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Text Box: “In Between Bandits” Mark 14: 43-50 / Mark 15: 25-32 Rev. Tom Warren April 5, 2009 On our church stationary, and on our church website, in fact, on almost any piece of literature that we produce, there is this wonderful phrase that says “Serving on the Mountain Since 1885.” The mountain, of course, is referring to this Cumberland Plateau. We’re not really serving on the top of a single mountain, but people who don’t know better often think we are. A family friend of ours once looked at the church website and he asked, “So is your church over there in the Smokies?” “No,” I responded, “our mountains are more like beautiful, rolling hills.” “Like central New York?” he asked. “Yeah, like central New York...Sort of.” Well, it is true we are not located in the rugged Smoky Mountains. But, we are not that far away, either. A two or three hour drive east on I-40 will take you deep into the spine of the Appalachian wilderness. And when you drive on I-40 East, and if you look out the car window going into North Carolina, the mountains there look absolutely menacing. From the road edge these mountains rise up abruptly. There are rock outcroppings which can be seen in all directions. The highway department has awkwardly fastened fences on the mountainsides so as to prevent rock slides from falling on the cars below. It is a rugged, untamed land with a life and culture all its own. A few years ago I was driving through this area when I stopped at a road side market. It was essentially a 7-11, but with a distinctly local flavor. Inside the market, along with all the usual chips, drinks, and beef jerky was a strange t-shirt for sale up on the wall. On this t-shirt there was a picture of a young man. On it, below this young man’s picture, was this phrase: “Run, Rudolph, Run.” I knew what it was. It was a t-shirt sold with sympathies for Eric Robert Rudolph. Eric Robert Rudolph was a fugitive in the area better known as the “Olympic Park Bomber.” He was wanted by the FBI for his bombing of the Atlanta Centennial Olympic Park in 1996. He was wanted for the bombings of abortion clinics in Sandy Parks, Georgia and Birmingham, Alabama. And he was wanted for the bombing of the Other Side Lounge, a gay bar in Atlanta. Rudolph was a “pro-life,” deeply homophobic, racist individual. For over five years Eric Rudolph eluded FBI agents, local police, and even amateur search teams by hiding in the Appalachian wilderness of North Carolina. How did he do this? Rudolph was deeply familiar with this wilderness. He spent many of his teen years, having moved up from Florida, combing these mountain sides as a teenager. Throughout most of these five years, he camped. He survived on acorns and salamanders. He pilfered vegetables gardens. He stole grains from a grain silo, and he raided dumpsters in nearby towns, sneaking in under the cover of darkness. Strangely enough, many of the local residents in this area were very supportive of Eric, even vocally supportive in the newspaper. Additionally, there were two country music singers who wrote songs about Eric. Rudolph, before finally being captured in 2003, had become somewhat of a folk hero. The locals saw him as standing up for conservative ideas and bedrock American values. He gave voice to many people who felt that they had no voice. Today Eric Rudolph sits in a federal prison under a five consecutive life sentence. Now many of us may think of Eric Rudolph as simply a criminal, or a right wing nut, or as a crime TV host has stated, “Rudolph is simply a psychopath.” Biblically speaking, Rudolph is none of the above. Rudolph is much closer to what is referred to as a bandit. And what our scriptures tell us this morning is that we need to pay attention to bandits – both then and now. Our focus scripture today is the betrayed and arrest of Jesus. It reads that “a crowd with swords and clubs, the chief priest, the scribes, and the elders come out to get him.” These were the temple police and secular authorities. Upon being apprehended, Jesus says, “Have you come out to arrest me as though I were a bandit?” In the crucifixion narrative, we find that Jesus on the cross is surrounded by bandits. One on his left and one of his right. Earlier in Mark’s gospel, we read of the crowds demanding the release, not of Jesus, but of Barabbas, another bandit. It is a request to which Pontius Pilate responds. Even in Paul in his Second Letter to the Corinthians, Paul speaks to the dangers he encounters along his missional journey. He writes, “Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I received a stoning. Three times I was shipwrecked for a night and a day. I was in danger from rivers. I was in danger from bandits. I was in danger from my own people. I was in danger from gentiles.” So it becomes clear that banditry was an integral part of the social and political context in which Jesus carries out his ministry. It was as a bandit that Jesus was portrayed by the authorities. So we want to ask the question: “Why?” What is the connection between Jesus, Jesus’ ministry, and first century banditry? New Testament scholar Eric Hobsbawn has spent much of his career studying first century banditry. He gives bandits the following characteristics. He writes, “Social banditry is a form of pre-political rebellion endemic to peasant agrarian society.” (Pre-political meaning, not formally organized, not part of the political system.) “Bandits emerge from classes of people who feel they are being exploited by governments or land owners (or corporations). “Bandits right wrongs and often function as champions of justice for the common people.” Interestingly enough, he writes that, “Bandits often enjoy the support of the locals. Instead of aiding the authorities and capturing bandits, local people may actually protect them because bandits often symbolize the common people’s sense of justice and their basic religious loyalties. “ “Social banditry tends to arise from and thrive in times of deep economic instability. Thus, bandits were a threat to the good social order of the powerful and today we call them terrorists. Now during his five years in the Appalachian wilderness of North Carolina, Eric Rudolph was defined by the FBI as a “domestic terrorist.” He was on the Top Ten Most Wanted list, but Eric didn’t see himself that way. In fact, he claimed publically that he was a Christian. He was a freedom fighter. He had ties to the Christian identity movement. At times, he claimed himself as a soldier of the Roman Catholic church “fighting the war to end the holocaust of abortion.” And of course, he often quoted scripture to justify his actions. Rudolph’s life today and the bandits of the first century give us the opportunity to think, How is Jesus different from a first century bandit? How is our Savior different from a 21st century terrorist? If that sounds like an absurd question to you, think about this: both Jesus and the bandits and the terrorists of today claim they speak for the oppressed. Both speak out and carry out actions on behalf of their perceived need for social justice. Both are at odds with the powerful. Both have sympathies among the locals. Both have deeply engrained religious loyalties. So what, in fact, is different? Jesus, of course, speaks again and again about the kingdom of God and its primary characteristics. He says the foundation of God’s kingdom is the love of all people. Jesus talks about the foundational characteristic of the Kingdom as forgiveness for all people. Not just love, but forgiveness. And of course, Jesus speaks about justice for all people. And in his principal which separates him completely from the bandits and zealots of the first century, Jesus says “No violence!” Jesus renounces violence as a tool of God’s kingdom. The new social order according to Jesus will be built on peace and love and forgiveness all of which will leads to justice, none of which will can be accomplished through violence. So, kill Jesus first! Jesus is a threat. Like a bandit, but different. We must take all this information to our context today. We live in a time of disturbing economic dislocation. How many hundreds of thousands of jobs were lost in March? We live in a time when more and more people are slipping into the despair of poverty. We live in a time when more and more people, out of fear, are purchasing guns, and out of personal pain and anger, using them. Binghamton, NY on Friday; Pittsburg, yesterday. It is interesting, particularly in the Pittsburg case, the man who shot up the police officers said he was living in despair and fear because he had lost his job and was fearful that President Obama was going to take away his guns. Ironic, as one of the few areas of our economy that has been growing is in the area of firearms. We live in a time when a significant portion of our society feels completely cut off from the corridors of power. Even with the election of this new president, there is a whole swath of people who say, “This is not my president! He is coming to get my freedom and my guns, and I am going to arm myself and take down anyone in my path because I am terrified.” Our society seems to want to take these killers that come to us every week, from all corners of our nation and say that he was a loner. That he was angry. Week after week after week, we try to individualize all of this killing. At what point do we stop saying it’s his problem and say, it’s our problem. Because we live in a time when the Eric Rudolph’s of the world are seen by some as heroes. Into the midst of all of this , God calls us into ministry. God calls us to care for the poor. To care for those who are frightened. To love the outcast. To reach out to those who are so alienated from the world that the recourse of violence seems like a faithful act. God calls us to speak truth to power. To insist that violence is not God’s way. In this book that we have been reading from Borg and Crossan – The Last Week - they talk about Jesus’ ministry as a confrontation with the “normalcy of civilization.” The normalcy of civilization is domination and violence and pain. That is what Jesus’ church is called to, a confrontation with the normalcy of civilization. So this imagery of Jesus on the cross is Jesus dying on the ultimate symbol of civilization, with bandits on either side of him. This imagery is the call which comes out to the church, a call for the church to be in the middle of the bandits; to be in the middle of the normalcy of civilization, to witness to a different way, and to know that we do this with Christ finally overcoming death. Next Sunday morning we will be God’s resurrection people. We will armed with love. We will not be armed with assault rifles. We not be armed with handguns to kill. This needs to stop in our nation. The killing in our nation is killing me. It is killing my spirit. My soul. And if its not killing you, it should be. This is not God’s way. We need to stop our reliance on violence and guns. I am not

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