A while ago I gave my grandmother a call. I was having a bit of an existential crisis when something clicked. “Is this what my grandparents felt?” I asked myself. The question referred to significant cultural changes, world happenings and environmental crises. For example, I cannot imagine what it must have felt like as a child to go through nuclear test drills, and then live through the tensions of the Cold War. 

I told my grandma I understood why my grandpa is constantly rants about the world going mad, because it is! I also told her, “But I wonder if I am also understanding you now as well, because everything in all of history seems to change at some point, even to an unprecedented way. In that sense, why would we let ourselves go mad with the world?” She agreed.

I don’t say this so that we can retreat to the comfort of our lives and our routines and simply ignore all the atrocities that are happening around us. I say this because I think many of us think what we are experiencing now in governments, the economy, international relations, the environment, and most generally, the state of the world, as a “sprint” to get things “back to normal,” so that we can then take a break.

However, that is clearly not what is going to happen. We are in an ultramarathon that will last as long as our legs allow us to keep running, and our feet to keep standing and our ears to keep listening and our mouths to keep speaking. 

Faith is understanding that, against all odds, peace, love and humanity can prevail. Faith is also teaching newer generations that greed is the opposite of sustainability, that God did not want the people to have kings as it was clear that power corrupts people, that protesting does not justify loss of life, that religious leaders can be wrong, and that the justice system can be unjust. I invite you to explore these topics with me and how they compare from Jesus’ time to now. 

1. Greed vs. sustainability

If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?  I John 3:17 (NIV)

Jesus spoke about greed and possessions quite often, asserting that you cannot serve both God and wealth. I think John summarizes Jesus’ message well. At a time when we have billionaires funding private space tours, yet world hunger is still a very significant issue, what does this say about the ability to see and take care of each other’s humanity? Not only does it show that being a billionaire is incompatible with loving God, but it also shows that greed and sustainability are incompatible as the planet and its population can’t keep sustaining this imbalance of wealth. Therefore, to love God is to strive for sustainability of all our resources, including wealth.

2. No kings

But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights.”  1 Samuel 8:6-9

From Samuel’s account, it was never part of the plan for the people to have kings rule over them. Even Samuel’s own line of leadership had become corrupted, showing that power can corrupt in any context. But when God allowed the people to have a king, there were rules for kings set in Deuteronomy 17:14-20 to limit that same corruption of power. Did it work? Although Solomon was hailed as the wisest king, he ended up accumulating wives and concubines, something explicitly stated as prohibited.

Fast forward to Jesus’ birth when Herod was king of Judea. Herod, by many accounts, was a Jewish convert and had been appointed to rule over the Jews by the Roman senate. Yet, the Bible states that he ordered the massacre of babies to protect his own claim to power.

In Canada, we still have a king. Whatever one may think of him, his power and rule do not reach that of the United States president. Although elected democratically, the tyranny that is being lived by many because of his government is comparable to that of a king with unchecked power and no accountability of a true democratic government. Is that what God intended for human organization?

3. Protesting

In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.” John 2:14-17

I know this particular point will make some uncomfortable. Nonetheless, I am tired of hearing stories of people losing their life as a consequence of protesting. Jesus protested, and violently at that. We never get another example of Jesus being violent or physical towards anyone anywhere else in the Bible. Isn’t it telling? Shouldn’t this be our example? Yet I see many Christians often defending violent actions against protesters, including when protesters are murdered. 

4. Religious leaders

Early in the morning, all the chief priests and the elders of the people made their plans how to have Jesus executed. So they bound him, led him away and handed him over to Pilate the governor.  Matthew 27:1-2

Jesus was often accused of breaking the law, particularly the religious laws of the time. It was the religious leaders who got organized and went after Jesus, bringing him to the authorities and ultimately getting him killed. 

Today I see many memes shared online that remind me of this paradox. How not just everyday Christians, but also leaders who claim faith to be extremely important to them act, lead me to ask the following questions: Would Christians grant Jesus status if he sought refuge in the United States today? Would Jesus be called a domestic terrorist for protesting at the temple? Would Christians justify police brutality against Jesus because his disciple attacked an officer? Would Jesus be visiting the White house, or an ICE detention center?

5. The justice system

While Pilate was sitting on the judge’s seat,  . . . .  Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead an uproar was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd. “I am innocent of this man’s blood,” he said. “It is your responsibility!”  Matthew 27:19a, 24

Pontius Pilate decided to let Barnabas, a criminal, go and hand over Jesus to the religious leaders of the Jewish establishment to crucify him under the pressure of the crowd. He knew this was unjust. He had been told so by his wife. Yet, he made the decision to wash his hands from that responsibility. But does it really work that way?

Millennia later we still talk about Pilate’s wrongful decision and the washing of hands metaphor is well understood in mainstream culture. Nevertheless, how can we hold leaders accountable when they do this? It is a tale as old as time, yet it seems that we have not been creative enough in figuring out how to hold judges and justices accountable.