The Subversive Message of The Sermon on the Mount Part 2

We left off last week with the statement Jesus made to his disciples and the crowd of people who all were comprised of the Peasant class of people from the Northeast African Community of African Jewish people of Biblical Palestine.

Jesus is talking to people that the European colonizers from Rome considered as nobodies, insignificant and disposable.

These peasants had no voice in the affairs of the state that governed their lives from the time they were born until the time they died.

The Jewish aristocracy that called for the murder of Jesus had to get permission from Pontius Pilate the Roman governor to execute Jesus; that’s how pervasive Roman rule was over the people of Palestine.

These peasant class people who lived basically in abject poverty and oppression had no health care, no health coverage and not even an emergency room to take their sick.

That is also why every time Jesus healed a person or gave a person back their life, it was an act of defiance against Rome and the system that would not only allow people to suffer and die but in many cases caused the premature deaths of most of the indigenous people.

Oppression creates stress among the peasant poor, and that stress is extremely unhealthy. That is why when you read the story of the woman with the issue of blood, it is in reality a story of a woman who has been stricken with a physical disease in her body as a direct result of the suffering and stress she endured under Roman occupation.

Therefore, when Jesus heals her, it was a blow of defiance against Rome. It was an act of rebellion against Roman authority and a show of solidarity with the poor. The same is true of the man in the Gospel of Mark who Jesus asked, “what is your name,” and his response was, “My name is legion, for we are many.”

Mark is demonstrating that this man had been severely affected by Roman oppression with a severe mental disorder that had him cutting himself, and living violently among the tombs in the graveyard.

When he said that his “name is legion,” Mark’s readers would have immediately understood that a legion meant a regiment of six thousand Roman soldiers occupying Palestine. Thus, the man is admitting that he has been plagued by too much of Rome’s oppressive policies and pernicious presence among them that were like demon possession.

Therefore, when Jesus says to these disallowed, disfavored and disinherited community of Black African Jewish people that “You are the Salt of the earth and the light of the world,” Jesus is putting steel in the backs of people whose backs have been up against the wall of pressure from an unjust society.

That is revolutionary talk that Jesus was uttering to peasant people.

These words of upliftment say to people of African Ancestry who now reside in the United States of America who know suffering all too well as Zora Neale Hurston once said, “I’ve eaten in sorrows kitchen and licked out all the pots.”

Jesus’ words are manna from heaven to Black and brown people today; those who have been starved of not only basic human rights but now are being further abused by judicial pandering to a criminal and his evil conglomerate of people who believe this nation was better off when women could not vote, could not apply for a credit card of their own, could not have control of their own bodies and who believe that Black people are better suited to serve them and not be equal to them.

Jesus’ words, “you are the Salt of the earth and the light of the world,” say to Black and brown people who are constantly stigmatized and stereotyped by the dominant society and its corporate media that falsely believe that Black and brown people are unqualified for positions via affirmative action.

In fact, Jesus’ words are a pushback to a President who would dare try to pit brown people against Black people by saying on National Television that immigrants are taking “Black Jobs.” What is a Black Job anyway?

Is it being “last hired and first fired?” Is it being overworked and underpaid? Is it being relegated to only the service industry, despite having advanced college degrees? What is a Black Job?

Jesus’ words are an act of defiance to a nation that would allow billionaires to literally buy elections and buy politicians and buy Supreme Court Justices, thanks to John Roberts and the Citizens United court case.

Jesus’ words are subversive to a society that rewards the wealthy and punishes the poor by showering the wealthy with tax breaks and handouts in the trillions but refuses to pay a living wage or provide universal healthcare for the least of these, while the very people who occupy Congress enjoy universal healthcare but deny their constituents the same benefits.

Jesus’ words are the first hammer strike in a bloodless revolution of values.

By the way, just as the peasants of Biblical Palestine in Jesus’ day did not have the ability to vote for who their electoral representatives were, the people of present-day Palestine have been denied the right to vote by the state of present-day Israel.

Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is more than spiritual and biblical exegesis, it is a word to those who are suffering systemic oppression that God has a preferential option for the poor and that they actually have more power than they realize, and God has assigned to those the task of building an alternative community where all are valued and all have enough of whatever it is they need simply because they are the apple of God’s eye.

Uhuru Sassa, beloved!

Rev. Dr. John E. Jackson, Sr. is the Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ-Gary, 1276 W. 20th Ave. in Gary. “We are not just another church but we are a culturally conscious, Christ-centered church, committed to the community; we are unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian.” Contact the church by email at [email protected] or by phone at 219-944-0500.