, to be ruled by God? After all, God had called them to be a holy nation, and that was not possible when it was occupied by pagans.
The zealots thought they knew for sure how to be the people of God and bring about his kingdom. The only way to do it was to liberate the nation with the sword. They believed it would please God to wipe out the infidels and restore the nation of Israel. The killing would be acceptable to God because it was for his cause. The Zealots were later called the Sicarii because of their use of the Sica, the Roman dagger. They were the terrorists of the day. A leader would rise up and gather a following of like-minded people, and they would strike and run. We read about a couple of these insurrectionists in the book of Acts: “Some time ago Theudas appeared, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men rallied to him. He was killed, all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing. After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt. He too was killed, and all his followers were scattered” (Acts 5:36-37). Interestingly, Jesus chose one of the zealots as his disciple — Simon the Zealot (Matthew 10:4). We don’t know whether he gave up his terrorist ideology or not, but it would have been difficult to stay around Jesus and not soon understand that the last thing on his mind was an insurrection. My hunch is that he gave up his former way of thinking for a new understanding of the kingdom.
Simon may have initially joined the group of disciples believing that Jesus was the Messiah, and that as the Messiah he would deliver Israel from Rome. Most of the Zealots drifted away from Jesus once they began to understand that he was not going to be the revolutionary Messiah they wanted him to be, and therefore, most of them did not really believe he came from God. Most of the followers of Jesus never completely gave up on this idea that Jesus would give them a political victory. What is interesting is that even after the resurrection, when Jesus appeared to the disciples, they said to him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6).
Times haven’t changed much. Many Christians still hold out hope for some kind of political movement that will bring the kingdom of God to the United States. We have high hopes and aspirations for a move of God that will bring about a Christian government, or at least one that will have identical values. It is a great idea, it’s just that God does not move through politics, because that is not how God brings about his kingdom. It is not through political structures, but through human hearts that God’s kingdom will come. Remember that Jesus said, “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20-21).
We still have zealots today who want the kingdom of God and the existing political powers to be one, even though Jesus steadfastly rejected that idea. And the reason is that he is interested in a kingdom that is beyond the United States or any other nation. We still don’t understand that it is a kingdom within us, not a structure over us. Many people became disillusioned in Jesus’ day when they realized that he was not a political messiah, and it is possible that people today will become disillusioned with Jesus for the same reason. It concerns me when a particular political party is seen as more Christian than another. The point is that neither political party is Christian, either in their principles or their nature. That’s not what a political party is. It is a mistake, I believe, to get more caught up in political causes than kingdom causes. It is dangerous not to realize there is a difference. The problem with investing in politics is that it will turn on you, and end up using you for its own purposes. I tremble for those whose politics and faith are so intermixed that they are barely distinguishable. Remember the words of Jesus: “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place” (John 18:36).
A second religious group that existed in Jesus’ day was: The Herodians. They were the opposites of the Zealots. They believed the way to gain political power was to cooperate with the pagan government, gain prestige, and become a part of the ruling system that controls the country. Run for office and exert your influence. Instead of rebelling against the government like the zealots, they supported and promoted it. It was they who tried to trap Jesus by asking, “Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” (Matthew 22:17). They wanted to accuse him of not being loyal to the government, and being loyal was extremely important to them. Many Christians in Germany found themselves doing this same thing during Hitler’s reign. Mistaking their actions for patriotism, they became Nazis and tragically corrupted their faith and went against the teachings of Jesus.
The third religious group was: The Pharisees. They were the religious conservatives. The Pharisees believed that the way for the kingdom of God to come was by following God’s rules. It was an easy formula: you follow God’s rules, God blesses you and brings about his kingdom. The kingdom comes through obedience. If a few rules are good, lots of rules are better. Follow the rules. Make more rules, and make sure everyone else follows the rules. The Messiah will come and God will deliver us if we only live purer lives. They believed that obedience was the key to pleasing God, and that if there were only more people like them the kingdom would come. Get rid of the drunks, the adulterers, the gays, and the abortionists and things will change.
There are still a few Pharisees around don’t you think? I’m not saying there is nothing wrong with the behaviors I mentioned, but there is something wrong with seeing them as “the problem.” There is something wrong with seeing rules as more important than relationships. There is a great deal wrong with seeing our relationship with God being built on our personal obedience and ability to keep rules, rather than our relationship with him. For the Pharisees there was a kind of spiritual superiority in being mean, judging others and telling people off. They rejected Jesus as the Messiah because he did not follow all the rules and traditions, and he associated with notorious sinners.
As I said, these were the religious conservatives. They believed all the right doctrine. Faith was a belief system. They followed the rules. But the interesting thing is that they were the ones most interested in killing Jesus — something which broke all the rules. Jesus was constantly in conflict with them. They, like the Herodians, had secured a place in the existing government, although they would have despised the comparison. But you remember that they gave as a reason for having the government kill Jesus, “If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation” (John 11:4).
A fourth religious group was: The Sadducees. These were the religious liberals, if you will. They were liberal in their doctrine because they did not believe in fundamental things like the resurrection. They only accepted the first five books of the Old Testament as Scripture. They had no problem doing business in the temple. But they too were political animals. They courted the favor of Roman officials and exerted power in the Jewish Sanhedrin. They were the wealthy class and they had much to lose if Jesus continued to oppose them. Interestingly, the Sadducees were mainly from the priestly party. They were, for the most part, professional clergy. Religion for them was carrying out the role given to them, and defined who they were. Religion was their job. And, obviously, we still have those folk with us today.
A fifth religious group was: The Scribes. The scribes, or teachers of the law, were the scholars. They had a position of prestige they did not want to lose. They were involved in the plan to have Jesus crucified. The Bible says, “Every day he was teaching at the temple. But the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the leaders among the people were trying to kill him” (Luke 19:47). The teachers of the law were the educated class. They were a professional class of scribes by the time of Jesus, and were responsible for interpreting the law. They were the experts called on in cases where people were accused of breaking the law of Moses. They were the religious lawyers which gave them enormous power in interpreting the law. For them, faith was about knowledge and correct interpretation of Scripture. Faith tended to be academic.
There are people today whose faith is limited to an academic exercise. They have little emotion surrounding their faith, and don’t talk much about their relationship with God, only the latest understanding of theological minutiae.
A sixth group was: The Essenes. They believed the answer to the current situation was to separate yourself completely from the world. They withdrew from the culture and formed their own religious community, basing their religion on austere religious disciplines and practices: washings, fasting, study, etc. They felt the world was sick beyond remedy and so they formed an alternative ascetic community in the wilderness. For them, separation from the world was the way to please God and remain faithful to him.
Now the point in all this is that each group thought they were right, and Jesus gave most of them serious trouble — and they worked to have him crucified. I often wonder what Jesus would say to us today if he returned today. How would he give us trouble, and how would we see him? Would we want him to go away? How much has our religious worldview been influenced by the culture around us? How much have we allowed our politics and social standing to interfere with the real message of Jesus? It certainly happened in Jesus’ day, and there is no reason to believe it is any different today. Do we have a worldview that has been formed by our culture and prevailing philosophies, or do we have Jesus’ worldview? That question concerns me a lot, because the problem is that we can be brainwashed by the culture without realizing it.
Do we understand the kingdom of God as coming in some dramatic way, or by manipulating the political system? Have we confused the kingdoms of this world with the kingdom of God? Do we understand the hidden kingdom of God that Jesus said was like yeast hidden in dough, or like a mustard seed hidden in the ground? Do we understand that faith is not about a belief system, a code of conduct, a reformed political system, or religious rules? It is about a relationship with God that grows more beautiful each day. It is about our relationships with other people that indicate the quality of our relationship with God. Are you willing to strip away the cultural influences and seek an intimate relationship with Jesus by rereading the Gospels and discovering him more profoundly? Jesus says to us what he said to the confused people of his day: “The time has come. The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15).
Rodney J. Buchanan
August 20, 2006
Mulberry St. UMC
Mount Vernon, OH
www.MulberryUMC.org
Rod.Buchanan@MulberryUMC.org
