Jesus Doing Politics

Once upon a time there was a nation at war.  They killed many children and many others were injured with disabilities that they would suffer from all of their lives.  Some would have cancer, some were physically disabled, others were to live with trauma haunting their memories, others would commit suicide because of all they have lost.  Tired of living this way, the children banded together and held a protest. Masses and masses of them, so many one could not count them all. They filled the capital city with broken limbs, broken minds, broken lives, all because of the tragedy visited upon them by their leaders.

Although they blocked traffic and stopped the everyday commerce, they were ignored by almost everyone.  One news station filmed them and placed them at the end of their evening report as a “human interest” story.  In this story, one line was offered as comment: “Poor kids. They just don’t understand politics.”

Mark 3:21-34—

And He came home, and the crowd gathered again, to such an extent that they could not even eat a meal. When His own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, “He has lost His senses.” The scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and “He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.” And He called them to Himself and began speaking to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. If Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but he is finished! But no one can enter the strong man’s house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house.

“Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”—because they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”

Then His mother and His brothers arrived, and standing outside they sent word to Him and called Him. A crowd was sitting around Him, and they said to Him, “Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are outside looking for You.” Answering them, He said, “Who are My mother and My brothers?”  Looking about at those who were sitting around Him, He said, “Behold My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is My brother and sister and mother.”

Our story thus far:

Jesus looked at the politics of his day and so proposed and established a new nation, because there was no redeeming the old one.
Baptism is the ceremony of immigration from the nation of birth to the nation of Jesus

This means that if we are following Jesus, we no longer belong to the nations of this world, but to the kingdom of God.   

Jesus, however, participated in the politics of his day.  Paul declared himself a Roman citizen and James, the brother of Jesus was considered a Judean in high standing.  How do we be a good citizen of the kingdom of God and involve ourselves in politics?

First, we need to understand how Jesus did NOT do politics:

Jesus did not become a Sadduccee.  If he had done this, he could have made changes within the contemporary system, supporting the power system and encouraging it to make positive changes.  He did not choose that path of politics.
Jesus did not become a Pharisee.  He did not try to obtain popular support for his ideas and interpretations of law.  He did not support the current synagogue system, attached to the temple in Jerusalem.  He used this system, but he did not build onto it.

Jesus did not become an Essene.  He did not form a separatist community, which kept themselves pure apart from the corrupt world.  Instead, he was deeply involved in the world.

Jesus did not become a Herodian or support Herod’s regime.  He didn’t choose to unify the Jewish people through power. He didn’t choose to unify people under one political entity at all.

Jesus did not choose to be a Zealot.  He did not choose to create a violent insurrection against all doers of oppression and corruption.

In general, Jesus’ plan to do politics was to establish a new nation and invite all to participate in it, not by force, but by a welcome invitation.  He explained the new law that the kingdom would have, the new people and a new power by which it would rule the world. He lived and taught a new politics of the kingdom.  

Jesus’ politics wasn’t to keep the system going.  Rather, he was proposing a revolution. A complete dismantling of “politics as usual” and starting all over again.  And his people are not to be proponents of “politics as usual”, but starting over again.

How Jesus decided to do politics is a huge subject, and quite complicated.  But I think this passage in Mark 3 can give us an outline of his general plan of how WE should do politics, even today.

1 Jesus began his politics with radical acts of life-saving mercy

The subject being discussed is Jesus freeing people from severe mental illness.  Yes, they are talking about demonization, which is how the ancient world understood and communicated about mental illness.  The story about people who acted in inappropriate social ways was that they were being judged for their sin by being attacked by a demon, who was ruled by Satan, which is the title of the great prosecutor of the spirit world.  Satan is a title, which means Accuser, the official name of the one who condemns humans before God. In some concpts, he is also the one who carried out the punishments against humans who did evil. He is the agent of Karma, giving evil for those who do evil and mental illness, it was said, is the result of that attack.  We can see a clear story of this in the story of Saul in the book of I Samuel. He disobeyed God and so he was given an evil spirit to attack him and he became more and more insane.

But Jesus would deliver the mentally ill by exiling or “driving out” spirits that punish humans.  He gives them freedom from the punishment that was visited upon them. He is freeing them from oppression.  Giving them another chance to live.

This is a political stand.  Because society believes in karma.  They believe in punishing people who do wrong, even if they can’t prove wrong was done.  They believe that homeless people should suffer some because there must be a good reason for them to be on the street.  They believe that people with AIDS should suffer for their acts. They believe that mental illness is just a weakness, and they deserve to suffer.  So giving people release from oppression who “deserve” to be oppressed is an act of rebellion.

2. Be attacked
So here come these officials “from Jerusalem”-- these aren’t just local people, but people who are the official word, giving an official judgment on Jesus’ work.  And their judgement is that Jesus is under control of the evil forces, and that his actions are not good, as they seem on the surface, but evil. Why are they evil?  Because he is speaking against them and their acts of oppression and insisting on too much authority for himself.

The one who does good in a way that is not accepted by society will be attacked by society.  Jesus said this, not as a possibility, but as a promise. He promised his disciples that for their good work, they would be officially condemned and arrested and hated by their own families and churches.  

Even so, the very people who should see Jesus as a force for good, instead labels him as the force of evil.  And this is typical of “politics as usual”. Good will be painted as evil by those who should embrace it.

3. Speak out against corruption
Then Jesus moves into political discourse.  First, he belittles the arguments of his opponent.

He says, “How can the force of judgment relase people from judgment?  That is the Prosecutor acting against his own goals. The jailer doesn’t set people free.  The executioner doesn’t let people go. Satan has a purpose, and to free people is the opposite of that purpose.  That is an act of civil war. So it is just silly to say that my work is the work of Satan.”

Then Jesus speaks to their judgment of him:
“If you look at good work and call it evil because of your political views, you will never know what good or evil is.  You can look at me and point out my deficiencies. You can call me names and say evil things about me-- that’s fine. But this work of the Holy Spirit is good.  It is the work of God among people who are cruelling suffering. If you call the good work of God an evil work there is no hope for you. You are hopelessly blinded by your point of view and you will never change.”

Today there are so many people who look at good and call it evil.  There are so many people acting out of judgment instead of love. We may not be a part of this world, but we must speak and act in this world.  We need to act for people who are oppressed and free them. We will act in any way we can, as long as it does not harm another. We must act by votes, we must act by good will, we must act by our speech, both private and public.  And we must not just love, but we must speak out against forces of hate. Forces that want to oppress, want to harm the innocent, want to block the ways in which people can be freed. Yes, our family may oppose us. Our church may oppose us.  The people we love may oppose us. But we must stand for doing good, and do good, no matter what the cost. Even if it is illegal. Even if we will be rejected by everyone. We must do what will save the lives of the oppressed.

4. Build Community
Jesus did a number of other things to change the politics of this world, but there is one more thing I want to mention from this passage.  Earlier in the passage, we have a description of Jesus’ “own” who were standing outside, determining that he was insane and needed to take him home and lock him in a closet.  After this showdown with the officials from Jerusalem, someone is finally able to get Jesus a message from his family, telling him to come outside, where they plan to do a Gaston and lock him up as a crazy person.

Jesus ignores their request, however.  This is because he knew that his family wants to obstruct his work, even as the scribes from Jerusalem does.  He instead points to his disciples around him and says, “These are my real family. The people who do the work of God are my true family.”

What is Jesus doing?  A family is one’s base community, out of which everything else is formed.  Jesus is saying that his family-- his physical brothers and mother-- are not his base community.  Who is his real community? Those who have chosen to learn from him the path of doing good. The people who are standing up for the oppressed.  The people who will deliver others. Who will forgive, who will set them free from the punishment that society thinks they deserve. These who will deliver the mentally ill, restore people to good standing, who will feed the hungry, shelter those out in the cold, deliver people from prison, make the sick well.  These are the community of Jesus. They may have different beliefs, different opinions of how the world works, they have different radical acts of freedom they do, but they have this: they stand together with Jesus to change the world, by freeing one person at a time from their suffering.

One of Jesus’ most powerful acts of politics is to create a community that can do more good together than they can separately.  And these people aren’t just Jesus’ friends, they aren’t just Jesus’ buds-- they are Jesus’ family. They are his real community.  This family is the outgrowth of Jesus’ kingdom. It starts with him-- setting people free in every town he goes in. And then it expands to all his disciples, each of them freeing people from suffering, just as Jesus did.

So how do we do politics?  Again, it can be complicated, but here’s a starting point for all of us:

1. We work to set free the suffering and oppressed
2. We are targeted by those who want people to suffer for their own political motives
3. We deny their explanation, by labeling good works as good and evil works as evil.
4. We build communities that can release more people from suffering than they could separately

The Politics of Baptism

Nelson Mandela of South Africa spent 18 years in prison on Robben Island.  Robben, isn’t Dutch for Robbers, but for “seal” because before they built a prison there, the island was covered with seals.  When Mandela was released from that prison, that meant a new opportunity for himself and for South Africa, a new future. To symbolize that event, there is a swim that happens every year from the island in the sea to the mainland, that takes a good swimmer about 2 hours and a professional swimmer 23 minutes.  It is called the Freedom Swim, and it symbolizes the deliverance of an entire nation. Of course, taking a dip in the ocean doesn’t make a nation free. But participating in it makes one feel that they are participating in the freedom the new nation brings.

This is baptism.

Is anyone familiar with the story of Moses and the mass baptism?  What about the time that Noah baptized his family? No? Smh. What are pastors teaching these days?

Paul, in I Corinthians 10, talks about Moses taking the children of Israel through a baptism  What baptism? That in the Red Sea. Peter speaks about Noah going through a baptism. Going across the flood with his family.  And John baptized in the Jordan River. Why? To remember the baptism of Joshua and the children of Israel, crossing the Jordan River centuries before.

Now that I’ve thoroughly confused you, let’s talk about what the Bible considers baptism.

First of all, the word “baptise” comes from the Greek, “baptidzo”, which doesn’t mean “to dunk” but “to give a thorough soaking”, either through dunking or pouring or whatever means.  It absolutely does not mean cleaning.

The pattern of baptism, whether Noah, Moses, Joshua, John or Jesus-- or the entire world in creation-- is this:

-A group of people are trapped in a horrible nation or world, trapped by oppression
-God promises to deliver these people
-God leads the people to a body of water, which threatens suffering or death
-God delivers the people across the dangerous body of water
-On the other side is a new world, a new opportunity for freedom without oppression

We can see this as crossing water and delivering a nation to freedom, like Moses or Nelson Mandela.  But it is more likely seen as immigration to a new nation of God.

Acts 2:36-38 For this reason the whole House of Israel can be certain that the Lord and Christ whom God has made is this Jesus whom you crucified.’

Hearing this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘What are we to do, brothers?’   ‘You must repent,’ Peter answered, ‘and every one of you must be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Here is Peter preaching to the crowds, months after Jesus’ crucifixion.  He is telling them that their leaders crucified Jesus, even though Jesus was an innocent man.  He tells them “you crucified him”, because in a sense, this is true. They are part of a system in which crucifying innocent people, even the son of God, can happen.  They all know this. They don’t see any way out.

But Peter offers them a way out.  If they are baptized in Jesus’ name, they are doing two things: they are renouncing or “repenting of” the evil system they are a part of.  And they join the kingdom of Jesus, a completely separate political entity. They leave the old, corrupt, oppressive, evil world behind. In their case, this world was the temple and priestly and Roman systems they were a part of.  They knew that this system was oppressive, but they couldn’t do anything about it.

Peter’s answer is, “leave it and join Jesus’ kingdom.”  The sins that Peter was telling them they get forgiveness of, are the sins of the system-- the actions of oppression and anti-love they are participating in.  Once they are baptized, they are free to live in accord with the love and surrender of Jesus.

This is the same answer John the baptist gave.  He pointed at the corruption of Judea and the high priest and Pharisees and Sadducees and he baptized to get everyone out of that system.  He was pointing to a new nation, but he didn’t know what that kingdom looked like.

Jesus also had the same answer.  But he showed us and explained to us what that new nation looked like.  Who would be a part of it, and how it would operate. And he had people baptized so they would know that they were no longer in the old, corrupt system, but in a new world.

We need to recognize that we too are in a corrupt place, a corrupt nation.  Our nation was built on the backs of slaves, of Natives whose land our ancestors stole, that they refused a living to the poor people they forced here.  This nation continues to forfeit the rights and equal opportunities to African Americans, to Native Americans, to people who suffered from sexual abuse, to LGBTQ, to the homeless, to the mentally ill, to people whose only crime is to try their best to be a good citizen.  This nation kills innocent people around the world. This nation is corrupt.

And Jesus offers us a way out.  Baptism isn’t just a religious ceremony.  It is a way of turning our backs on the corruption of this age and to live a life free from that corruption, if only we would take it.  Jesus shows us not only a way to be free from our sin, but to be free from our nation’s sins.

To do this, we have to be involved in politics, the way Jesus was.  The first way is to join Jesus’ nation-- his kingdom whose only law is love, which is not bound up by the corruption of humanity, which breaks the oppression of all evil systems, including the evil systems of the churches built in Jesus’ name.

Jesus' Political Theory (in Context)

“After John had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” Mark 1:14-15

I just want to let you know, before I begin on this story, that I’m not really a fan of sports and especially not boxing.  But here goes, anyway.

In the 18th century, boxing had a much more open field than it does today. The boxing ring used to be a circle, which is why it is called a “ring” and the crowds, almost all men, would crowd around to see the series of bouts.  A single boxer would come out the winner at the end of the night. At this point, anyone who wanted to challenge the winner from the crowd was welcome to come up and take their chances. But instead of a number of people shouting, the challenger would take off their hat and throw it into the ring to declare their challenge.  This is why Teddy Roosevelt used the phrase, “I am throwing my hat into the ring” when he was stepping forward to run for president. And that’s the source of this saying.

When Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is at hand, believe in the gospel,” Jesus was making a religious statement, but even more than that, he was throwing his hat into the ring— in the sense of Teddy Roosevelt, not like a boxer.  Because there already was a kingdom of God that almost every Jew recognized. And Jesus was saying something decidedly political here. That a new kingdom is coming. A new king is coming. And he is set to take over. This was Jesus’ political speech.

In the ancient world, all the way until the time of the Protestant reformation, there was no separation of religion and state.  They were constantly and continuously united. If you were talking about politics, you were certainly talking about a religion. They weren’t separated.  Every king had their own god, sometimes their god was themselves— like Pharoah or Alexander the Great. A political leader was also the head priest of the nation and they led the worship of the nation.  A battle is an act of evangelism— a war is the battle between two gods and the general that wins the battle declares their god as more powerful than the god who lost. And the loser must acknowledge that the winner’s god is more powerful than the loser’s god.  The loser might still worship their own god, but they also have to worship the victor’s god.

Except for one group, the Jews.

A hundred and sixty some years before the birth of Jesus, there’s this Greek ruler called Antiochus Epiphanes. “Epiphanies” meant that he was calling himself “god on earth”.  But his main God was Zeus, and so he decided that that every national temple under his control had to be dedicated to Zeus, including the temple to Yahweh in Judea. After all, the Jews were the losers, they lost to the Greeks.  So they should properly dedicate their main temple to the winner, Zeus. So he sent his soldiers to Judea, gathered some faithful Jewish servants of the Greek overlords and sacrificed a pig to Zeus in the Temple of Yahweh.

Not everyone was okay with this.  One of them was a old guy named Matthias and his sons.  He was a descendent of Aaron, so in line to be the high priest of Yahweh.  When the soldiers came to sacrifice a pig on his altar, he sacrificed them, instead and called his sons and anyone else to stand up and fight against these Greek savages that desecrated the Temple of Yahweh.  You see, because Jews were taught that no matter who won a battle or war, Yahweh was always in charge, always ruling the whole earth and all the nations. So they weren’t going to accept someone disrespecting Yahweh.

After seven years of battle, Matthias and his sons, the Maccabees, gained freedom from the Greek oppressors and rededicated the temple to Yahweh, which is what the holiday Haunakah is about.  Matthias passed away and one of his surviving sons, John, became ruler of Judea. He was primarily the High Priest, but he was also the king, in charge of the nation of Judea. This nation was going to go back to Moses’ law and that would be the law of the nation. He set up a council of elders called the Sanhedrin, and they would meet together regularly to discuss how to interpret the law and apply it to all Jews.  John was not only the king of Judea, but to all who would come to the Temple to worship, to all Jews throughout the world— in Babylon, in Persia, in Egypt, in Turkey— everywhere. This was a remarkably powerful position. John was the king of the Jews, the anointed one, the Messiah, both priest and king,

But even if you agree on the god and agree on the law and agree on the priest and king, there is still a lot of room for interpretation.  Thus, political parties were born. There were three main ones:

The Sadducees.  They were kind of like the ancient Jewish Republicans.  They were very conservative in their interpretation of the law, and they also had the ear of the wealthy. They were generally the favorite of the high priests, and so stayed around Jerusalem and Judea, near their patrons.

The Pharisees.  They were kind of like the ancient Jewish Democrats.  They were more flexible with their understanding of the law, bringing in new ideas.  They were the populists, and many more people appreciated the Pharisees as leaders. They were seen as strict purists by some, but they just had a long tradition.

The Essenes— They were the rebels.  They saw that Matthias and John’s line to be the wrong line of high priests and they had stepped in front of the true line.  So they preferred not to worship with the other Jews, and had their own compounds in which they would bathe and clean themselves.  They were the real purists, much more than the Pharisees.

And we may see these groups as just arguing about legal or religious matters.  Not true. John’s son, Alexander Jonathan became king after him, and he openly sided with the Sadducees, so that really ticked off the Pharisees.  So the Pharisees invited the Greek king to come and take over Jerusalem. He said, “Great! I’ll be right over” and he brought all his troops to take out Alexander the High Priest and to take over Judea.  The Pharisees realized that he was pretty much overstepping their request, so they joined Alexander and the Sadducees to take out the Greeks. Thousands of people died, but they pushed the Greeks back. When it was all done, Alexander decided to punish the Pharisees by crucifying 800 of them.  About a decade later when Alexander’s wife, Salome had taken over as queen after his death, the Pharisees convinced her to kill of a number of Sadducees in revenge for the crucifixions. Politics was terrible and bloody in those days.

After about a hundred years of this infighting, some Jews invited the Roman general Pompeii to help them.  He came in and never left, taking control of Jerusalem and the Romans from that point on appointed the office of High Priest, ruler of the Jews.  Herod the Great came up later and, with Roman permission, took over Judea, Galilee, Idumea and Syria. He called himself “King of the Jews,” but since he was not of the nation of Judea, many Jews didn’t accept him as a real king.  The High Priest was still the real political ruler of the Jews.

And then comes Jesus in this complicated political situation. You have Pharisees, Sadducees, Herods and Roman governors and you also have Essenes in the countryside, stirring up trouble.

All this is essential, because everyone thinks that in their action, in their party, in their communities, in their temple, in their battles— this is all, they think, building the kingdom of God.  Sure, some people get killed, some people are exiled or destroyed. But that is all part of the work of God.

And Jesus is saying, “Listen to the gospel: the kingdom of God is here, repent and believe in the good news.”

When Jesus said, “gospel” he used the Greek word, “Euangelidzo” from which we get the word “evangelism”.  This is the word that Greeks and Romans used when they were proclaiming a new king or emperor was coming up.  He was proclaiming a new king.

For most people, they think that this is the last thing they need.  There have been so many kings and governors and upstarts and rebels all trying to rule, all trying to tell everyone what to do.  The last thing they need is another one.

But Jesus also said something else, “The kingdom of God is at hand.”  

This means two things, right off the bat.  First, that all these priests and kings and parties— everyone thought they were working in the kingdom of God, but they weren’t.  Jesus is saying, “All the politics and religious action and building of the Temple and setting up compounds and battles and fighting— none of this, none of it is the kingdom of God.”

Jesus rejects all the political parties, all the battles, all the maneuverings, all the arguments, all the legal battles— none of it represents God or his will.

Secondly, Jesus is saying that at his voice, at his speaking, it is time for God’s kingdom, God’s will, God’s politics to begin.  Now is the time. It begins right now. Not in a little bit, not in a few years, not in 40 years, not in 1000 years, but now.

When Jesus was saying this, what was he talking about?

He is talking about all the healing.  All the uplifting of the poor. All the changed lives.  The deliverance of the mentally ill. The offering hope and love to people who have had nothing.  A politics of giving, not of taking. A politics of love, not of demands. A politics of listening to the impoverished and not the wealthy, or even the middle class. A bottom-up politics.  

This is the kingdom Jesus demonstrated early on.  His first actions were healing and restoring the mentally ill.  His first teaching was, “Blessed are you who are poor for yours is the kingdom of god.”  He spoke to the Jews no one listened to in Galilee, instead of the important ones in Jerusalem.  This is the politics of God— the kingdom of God. Start with love. Start with the weakest. Start with offering hope, real, practical hope.  That’s the kingdom of God.

So when we see politics today, arguing about which wealthy person will be in charge.  Or which army will win. Or which god is more important than the other god. We who stand with Jesus— this is not the politics of God.  This is not the kingdom. The kingdom is with the lowest, with the poor and we know what it looks like, not by who is beaten, but by who is healed.

That is the only politics that counts.

Independence Day in Church

This Sunday in churches all over the United States, many will hear songs of patriotism and much speech about "our nation." Much of the speech will be positive, some will be critical, but almost all will talk about the crisis of "our nation."

The issue I have is that Jesus called all of us Christians out of the nations of this world. He died on a cross displaying the folly of empire and oppression in the name of "security and solidarity." And he was raised to establish another, unique nation.

A nation where the only law is love.
A nation where the economic rule is giving to the most needy.
A nation where leaders sacrifice themselves for their people, not the other way around.
A nation that is known for welcoming the outcast, especially those in deepest need.

Jesus doesn't call us to fix this broken nation we were born to be a part of. He calls us to immigrate to a nation of forgiveness, grace and peace.

Destruction of the World Corporate System

Injustice reigns in the earth. Capitalism is corrupt, only granting freedom to the wealthy, while the poor get ground in the dust. The 200 wealthiest people in the world, all heads of corporations, control 40% of the world’s wealth, while the poorest 20% of the world live on 1% of the world’s wealth. The 40 wealthiest Western nations have 85% of the world’s wealth.

Perhaps such disparity in the world today wouldn’t be so bad if the governments and corporations of the world were concerned with justice in the world and providing equity for the poor. Instead, the wealthy of the world use their economic power as the whip on the backs of the oppressed.

The developing countries of the world are required to pay a huge amount of interest on loans, and so unable to pay back the loans, and thus their people starve. On the other hand, the United States has a trillion-dollar debt that they can refuse to pay, if they want. The corporations of the West use Chinese labor to do the menial tasks that the workers of the West find demeaning or that don’t pay enough. Then the Chinese oppress their people, telling them where to work, how to worship, where to live and how many children to have. The world corporations are creating oppression as well in Vietnam, Mexico, Haiti, Bangladesh, Singapore, and multitudes of other developing nations. And all this, while not discouraging them to cease the oppression of ethnic, religious and political minorities.

The governments of the West, especially the United States, are controlled by the corporations, who gain benefits in how much taxes they pay, what tariffs are to be imposed on imports and which developing nations are to be given benefits and which governments are to be destroyed by the U.S. military. And even the nations that receive benefits, they receive it with a price tag that requires them to act in the benefit of the West. Colonization may be dead, but the North American and European nations are controlling the world economically through the UN, the WTO and through their diplomatic carrots and sticks.

In the twenty-first century, economic power is absolute power. And absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The poor are crying out in opposition to the world corporate structure. Protests are happening all over the world. The world press is decrying the controls of the West- although the American press never acknowledges a peep of the worldwide outcry.

What will happen? Will the poor rise up and overthrow their oppressors? Will there be unification among the workers who will overcome the wealth and power of the corporations? Will a great class war happen that will change the economic structure of the world and set all people free economically? Will there be real change in humanity that will provide justice for everyone?

Give me a break.

Let’s look at this historically. Those who were truly poor have never been successful in rising up against their oppressors. From the rise of the Lombards in the 1400s to the Peasants’ War in the early 1500s to the Rebellion of John Brown in the mid 1800s to the ethnic cleansing in Rwanda in the late 1900s, when the truly poor violently rise up against their oppressors, it only ends in tragedy and in the oppressors having an example of why they need to oppress.

Violence and resistance can create an economic change, such as the French Revolution, the Labor Parties, the Communist Revolutions of Russia and China. But the economic benefits are limited to a particular class of people, usually the middle class. Thus, the poor are not assisted at all, but only those who had enough power to enact change themselves.

This is not real change. It is just trading one set of oppressors for another. And this is a summary of the history of the world, for the last 10,000 years.

There is, however, another way for real change to occur. There is a way for the world corporate system to be destroyed and to be replaced by justice. But it requires much more than most people are willing to give. It does not require power, but humility. Not control, but persecution and death.

We need to recognize that the only force that will change things in the world for good is God. God alone has the power and authority to change the world permanently. God alone has the compassion and desire to help the poor, the lowest of the low (Check it out in the Bible- Exodus 22:21-27). God alone, of all the powers that have ever existed, has dedicated himself to helping those who are truly in need (Psalm 146:3-9). And he has promised that any governmental, corporate or religious power that oppressed the poor, he will destroy (Psalm 82:1-8; Revelation 18:1-24).

However, God requires the poor to do one most important thing- to cry out to him for help. The poor must recognize his authority over them and then cry out to him (Exodus 22:23; II Chronicles 7:14; Psalm 18:6-17; Psalm 34:17; Psalm 107). They must turn from the evil things they do- from oppressing their neighbor and do good to all, and then God will listen to them (Micah 3:4; Hosea 8:2-3; Ezekiel 18:27). And those who are poor must ask God persistently for God’s deliverance from oppression and he will give it (Luke 18:2-8). Such humility is required from God to gain freedom from oppression (Luke 18:10-14).

And this way of life needs to be given to others who are poor. Many need to be shown and taught this way of life in order for the oppression of the world corporate structure to be destroyed. If a single person cries out against an oppressor, then that one will be delivered from the one oppressor. If a multitude of poor, all around the world, cry out against the world corporate structure, then the whole world will be changed. This means that we need a multitude of people dedicated to God and to cry out to him for justice to change the world.

But even the humility and the training of others is not enough. We need to prove the oppression. We need to show that oppression really is occurring- for no power overthrows another without proof. This means that we need to put ourselves in the front lines of oppression. We need to show God and the world that the world corporate structure is willing to sacrifice and kill others, but not itself.

How do we do this? Through non-violent, public outcry against oppression. Through standing in front of the violent and haters of the poor, and telling them to stop or they will be destroyed by God. Through praying for God’s justice in their presence.

And then letting them oppress us.

When they want to arrest us, we let them. When they want to punish us, we let them. When they want to hit us, we let them and we do not hit back. Instead, we make a public spectacle of their oppression. We give them an opportunity to show how evil they really are.

And they will be destroyed. By God. By someone God appoints. But the world will change.

Some say, How can you know this? This has never happened before! It can never succeed! Wrong. It has succeeded. And the poor have been released by this very method. Martin Luther King Jr. used this method against those oppressing the black communities, even allowing himself to be martyred. Gandhi used this method, systematically destroying the power of the British. The Anabaptists of the Sixteenth Century used this method- thousands dying for the Truth- and changed the face of Christianity. The Waldensians used this method, and caused there to be a resurgence of concern for the poor, including the powerful Franciscan movement. And all of these successful movements were sourced from one person- Jesus.

Jesus himself came to assist the poor. He brought them freedom and stood against the oppressive authorities that used their power for injustice. But rather than begin a violent revolution, he suffered and was executed as a rebel. And it was because of this that a movement sprang up among the poor that changed the ethical outlook of the world- Christianity. And through Jesus the Jewish government was destroyed and the Roman government was changed forever. And while Christianity has been used for many evils throughout the centuries, the teaching and life of Jesus has been used as an example of the most positive world changers that has existed.

Jesus’ method of world change is just as outlined above-
a. Do no evil, but do good to the needy according to God’s love (Mark 1:15; Matthew 7:12);
b. Cry out to God for justice (Luke 18:1-8);
c. Declare to the oppressors the judgment they will face from God (Matthew 10:7, 28)
d. Allow them to oppress you to display their evil (Matthew 5:38-48)
e. Teach the poor the message of freedom from oppression through the way of Jesus (Matthew 28:19-20)
f. And justice will prevail through the power of God! (Matthew 10:24-27)

The world system will be changed! 

but only through the way of Jesus.