The Christian challenge to empire

As we listen to the three readings for this Fifth Sunday of Easter, initially we may hear them as disparate and may have trouble discerning a unified meaning. 

The first reading from Acts narrates a conflict among the diverse members of the early Christian communities. The Hellenists, who were Greek-speaking Jews, complained that the Hebrews, the Judeo-Christians, were ignoring Hellenist widows and were failing to ensure that these women were receiving the daily food and other necessary provisions. In the second reading, Peter sets forth an architectural metaphor: a building with Jesus as the living cornerstone, a spiritual house where those with faith dwell and flourish. Finally, in the third reading, from John’s Gospel, Jesus delivers his “Farewell Discourse” to his disciples before his crucifixion and death. He focuses upon going away as well as his relationship with the Father and its implications for the disciples. 

Yet all these readings disclose a common message when read against the cultural values of the Roman Empire. 

In the first century, imperial Rome promoted a worldview of its stability, success and cultural advancement. The empire’s unprecedented building achievements, its pavilions, temples, palaces and monuments helped to craft such a glittering facade. The legitimacy and authority of Roman emperors derived from the perception of them as semi-divine figures ruling according to the will of the gods. But the positive repute of the empire obscured the realities of many of the citizens who inhabited this world. Slaves bore the burden of many of the architectural accomplishments. This classist society set people at odds with one another along lines of economics, social standing, ethnicity and politics. Further, political fidelity to the emperor and his governance, fostered by this staunch hierarchical rule, was often combined with specific (and required) religious piety. Those who found meaning in another path for their loyalties, including Jews and Christians, suffered marginalization and even persecution. 

As our readings disclose this Sunday, everything about the life and teachings of Jesus, as well as the communities founded upon his instructions, challenged the Roman worldview, its values and its fidelities. 

The conflict between the Hellenists and Hebrew members of the new Christian communities described in Acts did not result in unresolved divisions like those of the surrounding socially stratified society. Instead, when concern for the widows was raised, new structures were put in place in order to ensure the care of all. The community itself chose individuals, prayed over and commissioned them to oversee this matter. As in all communal networks founded upon Jesus’ teachings, individuals took up these responsibilities according to their various gifts and served without the imposition of hierarchical structures like those that had divided and denigrated so many in the Roman world.

In his letter, Peter enlists the metaphor of a building that counters the material value of Rome’s architectural feats, accomplished as they were upon the backs of so many invisible citizens and slaves. Instead, the building Peter envisioned would be founded upon Jesus as the living cornerstone. Those who anchored their lives in his teachings would become living stones with him. Together they would erect a “spiritual house” for “spiritual sacrifices,” in contrast to the Romans’ extravagant animal sacrifices that promoted the emperor and his rule. Peter continues by referring to Is 28:1-22, a passage that critiques corrupt rulers but also assures that those who believe in this chosen and “precious cornerstone” (Is 28:16) “shall not be put to shame” (1 Pt 2:6). 

Jesus’ “Farewell Discourse,” the theological heart of John’s Gospel, begins with consoling words to the disciples: “Do not let your hearts be troubled” (Jn 14:1). Their anxiety probably stemmed from an awareness of the impending threats to Jesus. For he preached the buildup of an alternative kingdom, one not governed by Roman coercion or the sword but by self-giving love. In contrast to deities governing this faltering Roman culture, Jesus offers a theology about the God he calls Father, about the oneness between them and about the access we all have to this Holy One. Jesus teaches that to know him is to know the Father. To see him is to see the Father. 

Thus, the fullness of Jesus’ humanity reveals the very nature of God. In Jesus’ compassion for the widow whose son had died (Lk 7:12-15), in his forgiveness of a woman caught in adultery (Jn 8:1-11), in his healing a paralytic man (Mt 9:1-8), in his healing of a man with a withered hand in spite of strict religious obstacles (Mt 12:9-14, Mk 3:1-6, Lk 6:6-11), in his determination to eat with a man known to have questionable background as a tax collector (Mt 9:10-17, Mk 2:15-22, Lk 5:29-39), and in his encounter with a Samaritan woman, to whom he first revealed his divine identity (Jn 4:4-42), humanity sees the true character of God. 

What the disciples were yet to learn was that Jesus would hand over his life for them and for all of us. Thus, in contrast to the remote Roman emperors and their deities obsessed with honor, power, and the exercise of violent retribution, Jesus’ life disclosed a God of love. Indeed, Jesus is the way, the truth and the life!

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