Their culture developed along the Orinoco, in what are today Venezuela and Colombia, but they sailed off, too, settling on islands in the Greater and Lesser Antilles, sharing the islands with another indigenous group, the Island Carib. The TaÃno branch of the Arawak would settle one of the larger islands, the rich resources of the sea and the fertile land resulting in over 200 villages. Then Columbus arrived, naming that big island Santiago. Disease brought by the colonizers and exploitation would nearly decimate the tribal group, and the remnant would largely be displaced by slaves imported in order to grow sugar. One of the few reminders that they were ever there is the name the English gave that island, seized from the Spanish by William Penn in 1655. The Arawak had called their island Xaymaca, which in English, became Jamaica.
England would officially abolish slavery on Jamaica in 1838, importing yet another group of foreign workers, this time from Asia, but they did not abolish colonialism or racism. Abolition was no more successful in the Caribbean than it was in the United States. A century later, the frustrations of Jamaica’s former slaves would find expression in the creation of a new religion, a heady mix of the Abrahamic traditions, the Pan-Africanism of leaders like Marcus Garvey, and the cult of personality surrounding Haile Selassie, the emperor of Ethiopia. Today, Rastafarianism is best known for dreadlocks, ganja, and reggae, best known for the late great Bob Marley. And it is to Marley’s final studio album that we turn, recorded after his cancer diagnosis. It was the most religious of his recordings, and includes “Redemption Song.†“How long shall they kill our prophets, while we stand aside and look?â€
And they were, we were, killing the prophets when Bob Marley was singing, those seeking equality, dignity, for people of African descent, both on the African continent itself and in the diaspora, in places like Kingston, Atlanta, Soweto, leaders like Malcolm X, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Patrice Lumumba, Steve Biko… yet, for all this suffering, “Redemption Song†is suffused with hope, with invitation. “Won’t you help me sing these songs of freedom? ‘Cause all I ever have… Redemption songs…â€
Prophets don’t come off so well in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures either, driven from town, thrown down a well, under the threat of death, or dead on a cross. The mistreatment of prophets, noted in the Hebrew canon, shows up in both versions of the Beatitudes, the classic words of hope and reversal found in Matthew and Luke, words those authors themselves found in the lost gospel Q, though they locate and expand on this shared source to their own ends. So it is that Matthew gives us a sermon on a mount, meant to show us that Jesus is the new Moses, while Luke, the evangelist for the common people, for women and the poor, sets it on a plain. Matthew spiritualizes the blessings, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,†while Luke keeps it real: “Blessed are you who are hungry now.â€
The word “blessed†has become quite popular in recent years, not so much in connection with the divine reversal we find in the Beatitudes, where the poor become rich and the rich become poor, but instead because “blessed†is a buzz word for the Prosperity Gospel. To be wealthy is to be blessed, to receive the appropriate earthly reward for righteousness. One thing is certain about that heresy. The charlatans of prosperity theology do, indeed, prosper.
The actual word we translate as “blessedâ€, “makarios†in the Koine Greek, can just as easily be translated as “happy,†found in some more contemporary bibles, or maybe “favored,†for “makarios†implies divine will, implies a divine being that grants favored status, a god or gods. In fact, the Beatitude format predates Jesus. Both blessings and woes can be found in Greek literature, though scholars do tend to agree that this particular set of blessings and woes originates with him, for they reflect his core message of the in-breaking kingdom, of a divine reversal that undoes earthly injustice and suffering, that renders good lives that are bleak by human standards. This leaves us with the difficult question of how we are to understand the kingdom promise of Christ, for injustice and suffering still exist in this world. People still die hungry for righteousness. People still die hungry.
Like Rastafarianism, the Way of Jesus primarily appealed to those at the margins, to Hebrews at the literal margin, in Galilee, to those struggling as the rich and powerful collaborated with the Roman occupation, as more and more the taxes demanded by Caesar and by the Temple stripped them of their land, their birthright. As Christianity spread along Roman trade routes, it would be embraced by others at the margins. It was a word that offered hope to those who needed hope. It was a word that promised that those who benefited from a corrupt and unrighteous system would lose it all, just as Luke’s blessings and woes promised. No wonder those benefiting from the status quo were willing to use any lie and smear they could find to bring Jesus down, to kill our prophet.
The Way of Jesus would be co-opted by empire, would become a tool for the powerful, and so it was that Matthew’s version would become the favored one, would become the version we all know, for it is less concrete. The innovative Hebrew theology that promised God’s justice could be fulfilled after death was turned on its head, with heavenly reward and earthly suffering tied together, so that poverty and slavery became just part of God’s plan. The poor and exploited were told that their suffering was their ticket through the pearly gates, that agitating for change here on earth was a sin.
We could decide, as the powerful would have us decide, that the kingdom promise of Jesus is about some future spiritual state, not about actual reality. Except for one thing: Jesus attends to actual reality. He heals the sick and broken. He feeds the hungry. He denounced the powerful, the Romans and the Hebrew elite.
He says change your life, right now. Change how you think. Change how you live. Change the world, for the Kingdom of God is ready to be found, a treasure buried in a field, a bridegroom arriving in the night.
The infamous divide between faith and works, developed by Paul as an argument against the demands of the Temple cult, emphasized in the Protestant Reformation as an argument against the cult of the saints and the sale of indulgences, simply didn’t exist. There was no divide between faith and work. What you believed was only real in how you lived. This is the in-breaking kingdom, that there was an overlap in the Venn diagram of earthly existence and the divine, the space where the righteous live in both worlds, that space where spirit matters and so do bodies, so does action. A Pharisee making a big show of piety and generosity would be judged by what was in his heart, while a poor widow being quietly generous would be judged by hers, and her the greater, but a Samaritan would be judged favorably because what was in his heart led him to action.
We need hope, need to believe that promise that God, that divine mystery, can render good even the most miserable existence. But we also need to keep it real, to remember that Jesus didn’t just talk. He actually did something.
The Bible, like any great story that captures eternal truths, does exaggerate at times. Maybe Jesus didn’t really feed thousands upon thousands. Maybe he fed hundreds. Maybe dozens. Maybe it is just a story. But he did something. People experienced healing and wholeness in his presence. I’d venture to say that those people wouldn’t be on the hillside or down on that plain if he wasn’t changing lives.
Were the Scribes and the Pharisees, that gospel label for those opposing Jesus, were they changing lives? They were really good at finding fault, that’s for sure. That is the one human enterprise that is guaranteed to succeed 100% of the time, for if you are in the business of fault finding, you will, even if it is not there. Lies and gossip and hidden agendas and a desire to go back to the “good old days†of the faith. There is no evidence that they were doing anything to make peoples lives better, to make the community better. They thought they knew better than Jesus, knew what it would look like when the kingdom came. It would be a great warrior-king, not this scruffy rabbi, this odd man from the sticks. The thing is, the relationship between God and human works the way God wants it to work, not the way humans want it to work. God’s plan was not the return to the past that the Scribes and Pharisees had in mind.
And here is Jesus, on the hillside, telling those who were losing hope that God would deliver. The authors of Matthew may put a spiritual spin on it, and Luke may keep it concrete, but it is hope, and it is specifically hope for a future that is different than the present, a future that is God’s future. But one where we need to act too.
In both Matthew and Luke, the Beatitudes are followed with instructions. We read those in Luke. Love everyone, even those who hate you. That is really really hard sometimes. I hear folks boast that they take care of family, always family first all the time, but here Jesus discounts that, a teaching that is uncomfortable for many. Even sinners love those who love them back. Don’t cling to the past, carefully fanning the flames of grudges, but forgive. The kingdom is not in the rearview mirror.
The kingdom is hope turned into action.
God will make good. No, you don’t know the plan. But in the meantime, change how you live. God is inexplicable and radical love. You must be too.
Tie this to the other teachings, and you have some concrete ways to live it out, not just the spiritualized promises of Matthew, but real life-changing love.
And those who were judged as righteous asked “When did we see you hungry? When did we see you sick? When did we see you in prison?â€
And he answered them “When you were working in the food pantry where I received food I needed, then you saw me hungry.â€
Blessed are you.
And he answered them “When I was in an accident, and it was your blood that went into my body in the ER, it was your food in the cooler on my porch, it was your car that brought me home, then you saw me sick.â€
Blessed are you.
And he answered them “When I was in a corporate detention facility, and you divested from those industries, and you picketed in front of those facilities, and you gave to organizations that were fighting for the rule of law, then you saw me in prison.â€
Blessed are you.
I could use a little more hope in this age of manipulation and lies, and age when it sure looks like the bad guys are winning, that the Romans are winning, that the self-righteous are winning.
I need to be reminded that all things are possible through Christ. For all things are possible through Christ.
But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the Almighty
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly
Won’t you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
‘Cause all I ever have
Redemption songs
Redemption songs