In this Sunday’s Gospel Jesus asks a question: “Who do people say that I am?” He is directing listeners outward toward other’s opinions. Those opinions reflect external social and religious norms. Then Jesus rephrases the question for Peter: “Who do you say that I am?’ Jesus is directing his friend inward toward conscience which questions such norms. Peter responds from conscience and says Jesus is of God, a Mystery of Presence and Power. But then, later, Peter reverts back to defending the norms. He does this after Jesus speaks the truth that the norms. The norms produce dominating rulers who reject and kill people of conscience, like Jesus, “He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed.”
Social and religious norms are usually produced by and for the dominant class – elders, chief priests, scribal types – to maintain a culture of supremacy. Supremacists project their norms onto a deity to sanctify their domination. The result is most cultural norms are both secular and religious. This is true of both the Bible and the U.S. Constitution. Both are products of the dominant class. They maintain a culture of supremacy that rejects and kills those who question their system. The system may help non-rulers, but rarely and usually only as reforms when persons of conscience make enough of a public challenge to require it. More challenging than reforms to the system is co-creating something new. Jesus was a person of conscience who broke with cultural norms to co-create something new. He started a new Community, of God – but not a supremacist, dominating God as reflected in the Bible and the Constitution. Jesus thus did not start a supremacist nor dominating community. The world needs more such people of conscience and more egalitarian communities. We need people who are willing to transcend Biblical and Constitutional norms that are supremacist and discriminatory. We need people like Fred Shuttlesworth, Rosa Parks, and Dr. King who broke white supremacist Jim Crow laws, Roy Bourgeois who broke with the supremacy of warmakers, and Bernard Nathanson who broke with the supremacy of abortionists. Is Kim Davis of Kentucky who she says she is, a Christian acting out of conscience: “To issue a marriage license which conflicts with God’s (Biblical) definition of marriage, with my name affixed to the certificate, would violate my conscience.” Is it possible that Kim Davis is, instead, promoting old norms that maintain a culture of supremacy? She believes “Jesus is Lord,” a supremacist. But Jesus never called himself Lord. Paul did that. Paul did it to return our image of God back to the Old Testament supremacist deity. That supremacist deity was a projection of supremacist men who imagined him into existence. They set supremacist norms, like marriage being based on men dominating women as property. It included polygamy, harams, and force. Jesus transforms that supremacist system into a communion when he teaches “a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife.” (Mt 19:5) Jesus first encourages men away from the parental relationships that secure them their social and economic positions of supremacy. Jesus then encourages men to relinquish supremacy in their marital relationship; be vulnerable, depend upon your partner, cling to her. Jesus radically transform marriage’s supremacist elements into a relationship of communion.
In Christ, we are called to conscience and to relinquish supremacy. Since Ms. Davis supports supremacy in marriage, in this case heterosexual supremacy, she cannot be identified as a person of conscience in the Christian / Christ-like tradition.
Prayer: Dear Jesus, teach us humility.
Question: What matter of conscience might move me to break a cultural norm?
September 13, 2015 Gospel Mark 8:27-35 Twenty-Fourth Sunday In Ordinary Time