Jesus Speaks Truth to (and About) Plutocrats – 2nd & 3rd Lent 2025
Happy St. Paddy’s Day. In lieu of posting a blog last week, we sent out a regional email inviting SoCal folks to our upcoming book party on April 5th at All Saints Episcopal Church Pasadena. If you’re anywhere in striking distance, please join us (details on the front page of this site).
So here I’ll dip into Healing Affluenza for a few comments about the gospel texts for the Second (3/16; Lk 13:31-35) and Third Sundays in Lent (3/23; 13:1-9).
In a sequence that runs from Luke 12:35–13:9, Jesus names five examples of brutality endured by poor and working classes who labor and live in the world of wealthy “lords”:
1. household servants enduring sleeplessness (12:37) and beatings (12:47);
2. debtor’s prison (12:58–59);
3. Galileans suffering violence at the hands of Roman authorities (13:1–3);
4. pedestrians killed by dangerous urban construction (13:4–5); and
5. oppressive demands on peasants for agricultural production by absentee landlords (13:6–9).
Jesus’s warning to “settle out of court” (2) refers to a judicial system controlled by the landlord class that routinely imprisoned the poor for indebtedness.” Pilate’s massacre of Galileans (3)—perhaps during a Passover pilgrimage, hence the reference to “their sacrifices” (13:1)—could refer to any number of skirmishes between Roman authorities and Judean dissidents
during the first century CE, many of which were documented by the Jewish historian Josephus. Urban construction accidents (4) were common, given the notorious working conditions and “code violations” that characterized ambitious and hasty Herodian building projects. Those two incidents might be connected if the Tower of Siloam was part of Roman aqueduct construction, since Josephus reports that Pilate killed a group of Jews who were
protesting his seizure of Temple funds to pay for imperial waterworks projects in Jerusalem. . Jesus’s emphatic refrain—“I tell you, unless you repent, you will all perish as they did” (13:3, 5)—implies that unless his people defect from this system, they too would be killed by its oppressions (Luke uses apollumi far more frequently than any other N.T. writer). These are some of many reasons that Jesus repudiates the “peace” of an imperial system that routinely generates such violations (12:51).
At the end of Luke 13, Jesus returns to his critique of the ruling class, which he broached earlier during his defense of the incarcerated John the Baptist (7:24–30). There, Jesus draws a stark contrast between the wilderness prophet John and the plutocrat Herod Antipas, representing opposite poles of Judean identity. Jesus’ interrogative triplet unfolds like a three-part joke about “the plutocrat and the prophet”:
i. What did you go out into the wilderness to behold? A reed shaken by the wind?
ii. What then did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft clothing? No, those who are gorgeously appareled and live in luxury are in kings’ courts.
iii. What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes! (7:24b–26a)
The reed reference is likely a title of ridicule and recognition for Herod Antipas, who had a reputation as a “waverer.” The Oxford Reference Bible notes: “Reeds were the vegetation
motif on the first coins issued by Antipas, who founded his capital city on the border of the Sea of Galilee, where reeds were prolific.” Or the wavering image could be an allusion to 1 Kg 14:15 (“The Lord will smite Israel, as a reed is shaken in the water”), part of the aging prophet Ahijah’s oracle of judgment on the house of Jeroboam, which by implication also hangs over Herod. Either way, the phrase is decidedly uncomplimentary of the king.
Jesus’s second “dig” caricatures the royal regime’s insular affluenza, taking refuge in palatial luxury dressed in finery. In leaving Herod’s political space to go encounter John, that crowd encountered more than they bargained for: nothing less than Malachi’s messianic forerunner (Lk 7:26b–27). John is the greatest among human beings (7:28a), opines Jesus; the king only imagines he is! Yet from the perspective of God’s Great Economy, those “of least importance” in the Herodian economy are most paramount (7:28b).
In 13:31, after Jesus is warned that the king is hunting him, he refers to Herod as “that fox,” an allusion to vulpes vulpes palaestina , an opportunistic predator who is nonetheless vulnerable to larger hunters (i.e., Rome). Pyung Soo Seo points out that Jesus is mocking the king, not the fox, who he invokes respectfully
elsewhere (9:58). Jesus assures (warns?) the Pharisees that he will carry on with his work despite being stalked (13:32)—but also acknowledges that soon enough his work will be “brought to an end” (13:32c), in large part because of Herod’s collusion with Caesar. Luke later sketches a damning portrait of Herod’s complicity in the railroading of Jesus (see 23:7–11).
So: May the gospel texts for both of these Sundays in Lent challenge our churches to rise to the example of their Lord to speak desperately-needed truth to and about the oppressive plutocrats putting people and Creations at risk in this very hour!
Ragan Sutterfield just released an interview he conducted earlier this month with Ched about the new Luke book and Sabbath Economics. Hear the hour-long recording HERE.
Ched also got up early on Sunday, 3/16 to meet on Zoom with an adult Sunday School class studying Sabbath Economics with Pastor Travis Meier at First Evangelical Lutheran Church in Nashville, TN.
FREE Webinar: “Luke’s Subversive Fish Story,” with Ched Myers. Join Faith and Money Network on Wed, April 23, 2025 from 7-8:30 pm EDT for a webinar with Ched on Healing Affluenza and Resisting Plutocracy: Luke’s Jesus and Sabbath Economics. He’ll unpack the most famous fish story ever: Jesus’ facilitation of an astonishing catch, after which he calls the first disciples. Registration is required for this 90-minute webinar here!
Finally, this week brings two milestones in our movement. Eduard Loring (right), veteran cofounder of The Open Door Community, is celebrating his 85th birthday. Send him a love-note by email HERE
On the other end of the spectrum, it is the second anniversary of my oldest friend Sandy Lejeune (left). Read about him HERE
And please continue to pray for the family of Nelson Johnson (right), who we memorialized in Greensboro last month (see Feb ’25 BCM Enews).
