Radical!
Here in Georgia, the word, radical, can be heard from the TV or from the airwaves several times each hour, sometimes several times a minute. While Advent is the Season where we watch for the coming of the Lord, here in Georgia we are consumed by the coming of another election, runoffs for Georgia’s two US Senate seats. Lord, may it please end soon! Think of all the TV spots, ads, obscene amount of money raised and spent, and the countless lies and spin spewed by all sides that led up to the November 3rd election. Think of the continued campaign to “Stop the Steal” that has raised another $200 million for Donald Trump, the nonstop lawsuits, the Proud Boys in DC, and over half the GOP in the US. House and 17 state AGs signing onto the Texas lawsuit filed in the U.S. Supreme Court that was summarily dismissed. Think of all the noise, name calling, and conspiracy theories being amplified while at the same time our nation passed the tragic milestone of 300,000 deaths from COVID-19. Maybe the Electoral College vote yesterday will stop most of the noise, but not here in Georgia. It is still full political game on. God, help us!
Fear the Radical!
Dominating the political ads is radical. Kelly Loeffler constantly refers to the Reverend Raphael Warnock as a radical liberal. In my ecclesial circles I am familiar with the ordained being referred to as “The Very Reverend” or “The Most Reverend” or “The Highly Reverend.” Only in the one televised debate between the two did I hear over and over again from the lips of Senator Loeffler, a new title – The “Radical Liberal Reverend.” Of course, the ads against “Radical Liberal Reverend Raphael Warnock” have images of him doctored to have him look very menacing and are meant to draw the same fearful response former President George Herbert Walker Bush elicited years ago in infamous racist Willie Horton ads. Loeffler’s message is clear. If you elect Radical Liberal Reverend Raphael Warnock, the radical liberals will cancel culture and destroy America.
It is the same with the Senator David Perdue ads that attack Jon Ossoff as a radical liberal. Somehow Perdue is banking on his television ads, texting, and social media to so scare people of radical liberal end-America-as-we-know-it Jon Ossoff that he is hoping voters will forget his refusal to debate his opponent after being taken behind the rhetorical woodshed in their only televised debate.
Lest you think that this blog is headed in a highly partisan political direction, the use of the term, radical, is also being used by the Dems to slam the Republican candidates. With the attempt to overthrow the election, fire the Georgia Secretary of State, it is open season on the Republicans to paint them as anti-democracy, autocracy-embracing, right-wing extreme radicals.
Now, in order to be fully transparent, I do have a progressive bent when it comes to politics, and I am a citizen of Georgia’s 5th Congressional District, the district of the late John Lewis. Our neighborhood is clearly deep blue, and my lovely bride and I do fit the profile. But this blog is not really about the January 5th runoff election. Besides, the overwhelming majority of readers of this blog are not residents of Georgia and can’t vote for a dog in this hunt anyhow. Moreover, I am under no illusion that an Ossoff and Warnock victory and Democratic control of the US Senate will somehow usher in the Kingdom of God.
Making Sense of the Reason for the Season
What I do believe is that radical can be redemptively used to make sense out of “the reason for the season” and what God is actually up to. To fit the true definition of radical, something or someone has to be so far-reaching that he or she not only affects the fundamental nature of things but also overturns the current stasis. When we throw the word, radical, around to smear a political opponent, we mean it in its utmost negative sense. It is meant to evoke fear. The other person is going to rob you of something of utmost importance to you. So, you had better watch out!
The proclamation of the coming of Jesus and his birth is a radical promise. God gives this promise not as a threat but as good news. The sermon by the angel to the shepherds (Luke 2:10) is clear:
Do not be afraid – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people.
ALL the people. This is truly radical because for Jesus to be good news for all the people today, as the short sermon goes, then the current stasis must surely be coming to an end. The pronouncements that preceded Jesus’ birth speak to the disruption. The mighty get brought down from their thrones. The humble get lifted up. The hungry get fed. The rich become empty. And then Jesus comes preaching the same radical vision.
The Radical Jesus
It is important to know that we only pay attention to the birth of Jesus and celebrate Christmas because of Easter. Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah because God raised him from the dead. But to be raised, Jesus had to die. It was inevitable. The proclaimed disruption of the status quo did not sit well with the powers at be. Table fellowship with sinners, prostitutes, criminals, and outcasts offended them. Grace – God’s favor for those the powers despised – was an afront. A Jesus speaking truth to power needed to be silenced. The only outcome was to execute him in the most hideous and shocking way possible in order to send an ominous message to anybody else thinking about identifying with or trying to replicate the radical Jesus.
But God raised him from the dead. You want to know what God is up to? Radical righteousness. Look at Jesus. It is a theme that runs through the scriptures, but Matthew’s Gospel is most explicit in saying that Jesus came to fulfill all righteousness (Matthew 3:15). Jesus even blesses those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (Matthew 5:6) and blesses those who are injured, marginalized, belittled, and silenced because they pursued righteousness (Matthew 5:10).
Radical Righteousness - Making Things Right
To be clear, righteousness, is not some sort of inner-spiritual experience. Righteousness has to do with making things right. It is not right that over 300,000 have died from COVID-19 when concern for the common good by all the people – i.e. wearing masks – could have changed the math. It is not right that millions live on the edge right now while the comfortable have watched their stock portfolios reach record values. It is not right that the very people who work hard to protect us – health care workers, grocery store clerks, delivery people and the like – put their lives at risk while the comfortable can work safely behind a computer screen. It is not right that a 90-minute flight from Miami lands one in Port-au-Prince, Haiti where the misery index is off the charts. It is not right that we are too soft and do not have the personal discipline nor economic imagination to pay attention to and mitigate the impending catastrophic climate crisis. It is also not right to have an America first attitude when it comes to the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines, though such a strategy would have political benefits. I could say more, but you should be getting the drift. So much is simply not right.
A Radical Movement as God’s Social Strategy
But God created the church and breathed life into those who claim to be followers of Jesus not to be the first ones to get into or have the best suites in heaven but rather to make things right – right here and right now. Jesus calls people to follow him and imitate him as God’s social strategy for making things right, for taking a broken world and bringing it to healing and restoration. After all, if Jesus is risen and God really holds the final word then we no longer need to make self-preservation our goal. We are free for live life that works for the common good.
Writer and theologian G.K. Chesterton (1874 – 1936) once wrote the following:
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting.
It has been found difficult; and left untried.
Maybe this go round, we try to actually follow Jesus and become true radicals for the kingdom. And as we ponder the radical promise, maybe we listen more closely to the words of this familiar hymn we sing:
Hail the heav’n-born Prince of Peace! Hail the sun of righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings, ris’n with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glory by, born that we no more may die,
Born to raise each child of earth, born to give us second birth.
Hark! The herald angels sing, “Glory to the newborn king!”
In the abiding hope of the empty tomb,
