Join Rev. Deborah Duguid-May and Dr. M. Elizabeth Thorpe for a discussion of Empire as they look at the beginnings of the Gospels of Mark and John.
DDM – Welcome. In this episode we are looking at how the gospel of Mark and John present the identity of Jesus in relationship to Empire, and specifically in their case the Roman Empire under whose occupation they are. And I’m super glad today because Elizabeth is back with me and
MET – It’s a big episode for me, people. I’m just all over this one.
DDM – So I’m glad it’s not going to be a monologue. Mark begins in his very first verse with a direct political statement – The beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Good news – or in Greek Evangelion was a term used in the roman empire to announce the birth or a victory of an emperor. So a decree would go out into the world of the roman empire announcing – the good news of Caesar Augustus… announcing a new emperor or some victory that had just taken place. So for Mark to use this term is a way of saying – a new emperor has arrived. It is saying that there is a new emperor and a new reign that is replacing the current regime. And in case anyone may have missed this, Mark in the same opening sentences follows up with the title Son of God. Son of God was not a religious title per se, but a political one during the Roman empire, as emperors were called Son of the divine One. And so, by using this title Mark is saying, Jesus is the true Son of the divine one, the Son of God, not Caesar Augustus. And so therefore by implication, Jesus is the one with Divine Authority, not Caesar Augustus.
DDM – So what we as readers now see when we read the opening lines of Mark is a religious proclamation, but at the time of Mark, this was primarily a direct political statement of who Jesus is, placing him in direct opposition to the Caesar of Rome, and claiming him to be the new locus of divine authority and therefore political power.
DDM – The very next verse of Mark tells us that of John the Baptist preparing the way for the Lord in the wilderness. Now remember from the last two previous episodes, Mark is speaking to both Jews and Gentiles, and so now Mark is reminding the Jewish community of the symbolic power for them of the wilderness. For the Jewish community the wilderness was the time immediately following their liberation from slavery in Egypt. It was the earliest times of liberation, outside of Egyptian imperial control, when as a newly freed community they were learning what it would mean to be a freed people belonging to God. And so, for the Jewish community the wilderness was the time when Gods kingdom began to take shape, outside of the Egyptian kingdom. By stating that John the Baptist was preparing the way for Jesus in the wilderness was a way of saying, God is about to call you out of oppression and slavery to Rome into freedom once again. Your liberation is just around the corner, and the kingdom of God is about to begin again. And so, these statements of Mark are deeply political, because it’s about a God who is always working to lead us out of oppression and slavery into freedom – not just religious freedom, but political freedom from occupying states and empires.
DDM – So Jesus, as the new divine authority is not one who will go out in conquest like Rome does but instead will go out to release people from oppression and lead them into freedom. Again, when Jesus is baptized, Mark has God God’s-self speaking from the heavens saying You are my beloved Son. This is not just us as humans naming someone as the Son of the Divine one, but literally God speaking and naming Jesus as the divinely appointed one.
DDM – And then still in the first chapter of Mark, we have Jesus himself, going before all of us, into the wilderness. This deeply symbolic place of new freedom. And it is in the wilderness, that we see Jesus in Mark’s gospel confronting every power that will lead to oppression. Our need for human power over others, our need and ego to prove ourselves, our desire for wealth. Jesus will confront not just the external oppressive power of Rome but will confront the internal human characteristics that result in the oppression of others – our need for power, wealth and control over others. Jesus, the new divine authority therefore confronts evil and empire both externally but just as importantly internally.
DDM – This is not about one power simply replacing another as we see so often in our world, but a far deeper rejection of power over others, of domination, by confronting them not just outside of ourselves, but just as importantly within ourselves, and so right at the beginning mark is not just showing the breaking in of a new reign of power, but showing us that this reign will not be about domination and conquest, but rather about humble service and suffering led by the actual spirit of God. And so, Mark is redefining power and kingship in a radical way. This is not the opulence of Roman power with the best foods, and clothes, architecture and fabric, but a leadership rooted in the wilderness and the margins, with fasting, being stripped of most clothing, inhabiting not a palace but the wild barren hills, surrounded by wild beasts and yet also surrounded by the angelic powers. Such a contrast in just a few lines – it’s really breathtaking.
DDM – And then Mark ends his origin story with “the Kingdom of God has come near”. John is arrested for the political threat he has become is too much for Herod, and Jesus takes up John’s proclamation that the new Kingdom is near and about to become a reality. It is not a new kingdom with a military overthrowing of Rome (as many had hoped and longed for), but it will be a new kingdom rooted in letting go of all that binds us externally and internally, and a radical obedience to the spirit of God in proclaiming justice and liberation or salvation for all. And for the rest of Mark’s gospel, we will be presented the collision between these two kingdoms.
MET – So, when Deborah said she was going to follow up our first three episodes with some commentary on the Nativity in Mark and John, I was like, “How? Why? There IS no nativity in Mark and John. Mark and John completely skip over Christ’s birth. Mark jumps right to the Baptism and John is just high or something and telling you about his trip. Or maybe it’s cosmology. Something along those lines.” But Deborah has switched the focus from the actual nativity to beginnings, and that is something I get.
MET – Mark is kind of interesting to me as a communication scholar, actually. I’m going to move away from theology for a minute and treat you like some of my students. There will not be a quiz. Mark doesn’t start with Jesus so much as he starts with John the Baptist
MET – Yes, as Deborah points out, the first sentence declares this is the gospel of Jesus, but the real heart of the first few verses don’t have much to do with Christ himself and have way more to do with his cousin, John.
MET – John fulfills the prophecies of Isaiah and preaches repentance and the coming of a great leader in the wilderness. John’s preaching is the focus in the beginning of Mark. It very quickly transitions to the baptism of Jesus, but the first few verses are all about how John is preparing the way.
MET – This appeals to me a great deal as a communication professor, because the focus in the beginning of Mark is not on a miraculous birth or particularly rich or poor visitors – but on a powerful speaker. John is a preacher. In my mind he’s a big tent revival guy. He’s the guy who would let the world know that change was coming. And John, bless him, was a public speaker. I know this isn’t the important part of the story – but it’s important to me. John made his way and his name by being out in the public and out in the wilderness preaching – by saying to a crowd what he thought God wanted them to know.
MET – John was a prophet – and like all prophets his voice was his primary weapon. As a comm scholar this means a lot to me. When we did the episodes on Matthew and Luke, we did a great deal of work to show you who paved the way for Christ’s birth, and how they did it. They were poor shepherds, rich astronomers, and haggard parents. They brought what they could.
MET – But as Deborah has shown you, Christ’s ministry was announced not by kings, but by an itinerant preacher. Jesus was brought to you not by visiting wizards or goat herders, but by a man who roamed around speaking to crowds in towns and in the wilderness – he was a rhetorician.
MET – I want to focus on this because public speaking actually was a big deal in Rome – and for John to just walk around doing it is profound. I teach a course in rhetorical theory, and in the early weeks we talk about rhetoric in Rome. For example, we talk about Cicero and his impact on rhetorical theory. Now I know, I say the name Cicero, and a lot of you might be thinking, I know that guy was Greek or Roman, but I don’t know a lot about him. That’s fine; you don’t need to know a lot about Cicero to understand what I’m about to tell you.
MET – We don’t necessarily make these connections, but the Roman Empire of Cicero is not far removed from the Roman Empire of Jesus. In fact, they’re only about 100 years apart. The great philosophers and teachers that we think of as being the forefathers of the West were very much a part of Jesus’s environment. Cicero was a Roman citizen who had achieved great renown for his abilities as a speaker and writer. He was what you would have called an activist in his time. He was, in fact, so effective as a speaker and writer that Rome eventually killed him. But that wasn’t the end of it – the state cut off his head (and some say even cut out his tongue) and cut off his hands as a signal to future upstarts. They cut off his head and tongue and hands because that’s where his power was. He was a speaker and a writer, and as a speaker and a writer he had had a profound impact on the public. So, when they executed him, they made a public statement for future writers and speakers to think really hard about. That’s something to keep in mind when you think about John’s future and how they treated him at the end of his life.
MET – Another thing we talk about in my classes is the importance of something like rhetoric in an Empire. That may seem random and dull, but I promise it is actually really relevant. Let’s say rhetoric is part of the education system as it was in Rome – that means we are teaching people to be persuasive, analytical, critical, and to have a voice in public. That ALSO means we are working under the assumption that they will have the opportunity to use their voice in the public sphere.
MET – The nature of Empire has a direct effect on rhetoric, then. In a democracy, rhetorical education is ESSENTIAL. It is where we learn debate, persuasion, how to analyze problems, how to come to consensus, and how to present our ideas. Rhetoric and democracy thrive together. In an empire, rhetoric has to be phased out of education and left behind. Because in an empire – democracy is weak. People don’t have as much free speech. Their voices don’t matter – they do not have persuasive power, and they do not have the ability to make changes because the state, not the people, is in charge. When empires are strong and democracy is weak, rhetoric and rhetorical education disappear (I will leave you to wonder whether you ever took a rhetoric class and what that means for us as a people).
MET – In fact, in the years after Jesus there is a whole movement in Rome to completely de-fang rhetoric and make it completely about stylistic flourishes and puffery instead of anything persuasive or content related specifically because the Empire became all powerful and the voice of the people was so unimportant. This movement is called the Second Sophistic. This should also have you wondering how the macro-politics of the day affected your education, for what it’s worth.
MET – So – what does this mean for the Gospel of Mark? It means John the Baptist is challenging Empire. By being a speaker, by bringing his voice into the public, by practicing the art of rhetoric, even if it was communal and culturally traditional, and not Greek or Roman, he was announcing to Rome that he challenged their hegemony. Empires love to paint themselves as containing a multiplicity of voices. But colonialism, in every era, is one power imposing itself on another. It is one power crushing another group under its boot. And here it is Rome oppressing Israel.
MET – But John has the audacity to speak. John has the absolute nerve to go into public and speak, out loud and to whoever will listen, as a Jewish prophet. John challenges power and hierarchy.
DDM – I’m just thinking as you’re speaking that we forget that John was also challenging Herod and those in his own community that had thrown their lot in with the empire of Rome. Herod had actually had his (John’s) father killed, Zachariah the high priest, so in some ways John really has suffered in his own family and family story. So, very courageous of him.
MET – So the reason the opening of Mark is interesting to me is because it is about precisely those things I have chosen to study for my job. It’s a guy who wants to make a difference, and he does so by making his voice known, despite the political odds being against him.
DDM – Right, and the threat to his own life. Fascinating connections there.
DDM – So, in John’s gospel, writing again to Jews and gentiles who have been kicked out of their societies because of grappling with the religious and philosophical identity of Jesus, John begins his origin story with “In the beginning was the Word.” The Greek word here is Logos. In the beginning was the Logos. Logos was a term used in Greco Roman philosophy for the rational principle that ordered the entire cosmos. And Elizabeth, I’m going to ask you to jump in a bit around the philosophy of logos which I am sure you have studied in greater depth than myself.
MET – Okay, I’ll jump in a bit about logos! Logos is a fun word because on the one hand, it is abundantly clear what it means based just on what it looks like. Logos obviously means “logic” or “logo” because that is right there in the word. Surprise! It means both. Logos is reason, word, logic, rationality, symbol – there’s a lot that goes into this word. The reason I’m jumping in here is because logos is a CENTRAL and FUNDAMENTAL idea in rhetoric. Many of you remember from your early days of learning to write or speak the old “logos, pathos, ethos,” stuff, and if you don’t, maybe the words sound familiar. But if I’m going to make some rhetorical connections to the gospels, I really can’t let this one slide.
MET – John’s gospel says in the beginning was the Word. So in the beginning was reason. Or symbolic logic. Or however you want to translate that. But in the very beginning there was something that was more than us. Something that was beyond animal, even beyond human. It was reason. It was something intelligent. It was the thought process that ties the universe together. Logos. And I think we need to seriously consider what that tells us. Logos was God and Logos was with God. God is reason. God is the divine intelligence that organizes the world. God is the system of ideas and words that makes it all make sense. This is a pretty Greco-Roman idea. The Greeks were constantly striving for perfection, and this is coming through loud and clear, here. God is rational. God is reasonable. And therefore, God will lead us to perfection.
MET – But this is important because this is holy, okay? Reason is divine. Reason is holy. Word, or logic is something mystical – maybe magical. But something, specifically, beyond just the physical world in which we live.
MET – Reason, in short, is god-like. It literally, is God. It may seem like that is setting up a paradigm in which God is completely untouchable, but consider our friend Aristotle for a minute. And this is the part you know: Aristotle said that when you are trying to convince someone you need different kinds of proofs. Specifically you need artistic and inartistic proofs. The inartistic proofs are just the outside evidence you bring in. You don’t have a lot to do with that. It’s just information. The artistic proofs are the proofs you create with your own mind. These are the arguments you actually put together. These inartistic proofs come in three varieties: appeals to logos, appeals to pathos, and appeals to ethos. That just means you create logical appeals, you create emotional appeals, and you create appeals based on your character.
MET – Okay – let me put a few pieces together for you: God is logos. We have that. Aristotle makes no claims that people are gods. But Aristotle does present a system by which a person can make an effective argument. But for Aristotle this requires a balance – you can’t have JUST an emotional argument, for example. An argument has to be a delicate balance of the three appeals that balance an argument. What is notable is that Aristotle has described this as a way to appeal to PEOPLE specifically – because this is the measure of people. People are made of three things – their emotions, their characters, and their reason. So, Aristotle says you have to appeal to them in those ways – logos, pathos, and ethos aren’t just how you make an argument – they are how you make a person. We are people of reason, emotion, and personality.
MET – So when we think about the concept of logos in John we need to think about how John is setting up our relationships to God, ourselves, and the divine. God is logos. Logos is reason and symbol. Logos is part of our very being. That holy reason is a part of our make-up. I don’t know that the writer of John and Aristotle actually sat down and had this conversation – but the ideas are running all through all of history.
DDM – I love that – and so John is saying this reason that orders the whole cosmos, is embodied in this man Jesus. Jesus is the full embodiment of this reason that Elizabeth has just been saying, of the fullness of reason, symbol, rationality. Jesus is the one the Greco roman world have been speaking about. In some ways, John is saying this philosophy you have studied and known, has now become embodied in one person – Jesus. So John doesn’t begin with Rome and any empire of the world but begins with the whole cosmos, and this ordering of the whole cosmos which is now embodied in Jesus. This is to remind the readers, that no empire can compete with that which orders the whole cosmos. That ultimate power is held by this principle of the Logos, the laws which order the whole of the cosmos, and these are embodied in Jesus who is the very Logos, before all that was created. John is saying no imperial power or empire can even be compared to this man, for he is the one before all powers.
DDM – And then John says, this Logos, it took human flesh. Why would this logos, this divine philosophy take on a human body? Why? That is the question John wants us to ask. And then, this Logos chooses John tells us to dwell among (not the palaces, not the temples – which is where power is often located) but chooses to dwell among us – ordinary human beings. This is such an anti imperial concept – that it would have shocked readers, this is a completely new idea, of the Logos taking flesh and living amongst common people – that the only question one could be asking is WHY?
DDM – It’s interesting that the Greek word for dwelt here – dwelt amongst us – the word dwelt, eskenosen, is actually the word for pitched his tent. If Logos is reminding the Greco roman readers of their philosophy, this phrase pitched his tent among us would immediately remind the Jewish readers of the wilderness times when God pitched his tent called the tabernacle amongst them and lead them through the wilderness. This was the symbolic image of God who chose to come down in the wilderness and lead them in the tent of the holiest of holies. For Jewish readers, this is saying Yahweh has once again chosen to come down and lead you into freedom, but the tent or tabernacle will now be the body of Jesus that will lead Gods people out of oppression.
DDM – John is contrasting here the power of empires in their architecture, palaces, temples, with God’s architecture of power in a human being, perhaps the greatest architecture and miracle of all. A human body becomes the dwelling palace of God, of the Logos, of Yahweh, and the human body becomes the embodied the cosmic power of God. This again is such an anti-imperial statement, to locate such power, the power of God, in a human being and in a human body. For those who had been kicked out of synagogues and roman empirical society, this was a reminder that power is not ultimately found in synagogues, temples, and palaces, but in a human body, particularly the human body of Jesus.
DDM – As we read through future chapters of John we will see how each time the crowds wish to make him King, Jesus withdraws. He will not be drawn into military kingdoms of this earth, and when Pilate ultimately asks him are you the king of the Jews, Jesus says – my Kingdom is not of this world. For as John reminds us in the very beginning, Jesus’ kingdom is the one that has no beginning and no end, it is the kingdom before the creation of the cosmos, and after the end of this world. Jesus is the divine logos, that is over all earthly powers and kingdoms, with no parallel.
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