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I'm glad you found us in our new venue. It is my great pleasure to introduce to you the Robert F. Jones Lecturer for 2004, Dr. Don C. Richter. Dr. Richter was educated at Davidson College and Princeton Theological Seminary, where he earned both the M.Div. and Ph.D. degrees. For 10 years, Dr. Richter served as Professor of Christian Education, first at Bethany Theological Seminary in Oak Brook, Illinois, and then at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. While at Candler, Dr. Richter founded and served as Director of the Youth Theology Institute, a program which continues today as a center of cutting-edge research on issues related to the church's ministry with youth, and a model for all ministries seeking to take seriously the ability of young people to engage their faith in deep and abiding ways. In an article entitled The Rumspring of Paradigm, published in a recent issue of our own Austin Seminary Journal Insights, Dr. Richter describes the broad intent of the Youth Theology Institute as inviting young people to fall in love with theology as an ongoing practice and lifelong pursuit. You'll have to read the article itself to learn the meaning of Rumspringa. In 1999, Dr. Richter began serving as associate director of the Valparaiso Project on the education and formation of people in faith,

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an initiative funded by the Religion Division of the Lilly Endowment and based at Valparaiso University. Together with Dorothy Bass, he edited the volume Way to Live: Christian Practices for Teens, a text that has been highly praised and widely used as the standard resource for youth ministry since its publication in 2002. In addition to serving as editor, Dr. Richter contributed a chapter on the practice of play in which he speaks to the heart not only of young people, but of borderline workaholic professors when he asserts, Funmaking is vital to a life well-lived. The resources developed through the Valparaiso Project have been made available to the wider Christian community through two websites that Dr. Richter manages, www.practicingourfaith.org and www.waytolive.org. If you're interested in learning more about the Valparaiso Project, there are brochures right here on this front table that you may pick up at the end of the lecture. Dr. Richter's interests and research as a practical theologian certainly range beyond Christian education with children and youth. He has spoken and written on a number of social and moral issues with which Christians wrestle, including the ethics of ambition and the moral value of sports. For the Robert F. Jones lectures, he has chosen the topic Pax Americana, Forming Faith in an Era of Empire.

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The title of his lecture this morning is Empire, Then and Now. Will you please join me in welcoming Dr. Don Richter. Is that up high enough? Yeah. Great. Equipment change. Thank you, Carol, for that wonderful introduction. And it's been a very wonderful being here in Austin. Especially when I first got here, the hospitality was very gracious. I walked in my room and there was this wonderful basket with all kinds of local delicacies, Chipotle sauces and Chipotle chocolate cookies. And I was just overwhelmed, but then I noticed there were several of these small Snicker bars there. And I picked up one to see if I could see where it was made, and it doesn't say, but I can tell you one thing. It wasn't made here in Texas. Why? Because everything's bigger in Texas. All right, okay. Thank you. Ted Borlaw is a dear friend. Ted, it's great to be here in your new playground, and it's great to... I did write on the theology of play a bit, so it's great to be here in this esteemed company with Gordon Lathrop and Carol Newsome. And especially to present the Robert Jones lectures, which have been very distinguished. My colleague, Dorothy Bass, presented a year before last. My mentor, Craig Dykstra, several years back. Of course, all of us are indebted to the work of C. Alice Nelson, whose book, Where Faith Begins, issued a paradigm shift

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across the theological spectrum, from this sort of psychological therapeutic model to a socio-cultural approach, unless we continue to be indebted to you and your scholarship. Thank you. Okay, here we go. I'm going to read. This is a little low for me, so if you don't mind, I sing in the choir. I don't preach on a regular basis, so I feel more comfortable with the choir holder position here. And I might clip along a bit because I time this out. And anyway, here we go. On a crisp Sunday morning this past October, a dozen pastors and theological educators gathered in an upstairs classroom of the Biltmore United Methodist Church in Asheville, North Carolina, the town where I live. Some of us knew each other already, but all of us were kindred spirits. drawn together on this day by the promise of prayerful conversation about the consequences of warfare for our country and for the church. We gathered from the hails and hollers of western North Carolina because our hearts were troubled, not only by the daily death count of soldiers and citizens in Iraq, but by the course of our national body politic, and by a need to understand how we as North American Christians might be called to respond. Tom, a local Methodist minister, set up the feelings of men in the room and he introduced himself to the group. I'm here this morning, Tom confessed, because I'm trying to figure out what the hell is going on. Maybe since September 11, some folks in my church have been gung-ho about flying the American flag in the sanctuary and singing patriotic hymns in worship. But since we went to war in Iraq, a few members have told me that they have real problems with the flag waving.

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And then there's most folks who seem to be in the middle, not vocal about it one way or the other. How do I, as a pastor, make sense of this? I'm looking for pragmatic strategies that will help us all be better Christians and live more faithful lives. Amy, another United Methodist pastor, noted the increase in her counseling road since the U.S. invading Iraq. In my congregation, I've sensed a real increased anxiety, fear, depression, anger, Amy observed, heads nodded around the room. In my own family, there's a real disconnect with what's happening over there. My sister-in-law is home managing a Tiberian infant while her husband is under heavy murder attack in Iraq. He's been stationed there so long that he's lost his stateside job. When I ask her how she's doing, she says she's okay, and she's proud of how her husband is serving this country, though she admits that she doesn't think a lot about it on a day-to-day basis. I figure she can't acknowledge her fear because it might be too painful. Instead, she just copes by focusing on her kids and hoping that her husband will be one of those lucky ones to come back alive. Can you relate to Tom's concerns about displays of patriotism and worship? You may not have a flag standing in your sanctuary, but can you identify with Tom's struggle to be a faithful leader during these days of national cell searching? Have you had Amy's experience in needing to provide more pastoral care for family members as well as for your congregation? What are the signs of the times telling us about what we're becoming as a nation and who we're becoming as American Christians as we prosecute this ongoing war on terrorism? What does all of this mean for persons, forming persons in faith, for pulling our moral imaginations as we minister with local congregations?

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Let me set the stage for my two lectures. In 1989, the United States suffered a major identity crisis. Our main political adversary, the Soviet Union, finally collapsed under the rate of totalitarian repression and a budget-busting arms race. It busted our budget too, but that's another story for another day. You know how it's more unwaving to lose an enemy than to have one in the first place? How we define ourselves gets all bound up with who's pulling at the other end of that tug of war rope. And when they let go, we're in for a tumble. So after the Cold War ended, it took us a decade to recover our balance and get back on our feet. But by the dawn of the 21st century, it could be said with confidence that, quote, The United States is the world's only superpower, combining preeminent military power, a global technological leadership and the world's largest economy, unquote. With this assertion, a group of policy monks called the Project for the New American Century argued that the United States government should maintain a global Pox Americana, and they used that term, by beefing up our military capabilities and establishing a significant presence of American forces around the world. This obligation they urged would fall squarely upon the U.S., not the U.N., but since international agencies could not be trusted to secure the strategic interest of the United States. As the Enchilada Grande, that's not fair, that's not, but I quote, America's grand strategy should aim to preserve

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deserve and extend this advantageous position as far into the future as possible. The Project for the New American Century issued this challenge in September 2000. Within months, key participants from the project were assuming leadership positions in the Bish administration. You may recognize some of their names.

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National Security Council member Elliot Abrams. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Mick Cheney. The executive branched our government was now poised to implement the policy goals of this project for the new American Century.

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And in the wake of September 11, our country's security strategies and military campaigns, including our preemptive war against Iraq, had been guided by the project's vision of Pax Americana. preserving and extending American empire. Now, in his January 20th State of the Union address, President Bush proclaimed, America is a nation with a mission, and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs. We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire.

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On the other hand, according to the Washington Post, the Cheney family Christmas card this year featured this telling quotation from Benjamin Franklin. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his, that is, God's notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? Franklin, of course, was inoto claiming divine sanction for military imperialism of the sort that this country had just thrown off. Instead, he was simply calling for daily prayer at the 1787 Constitutional Convention.

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One of Franklin's worst fears was that humanity might quote, despair of establishing government by human wisdom, and leave it to chance, war, and conquest. Well, as a nation, we certainly need to be guided by wisdom, and not just the wisdom of military experts and political leaders. Christian faith has deep wells of wisdom for the living of these days.

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It's a wisdom shaped by centuries of trial and tribulation, of joy and celebration. It's a wisdom that tells the truth about the human condition, that responds to our most basic needs as finite creatures, creatures who are as sacred as we are vulnerable. Regardless of whether we are new Democrats or new kind Republicans, of whether we watch Fox News or listen to NPR, the practical wisdom of Christian faith leads us all toward the life-giving water, gives us a bath, and a bucket, and a blessing.

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With male-scarred hands, Jesus offers us a cup of ribbon water, even as we wade into the waters made turbulent by chance, war, and conquest. In today's lecture, I want to explore with you how Christian faith has been and continues to be shaped by empire. Tomorrow, I plan to flip things around and explore how Christian faith itself has imperial designs on the world. Today, how faith struggles against empire

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Tomorrow, what it means to profess an imperial faith. Today, bad empire. Tomorrow, good empire. We're dealing with paradox here, so hang on to your hats.

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First, bad empire. Did you see the delightful movie, A Bug's Life, that Pixar made a few years ago? You recall the story of the well-meaning ant, Frick, who tries to help his ant colony gain their grain, increase their grain production.

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Why? Because every year a swarm of grasshoppers returns to the colony to collect the food off them. Food that the ants could really use to feed themselves. The strategy of fear and intimidation is so effective that the hoppers don't even need to station a garrison in the colony.

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They simply swoop down, stomp around and rob the drugs, then buzz off until next harvest time. Remember how Flick gets booted out by the ant leaders because he's disturbed the pox acritidae? That's peace for the grasshoppers. Flick persuades an acting troop, which he thinks are warrior bugs, to return with him to the colony.

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Why? So that they can deter the hoppers the next time they zoom by. Even when the circus bugs are eventually exposed for who they are, They rely on their theatrical skills to mystify and thwart their airborne enemy.

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Yet even that strategy fails. And what finally redeems the colony is a show of solidarity, as you'll see in this clip. Okay. Makes you feel entomological accuracy aside, A Bud's Life gets us into the feeling level of what countless people throughout history have experienced under the thumb of empire.

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Throughout the pages of the Old Testament, we see the people of Israel defining their faith in God in the context of empire. By the time Jesus arrived on the scene, Jewish faith had endured 12 centuries of dealing with empires, had itself indeed flirted with imperial might. The earthly ministry of Jesus of Nazareth occurred within the crucible of Pax Romana.

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The Roman Empire cast a long shadow throughout the pages of the New Testament, from Jesus' birth announcement to the strange vision of beast revealed to John of Patmos. Even when other characters occupy center stage in this original passion play, Roman is always lurking around in the wings, waiting to make a cameo appearance. So, just how did the Roman Empire, Pux Romana, shape Jesus' ministry 2,000 years ago? How did Jesus respond to the powers and principalities of the Roman imperial order?

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And what lessons can we learn from Jesus about the responsible use of power especially for the sake of our own ministries today. On a personal level, how does Christian faith redeem the imperial self's desire for control, mastery, and attributive justice? Trying to understand Jesus' speech and actions apart from your life setting in the context of Roman Empire is like trying to understand Gandhi apart from the British Empire.

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It's like trying to understand Martin Luther King Jr. apart from our own country's history of slavery and segregation. Jesus was not simply a wisdom figure who wandered around doing random acts of kindness and senseless acts of mercy.

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The more we learn about the historical context of the Jesus movement, the more we find ourselves rubbing up against the many ways in which the ministry of Jesus subverted Roman Empire. To modern news, phrases such as turn the other cheek, go the extra mile, have become domesticated pious platitudes. To the ears of Jesus audience, these words were electric. They were charged with political meaning and risk.

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When we view the gospel stories in light of this dynamic tension between Jesus and empire, we see and hear the good news in a different way. A way that challenges modernist preconceptions about separation of church and state. that counters our claim that religion and politics don't mix. In his book, Jesus and Empire, Richard Horsley describes the political landscape when Jesus was born.

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Horsley explains that there was no single Judaism in the first century, but rather multiple Judaisms vying for attention and power. In Judea, the temple and priesthood class held sway for centuries before Jesus' birth. The royal priesthood danced a pas de deux with David and his successors, courting monarchy in its many guises. They were the group, as you recall, who, by the grace of the Persian Empire, returned from Babylonian exile to reclaim land and leadership.

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Beholding to Empire, the Temple State also behaved like one. especially when it came to their ethnic cleansing policy, banishing foreign wives and children, so that these non-kosher people would not inherit Jewish property. how empires' purity code pits neighbors and even relatives against one another. Ever wonder why those Jews and Samaritans tend to despise each other so much?

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Or Bosnian Muslims and Serbs? Or Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland? Empires cast a long shadow even after they fade as political mights. The Jerusalem temple priests were able to canonize core beliefs as they edited Jewish scripture.

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The priestly doctors stated the God of power and majesty, the God who ordered creation and now roars from on high forever and ever. Amen. Dr. Buggeman has examined the subtle ways in which even Israel's liturgies of praise could be co-opted to legitimate royal power, prestige, and entitlement.

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I'd like you to refer to your your handout on the back. An enthronement psalm such as Psalm 96, which we sang last night in that beautiful worship service, and it was a beautiful setting by Hal Hobson. Biegman says that this psalm summons the faithful to sing to the Lord and bless His name, to ascribe to the Lord glory and honor, to tremble before this mighty King who will judge the peoples with truth.

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but why is the Lord worthy to be praised in this way we're not really told we're just expected to jump on the praise bandwagon sounds a lot like a ruling decree it is because I have declared it so Psalm 96 would make a great theme song for any King who plans to rule by Fiat by way of contrast consider Psalm 72 which begins with an explicit reference to a coronation here the king is to be honored because He delivers the needy when they call, the poor and those who have no helper. He has pity on the weak and the needy, saves the lives of the needy. From oppression and violence, He redeems their life.

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Precious is their blood in His sight. Indeed, this is a high calling for any human king, but we're given a reason for why praise is an order, a balance between majesty and mercy. At the Psalm's end, we're enjoined to bless the Lord the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things.

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Like we heard this morning, the holy things for the holy people. Yes, but only one is holy. So that's that contestation, that disagreement built into the Psalm. Biegman gives other examples to support his thesis.

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Psalm 150 sums us to Praise the Lord with all manner of instruments. That doesn't give us a reason for praise. Psalm 146 also begins with Praise the Lord. and quickly moves on to remind us not to put our trust in princes.

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We are to praise God who both creates and liberates. Listen to the new ways God cares for us in this Psalm. Sets the prisoners free, opens the eyes of the blind, lifts up those who are bowed down, watches over strangers, oppose the orphan and the widow. The reason for praise is crystal clear.

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The language is concrete, not abstract. the status quo is challenged and transformed. Well, the thrust of Bergman's analysis is not to blacklist parts of the Psalter. Rather, it is to call our attention to the balancing act of faith, to show us the importance of liturgical language, to remind us that even our language of praise can be co-opted to serve the interest of empire instead of the interest of serving God.

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This temptation to serve empire is especially pronounced, as we've noted, in the southern kingdom of Judea. Up north in Galilee, various Jewish groups oriented more toward the covenant with Moses than toward the house of David. Yet during the century prior to Jesus' birth, Roman armies came roaring through Palestine and oriented everyone toward Rome and Augustus Caesar and toward his hand-picked governing authority. Here's what we know about Pax Romana when Jesus arrived on the scene.

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Rome established control through directing the flow of commerce, as well as through taxing the conquered people. In most places, Rome governed not by occupation forces, but by a patronage pyramid of those loyal to the emperor cult. Herod the Great was a favorite client king of Caesar. Herod rebuilt the temple, sponsored massive building projects throughout the realm.

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He installed his own temple priest and established a lavish court in Hellenistic style. In addition to their customary temple offerings, now the Judean, Samaritan, Galilean peasants were suddenly subject to huge new taxes to support both Rome and Herod. Throughout the life of Jesus, Herodian rulers lorded over the people of Palestine. Rome viewed Mideasterners in general and Judeans in particular as

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an exotic, unprincipled, and superstitious race, born to be slaves. In 53 BCE, about 10 years after Rome conquered Palestine, Cassius enslaved 30,000 people in and around Magdala on the Sea of Galilee. Judging from her name, that's where Mary Magdalene was probably being. some 50 years later.

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The Roman patrician class acquired vast land holdings worked by slave labor. The rulers distracted the urban masses with bread and circus, food and entertainment. The movie Gladiator makes this point in excruciating gory detail. To emphasize the glory of Roman conquest, a victory arch was built and the defeated king or general was paraded through town and publicly executed.

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Anyone who failed to honor Rome or pay tribute to Caesar was swiftly and publicly humiliated. In this way, the peace of Rome was maintained by terror and vengeance. Crucifixion was a favored form of deterrence and was routinely used to quash rebellions. In the year 4 BCE, the Roman general Varus crucified 2,000 Galileans after burning the town of Sepphoris,

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only a few miles from Nazareth. Those plummeted and destroyed other villages, including Emmaus, throughout the countryside. Imagine the collective trauma among the people in that whole region just before Jesus was born. As Horsley contends, when Jesus arrived on the scene in Galilee, Pax Romana had insinuated itself into every corner of Jewish life.

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So, how did Jesus respond to empire in his day and time? What clues can we go for ministry in our current context? Let's take a brief excursion through some of this year's lectionary passages from the Gospel of Loot. It's what you're going to be preaching on, those of you who are preachers.

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You've already preached on this one. In the temptation story, note how Jesus rejects the bread and circus show. the Caesar's scepter and glory of empire. Jesus makes it clear from the outset, his authority is grounded in a greater, more enduring reality than earthly powers and principalities.

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In his inaugural sermon, Jesus commits that homiletical faux pas of isogesis, reading his own life into the reported lectionary passage from Isaiah. No wonder they wanted to throw him off the cliff. But notice how Jesus situates Himself within the Majesty with Mercy line of scriptural interpretation. Yes, He will be anointed as kings are anointed, yet His rule embodies Psalm 72.

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We will have good reason to praise and honor this leader. Moreover, unlike the purity policies preached by Ezra and Nehemiah and the temple cult, the grace of Jesus will extend to all who are receptive, even to the foreigners and outsiders, You know, like that widow from Zarephath, and like that leper Naaman, the Syrian, Israel drew a circle to shut them out, but God drew a circle that took them in, to cite the Edward Markham poem. After making a great escape from his own hometown, Jesus goes to Capernaum and casts out a demon.

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Exorcism is not a magic show. It's not a clever way to impress the crowds. In all of this healing miracles, Jesus uses power for the sake of others, not for the sake of self-aggrandizement.

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Healing was not just for individuals, but was a way of restoring the social body, remembering the community. This practice just infuriated the temple priest, who assumed they were the ones authorized to dispense divine healing power. Every healing by Jesus was an affront to the temple authorities. So for the sake of self-preservation, they began plotting to get rid of him.

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Brothers and sisters, the time is ripe for preaching all miracles. Don't demythologize the text. Lean into the mystery. Punctuate Jesus' use of power in these stories to restore and build up, not to tear down and destroy.

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Well, perhaps empire gets torn down a bit. In Luke 8, Jesus' exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac uses explicit political imagery. The unclean spirit named Legion, that would be 5,000 Roman soldiers, enters a herd of unclean swine that promptly take the plunge, just as Pharaoh's army did during Israel's exodus from Egypt. Meanwhile, back in Luke 5, the action also takes place beside a large body of water, namely the Sea of Galilee.

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The great catch miracle prompts an epiphany call for Simon, a call on the order of Isaiah, known with self-recognition in which Simon sees who he is and how he'll be involved in the Jesus movement. What does empire have to do with this big fish story? Well, for centuries, fishing on the Sea of Galilee had been a seasonal affair in the local lakeside villages, a self-sustaining economy. But when the Romans came to town,

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They developed quite a taste for pickled carp and salted sardines. Herod Antipas, who knew the region, was especially eager to boost the GMP, that's the Galilean National Product, by industrializing and exporting these salted fish. So within a few decades, this big freshwater lake had been overfished.

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Master, we've fished all night long and we have caught nothing. And even local fishermen like Simon who own their own boats have become tenant farmers, laboring under heavy tariffs to benefit the Roman economy. Jesus' miracle plays on a catch and release metaphor. The great catch releases Simon and his business partners from slaving away for Pax Romana.

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God has sent you to proclaim release to the captives, Jesus says. And his own band of disciples were some of the first captives to be released. Shortly after calling Simon, James, and John, Jesus heads to Capernaum to recruit the tax collector, Levi. How ironic, since Levi, in particular, taxed the shirts right off the sunbeam backs of those local fisherfolk.

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What kind of social movement is this? that cobbles together oppressed and oppressor, both caught in a larger web of imperial design. Jesus shows his followers that there is a better way than resorting to the logic of the imperial self. Empire defines all its subjects as imperial selves.

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Relationships are built not on mutual trust, but on self-interest. You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. Justice means lex talionis, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

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In his sermon on the plains, Jesus challenges his followers to get in touch with their imperial selves. How do you respond when someone more powerful humiliates you with a backhand slap? Or when the judge makes you give your only coat to a creditor as collateral for unpaid debt? Or when a Roman soldier forces you to carry his pack for a mile.

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Our gut, our imperial self, urges a fight or flight response. Hit back with your fist. Run away fast. And my favorite, find a passive-aggressive way to retaliate.

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But Jesus invites a third-way response. And if you know Wink's work on this, I trust you do. I'm referring to that. It's a way beyond fight or flight.

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It's a way that takes stock of our human dignity as sacred yet vulnerable creatures. In the context of empire, turn the other cheek, give your shirt as well, go the extra mile, are scandalous, subversive stratagems. They seed the moral imagination with non-violent methods and images for resisting the imperial self in the service of becoming an interpersonal self. More importantly, by honoring the image of God in ourselves and in others, and by acting out of that awareness, we resist our temptation to commit blasphemy.

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That's what Desmond Tutu said about the civil rights movement in South Africa. Christian leaders were keenly aware that the dehumanizing policy of apartheid was causing wide-scale blasphemy. All South Africans were enmeshed in a political system that caused people to dishonor the image of God in one another. Ending apartheid for it became a theological imperative, a crusade to redeem all South Africans from this fundamental distortion that was an affront to the very honor and glory of God.

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I think the mainline Christian faith in our country has a lot to learn when it comes to theological themes such as honor and glory. That's why the story of Jesus' transfiguration in Luke 9 seems so mystifying to us. What's with the dazzling white clothes and Jesus being glorified on the mountaintop? A clue to the understanding of the story may lie in the preceding passage in which Jesus draws a connection between shame and glory.

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Those who are ashamed of me and of my words, of them the Son of Man will be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. You see, the Western Church has long emphasized how justification frees us from guilt for the sins we've committed, especially the sin of pride. But what about persons or groups for whom sin takes the shape of self-abnegation rather than pride, loss of face, rather than of arrogance.

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What does redemption look like for these people? In the Eastern Church, a strong theology of glorification is the antidote to shame. In Eastern white liturgies, the chant Kyrie eleison is not a mea culpa. It's not a corporate groveling before the Almighty.

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Instead, Lord, have mercy upon us. Christ, have mercy upon us. is an invocation for God to anoint the people with blessing, pour it out like oil upon our heads, so that downcast faces might be lifted up, so that the congregation might behold the glory of God and might themselves be glorified in the process. We need redemption from guilt, to be sure, but just as much we need redemption from shame,

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from that profound sense of unworthiness that cuts to the very core of our being. Guilt is auditory. It's hearing the accusing word, the accusing voice for something we shouldn't have done. Adam, where are you?

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Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? Shame, on the other hand, is visual. It's seeing oneself exposed, feeling small and unworthy. Then the eyes of both were opened.

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They knew that they were naked, and they sewed together fig leaves and made roaring claws for themselves. Before God uttered a word, Adam and Eve felt ashamed in the presence of each other. Biblically, as well as developmentally, shame precedes guilt and compounds it. You know Erikson's typology, shame before the guilt.

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My head may be convinced that Jesus has forgiven sin and wiped the slate clean, but my heart may still doubt that this is true for me, especially if I've internalized the negative, demeaning images of myself. But here's the good news. I can find the self-worth and self-respect I yearn for as myself is re-centered in the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ. This is true for all of us, but how much more so for people who live under the daily humiliating taunts of empire?

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No wonder Simon Peter wanted to pitch a tent and stay on that mountaintop with Jesus. The same Simon who back in Luke 5 exclaimed, Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man. I was fascinated by the tent metaphor that Carol talked about today and what that represents, how bodily shame is, and wants to pitch a tent.

00:40:21.360 - 00:40:50.880

What a glorious sensation to feel one's shame lifting like a cloud. While the glory of warm was all about serving up a smorgasbord of shame, Jesus dished out a steady diet of dignity to everyone who honored for a different way to love. The scribes and Pharisees always looking for the speck in someone else's eye, they finally got fed up with Jesus' ill-mannered choice of dinner companions. This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them, they grumbled.

00:40:51.680 - 00:41:09.440

So notice how I'm telling the three parables of the lost. Lost sheep, lost corn, lost sons. Jesus does more than defend his choice of dinner guests. He also invites those scribes and Pharisees to set aside their self-righteousness, to come inside and join the party.

00:41:10.800 - 00:41:25.760

Just as Jesus' open healing program had incited the temple priest, Now his open eating across social boundaries threatened the imperial status quo. Now Jesus had offended everyone who was anyone. His days were surely numbered.

00:41:27.520 - 00:41:58.920

For Roman Empire, the gospel or good news proclaimed that Caesar had established peace and security around the world. It didn't take long before Pax Christi began to trump Pax Romano. After his death and resurrection, Jesus' disciples continued the movement that he had launched in those fishing villages in Galilee. Paul in the picture is an early ministry strategist who brought the good news of Jesus Christ to Gentiles, including Romans, throughout the whole region.

00:41:59.520 - 00:42:24.160

Within 3 centuries after Jesus' death, the emperor himself was being baptized and Christianity established as the state religion. Talk about empire, and we will, but that's the story for tomorrow's lecture. Today, let's summarize several lessons we've learned from Jesus' ministry in the context of empire. I acknowledge that Pax Americana differs from Pax Romana in many significant ways.

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And yet, I submit that every empire has structural features that make this comparison useful and salutary. So, four points. Here goes. First, we must come to terms with religion as a source of power.

00:42:39.360 - 00:43:06.320

I've encouraged you to preach the miracle stories because they show how Jesus uses power for the sake of others, not for self-promotion. That's a convenient, albeit indirect, strategy for critiquing imperial power whenever it becomes self-serving, which it often does. But there's another aspect of power we need to address when it comes to religion. We, modern Presbyterians, often view religion as the source of inspiration for noble living.

00:43:07.280 - 00:43:36.320

You see religion as one of many influences that help keep us on the straight and narrow. But people who feel powerless in this world, who feel that the world bosses them around and despises what they value, these people don't have a casual relationship with religion. They seize religion as the primal force, primal source of strength and power. Their religious passion drives them to do great good and great harm.

00:43:37.200 - 00:44:02.440

We need to help our congregations understand religion as a source of power that directly motivates behavior for noble as well as ignoble purposes. Second, we need to confer with our critics. When William Sloan Coffin was pastor of the Riverside Church in New York, he was known for preaching somewhat controversial sermons. such as, It's assembly building nuclear weapons.

00:44:03.840 - 00:44:27.920

We'd asked how he managed to pull off this stunt week after week, coughing chuckled in that gravity voice and shared his secret. I find that folks are willing to let me preach on almost any topic as long as I do my pastoral homework. While preparing to preach against nuclear weapons, I called up this guy in my congregation who is most likely to be offended. Mark, I said, we need to meet so I can talk with you about Sunday's sermon.

00:44:28.960 - 00:44:39.920

So we met for lunch. I explained what I felt called to preach about. And of course, he disagreed with me. But he also respected me for caring about how he felt about it.

00:44:41.520 - 00:44:54.400

Well, I guess it's a free country, Mark said. You can preach that sermon if you have to. I'll see you Sunday. Third, we need to evaluate our country's current response to terrorism and point to alternative models.

00:44:55.280 - 00:45:36.800

Cyndi Combs describes terrorism as a synthesis of war and theater, a dramatization of the most prescribed kind of violence, that which is perpetrated on innocent victims, played before an audience in the hope of creating a moon of fear for political purposes. Notice how terrorism, historically employed by empire as a form of deterrence, can be effectively turned against imperial might. The Bish administration has rallied our nation by appealing to a crusade model for defeating terrorism. The war against terror is portrayed as a cosmic struggle between the forces of good and evil.

00:45:37.840 - 00:46:07.680

Listen to how David Fromm and Richard Poole state the case in their book, An End to Evil, How to Win the War on Terror. They say, For us, terrorism remains the great evil of our time, and the war against this evil, our generation's great cause. We do not believe that Americans are fighting this evil to minimize it or manage it. We believe they are fighting to win, to end this evil before it kills again and on a genocidal scale.

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There is no middle way for Americans. It is victory or holocaust. This book is a manual for victory. Do we preachers have anything to say about the theological claims of these arguments?

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Are we willing simply to jump on the crusade bandwagon and declare that the United States will bring about an end to evil and usher in the kingdom of God? Take note, by the way, that crusaders function with the same premise as terrorists, that violence is the ultimate sanction for controlling human behavior. Nothing in the crusade model promises to break the cycle of violence. An alternative response to 9-11 would have been to rely on the law enforcement model.

00:46:52.000 - 00:47:12.720

What might we have gained as a nation had we pronounced these terrorist acts, crimes against humanity, and sought international cooperation for capturing the criminals and bringing them to justice? Perhaps this would have bolstered the International Criminal Court, which the U.S. has not endorsed, because we don't want to be held accountable ourselves. someday.

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Ethicist Edward Lloyd has written a terrific book called Facing Terrorism. He notes that the law enforcement model tries to manage and control terrorism, but doesn't promise to eradicate it by lethal force.