For weeks and weeks now, Putin’s attack on Ukraine has dominated the news cycle and has captured many of our hearts. We are rightly concerned. Then this week in the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. (son of former dictator) won that country’s presidential election. Putin and Marcos are just two recent examples reflecting the global surge in populism and nationalism that we’ve witnessed for well over a decade. Nationalism is a rising threat around not just around world but in this country too. Nationalism can be understood as the pitting of “us” versus “them” on larger scale; Nationalism, in part, taps into the natural human quest for well-defined identity and the desire to control power.
The quest for a clear enough sense of identity is important for all humans… What is your identity? How do you primarily imagine yourself? And what forces have helped shape how you understand yourself?
These are big and important questions.
I think Jesus has a lot to say about identity and nationalism.
In the Christian calendar, the church is in the season of Eastertide. Its a season in which followers of The Way focus on listening for the various ways the resurrection of Jesus flips on its head dominant cultural imaginations. With Easter in mind, I thought we might briefly consider what Jesus’ resurrection might say about national or even religious identity.
Even though Jesus lived at a time when his land and its people were occupied by the Roman Empire Jesus doesn’t say much about it. We don’t hear Jesus mobilizing the people of Israel to fight for their national freedom, nor do we hear Jesus decrying Rome. Jesus doesn’t even rally the people by tapping into their religious life and Jewish practice. In fact, given the oppressive domination by Rome of first century Palestine the absence of this kind of talk from Jesus is both shocking and worth pondering. If Jesus doesn’t talk about overthrowing Rome or doubling down on Jewish religion or identity, what does Jesus talk about?
Jesus paints a picture of the Kingdom of God.
Jesus doesn’t go around preaching ‘Israel’ or ‘Church,’ rather he talks about the “Kingdom of God” and the “Kingdom of Heaven.” Jesus consistently inverts his hearers’ imaginations of the ‘good life’ by saying: “You have heard it said_____, but I say unto you_____.” In these transformational teachings Jesus would take the dominant wisdom of the day and upend it. By overturning commonly held beliefs, values and identities Jesus invited participation in the character and being of God, while helping his hearers imagine the kind of life God inaugurates in Christ. Rather than rallying people against a shared national or religious enemy Jesus shapes an imagination for the peace and love of God… the Kin-dom of God.
In fact, every time followers of The Way pray the Lord’s Prayer we enter this re-imagination of reality, “God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Jesus invites all followers of The Way to foster an imagination for life in light of the Triune God. The kin-dom of God… what might it look like if God was in charge?
If God’s will was enacted on earth, how might we engage climate change? If God’s will was being done, how might the rising cost of housing and increased homelessness be addressed? If we were living in the Kingdom of Heaven, how might we respond to oppressive regimes? Human identity – both individually and collectively – is secure in the Divine, the Creator, the Giver of life, the One who calls us God’s own children.
One’s primary identity does not come from passports, nor religion, nor defining ourselves against others. The resurrection of Jesus flips the script on identity. Identity, as re-imagined through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is less a possession to defend and more a relationship to express through faithful presence.
Peace, dwight
