The Truth of Empire or The Truth of Christ?

There is chaos this morning at America’s international airports. People seeking to return home to the country in which they legally reside have been detained, searched, interrogated and prevented from entering the United States of America. People who are fleeing violence and genocide, who have sat in refugee camps while they endured the long vetting process required for asylum in our country, are being told that they must return to their homes torn apart by war. To those who support them these actions are justified because they are necessary to protect America; we must use the vast power of our Empire to put America first, to serve our own self-interest before anything or anyone else. 
Empires and their use of power to protect and expand their interests at the cost of all others, are not new. Perhaps the quintessential Empire, the prototype of all subsequent Empires, was that of Rome. Rome ruled nearly all the known world in the first century CE, the time of Jesus Christ. Like all Empire’s before and since, Rome was obsessed with protecting and expanding its interests. The method that Rome used to protect and expand these interests was death. To expand the Empire, Rome sent armies to conquer foreign nations, to kill enough of their people that they would submit to Rome’s authority. And if any among them were to rebel against Roman authority, Rome answered this threat with death as well. All rebels were crucified. Crucifixions were slow, agonizingly painful, and public deaths. After a rebellion had been put down, Rome would decorate the surrounding area with crucifixes, bloody, mangled, rotting corpses, hanging from wooden crosses. During Jesus’ childhood, a small rebellion in Galilee was put down in just such a manner. As a child, Jesus walked and played in hills spotted with dead bodies hanging from crosses. 
Last week’s gospel lesson, began with the observation that John, John the Baptist, had been arrested. John’s movement, of which Jesus was a part, was viewed as a threat by the local authorities, local authorities who were subject to Rome. When Jesus hears this news, instead of going into hiding, he begins to recruit disciples and begins his own public movement. In today’s story, that movement has begun to pick up steam, large crowds have begun to follow Jesus and his disciples, people are starting to take notice. It won’t be long, until Rome catches wind of this movement as well.
Aware that their public movement will bring opposition, deadly opposition, Jesus calls his disciples away from the crowds. He leads them up to the top of mountain, and sits down there to teach them what it is they are fighting for and what they can expect. What follows are series of blessings in direct opposition to the value system of Rome. “Blessed, Happy in other words, are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Happy are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Happy are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. Happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled, happy are the merciful for they will be shown mercy, happy are the pure in heart for they shall see God, happy are the peacemakers, for they will be called Children of God. Happy are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Happy are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
We are now somewhat inoculated against the radical nature of these blessings, simply because we have heard them so many times before. In our world where Christianity and Empire have been intertwined for centuries, we might even presume that these are the standard, governing values of our time. But to really hear them, is to hear them overturning all other value systems. To Rome what brought blessings and happiness was conquest, ruthlessness, domination, wealth, strength, the power of death. By the power of death, Rome had become wealthy, well-fed, safe, and secure. The Pax Romana was a peace for Rome achieved through violence towards all others. 
These teachings of Jesus are not anti-thetical to the thinking of Empire, they can also be counter-intuitive at first glance. Happy are those who mourn? How can one be both mourning and happy? To mourn is to grieve the loss of something or someone that you love. This grief is painful, it is uncomfortable, it does not feel like happiness at all. But, the only way to avoid the discomfort of mourning is avoid loving anything outside of yourself. If you never loved anything outside of yourself, if you always put yourself, and your people, and your empire first, if never open yourself to the lives of others, than you can avoid mourning at all. For when you lose the only thing you love, you won’t be around to mourn for yourself. If mourning doesn’t feel like happiness, well neither does living a life that prevents you from ever having to mourn, a life where you have closed yourself off the lives of others. A life with no love for others is not a happy life, it is not a blessing. Such a life may keep you safe and secure, but it will also keep you from ever experiencing love. 
It was this choice that Jesus was pointing his disciples towards on that mountain, and it is this choice that He is pointing us towards today. There is a truth of Empire; the truth that safety and security can be prolonged through siding with the Empire. If you side with the powers of death you are likely to survive longer than those who choose to oppose it. But there is also the Truth of the Gospel, the Truth of Jesus Christ: true happiness, true blessing, can only be found through opening yourself in full vulnerability to loving other people. Not only those like you, not only those who share your interests, or your faith, or your ethnicity, or your skin color. But opening yourself up to loving all God’s children, every living and breathing human being. To love in this way is to put yourself in danger. It is to threaten the powers of death, it is to threaten the power of every empire. 
If this was all that we knew of the choice before us, that the Truth of Empire may bring length of life and safety, and the Truth of the Gospel may bring happiness and love, it should already be an easy choice. Only the irrationality of fear would lead one to choose a long, secure, life, devoid of happiness and love. But as our last election made clear, fear is a powerful impulse. People in fear will do almost anything to find security. For this reason, the Christian Church has made of the cross, the crucifix, that symbol of the power of death, into a symbol of God’s victory over death. Jesus speaks plainly with his disciple’s about what is to come: they will persecuted unto death for their commitment to universal love. Jesus himself is the first among them to die in this way, to die on a cross upon the symbol of the powers of death. Yet the life and the mission of Jesus did not die on that cross. The love of God in Jesus Christ was resurrected from that death and remains with us to this day. The love of God transformed that death dealing cross into a symbol of the unparalleled power of love. The love of God made of that Roman cross a symbol that we need never be afraid, for even the power death is defeated by the love of God. The love of God has outlasted any power or any empire, its Truth stands today: Love is the source of all blessing and it is more powerful than death itself. 
As our American Empire seeks to secure its own peace through the power of death, exclusion, and demonization, we are faced a new with the choice between the truth of empire and truth of the Gospel. It is my hope that we will see beyond our narrow self-interest and desire for safety. It is my prayer that we will be brave enough to open ourselves up to mourning for others. That on this day we will allow ourselves to mourn for refugees who have lost their homes, and their entire lives, who have witnessed horrendous trauma, and who this weekend had their hopes for a new life crushed. I hope that we will be brave enough to announce our love for them, for the weak, the vulnerable, and the poor. I hope that we will do this despite our knowledge that people will speak ill of us for so doing, that we will invite on ourselves persecution and possibly danger for so speaking. I pray that we will do so with the faith that love is stronger than the powers of death, and with the knowledge that a life without love for all is a life not worth living. I pray that God will help us to choose the Truth of Jesus Christ over the truth of Empire.