Edgework

Let’s stay with Jesus’ nonviolent grid a little longer.

In his book, The Jesus Driven Life: Reconnecting Humanity with Jesus, Michael Hardin also contends that Jesus is interpreting the Old Testament in such a way as to make his Father out to be nonviolent (59ff). Hardin refers to the incident in which John the Baptist sends his disciples to Jesus to inquire whether he was the one he had been expecting (Luke 7:18-35). Yes, he had baptized Jesus in the Jordan and he surely had heard a voice from heaven saying of Jesus, “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22).

So what could have created doubt in John’s mind about the identity of Jesus? Hardin suggests that the answer is to be found in the response Jesus gives to John’s disciples: “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the good news is preached to the poor. Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me” (Luke 7: 22-23). This approach to ministry was decisively different from what John’s had been. John’s message was centered on the apocalyptic wrath of God that was coming because of sinful living.

Hardin notes that Jesus’ response to John is basically a collage of text fragments from Isaiah and I and II Kings. In their original contexts, all of these texts include a reference to the vengeance of God, none of which Jesus draws forward through his nonviolent interpretive grid. Hardin suggests that by this move, “Jesus implicitly tells John, through his message to John’s followers, that the wrath of God is not part of his message, rather healing and good news is. That is, Jesus is inviting John to read Isaiah the way he did” (63)! It appears that the scandal in John’s mind was that, “Violence is not part of the divine economy of Jesus” (64). Hardin continues, “By removing retribution from the work and character of God, Jesus, for the first time in human history, opened up a new way, a path which he also invites us to travel…It is time for us to follow Jesus in reconsidering what divinity without retribution looks like” (64).

Another incident Hardin uses to make this point is the occasion described in Mark 8:27-30 where Jesus first asks his disciples who people say that he is, followed by, “Who do you say that I am?” When Peter responds that he thinks Jesus is the Messiah, Jesus immediately tells him to keep quiet about it. Often it has been assumed that Peter finally got Jesus’ identity right but that for some unknown reason Jesus did not want that truth publicized.

Hardin suggests that Jesus tells Peter to shut up about it precisely because he got it wrong! Wrong in the sense that, like most of his contemporaries, Peter envisioned the coming of a messiah who would use violence to wreak vengeance on the wicked and so restore the fortunes of Israel. We can tell the mindset of Peter when he rebukes Jesus for saying that he will have to suffer (Mark 3:32). Jesus sees such thinking as rooted in Satan, not his Father. It seems that Peter didn’t get the non-violent message throughout his sojourn with Jesus. When the crowd came to arrest Jesus to be crucified he used a sword to try defending Jesus.  But, here too, Jesus rebuked him for giving in to violence and heals the servant’s ear Peter had cut off.

There is an interesting alternative narrative of this event described in Matthew 17:13-20. In response to Jesus’ query about who he thinks he is, Peter gives a two-fold answer: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” According to this account, Jesus commends him for the answer and even states that he will receive the keys to the kingdom of heaven. How should we account for the difference in Jesus’ response here to that recorded in Mark? Hardin suggests that Jesus is commending Peter for the second part of his response, that he is the Son of the living God. In other words he is saying that his identity is not wrapped up in Davidic warrior categories, as most Jews of the day had read into Scripture, but in relation to his heavenly abba – the true God he came to reveal. And as a Son of that God, Jesus would be promoting non-violence.

A third incident Hardin points to in support of the nonviolent grid Jesus uses to interpret the Old Testament is the action Jesus takes to “cleanse the temple” (Mark 11:12-19). The sacrificial system practiced in the Temple as prescribed in the Old Testament was based to a large extent on violence in that many of the sacrifices required the shedding of the blood of innocent animals. While most often this incident is thought of in terms of Jesus opposing abuses which had accrued in the temple culture of the day, Hardin suggests that it signifies more than that. “By prohibiting sacrificial animals from being purchased…Jesus is saying a great big NO! to the system of sacrifice, much like the prophets before him (Isa 1:11, Jer. 6:20, Hos. 6:6, Amos 5:21, Micah 6:6).

Thus Hardin draws a conclusion we would all do well to reflect upon: “If, in fact, Jesus begins his ministry by asking what God without retribution looks like, and if he acts this way in his ministry, and if he interprets his Bible to say such things, the question arises, ‘Shouldn’t we also follow Jesus in interpreting the Bible in the same way?’…When we change the way we see and understand the character of God, everything else changes and we turn back to the living and true God” (63).