I’ve been reading my way through the book of Matthew, and recently I arrived at the culmination of the Gospel story – the crucifixion of Jesus the Messiah, God in the Flesh, by his own creations. And as I read through this very familiar story, certain parallels began to arise for me between the killing of God’s Son 2000 years ago and the killing of God’s Creation today.
In Jesus’ time, Rome was the earthly manifestation of power. Rome built, Rome expanded, Rome conquered new peoples, and Rome imposed her “peace” – her pax Romana – through brutality. To be fair, Rome’s peace did bring real benefits for (some) people – but it was all at the overwhelming cost of widespread political and military domination and oppression.
Today’s Rome – today’s earthly manifestation of power – are the central banks, driving forward the capitalist doctrine of unending extraction and expansion around the globe. Another word for this earthly power is Mammon, or the pursuit of material wealth as an expression of greed. Like Rome, the “capitalist peace” of mammon does bring certain benefits to (some) people and communities, but its engines of growth are rapidly degrading and destroying the living systems of the world that sustain us all, not to mention leaving a long trail of economic wreckage and physical garbage in countless human communities.
In Jesus’ time, the Romans – focused on power and expansion – cared little about a poor little rabbi living on the outskirts of its empire. But his own religious leadership did. They took him seriously – because they rightly recognized him as a person who had the power to radically transform and in some cases overturn their doctrines, their practices, and their power. And so, in the great climax of the Gospel, they brought their poor little rabbi before the worldly power of the time and demanded that he be destroyed so that he would not undermine their faith. The Roman governor at the time didn’t see a justification for killing him, but in the end, his own religious leaders stirred up enough unrest that the governor washed his hands and had him killed.
Today, the global power of capitalism (like Rome) cares little about the poor little rabbi that is God’s Creation. The glass towers of Wall Street and London do not even think about the birds, the wind, the trees, or the waves. These things are the “environment” – out there on the outskirts of our cities, and irrelevant to the work of global wealth expansion. Capitalism tolerates Creation as long as it doesn’t get in the way of its money-making. But if it does, it is crushed with an iron fist or exploited against its will.
Today, the religious leadership of God’s people who should be welcoming his Creation with open arms, are divided. Some see the power of this poor little rabbi and are asking him to teach them. Some recognize Creation as a vital partner – even an entity with its own God-given right to live together with us. But many are not and are instead ignoring Creation, just as Wall Street does, as our economy steadily crucifies the world. Some pastors do this by turning inwards towards a relentlessly personal faith. Others over-spiritualize the Way so that it has less and less to say about how God would have us live collectively in our physical world. Others dwell on an apocalyptic vision for the future and ignore the present suffering of the world in order to save souls. And still others are actually actively working to empower the Mammon kingdom. They are teaching a “gospel” of material wealth and prosperity. They are aligning with political parties and economic ideas that make free market capitalism an unofficial doctrine of the church. And they are perverting the Biblical calling of human dominion and stewardship over creation into a license to abuse.
But as our planet continues to die on the dollar shaped cross we’ve nailed it to, we are starting to learn something about this poor little rabbi. Just as that poor little rabbi that Rome nailed to the cross held, in his vulnerable and dying body, the power of life itself – so we are finding that the poor little things of our natural world have far more power than we thought. Tiny bacteria in soil are crucial for sucking carbon out of the atmosphere. Mollusks and mangrove trees are essential to filtering water and making it clean. Bees are essential for plant reproduction and for making food we can eat. And the list goes on and on.
And so as that poor little rabbi of Creation slowly dies on our cross, we are finding that as his breathing gets heavier, ours gets heavier. As his legs get weaker, ours get weaker. As his pain worsens, ours worsens. We are finding that we are crucifying ourselves.
We need to take God’s Creation – and ourselves – off of the cross we have nailed ourselves to.
With all my heart, I pray that the Church would be less confused about who her God is – that she would abandon Mammon and turn to Jesus and see the inestimable worth of the world God has made and set us in. And I pray that we will come down together from this cross, be reconciled, and ultimately be healed.
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