Here is a poem offered during my clergy support group. I think it says what I'm trying to say, with many fewer words, and more poetically.

Compassion is resistance.

Kindness is resistance.

Connection is resistance.

Community is resistance.

Solidarity is resistance.

Generosity is resistance.

Education is resistance.

Truth telling is resistance.

Hope is resistance.

Joy is resistance.

Laughter is resistance.

Peace is resistance.

Above all, love is resistance.

-Nicole Kontra

Get Angry, Maybe. 1 of 3.

If you aren't angry you aren't paying attention! I wrote an earlier blog post on this idea, but it is on my mind again. Jesus got angry, they say, and it makes sense for us to get angry too. To which I say: Maybe.

Angry Jesus shows up in the temple market. In Mark he drives out the sales people and turns over the tables. In Luke (19:45-47) and Matthew (21:12-13) the focus is on the space being a house of prayer for all. Mark (11:15-18) adds that it should not be a den of thieves. He turns tables in some of the texts, and drives out the vendors in others.

Lets look at the John's version:

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John 2:14-16 In the temple Jesus found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves and the money changers seated at their tables. 15 Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, with the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”

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The whip, only found in John, is in all the pictures in the children's books. Jesus looks really angry. The synoptics allow us to spiritualize this story, with the emphasis on the Temple as a house of prayer, but we must not forget that the Temple is where people paid their tax to the local government, and where records of their debts are held. Jesus' anger in John's version is about the marketplace, but the purpose of that market was not to get dinner, but to get your offering converted to a form acceptable to the religious leaders. And the religious leaders were the local government. This was a protest at the statehouse.

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We hear nothing of the consequences of this action; well nothing except the decision of the authorities to stop Jesus. (We shouldn’t downplay that as bad. He got publicity for his action and that made people think.) I still wonder were any debts relieved? Were taxes more honestly levied? Did the government become more focused on meeting the needs of the poor? Did readers of this text use it as motivation to care for money in just ways?

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And yet here we are two thousand (or so) years later imagining Jesus making whips out of cords and flipping over tables. We use it as our permission to get angry, and to act on that anger to engage in violence overthrow of injustice.

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It does set some criteria for acting in anger. Most important the violence is against things and not against people. And even there, the marketers product is not destroyed, only removed. The tables are flipped, making a mess, but not smashed to smithereens. And the sales people themselves are not whipped, they are lectured on the importance of the space.

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Jesus never presumes that bad actors cannot change. He always offers words--often cryptic words--for them to mull over in the days and weeks and months to come. In the big picture of the gospels we come away with the idea that Jesus hopes that they will understand that “the time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” (Mark 1:15).
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Nadia Bolz-Weber is starting a tour of Red States and would love to come to a location near you. She says:

"Because first and foremost, this is not the moment to concede the Christian faith to nationalists. Nor is it the moment to double down on things that don’t work."

Nadia's Red State Revival Information

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