One is wise to take the critique of one’s enemies seriously as well as skeptically. Unlike our friends, our detractors have no motive for softening their unflattering observations. Karl Marx and his follower Vladimir Lenin famously attacked religion – specifically Christianity – as an opiate of the oppressed masses. They claimed that many found in the promise of eternal life a ready excuse for not working harder for a better life for themselves and their neighbors in the here and now. Sadly, their critique is justified when one looks at much of Christian history.
Many persons, either willfully in order to preserve their position of privilege or out of simple ignorance of Jesus’ actual teachings, have misunderstood Christ’s message of liberation to be one of spiritual redemption only.
Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matt.10:34) That doesn’t sound like someone who envisions his teaching becoming an opiate for the oppressed or something to make the suffering of the present tolerable. It sounds like one who challenges the assumptions, relationships, civic structures, and allegiances which make oppression and human-caused suffering possible in this life. It sounds like the advocate of a practical, powerful, and deeply relevant faith.
Inner transformation – a turning away from egotism, materialism, and human power structures – is a crucial first step for those who want to follow Jesus. Yet Christ does not intend that spiritual transformation be separated from the work of bringing about God’s Kingdom on earth. For Jesus, and first century followers like St. Paul, redemption of individual souls is inextricably linked to redemption of human society as a whole and to God’s birthing of a new creation.
Nor does Christ direct his followers to sit back and watch passively while God does all the work in bringing about this greatest of all revolutions. When we pray, “Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” we are to work for that which we pray. The Lord’s Prayer is a call to action, as well as a cry to God for assistance.
Jesus invites all who would follow him to join in this work of the New Creation. “As you go, proclaim the good news, ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’” (Matt.10:7) It is joining in the work of God and Christ in bringing about the Kingdom, that Christ identifies as the “cross” his followers must pick up and carry. Christ warns those who would let faith shrink to a societally irrelevant, otherworldly, opiate status: “whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” (Matt.10:38) Jesus contrasts such inaction with active, tangible, relevant faith.
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock.” (Matt. 7:24-25)
See you in church,
Pastor Derek