“WE'RE CAPTURED by sin, we’re captive to a power,” said theologian Stanley Hauerwas, “not as something so much that I do as something that I’m captured by and that I don’t even recognize as captivity.”
In this month’s scriptures, we confront the captivity of sin—social forces that diminish life, powers of oppression that colonize our desires. Sin whispers lies about the world, deceptions that lead to harmful acts—harmful for our personal lives with neighbors and our collective lives as a society.
The gospel passages assigned for the first and last Sundays spotlight the sinful power of money—from the marketplace’s corruption of the temple courts to Judas Iscariot’s betrayal of Jesus in exchange for silver. Money bookends Lent. We cannot talk about Jesus without talking about how mammon worms itself into our longings—the allure of wealth, the power of profits.
Jesus enacts liberation from the sinfulness of the thrall of money. In John 2, Jesus frees people from money’s bondage by scattering gold and silver in the streets. He seizes the currency of the bankers. He redistributes the wealth of the few into the pockets of the many. The reign of God will involve an economic overhaul. Lent would be a fitting season to tax the rich and to cancel student and medical debt.
March 7
Redistribute Wealth
Exodus 20:1-17; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; John 2:13-22
Jesus takes a trip to the temple for Passover, a holy festival to remember Israel’s salvation from the shackles of Egyptian bondage, freedom from their forced labor, and liberation from economic exploitation. Jesus joins the throngs gathered for prayer and sacrifices.
When he arrives, Jesus is filled with anger, furious at the sight of merchants exploiting the piety of pilgrims. Holy anger courses through his veins as he braids cords into a whip. Zealous devotion pulses in his hands as he overturns tables, spilling money onto the sidewalks. Jesus doesn’t call for the end of sacrifices, of worship practices, of the holy liturgies and rituals of his people. Instead, he is enraged at power brokers of the economy, the money-hungry capitalists doing anything for a profit.
He weaves cords into a whip, but he doesn’t attack any person with it. Rather, he drives out the animals (John 2:15). In his righteous anger he becomes a shepherd, herding cattle. Neither does he threaten bankers with death or physical harm; instead, he destroys their tables and scatters their money. Jesus doesn’t hurt people or threaten to; he does, however, damage the marketplace while returning animals and coins back to the crowds.
In his cracking of the whip, in his destruction of a commercial area, we glimpse the same holy rage that rouses protesters to turn against buildings—the people’s righteous hunger for justice consuming a city, their outrage at the abusive force of police.
In the second century, Heracleon described this scene in Jerusalem as the work of the Spirit. “The whip is an image of the power and energy of the Holy Spirit,” he wrote. The holiness of God disrupts the order of a world established for the benefit of the wealthy and powerful.
March 14
Eternal Love
Numbers 21:4-9; Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22; Ephesians 2:1-10; John 3:14-21
“For God so loved the world ...” (John 3:16) may be one of the most over-branded and least-understood scripture passages. The Bible is one long narrative about God’s commitment to this world, to creation, to all that has been from the beginning—ecosystems and galaxies, snails and stars, communities of life in your neighborhood and in the skies. That is what we hear in these words of Jesus. That is what unfolds in scene after scene of his life: a singular commitment to save what has been lost, to restore what has been neglected, and to heal what has been wounded.
The Greek word for “salvation” in this passage (verse 17) is borrowed from first-century medical discourse. To “save” meant to heal, to stitch up a wound, to perform a surgery, to administer a vaccine for an infectious disease. Salvation is God’s act to heal us from sin, to restore us from all that harms us and our neighbors.
Not only does the Greek word hearken to the medical profession, but this particular passage returns us to a story of healing in Numbers 21. “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,” Jesus says about himself, “so must the Son of Man be lifted up” (John 3:14). Jesus identifies himself with the bronze snake from an odd story—a story about curing people who had been bitten by poisonous snakes (Numbers 21:9). Jesus presents himself as the antidote for what afflicts Israel. The mission of Jesus is to bring us into the care of God’s love, which is our medicine.
As Christians we believe that Jesus shows us what God’s love looks like, the love that created us, sustains us, and heals us. When we look at the life of Jesus, we see the heart of God, the pulse of the universe. Jesus is God’s invitation to join the work of healing, salvation, and eternal life in the here and now.
March 21
Body Knowledge
Jeremiah 31:31-34; Psalm 119:9-16; Hebrews 5:5-10; John 12:20-33
In Jerusalem during a Jewish festival, a group of foreigners approached Philip. “We wish to see Jesus,” they told him (John 12:21). These outsiders have heard the rumors about this rabbi Jesus. Might he be the Messiah of Israel, the one who will free God’s people from Roman dominion? These seekers were in the crowds earlier in the day. They saw Jesus’ triumphal entry into the city. They watched the people of Jerusalem gather in the streets to welcome Jesus as the redeemer, the liberator: “Blessed is the King of Israel!” (verse 13, NIV).
Jesus fueled the flames of revolution with his response. “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” (verse 23). “Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out” (verse 31). The people are ready for a political upheaval. Soon, however, Jesus will disappoint those expectations. He isn’t crowned as king in a palace. Instead, soldiers arrest him, torture him, and lead him to Golgotha. He dies with a crown of thorns, not of gold, on his head. What sort of victory is this? What kind of glorification?
If we want answers, if we want to know who he is, we must follow him. “Follow me,” Jesus offers as invitation (verse 26) to the group of Greeks who earlier asked Philip about him. To know Jesus, to have faith in God, is something we do with our whole lives—with our hands and feet, as much as with our heads and hearts. Sixteenth-century Anabaptist theologian Hans Denck reminds us: “We cannot know Christ unless we follow him daily in life.” Knowledge of God is bodily. Theology is ethics; ethics is theology. We believe with our daily lives.
March 28
Culpable Disciples
Isaiah 50:4-9; Psalm 31:9-16; Philippians 2:5-11; Mark 14:1-15:47
As a youth I flipped through Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, a storybook of Protestants killed for their faith. During my college years in the late 1990s, a Christian rap group called dc Talk got together with The Voice of the Martyrs to publish Jesus Freaks, a collection of martyrdom stories to serve as anti-communist propaganda for evangelicals. As for Roman Catholics obsessed with martyrs, cultural critic George Weigel posited a few years back that “more Christians died for the faith in the twentieth century than in the previous 19 centuries of Christian history combined.” Weigel continued, “Solidarity with the persecuted Church is an obligation of Christian faith.”
Theologian Candida Moss has identified a “persecution complex” within right-leaning Christianity in the West. In The Myth of Persecution, Moss diagnoses a “victim mentality” in many of these revisionist hagiographies, a mentality that positions the Christian reader in solidarity with those subjected to violence, not as the persecutor. “By fixating on persecution,” Moss observes, “we’re allowing ourselves to overlook a great deal of injustice.”
Mark 14, in contrast, invites readers to see ourselves in the role of duplicitous disciples as they betray, abandon, and deny Jesus. Scene after scene recounts the failure of the faithful. Peter, James, and John fall asleep after Jesus tells them he needs their companionship (verses 32-42). Judas Iscariot, Jesus’ friend, hands him over to the authorities (verses 43-46). And Peter lies three times to distance himself from Jesus (verses 66-72).
While martyrologies invite readers to locate themselves with the persecuted victim to amplify a “heroic” faith, the gospel stories position Christians with Jesus’ disciples who fail him. We followers of Jesus are like the three friends who sleep through his night of torment. We are like Judas and Peter, in need of forgiveness for our betrayals.
Lent is a time for repentance: to consider how we’ve abandoned the Christ who comes to us as a stranger, as a neighbor, as the one whom our society rejects.
Isaac S. Villegas is pastor of Chapel Hill (N.C.) Mennonite Fellowship and president of the governing board of the North Carolina Council of Churches.
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