Persecution vs. Accountability

 Recently I heard someone compare themself to Jesus as to say they were being unjustly persecuted. I’m utilizing the plural pronoun intentionally here because the point actually is not to single out the person I most recently heard utter these words or any single person at all. Commonly people choose or give into seeing themselves as victims and martyrs rather than using rebuke or accountability or a realization of destitute circumstances to take responsibility for their wrongs. News flash. It’s really quite easy to do such things, and it is even easier to get people who also prefer not to have to enter their own pains, failures, and shortcomings to go along with it…

Listening to one person stand up for his or her mistakes and accept responsibility or watching an individual, especially one in close proximity to oneself, be honest about difficult topics threatens the multitudes mostly interested in keeping homeostasis intact. Homeostasis in a community or group typically formulates some type of system or cultural construct that prevents the difficult actions like owning faults or recognizing one’s part in the breakdown of a situation and then taking the necessary steps of personal growth, repentance, and change in order to bring about needed cultural change. In short, who wants all that uncomfortable mess? Not homeostasis, and I get that fear. It’s terrifying. won’t lie. I speak less in judgment and mostly in the spirit of self-awareness because there are times that people are unjustly persecuted and suffer at the hands of unjust people, BUT in the specific situations to which I write, those making the comparison that they are being persecuted like Jesus are actually NOT being crucified, (as Jesus was), but ARE instead being asked to follow the law of the United States of America and make restitution when they do not.

I came across this meme tonight.

It speaks volumes if one sits with it. Indeed the crowd chose Barabbas, not because he was good or worthy or innocent or even actually loved. They did it because they couldn’t accept the truth and because Jesus was radically counter-cultural to EVERYTHING, EVEN the religious people, ESPECIALLY the religious people.

Some may flinch here and digress into anger that I’m being one of those Christians harping that Jews killed Jesus. Well that is not the intent of this at all. First, some Jewish people and some of the Roman government participated in the killing of Jesus. I imagine some non-Jewish people wanted him dead too. Pilate, a governing authority at the time, may have said “I wash my hands of his blood,” referring to Jesus, but if he’d REALLY wanted to wash his hands of his blood, he would have set him free. The symbolism he sought didn’t do Jesus any good. People killed Jesus, people who couldn’t deal with what he taught, how he subverted all the cultural-religious systems, socio-economic hierarchies, and how radically he loved and forgave people of even the lowest of classes. In these ways, he was causing causing a revolution. This revolution, however, was not an attempt to conquer others or the government, but the type that wanted to STOP injustice and abuse, caste systems and accepted inequalities in the communities and governments that were killing the weakest and honoring the richest and aggressors at the expense of actual morality.

Oh, and let one also not forget that Jesus himself even said, “you don’t take my life from me. I lay it down.” Therefore, here is not a Christian blaming Jews for killing Jesus.

Digging a little deeper and looking at what type of ethic Jesus taught in regard to religious faith, behavior, authority, one doesn’t find a Jesus who just went around condemning people for worshipping different gods or about condemning only certain cultures and elevating only others. True, he made comparisons; true, he said love God first, but mainly Jesus was about truth. The Gospel of John goes to great lengths to emphasize this aspect of Jesus’ existence, earthly and eternally. Jesus was against worshipping oneself over God and other people. Jesus was against, IS against, treating other people terribly, perpetually unfairly and without love or respect, dignity or grace. THESE were his biggest things. Jesus emphasized truth that held people accountable, and yet still tempered EVEN that ethic with unimaginable GRACE. He hated sin, but he didn’t turn away the repentant ones and humble regardless how awful their sin.

Notice how many times Jesus condemns other “religions” or specific nations compared to how many times he condemns the actual behavior and judgments and systems of humans, religious or not. A human making himself god at the expense of others was and is the antithesis of what Jesus taught, and ironically, therein lies the demonic possession, the evidenced of enslavement to the powers of evil, a life of darkness that cannot even tell the truth… Men are but dust, and none have been Jesus but Jesus. Christianity is supposed to be a faith that allows humans to face their humanity, not a faith where they run away from their sin and claim any attempt at being held accountable is tantamount to being persecuted LIKE Jesus was. Hell no.

So the next time you find yourself wanting to compare yourself to Jesus for suffering persecution, try asking yourself if there is anything for which maybe you need even to take responsibility. To reiterate, I am not suggesting no one is ever persecuted unjustly or that Christians aren’t persecuted in situations because they are Christians, or even that people aren’t abused and persecuted for various reasons, all over the earth. This is not a political soapbox about THAT, but it is political when you consider that politics has to do with how governments and people treat other people. It is political when you consider that politics has to do with wielding authority and understanding from whence that authority comes, and at what cost. All these things. I have found this all to be true in my own life, and utilized for good in the lives of others. I have had to ask myself much for what I needed to take responsibility, and then I have had to take responsibility for a lot. I have also been shown a lot of grace and humbled into remembering the faith that first saved me. I have learned anew about forgiveness, humility, and grace, and it has changed my life, again… as it always does. Because that’s just it: One final point. We don’t ever arrive. We don’t just change once and then we’re all better for life. We are always growing, if we indeed are able to grow. Humans are inextricably broken, and healing and change is a life-time game.

Stagnation isn’t what humans were made for, albeit some people choose to remain stagnate. Back to the whole homeostasis thing again. It’s easier… or perhaps… perhaps they just haven’t had their eyes opened. I cannot say that my choices to own up to short comings have come extremely easily, or really even ever until I was literally out of other ways to try to hide… Nevertheless, there was always only so far I could go…. something inside me broke me down, and changed my heart. God hemmed me in. My heart softened and my eyes were opened. I found the granite, as Josh Johnson says.

We grow. We learn, if we’re lucky. We’re not Jesus… but many of us are thankfully being broken and bruised and shaped to be used. Many of us are being brought to learn to be like him. If you find yourself doubting that’s even possible for you, then the good news is, you’re just the right kind of person Jesus came to save… the sick, and the sinner. You demonstrate it by having the humility to recognize you don’t deserve it. That’s Scriptural too. Self-realization is a gift of the Spirit I think, and if you have it and it humbles you, then the Gospel is for you.

People out there claiming they are being persecuted like Jesus are the ones we should pray for… These people may not even know God. The god they do know may not offer such radical forgiveness and grace and mercy to change them or anyone. They may only know this idea of who they feel they have to be to matter. They may be actually mentally ill. They may be extremely terrified and afraid. That doesn’t mean these people aren’t dangerous. That doesn’t mean we should trust them and enable them, but it does mean that even Jesus accepted the reality of a broken world, and what had to happen and prayed for his enemies. Look how he responded to Judas. Look how he put the ear back on that soldier. If you believe those things, in these stories in the Bible, in the pages of Scripture, then consider them and be changed by them. You don’t HAVE to believe in Jesus to have this kind of character, but if you say you do believe in Jesus, well dang- have this kind of character! Or seek it at least! Consider asking Jesus how you might live more like him… maybe then life might change. Maybe then, you might change.