Open Our Eyes

Not too long ago I was in a store with a group of friends who aren’t exactly on the same page as me about social justice. We talked about the price of food - they were complaining - and I responded to their complaints that a lot went into the food that we were buying. I asked them if they ever stopped along the freeway to look at the kind of work that farmworkers do - that is, what it takes to put strawberries into boxes, watermelons into trucks, stooping down to cut lettuce and asparagus and going through the vineyard pushing through the branches and leaves to cut grapes. No one had. I shared how the food was packaged and put into trucks to be sent to processing centers for sale and distribution. Still not convinced about the so-called “food chain,” I told them about my own mother who put herself through business school by working as a cannery worker. This changed the conversation.  I discovered I needed to make a connection with them that was real. I needed to connect the story of the individual with the the systemic mess of injustice. People had to “see” the suffering to come to a conversion point.

Jesus opens our eyes not only the suffering of the farmworker that suffers from heat stroke, but he opens our eyes to the entire system that makes farmworkers work long, hard hours in 110 degree weather in the Imperial Valley.  We must open our eyes to the realities of a 16 year old Oaxacan fieldworker in Greenfield, a 10 year old child making Michael Jordan shoes in Viet Nam, a young woman locked in a factory in rural China assembling iPhones. In today’s Gospel, Jesus is opening the eyes of the Jerusalem Pharisees by making the point when he holds up the coin that everyone is caught up in the web of Cesar and his unjust system.  But we all have to make a choice once we see the injustice.  When the Pharisees admit that they personally benefit from an economic and social system that is sustained by labor coerced by force and economic realities that make people essentially slaves, they will have to make choice about how they will continue living their lives knowing that their well-being is possible at the expense of invisible people who undoubtedly suffer much.

What Jesus sees at stake in the matter of the coin is not a matter of the separation of Church and State.  Jesus is arguing that one cannot continue on living one’s life without taking a serious look at what makes your life possible. He is trying to uncover the violence underneath every day life in Jerusalem.  To understand this point, we have to understand where Jesus came from.

Before Jesus and Pontius Pilate were born, the Roman conquerers flooded the markets with Roman money as a way to coerce the people into depending more on the Roman system. Putting Roman coins in the hands of a conquered people was the way that Rome maintained social and political control.   At the time around Jesus’ birth the Romans instituted a census tax. This tax was not well received and a rebellion began.  In Galilee there were a few insurgents that led the rebellion, but they were crucified.  When Jesus was a teen, a rebel, Judas of Galilee, cried out, “Taxation was no better than an introduction to slavery!” Romans were cruel in their counter-attacks. Galilee became known as a hotbed of political unrest. (see http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/portrait/galilee.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judas_of_Galilee)  Jesus’ background as a child and youth was formed in the rebellious environment of Galilee. It is therefore not a surprise that Jesus was willing to take on a good fight.

Jesus tried to open the eyes of the Pharisees. They knew what Jesus knew, they just didn’t want to open their eyes.  In fact, everybody knew that the system was corrupt and people were hurting because of this system. Jesus the Galilean was not going to let it go. Jesus’ preaching was dangerous because Jesus taught that there was only one legitimate Kingdom: that of God.  All other principalities - including Cesar’s, were false and illegitimate.

The Jerusalem Pharisees and the Sadducees, Scribes, Temple Priests and all other powerful people in Jerusalem realized that if Jesus were to continue his preaching and bringing together all sorts of people a across gender, economic and social lines, Pilate would understand these assemblies and speech as rebellion and he would be forced to address this rebellion with swift action. The power brokers of Jerusalem were coming to the conclusion that the brutality of Pilate’s response would be too harmful to the people. Ultimately their treacherous actions were guided by the principle that it be better than one man die, then suffer the entire community. They were willing to tolerate injustice in order to keep on living  the way they were. 

Jesus wanted more than anything to free those who were trapped by the system. He believed that challenging people and getting them to question the things all around them would give the the idea that they could be free and they did not have to be victims of their own oppression. The awareness of the very possibility of liberation is HOPE. Jesus called them to join his cause and to unshackle themselves of their fears.  He gave them a way out. Regrettably, the vision of freedom made his detractors only more defensive. They couldn't get on board with Jesus’ message of HOPE built on liberation and resistance. It was far easier just to accuse Jesus of blasphemy.

This Gospel is very important for us today.  Jesus knew the Kingdom of God is about creating justice for those who have been left out of the picture. The Kingdom is about the 100%, not the 1%. In trying to open the Pharisee’s eyes, he asked someone to produce a coin. One of the Pharisees gave the coin to Jesus. This simple act of producing a coin exposed the first level of hypocrisy. Jesus knew that these guys were with him in his critique of the Romans. The Pharisee had an unclean object in his pocket.  The image on the coin and the pagan symbols made everything unclean.  Carrying a profane object by the Temple, the most sacred space in Israel, was a significant offense. Jesus continued to probe the hypocrisy. He pointed out the image on the coin - the image is Cesar.  The Pharisee’s coin represented the entire system of oppression and coerced peace. This coin was, in effect, an instrument of the Jewish people’s oppression.  Jesus exposed the sad reality that his entire society was unwittingly participating in a fundamentally evil system. The coin didn't belong to the people, in fact, the coin belonged to Cesar and everything he stood for: a society controlled by the constant threat of crucifixion, a class-conscious society that excluded entire segments of society from participation, a society that rewarded the strong and punished the weak. Cesar was owned nothing.

We too have coins in our pocket.  Our national interests are protected by our troops invading lands with oil, by policies that  opened borders to lure workers in, but sealed the borders behind them to make them slaves. Our national interests are protected by investing resources in bailing out Wall Street and crooked companies and investors, while ignoring the millions of people displaced by foreclosure. We cannot have it both ways. We either serve God or we serve Cesar. We either serve the 100% or the 1%. 

In a few chapters Jesus will indeed have a confrontation with Pilate and this confrontation will come at a cost.  Jesus died so that we could rise. And that we are risen by virtue of our baptism means that we too, rebels of Galilee, will take up the cross of resistance and hope!