Love is a dangerous message to the powerful. When Elon Musk recently said, “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy,” he was telling us that love is a threat to capitalism. It gets in the way of the rich exploiting the poor for more riches. The powerful protect their power at all costs. They refuse love because love gives power away. Love shares power equally and equitably with the full spectrum of diversity that God has created in humanity.
In the gospel of Luke we find a story where Jesus is warned that Herod, Caesar’s puppet king of Israel, wants to kill him.1 However, Jesus seems alarmingly unconcerned and defiant: tell that fox, he says, that I’ve got better things to do than worry about him, but I’m going to Jerusalem because it’s impossible for a prophet to be killed outside that city. Jesus was traveling from town to town teaching and healing but also slowly making his way toward Jerusalem, a center of religious and political power. If you wanted to speak to power you went to Jerusalem, much like today we might travel to Washington, DC.
Prophets died in Jerusalem because when prophets speak truth to power, which is what prophets do, power doesn’t like it. Power always tries to silence the truth tellers. We see this today as the Trump administration tries to silence its critics, arresting peaceful protestors, threatening the free press with lawsuits and diminished access, opening criminal investigations into dissenters, and so on. Dissenting voices are not welcome. Power doesn’t want the people stirred against them or to know truth. Power wants people to know only what power tells them.
Many people today are worried and frightened because of Trump, our own Herod, Putin’s would-be puppet king of America, trying to intimidate us into silence. It’s a difficult situation. Do we speak truth and put ourselves at risk? Where’s the balance between safety and demanding justice for those who are targeted for erasure, for the immigrant, for the transgender person, for the gay or lesbian person and all those marginalized under the current fascist regime? Do we keep quiet or do we speak up? As a friend pointed out, not speaking up may be even more dangerous in the long run.
I can’t tell anyone what to do. But we know what Jesus did (also acknowledging that what Jesus did led to his death). Jesus puts his complete trust in God. He does not waver in the face of fear. He stands firm in his call as prophet and healer. He’s got better things to do today and tomorrow, he says. He doesn’t have time for Herod’s threats. He’s too busy healing people and casting out devils, which is perhaps another way to say speaking truth as it is the devils of this world that run from truth. Jesus is too busy manifesting God’s vision of love, hope, peace, and justice for the world.
When fear becomes our agenda-setter and dictates our actions, then we’re in trouble. When we no longer speak truth to power because of fear and refuse to stand firm in God’s love, caring for and supporting each other because we are afraid, then we’re in danger of losing our way. The apostle Paul asks the Christ-followers in Philippi to stay their course and encourages them to stand firm in Christ.2 He warns that those who have lost their way and become “enemies of the cross,” the cross being the ultimate symbol of God’s love, will come to destruction. For Paul, an enemy of God’s love is one whose god is their belly. In other words, one who is concerned only with themselves, their own pleasure and wealth. One who is selfish instead of empathetic. One who lives out of fear, hate, and anger instead of love and compassion. One who resorts to violence and threats instead of peace and respect. One like Herod. One like Trump.
Paul’s words encourage us to stop and evaluate where we’re going:
Who do we want to be? Do we want to be the tyrant who cares about nothing but themselves? Or do we want to be Christ-like, loving and compassionate?
What do we want out of life? Is it wealth and power, what Paul calls the things of this world? Or is it love and support, community and relationship?
Are we willing to change? Will we be vulnerable, standing firm in Christ that we might be remade and transformed in love? Or will we turn away in fear?
To stand firm in Christ, in God’s love made real in the world, is to live by God’s values of love and compassion and not the values of wealth and power, the values of worldly empire. It’s to give up the power of this world for the even stronger power of love. Jesus recognizes that God’s Way of love is not always easy. He laments over Jerusalem and how it rejects those sent to speak truth. He wants to gather in the people as a mother bird gathers her chicks under her wing, to protect and love them, but they turn away in fear. We have to ask ourselves: Who do we want to be? What do we want out of life? Are we willing to be transformed, to leave behind our attachments to power and wealth and embrace each other in love? How will we face the fox in our life? It’s tempting to give into fear and anger and turn to despair, but we are invited to instead stand firm in the love of God. A love that will re-make and heal us. That, through us, will re-make and heal the world.
1. Luke 13:31-35
2. Philippians 3:17-4:1
Insightful. Thank you for your wisdom.
Amen!