A Response to Empire
Processions into Jerusalem were not unusual in the time of Jesus, and historians Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan believe that there was more than one on the day we refer to as Palm Sunday. The Passover celebration was taking place, so the Roman authorities knew the Jewish residents of this city they occupied might be more likely than usual to harbor anti-empire sentiment. Unfortunately, the residents of Jerusalem were accustomed to the presence of foreign armies. They’d survived the Assyrian threat that conquered Israel, but had suffered greatly at the hands of the Babylonians, who destroyed Jerusalem and its temple. The Persians allowed them to rebuild the temple, but were still occupiers.
There was a period of time after that when a revolt led by the Maccabees resulted in Jewish self-rule for about a hundred years. Sadly, that ended when the Romans arrived about 60 years before Jesus was born. (Borg & Crossan, 12)
Pilate’s procession into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday included a “column of imperial cavalry and soldiers” to help remind any revolt-minded residents of “the power of empire.” Borg and Crossan ask us to picture
cavalry on horses, foot soldiers, leather armor, helmets, weapons, banners, golden eagles mounted on poles, sun glinting on metal and gold . . . the swirling of dust” and to hear “the marching of feet, the creaking of leather, the clinking of bridles, [and] the beating of drums. (Borg & Crossan, 2)
The Romans believed their emperors should be worshiped as gods. They permitted the existence of the temple in Jerusalem, but not without their control. Both local and Roman taxes were paid through the temple, and the authorities there were willing to ignore Jewish teachings about justice to accommodate and enforce such practices. It was an unholy marriage of church and state, and, sadly, the elite within the former were willing to cooperate if it ensured them power and wealth.
But we wouldn’t know anything about that today…
Who are the emperors demanding our loyalty and subservience? What systems do we support that allow a handful of people to live extravagantly while many are barely getting by (and some not at all)?
The twists and turns of my careers have provided me some insight into how our monetary laws and policies make it difficult for those with little. I began my professional life as a school teacher. That offered a somewhat secure path forward in terms of benefits and growth, but the year I entered the work force was very tight financially. I didn’t receive any help from the system when paying the security deposit for my apartment, for repairs on the car that got me to work, or for groceries.
After a few years of working in schools and taking on debt, an interest in technology led me to begin a career in the corporate world. This resulted in higher salaries and, oddly, to more systemic help in escaping debt. Take for instance three very costly entitlement programs enjoyed by those with means: the 401k tax deduction, the health insurance deduction, and the mortgage interest deduction.
Thanks to the first of these, the money one contributes to a 401k plan is paid for with pre-tax dollars. But one must have enough money to save for retirement (and an employer large enough to offer such a plan) in order to benefit from this. What about the people who don’t?
How about the health insurance deduction? This is great for those who have employer-provided health insurance. What about those who don’t have health insurance?
The interest one pays on a mortgage is also tax deductible, even if you have more than one home! What about those who don’t have a home at all?
We have a system that is willing to set aside billions to reward those who can afford to save for retirement, who receive health insurance from their employer, and who can afford to buy a house. Meanwhile, many are immersed in debt, have no health insurance, and live unhoused.
I’ll admit that I benefited significantly from all of these programs, and I’m guilty of never complaining about them. I was happy when I finally escaped debt. But it would have been nice to never have been in debt in the first place!
The later years of my career in cyber security, which included my highest-earning years, brought a more stunning realization. I noticed that at one point during the year my take-home pay jumped substantially. I compared the previous and current pay stubs and realized that the latter showed no money taken out for Social Security. I thought a mistake had occurred, but research revealed that those contributions are capped. No matter how much your salary beyond that certain amount, no additional money is withheld for that tax, which is a burden for so many lower wage earners.
This wasn’t the last discovery I made during those years about how the system favors those with more, but it was notable. The fact that income made through investments is taxed at a lower rate than income made from actually working is also telling.
So where do the tax dollars that are unfairly burdening people with lower incomes going? Roughly half of our federal budget goes to supporting the military industrial complex, including a defense contractor I visited during my last career. Theirs was one of the most extravagant office spaces I’ve seen, from its large graphic displays to its white leather conference room chairs.
We also know that a substantial amount of tax money goes to subsidize fossil fuel production, which exacerbates the climate catastrophe and leads to current and future suffering.
The list goes on, but you don’t have to look far to see the interplay between our elected officials and corporate executives, all of whom seem to get by just fine while far too many struggle.
As a contingent of the military industrial complex of Rome was entering Jerusalem from the west to provide protection to the local elites on that first Palm Sunday, a more grassroots spectacle was occurring on the east side of town. (Borg and Crossan, 2)
As Douglas Ottati describes the arrival of Jesus,
There is no prince’s army and no marching band. There is no flashy stallion, no elegant saddle, no red carpet, and no royal coat of arms. No party of dignitaries comes out to greet Jesus and hand him the keys to the city. . . . Jesus rides into town on a young borrowed donkey (Matt. 21:1–7). He sits on the cloaks of his disciples, and the crowds throw their cloaks in his path. . . . The whole thing is almost a spoof of a royal procession. (Ottati, 452–453)
This is not the behavior expected of a king, but it is the behavior of the king of kings. And his audience did not consist of the powerful or those seeking power; they were those on the margins — the poor, the oppressed, and the overlooked.
Ottati continues by writing that
not only is Jesus’s entrance into Jerusalem portrayed as somewhat provocative and bizarre — the ramshackle entrance of a beggar king, a rabble-rousing leader, having yet another good time with crowds of peasants. But as far as the Gospels are concerned, and as they amply foreshadow, Jesus is entering the royal city not to be enthroned in a palace but to be arrested, unjustly condemned, beaten, mocked, and crucified. (Ottati, 453)
You sometimes hear it said that Jesus suffered capital punishment as an innocent man, but he was certainly guilty of failing to worship the emperor and pointing to a power higher than Rome. He also continued the tradition of earlier Jewish prophets, who championed the needs of the poor over those of the privileged. And his teachings reflected Jewish laws that were not compatible with the Roman system of taxation through the temple, such as those against charging interest (Leviticus 25:36–37 & Deuteronomy 23:19–20), as well as Deuteronomy 15’s commands to forgive debts every seven years and lend enough to meet everyone’s needs.
The kin-dom of God that Jesus embodied and practiced was so foreign to the powers and principalities of his day that it resulted in his death. Sadly, that kin-dom sometimes seems just as foreign now as it was then.
Imagine what would happen to our financial systems if they had to accommodate Biblical laws like those disallowing the collection of interest, the forgiveness of debt every seven years, and equal apportionment of land (Numbers 26:52–56). Sadly, our systems were created by the wealthy to most benefit the wealthy, and to benefit the middle class just enough to keep us pacified.
I often hear it said that we live in a polarized society, and I think that benefits those in power. When I talk to people about what is important to them, though, I find there is a broad range of consensus about many issues. Most people don’t like that policy and politicians are for sale to the highest bidder. Most people don’t like that many people live on the street when others have extra homes that often sit empty. Most people don’t like that many children experience hunger in a country where 30% of the food we produce is discarded.
We’re told that these problems are very complex, and potential solutions are presented in polarizing fashion to perpetuate gridlock. Meanwhile, the Pilates and Herods of our day continue to collect their paychecks.
Is our country incapable of mobilizing on a large scale? If you think we’re not, recall that we’re observing the 20th anniversary of a war that was fought because we found some tubes in Iraq. That endeavor took only a few months to bring about, but cost trillions of dollars; resulted in the deaths of thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis (many of them civilians); enriched many defense contractors and fossil fuel companies; left many surviving veterans with mental, emotional, financial, relationship, and physical struggles; created a glut of military-grade weapons that are now used to police cities in our country; and created a massive debt that will be paid by younger generations who did not have a voice in whether we invaded.
Imagine for a moment the current and future suffering that could have been alleviated if we had devoted the resources spent on the Iraq war to tackling the climate catastrophe.
We live in a country with great potential and promise. Imagine what we could accomplish if our focus was on the greater good rather than those issues that the powerful promote in order to divide us.
Now imagine again the scene on the east end of Jerusalem when Jesus arrived. What was he trying to say to those who welcomed him? What does his entry say to us today? As with many messages of Jesus, there’s more to it than just what appears at the surface.
If the king of kings can be welcomed as humbly as Jesus was that day, why are we so willing to offer the corporate and government rulers of our time the wealth, influence, and accolades they enjoy? What does it mean to instead pledge our allegiance to a greater kin-dom?
Our world is broken now, just as was the Jerusalem into which Jesus rode on that first Palm Sunday. But God’s promise is not. The proper response to the would-be emperors of our day is still a humble but determined, peaceful but bold pursuit of the coming kin-dom.
Thanks be to God.
Amen.
Works Referenced
Borg, Marcus J. and John Dominic Crossan. The Last Week: The Day-by-Day Account of Jesus’s Final Week in Jerusalem. San Francisco, California: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006.
Boring, M. Eugene. “The Gospel of Matthew.” In New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume VII. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2015.
Gafney, Wilda C. A Women’s Lectionary for the Whole Church, Year W. New York City: Church Publishing, 2021.
Ottati, Douglas F. A Theology for the Twenty-First Century. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2020.
Rasell, Edith. “Universal Thriving.” Sojourners 52, no. 3 (April 2023): 26–29.
