"'Jesus is Lord' --and the powers of this world are not." According to Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan in their new book The Last Week, this is the essential message that Easter affirms. They insist the Jesus of Mark's Gospel was a God-centred human being who revealed his commitment in both a personal and a politically engaged way. For the authors, Christian commitment imbues personal and political life with religious meaning, involving followers in active discipleship that is both challenging and inviting. In this book, they provide an exegesis of the Gospel according to Mark, focusing on the account of the last week of Jesus' life.
Many people today understand our world as a more or less integral network of national governments. The power relations that bind nations together are complex and difficult to understand. The "normalcy of civilization" --to use a phrase from the book-- is the domination system. In other words, organizing societies in this way is "what most commonly happens." In the apocalyptic imagination, a system based upon principles of domination and exploitation assumes a concrete form in an all-powerful system of global domination. This monstrous system is the modern version of the Pax Romana: An inherently violent method by which peaceful coexistence is sought, but where, as Foucault stated, silence about oppression and injustice is the shield behind which the powerful work. Religion either collaborates with those who wield power through the organized use of violence, or it organizes itself as a resistance to domination systems. The activity of resisting violence and injustice brings to birth new societies. Responsibility for one another is mediated according to covenant imperatives of inclusion, justice, mercy, and compassion.
The United Nation's failures to forge a dialogical consensus among the world's nations about how we can learn to be responsible for one another and our planet, begs a drastic reinterpretation of the meaning of Jesus' quest for the reign of God in the face of imperial power. It raises new questions about the meaning of Jesus' actions during that final week of his life, and about the interpretation of those actions by the first Christian communities.
During the tumultuous and uncertain birthing of the Christian movement, Mark's stories were more than "history remembered." They were parabolic narratives intended to communicate the meaningful symbols and metaphors of the new community. The movement inspired by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus emerged as an underground resistance to both Roman imperial power and to the corrupted Temple "system." Religious elites among the Jews collaborated with Rome, securing their own social status while adding to the oppression of the poor. The authors are careful to explain that their interpretation is not anti-Judaic or anti-Semitic. Their explanation of Mark's method of framing is intended to help the reader to situate Jesus at the crucial intersection where political and religious oppression merged. Jesus' fate is the fate of a human being devoted to the transformation of society, who authentically models and preaches conversion --here and now-- to the reign of God.
The authors are concerned with questions about meaning and state that they are not attempting a historical reconstruction of Jesus' final week. Even so, their previous work obviously serves as a foundation to their current interpretive attempt. They succeed in their goal: It is a book about meaning. Reading this book alongside daily newspaper stories that describe the various strategies of the nations of this world to arrive at peace should ignite new questions, and spark new insights in the imaginations of those inspired by Jesus' mission.
Borg and Crossan speak about Jesus' Passion as it can be understood when we stretch our imaginations to include his political, social, and religious context. They are critical of narrow interpretations of Jesus' passion like Mel Gibson's dramatization in The Passion of the Christ. Likewise, they lament the conflation of Holy Week in our liturgical system to its final three days. Mark's chronological framework is that of a full week --deliberately arranged accounts of Jesus' confrontational engagement with imperial power and with those religious leaders who collaborated with Roman domination.
Mark's technique of framing is explained as his way of helping readers to make connections between key events. Certain highly political acts that speak of Jesus' true Passion frame the central message of Mark's Gospel. In this reading, it was Jesus' authenticity in responding passionately to his own vocation that led him into an escalating confrontation with representatives of Roman imperial power, and with the Jewish religious leaders who collaborated within the domination system at the expense of justice in their own community.
There is no consensus within the Christian community concerning what Jesus' Passion might be all about. Borg and Crossan insist that Mark, the earliest Gospel, cannot be used to support a theology of redemptive suffering as a basis for Jesus' Passion. Mark's chronology describes only Jesus' engagement with the "powers" and his faithfulness to the reign of God. Borg and Crossan explain that Mark's narrative of the resurrection reveals how his community believed that God had vindicated Jesus' mission. The Gospel reveals an internal coherency of political engagement and faith-filled spiritual quest, and it makes a strong theological statement: If God is Lord --Caesar is not.
In the book, Borg and Crossan continue to warn readers of the New Testament about the dangers of isolating Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection from its social, political, and religious context. Instead they urge us to ask what the life, crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus mean for us today in our own political lives. This book reminds us that the same quest to announce and cooperate with the reign of God that was Jesus' Passion must likewise be our own. It is a quest that requires both personal and political engagement.
The collaborative work of Borg and Crossan bears the kind of fruit that we need to inspire us in the interpretive task of the Church today. When we seek to return to the "origins" of the Christian mission, it is essential that we do not fail to understand the significance of contextualizing the mission of Jesus. It is only through such a reflective activity that we can effectively discern what it means to resist violence and injustice and to seek the reign of God in our own times.
Kathy Perry is a Master of Divinity student at Regis College in Toronto. She is married with two children. Her review "The Search For Jesus' Identity" appeared in the June/July 2006 issue of The Social Edge.
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