Turning Around and Rethinking the “Royal Theology” of Our Time – Tom Mundahl reflects on the appeal of kingdom, power, and exceptionalism.
Care for Creation Commentary on the Common LectionaryĀ
Readings for the Second Sunday of Lent, Year B (2018, 2021, 2024)
Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16
Psalm 22:23-31
Romans 4:13-25
Mark 8:31-38
As we move from the Genesis pre-history to Godās forming a new community through Abram and Sarai, the centrality of creation and the vocation to care for the land and make it a home endure. Even though divine action ārupturesā safe worldviews in favor of living by promise, this weekās readings provide courage to continue even when this new community is at odds with power structures.
What is most striking about the Priestly account of the Abrahamic Covenant is that it is givenĀ in extemis. The narrator makes it clear that Abram and Sarai are so far beyond the age of child-bearing, that even to speak of posterity is ridiculous. But this Holy One, who is here introduced as El Shaddai, an early appellation that may mean āGod with breastsā or āfertile Godā ( cf. Genesis 49:25) is true to his name and enlivens hope in this couple with the promise of a child (Genesis 17:16).
This new covenant fulfills creation promises of fruitful multiplication (Genesis 1:28, 9: 1), providing for a future that is clearly dependent upon Godās gracious action and nothing else. āBut the point of fruitfulness, of son, of enduring covenant is announced only in v. 8, an affirmation made not to either Adam or Noah, but only to Father Abraham. It is delayed until now, until the new history of Abraham, and it concerns land: āAnd I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojournings, all the Land of Canaan.āā Brueggemann goes on to claim, āThis is the focal verse of the tradition of promise history.ā (Genesis, Louisville, John Knox, 1980, p. 21)
The promise of sons and daughters (a future) only makes sense in light of a land of where they can become a sustaining community (Which makes the omission of v. 8 questionable at best). But in no way can either the land or the progeny be considered āproperty.ā As the Deuteronomist warns the people, āDo not say to yourself, āMy power and the might of my own hand have gotten me this wealth.ā But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, so that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your ancestors, as he is doing todayā (Deuteronomy 8:17-18). These words and the Abrahamic Covenant must have been especially powerful to those in Babylon ābarrenā of land during their nearly half-century of exile.
Seeing children and the land as covenant gift was theologically crucial. As early as the reign of Solomon (970-930 BCE), a āroyal theologyā had emerged based on Israelās affluence, as well as their diplomatic and military power. Unfortunately, proponents of āroyal theologyā began to see the land as property, wealth as something to be enjoyed by the few, and even fellow Israelites as subject to forced laborāall too reminiscent of Egyptian bondage (Brueggemann,Ā The Prophetic Imagination, Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002, p.24). Not only did this religious decay lead to the emergence of the prophets, but it comes into play in this weekās Gospel reading as Jesus warns Peter to distinguish āhuman thingsā from āthe things of Godā (Mark 8:33). More importantly, the focus of āroyal theologyā on kingdom building neglects a question that every leader should ask in humility as she/he thinks about amassing power: āIs anything too wonderful for the LORD?ā (Genesis 18:14)
The psalmist approaches this question from a better angle: the standpoint of a lowly one (ani, one of theĀ aniwim) lamenting in words familiar from Good Friday, āMy God, my God, why have you forsaken me?ā (Psalm 22:1). It is only in the midst of the worshipping community (v. 22) that this lowly one is empowered once more to reflect divine passion for the earth and its people in the peculiarly appropriate act of praise.Ā Ā It is worship that stems not from a āroyal edict,ā but from a celebration of the goodness of a creation, where even āthe poor shall eat and be satisfiedā (v. 26).Ā Ā Despite the earthās cycles of living and dying, the LORD ensures the fruitfulness of creation.
This creational generativity is upheld by Paul as he writes to the churches of Rome to reconcile Jewish and Gentile believers. Equally important is his hope to extend the mission of the church as far as Spain. To accomplish both of these goals, he holds that āin the shameful cross, Christ overturned the honor system that dominated the Greco-Roman world and that provided support for the premise of exceptionalism for the Empireā (Robert Jewett,Ā Romans, Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007, p. 1). No longer can categories of exceptionalism be tolerated (cf. Galatians 3: 27-28).
In this takedown of Roman imperial theology, Paul can find no better model than Abraham. Abraham certainly carried no religious resume to boast of; he and Sarah simply trusted the nearly laughable promises of heirs and land. Because of this trust, not only was it āreckoned to him (Abraham) as righteousnessā (Romans 4:3), but Paul suggests Abraham and Sarah were āto inherit the world . . .ā(Romans 4: 13). This cosmic inheritance drives powerfully to Romans 8, where Paul will claim that the entire world waits with eager longing for āthe revelation of the sons of Godā (8:19), who as Jewett claims āwould take responsibility for the polluted worldā (Jewett, p. 326). This is a direct effect of the faith God engenders in allāregardless of ethnicity or citizenshipāfaith that grows from the soil of promise.
That Abraham should inherit the world (Romans 4:13) comes as no surprise since the gift of faith grows out of the gift of creation. Abraham believed in the God āwho gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not existā (4:17b). Therefore, āif faith is a gift, creation is the greater giftā (Horrell, Hunt, and Southgate, Greening Paul: Rereading the Apostle in a Time of Ecological Crisis, Waco: Baylor, 2010, p. 75).
Here Paul reminds us of Henry David Thoreau, who in his essay āWalkingā wrote, ā. . . in Wildness is the Preservation of the Worldā (Lewis Hyde, ed.,Ā The Essays of Henry David Thoreau, New York: North Point Press, 2002, p. 162). By this he meant that creation has been given the capacity for renewal as part of its being. When that capacity for renewal is blocked,Ā Ā through drought, through suburbanization, or through climbing earth temperatures, the āworldāā human and all elseāis threatened.
That threat is visible in the massive attempt of the Roman Empire with its explicit āimperial theologyā to control reality in multi-faceted ways, ranging from the over-harvesting of timber throughout the Empire to proclaiming the emperor divine. Paul claims that real life is celebration and care of the gift of creation and promise through faith. In doing so, he tears a hole in the fabric of a system dedicated to maximizing human control.
As we enter the anthropocene epoch, we have begun to realize that the fruit of human attempts to control the natural world have failed and, in many cases, led to a āwildnessā that no longer nourishes, but is āout of control.ā Take the case of the Mississippi River and its tributaries in Dubuque, IA. Since its founding in the late 1790ās, this human settlement on the banks of the Mississippi has tried to control the river with levees, dikes, and a massive flood wall built after the devastating 1965 flood. The many smaller streams and creeks emptying into the river were simply paved over. None of this has worked: the flood wall simply intensifies the speed of water flowing to increase flooding downstream and the city storm sewer system has proven inadequate in coping with underground water flows.
Finally, residents have begun to preserve their city by learning from the āwildnessā Thoreau referenced. Just last year, the first of several creeks to be ādaylightedā (uncovered) was dedicated, Bee Branch Creek. This creek, along with others in planning stages, not only provides recreation and beauty, but it is important in flood control, especially in efforts to stop frequent flash flooding. In fact, living and working in the Bee Branch Watershed is becoming more attractive because of the beauty of the Creek and the flood prevention it has provided (Connie Cherba, āThe Bee Branch Creek is Back,āĀ Big River, Sept,-Oct. 2017, p. 37). As Thoreau might have said, āLearning from the Wild is the preservation of the World.ā Faith and trust in creation, not control, is a crucial step in mitigating the disorder of our new age.
Our Gospel reading shows Jesus and the disciples in a place of intense control, Caesarea Philippi, whose villages surrounded the new imperial city in the highlands of northern Israel, formerly a center for the worship of the Baalim and the Greek god Pan. In this area with a long tradition of religious ferment, Jesus asked his students who they thought he was. The first to speak was Peter who answered, āYou are the Christā (Mark 8:29).Ā Ā Not only did Jesus strongly silence his circle, but he used this as an opportunity for teaching.
What is most striking is that in the first of three āpassion predictionsā central to this gospel, he calls himself not āthe Christ,ā but the āSon of Man,ā or, as some translate it, āthe human one.ā Even more surprising is his conviction that āit is necessary that the Son of Man undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days riseā (8:31).Ā Ā Shocked, Peter protests and begins toĀ rebukeĀ Jesus. But JesusĀ rebukesĀ Ā (the verb, ārebukeā is the same one used to silence demons, 1:25) Peter saying, āGet behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things, but human thingsā (8:32).
Why did Peter react so strongly? Ched Meyers suggests it was because āaccording to the understanding of Peter, āMessiahā necessarily means royal triumph and the restoration of Israelās collective honorā (Binding the Strong Man, Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2008, p. 244). Jesusā self-identification as the āSon of Manā and his passion predictions ādismantle the dominant theories of power by asserting that all such would-be power is in fact no-power. Thus the passion announcements of Jesus are the decisive dismissal of every self-serving form of power upon which the royal consciousness is based. Just that formula, Son of man must sufferāSon of man/suffer!āis more than the world can tolerate . . . ā (Brueggemann,Ā The Prophetic Imagination, Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002, pp. 96-97).
Following Peterās rebuke, Jesusā free and open teaching continues with the ācrowdā included.Ā Ā This has often been called a ācatechismā for disciples; perhaps we could see it as the vocation of all who believe. The words are familiar and still shocking: they turn the āinstinctā of self-preservation and the desire for wealth and glory upside down.Ā Ā Why? These are the rules for confronting all authoritarian regimes which are ultimately based on fear of death.Ā Ā The one āwith the most stuff when she/he diesā actually wins nothing except the contempt of those who have to deal with āthe remaining collection.ā In fact, they (we?) have āforfeited our livesā (Mark 8:36b) in favor of standards of economic ease we entrust as lifeās āthe bottom line.ā Real life is dangerous, often counter-cultural, but on the way, as poet W. H. Auden wrote, we are promised āunique adventuresā (āFor the Time Being,ā Collected Poems, New York: Random House, 1976, p. 308).
Jesus unmasks the weakness of the power system.Ā Ā If one of the definitions of a government is that agency exercising the āālegitimateā power of coercive violence,ā all is revealed. For the most extreme threat, then, is the power of execution justified as a method of keeping order or, at the least, protecting interests. By being willing to ātake up the cross,ā the one called to follow contributes to shattering the powersā reign of death in history (Myers, p. 247). Discerning the legitimacy and proper methods of resistance must be done prayerfully within the context of the Christian community, a community that follows on this āunique adventure.ā Yet, we do so in confidence because we have ābeen buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of lifeā (Romans 6:4).
Combining last weekās narrative of Jesusā temptation in the wildernessĀ Ā (Mark 1:12-13) and this weekās calling out of Peter as a āsatanā for defining Jesus as a power-playing Messiah in the highland villages, we see that Markās Gospel does contain a completeĀ temptation story (cf. especially Matthew 4:8-10 and Luke 4:5-8). Just as the Son of Man rejects the way of messianic power, we are called to find real life in serving, including building eco-justice. The āroyal theologyā of our time is addiction to economic power that requires nothing less than endless growth, maldistribution of growthās benefits, deregulation of those inconvenient measures to promote safety and health, and the denigration of education and culture. The result is a culture dedicated to intensifying the dangerous impact of the āanthropocene epoch.ā
The cost of resistance is high, but this is the season for repentanceāturning around and rethinking. Those to whom we preach expect faithfulness and honesty. Control over the natural world has backfired. Our vocation is no longer to be found solely in the realm of āfreedom,ā but also in the realm of necessity, ābecause our duty to care for the Earth must precede all othersā (Clive Hamilton,Ā Defiant Earth: The Fate of Humans in the Anthropocene, Cambridge: Polity, 2017, pp. 52-53). And yet, is not this duty at the center of Lutherās definition of āChristian freedom: ānot only royalty subject to none, but obedient service, subject to all.ā (paraphrased from āThe Freedom of a Christian,āĀ Lutherās Works–Career of the Reformer: I, Philadelphia: Fortress, 1957,vol. 31, p. 344) Today that āallā must include service to a fractious creation.
Tom Mundahl, Saint Paul, MN
tmundahl@gmail.com
Originally written by Tom Mundahl in 2018.