I like this quote because it sees worship as a template for human life rather than as an occasional
activity we engage in that is otherwise discontinuous with our lives. I don't read it as saying we have no doubts, questions,
or disagreements with the Church (though it could be read that way), but rather that we identify with the Church as a culture,
a culture which is also a counter-culture.
I often read in The Lutheran, as well as other places, statements like "Jesus was not political and
the Church should stay out of politics." I always wonder what people can possibly mean by such statements. "Political" is
derived from the Greek word polis, the city. To be political is to participate in the life of the city, in particular
to work on organizing human society so as to meet human need, including the need for justice, for peace, for freedom, for
the well-being of the poor and oppressed. What in the Gospels leads us to think Jesus does not want to be part of those discussions,
what in the Gospels leads us to think Jesus wants his followers to drop out of society?
On the contrary, I see the whole point of religion as being a set. of proposals about how we should
live together. Jesus' first sermon began with these words: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to
bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and the recovery of sight to the blind, to
let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." In other words, as we think about polis and politics,
we are to construct a society that pays especial attention to the poor, the imprisoned, the sick, the disabled, and the oppressed.
Braso is saying that when we come to the Eucharist, we are being that new society where all are welcome,
where each person is given full dignity, where a social sense based on reverence and courtesy fills our hearts, and where
human sensibility is refined for the good of all creation. Holy Communion serves Holy Community. There can be no Communion
with God in Christ that does not drastically revise our political commitments in the direction of the commonweal.
Soon we will enter Christian ground zero: the Triduum. On Holy Thursday, Jesus will put off all his
dignity to wash our feet and to feed us out of his own self. On Good Friday he will lift up the cross to show how sacrificial
love can redeem life. (Gory sadism is not the point of the Passion story.) Then, at the Great Vigil of Easter, we will be
led through all history, starting with Adam and Eve, to a holy night in which reality itself is reconstituted. The stone will
be rolled away from our tombs, from the charnel house of history. The resurrection is not just a doctrine to be believed,
it is an opportunity to be seized; it is an invitation from God to live life on new bases. Jesus died and rose again for the
sake of the polis. Easter is radical politics.
Yours in Christ,
— Pastor Bastien
Taken from Footnotes, April 2004
