Blogging towards Easter - Mary Magdalene, passion and a new politics

A somewhat delayed finishing of my blog towards Easter using Samuel Wells study Power and Passion: six characters in search of resurrection due to attendance at the National Folk Festival.

Mary Magdalene stands clearly at the end of our journey. Mark 14:1-11 with its account of Jesus' anointing  unites the twin themes of passion as voluntary suffering and as overwhelming love.  Mary here shows a passion which shows the intimacy of touch, a transformation of self that is extravagant and not bound by scarcity and expresses beauty. Jesus' passion and power here are intertwined with the poor with whom he is present in a way that they were never a 'they' but always an 'us'.

In Mark's account of the passion it is the women who are able to face the reality of the cross. what do the women do that the men cannot? simply that they follow Jesus. Wells observes that ... the debate in the following centuries would not have been on the question of whether women could lead God's people but about whether men could. (p.173)

Jesus according to Wells in closing the study invites a new kind of passion because he brings a new kind of power, the power of the resurrection.

No longer is passion simply an erotic or idealistic distraction from politics; no longer is it a cultivation of self or sentimentality in the face of the realities of sin and suffering.  In the light of the power of the resurrection, passion is now any and every intimation or reflection of the yearning love of God for his people and his longing to restore relationship with them, even if it means the cross. This passion is patient, because it waist as long as God does. Sometime is is painful ... It is tender in the way the anointing at Bethany was tender.It is persistent in the way that Mary Magdalene's vigil at cross and tomb was persistent. It is never ending as Mary Magdalene's search for Jesus ... is never ending. It is invariably in the home of the sick and in the company of the poor as we saw at Bethany.  And it is on a cosmic scale, as it consciously or unconsciously displays the fundamental pouring out of God's love and restoration of friendship. It is a passion as crazy as the crazy heart of God.

I call this "the politics of power and passion" because it highlights that the new power and the new passion have truly social significance. These are not simply personal things ... the old power assumed that certain things were given - most of all death - and that what mattered was who controlled the maximum of resources, especially those that were publically accountable ... and who enforced compliance via coercion to the point of death. Passion in this context is just window dressing - a distraction from the serious business of politics which is about negotiation and manipulation of power. But into this situation comes the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the overturning of the power of death.No longer can coercion to the point of death maintain a stranglehold on power; there is here a greater power. No longer can the distribution of scarce resources be the characteristic nature of politics. Politics becomes the reorientation of life according to the freedom made possible by the power of overcoming death and not just death but sin - through the power of forgiveness.  thus those aspects of society that had previously just been window dressing - lament in the face of death, bitterness and regret in the face of sin, in short passion - now become the key points of transformation, the nerve centres of the new politics. We still need laws and we still need taxes, but the control o9f these things is no longer the definition of politics; politics is the reordering of passion in line with a new order of power. Now in the resurrection of Jesus, we can see that every small gesture of reconciliation or care of the vulnerable is part of the way God is transforming the world. Power and passion come together at last. (pp.184-5)

Blogging towards Easter 5 - friendship, forgiveness and resurrection

Samuel Wells fifth character in Power and Passion is Peter.

This is a rich exploration of the characterisation of Peter in the gospels which relates his failures at the end of the Gospel to the his confession of Jesus as messiah in the middle of the story.

Wells comments on Peter's confession is relevant to consideration of the church's current difficulties over its covering up of abuse of power in matters of sexual abuse.

The church is still Peter. That is the church is a fragile people inspired by God to speak the truth about Jesus. Peter spoke the truth about Jesus; so does the church. But Peter was not infallible. Neither is the church.  ... Peter was sometimes stupid, selfish, scared, and just plain wrong; so is the church. But Jesus chose Peter. And Jesus still chooses the church. Who are we to differ?

... so long as it continues to live as a fragile people inspired by God to speak (live?) the truth about Jesus the church will never be extinguished by evil or death. (p.139)

Peter according to Wells demonstrates that passion is not enough as his bravado at the last supper demonstrates. This form of passion is often driven by the tendencies that are illustrated in Peter's behaviour in the Gospels,  an assumption that one is superior to others, a profoundly misplaced confidence in our own dependability and a sense that one knows better than Jesus.

Three things more are needed:

• Forgiveness driven by a logic that has no foundation other than resurrection. "Resurrection knows the power of death, yet loves with the force of life. This is the only logic that truly sustains forgiveness". (p153)
• Friendship which survives through the hard times and earths and disciplines the passions and is grounded in the sharing of bread, sitting down to a meal together.
• Resurrection: tied to friendship it becomes a matter of the transformation of real people over time, in joy and sorrow.

Wells concludes: The most powerful force in human experience, the heart of politics, is not, it seems, the might of Rome and the merciless will of the governor; it is Jesus' cross and resurrection and the friendship and forgiveness they make possible. (p.156)

Blogging towards Easter 4 - dreams and suffering

Samuel Wells gives a chapter to a fourth character who has only a minor supporting role in the Gospels, Mrs Pilate. She is only mentioned in one verse but Wells nevertheless draws out some reflective speculation that throws light on issue of the extent to which our perceptions of power and powerlessness  are less straight forward than they seem to those of us, say public servants who compare our power with those who are above us up the ladder, the Secretary of the Department, not those who have to comply with the rules and regulations that we create and enforce in order to access the services in our community.

Wells imaginatively explores the extent and the character of the power that Pilate's wife would have had and tries to unpack what might lie behind this extraordinary intervention into the public life of her husband. Wells focuses his reflections on the issues of dreams and suffering.

Dreams in the Bible are an inbreaking of God's future into the circumstances of the present. They unsettle the proud ... They vindicate God's chosen ... They involve even Gentiles in the discovery of God's strange, relentless providence ... And yet they do not coerce, destroy or manipulate. they simply draw back the veil between heaven and earth disclosing the purposes of God and the mysterious ways God's purpose takes shape in the lives of his people. For the powerful they are something to fear but for the powerless dreams are a point of contact with the place where true power lies. (p.116)

On the question of suffering her statement that "I have suffered a great deal today in a dream because of him" suggests that she has shared in Jesus's passion. Had she caught a vision of Jesus and the conflict between him and the driving powers and values of the Roman Empire that leaves her caught between who she is and the claims of an inbreaking kingdom whose justice calls th empire into question?

Blogging towards Easter 3 - being a Christian in private?

In Chapter 3  Wells hits home with a challenge to people who are comfortably well off and are at ease in the middle of empire - like me.

Is it possible to be a Christian privately, a rule by day and a worshipper by night?

This chapter explores the motives and behaviour of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus as set out in the gospels, charactesr of whom the writers have varying estimates. Both of these characters fall between the power of Pilate and the passion of Barabbas. They are drawn by the figure of this Galilean rabbi and live in his shadow but are afraid to throw in their lot in publicly with him in the political contest of the time. They are paralyzed, complicit in the judicial process that Pilate manipulates to implicate the Jewish establishment in his execution as a troublemaker,

Only after his death do they appear again by night and perform a service of burial at a point where his other public disciples have disappeared.  What kind of discipleship is this?

For them faith in Christ is not a matter of transformed identity - baptism - but is an attribute they can pick up or put down as they choose. As political figures they are largely invisible, since when the key debates take place they are present but - at best - silent. As religious figures they are visible at the very moment the disciples have disappeared - the moment of Jesus' burial. They are celebrated religious figures but they expose the politics of those who could have been political but chose to be narrowly religious. It is a politics that shows reverence to Jesus' body. But on closer inspection it is a politics that puts Jesus to death.  (p.106)

Indeed - this is a reading of scripture that goes close to home.

Today people I know have entered a top secret military base as a protest against the ongoing war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bonhoeffer 4

At 6am this morning, four Christian peace activists entered Swan Island, one of Australia’s most secret military installations near Queenscliff, Victoria, seeking to disrupt the war in Afghanistan.  

“Both Swan Island and the war on Afghanistan are out of sight, out of mind. It’s time to end further suffering of the Afghan people and our soldiers by bringing our troops home,” the group said.

Swan Island is a highly secretive military installation used by the Army’s elite Special Air Service (SAS) and the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS). Swan Island is said to be more secretive than Pine Gap in central Australia.

“In the week before the first Easter, Jesus blockaded the temple and turned the tables inside.   Today we are imitating Jesus’ disruption”,  the group said. “Sometimes you have to get in the way of injustice”. 

“War can’t bring peace, it can only bring further terror, death and poverty,” the group said.

Rev. Simon Moyle (Baptist Minister), Jacob Bolton (Community Worker), Jessica Morrison (University Lecturer) and Simon Reeves (Social Worker) have called themselves the Bonhoeffer Peace Collective after Kevin Rudd’s favourite theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was also an antiwar activist.

“The followers of Christ have been called to peace. And they must not only have peace but also make it. His disciples keep the peace by choosing to endure suffering themselves rather than inflict it on others. In so doing they overcome evil with good, and establish the peace of God in the midst of a world of war and hate.”— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

follow updates from the Bonhoeffer Peace Collective as it happens here: http://twitter.com/jarrodmckenna

Blogging towards Easter 2 - the attraction of violence

The character of Barabbas in the Easter narrative brings us into contact with the question of why not use violence when injustice is rampant and the poor and marginalised have little by way of options to challenge the forces of empire.

The gospels present us with the range of political options that Jesus encountered in his life and ministry.

Collaboration was the only option for those who wished to achieve wealth and a degree of power in the world of the Roman empire. Rome mastered the art of engaging collaborators through the cooperation of local elites. Herod and the Saducees made this their political choice. surrendering effective control to Rome while maintaining a semblance of formal religio-political independence - a semblance that the gospel writers deconstruct.


The strategy of Reform relied on a theological reading of the history of Israel that called for a return to holiness and the call of the covenant. The call to purity was not an option for those who were poor. The Pharisees sought to interpret the call to purity for the masses in a way that built popular support from the masses without handing over religious and political power to them or politically confronting the powers of empire.

Withdrawal was the option of the Essenes that focused on withdrawing from confronting the reality of Roman occupation while practising some of the virtues, care for the sick and hospitality to strangers but no real vision for demonstrating the public character of God's kingdom.

Restorationism, the Zealot option, was the attempt to return to the golden age of Israel's empire and kingdom. They were about a change of government not the inauguration of a radically different social and political order.

The comparison between Jesus and the Zealots establishes two things. One is that Jesus had established a new for of life that others saw as a political threat. the other is that Jesus had no intention of translating that social program into a violent revolution. (p. 66)

While Barabbas is not formally identified as a Zealot, his identification with the option of violence places him in direct contrast with Jesus. the Gospel writers are all clear that the crowds all clearly choose his option rather than that of Jesus and the powers that be are happy for this choice to be made. Jesus represents a more fundamental challenge to their rule than does Barabbas.

 Barabbas represents a challenge that changes too little. Jesus comes to bring radical change rather than continue business as usual. Jesus challenges the endless cycle of violence. Barabbas simply wants to change the identity of who is in control of the political/social/religious power structure.

Blogging toward Easter: Passion and power

In approaching Easter this year I have decided to try blogging some thoughts on Samuel Wells' Power and Passion: Six Characters in Search of Resurrection (Zondervan, 2005)

The promised commentary on Will Campbell and his free-wheeling approach to ecclesiology will have to wait for a while.

Samuel Wells introduces his approach to Easter with a hat tip to John Howard Yoder.

What if we are called to follow Jesus in one specific respect above all others: his willingness to walk the way of the cross in contrast to a host of political and social alternatives available to him? This book seeks to take up Yoder's mantle and begin with the same assumption. It seeks to describe six political alternatives available to Jesus - and broadly to us - and to portray the power and the passion of Jesus in the light of them, in such a way that the nature of the power and the direction of the passion available to us become transparent. (p.17)

His assumptions for reading the Gospels:

• there is no such thing as a plain reading that is not already an interpretation and thee is no single correct reading.  (p.18)
• Some parts of the Gospels have a special significance - the accounts of the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus (p.19)
• Christians always are and have been in the business of politics. Politics is the careful negotiation of passion and interest that pays respect to the different degrees and kinds of power and that the gospel of Jesus is about how individuals and groups use their power. (pp.19-20)
• Power is not necessarily a bad thing. There are varieties of power, property. prestige and military power, sexual power and friendship and the power of God in creation and resurrection which assumes the abundance found in the gifts of time, companionship and forgiveness. the transformation of politics is about the transformation of the reality and perception of power. Jesus resurrection is about the politics of abundance transforming the reality of power.(pp.20-21)
•  Passion is at the heart of the Gospel. passion is at the heart of politics and the heart of faith. (p.21)

Wells first character is Pontius Pilate whose character and engagement with power he reflects on through a reading of each of the Gospels, a reading which brings out the dynamics of power exercised by Pilate in the trial and crucifixion of Jesus.

People, Wells observes with executive power like to see themselves as honest brokers and are much more aware of the limits of their power than those outside are inclined to give them credit for.

Wells will not let those of us who are in positions of relative power get away with this rhetorical move to hide behind the ambiguities of public responsibilities or the assertion that "we", as opposed to "they" have no vested interests. the detailed reading that Wells offers us of Pilate and the dynamics of power demystifies the common reading of Pilate as an honest broker. Wells unpacks the gospel accounts to reveal the moves and counter moves of the power elites, for whom Jesus was a threat, stirring up the people as the gospels remind us. Here we have an account of the exercise of imperial power as the inescapable background to that week in Jerusalem.

Two critical threads emerge in the study of the first imperial character - the need to be sceptical of anyone who says "really there is nothing I can do - it's out of my hands - the cry of the realist politician and church leader. Pilate does have alternatives it is just that having established that Jesus is a threat to imperial rule his task is simple to deal with events so as to ensure Jesus is destroyed. The handwashing is pure 'spin' and very successful it has been too.

Politics begins when we realise that there are alternatives, there are things we can do rather than simply go along with a cynical realism and act to embody the truth that Jesus proclaims and lived out. In the run up to Easter it is useful to be reminded of those who imagined an alternative politics rather than conformity to the violence of empire. To remember Bishop Oscar Romero, Dorothy Day, the Mothers of the disappeared in Argentina, Pilgram Marpeck and Michael Sattler who sought to enact a different politics. To Jean Vanier, Ella Baker and Fannie Lou Hamer who all embodied a passion for justice and the beloved community.