REV. JOHN JACKSON
By Rev. John Jackson
I have been saying for over twenty years that the bible anticipates us. One of the ways that fascist dictators and the empires they rule gain forced influence is to either co-opt the religious aristocracy of a people or discredit or even eliminate the religious leadership of the people they are colonizing.
It seems the preferred tactic is to co-opt them and use them to control the people because discrediting and eliminating the religious leadership makes them martyrs for the people and fosters movements that rebel against the empire.
But co-opted religious leadership have become quite useful to tyrants who bribe them with both money and positions within the empire.
The lead up to the crucifixion of Jesus was orchestrated by the religious leadership of Jerusalem but not all the Jewish people. Jesus was actually popular among the people especially the poor but he was hated by the religious aristocracy who owed their wealth and privilege to Caesar and the Roman Empire.
The religious leadership of Jesus’ day were co-opted by Caesar and the Roman empire to make sure the taxes or tribute to Rome was collected and paid to Rome and to keep the peace among the indigenous North East African Jews.
For instance, there is a word in the gospel of John that gets overlooked. In that nineteenth chapter of the gospel of John the governor of Judea Pontius Pilate has expressed to the religious leadership that after examining the charges against Jesus, Pilate says “he has found no fault, to execute Jesus.” However, the religious leadership make two incriminating and outright damning statements to Pilate. They first tell Pilate, in verse 12 “If you let him [Jesus] go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.” Pilate then asked them in verse 15 “Shall I crucify your king?” To which they double down by saying “We have no king but Caesar, the chief priest answered.”
These two statements directly contradict their professed commitment to Yahweh in Deuteronomy chapters ten and eleven where Yahweh says, “what does the LORD your God require of you? Only to fear the LORD your GOD, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments of the LORD your God and his decrees…”
The religious leaderships of Jerusalem had sworn an oath to reverence, to serve, and to love only God and that devotion exclusively belonged to God and God alone.
Yet, here they are willingly breaking that oath to declare their fealty to Caesar a pagan ruler over their professed commitment to their God.
They commit the same tragic betrayal that their ancestors did when they demanded to have a king to rule over against the pleading of Samuel to not seek a king.
God then told Samuel that the religious leadership of Israel had in reality rejected God in order to have a severely flawed egotistical ruler by the name of Saul.
The bible anticipates us beloved. We see some religious leaders today swearing their fealty to a party, policies and severely flawed egotistical political leadership rather than standing up for the justice minded and love centered guidance of Jesus of Nazareth.
Far too many religious right-wing leaders today have declared “we have no king but the Caesars of today,” rather than the God of Love, the God of compassion, the God of generosity, and the God of justice.
Far too many today in evangelical religious leadership have turned away from advocating for the poor and disinherited to champion the racist and gluttonous aspirations of billionaires. In the gospel of Matthew, the twenty third chapter Jesus hurls a string of “woes,” to the religious leaders of his day and to the religious leadership of our day who elevate cash over Christ and have who have chosen greedy, merciless government personalities over God when Jesus says “woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them…Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith…Thus you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets…You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell?”
Perhaps this is why some evangelical religious leadership today rarely quote Jesus but choose to quote selected Old Testament texts or something the Apostle Paul said rather than quote what Jesus said in the Beatitudes.
Yes, the bible anticipates us, so Be well, Be authentic and Stay Woke! Uhuru Sassa!
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.