EVERYBODY WANTS A REVOLUTION

Since childhood, hospital visits and stays were not too uncommon for me. Some of them I remember. Others I do not. One in particular, however, remained with me. It took place around 2005. I was bleeding internally and had passed out under immense pain. After being rushed to the hospital, I was eventually given morphine intravenously. That was a wild experience to go from debilitating pain to practically none, all through the push of a syringe. It didn’t heal anything, but it temporarily numbed my suffering. Morphine is extracted from opium and acts on the central nervous system. It changes nothing, but is extremely effective at alleviating pain.

Karl Marx aimed religion at this function, stating that it is “the opium of the people.” This analysis has become so commonplace that it is no longer an analysis. It’s a quip. Is it true, though? Is religion the opium that renders folks sluggishly passive while masking their problems? Does it bypass any transformational reality in the world? Does it bypass justice?

There is an ocean of definitions for justice, but the one Weil gives to it is unique. Justice is “that fugitive from the camp of conquerors.” In other words, if your idea of justice possesses any notion of conquering others, it is not justice. It is merely an exchange of dominance. Justice is the fugitive from whatever seeks to dominate.

Whatever we say about justice and faith, about this thing called Christianity, we say it looks something like this: a co-suffering, liberating love that leads a person to step outside their own milieu to pick up a half-dead enemy in a ditch.

The revolution will not be televised because that kind of transformation doesn’t sell ads, and there are no flames for the camera crew to capture. However, it will change the world in ways that revolution cannot: that is, by healing. It takes time and work, patience and resiliency, and a forgiveness that comes only by means of grace. Most notably, it is not sexy. Dorothy Day echoed this sentiment with her famous words:

“Everybody wants a revolution, but nobody wants to do the dishes.”

Revolution is seductive. It promises a radical renewal of a broken system, an efficient and sweeping transformation of people and places.

Yet, there’s a corrupting influence of power, a seductive nature of utopian visions, and an almost narcotic effect in the pursuit of revolution. It’s also important to note that revolution is continuously promised to us by power seeking more power. Almost every political party and leader aims at this innate desire: immediate change through control. Along with this comes a flood of other promises woven through a myriad of semantics, all underwritten by revolution.

Historically, we’ve witnessed countless revolutions—take the French Revolution, for instance. It promised liberty, equality, and fraternity but ultimately led to the Reign of Terror and the rise of Napoleon.

Even within Scripture, the Israelites' Exodus from Egypt presents an oppressed people rising up and out of an oppressive power. Yet, the story isn’t without its complexities. The Israelites themselves later became oppressors of other peoples.

Simone Weil's insight reappears: Justice is “that fugitive from the camp of conquerors.” Whatever true justice is, it is not domination.

In Mark 10, we find Jesus’ third prediction of His passion. The word “passion” (from the Latin “passio”) means “to suffer.” Jesus repeatedly told His disciples about His coming suffering, but they continuously missed the point. Their conception of transformation was strongly attached to power and domination.

Consider their exchange: “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” Jesus replied, “What is it you want me to do for you?” They said, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” Jesus responded, “You do not know what you are asking.” Their request reveals that the disciples still viewed Jesus as a political revolutionary. They wanted a revolution. We only need a little history to understand why they felt this way. The real pain from an oppressive foreign power wreaking havoc every single day upon poor folks living in first-century Palestine was suffocating. In the language of Dr. King, riots (and rage) are the language of the unheard, and revolution promises so much to this kind of lived reality. Is it here, at the bottom, where religion becomes the analgesic opium of Marx?

Simone Weil confronts Marx and completely disagrees with his idea. She counters, “It is not religion but revolution which is the opium of the masses.”

“The constant illusion of revolution consists in believing that the victims of force, being innocent of the outrages committed, will use force justly if it is put into their hands. But except for souls near to saintliness, the victims are defiled by force just as their tormentors are.”

The promise of revolution offers a seductive vision of a new world, free from oppression and inequality. But the reality is far more complex. New forms of oppression often arise, and the utopian vision can be replaced by new illusions.

Pursuing revolution can also have an opiate effect, dulling the pain of present struggles and distracting people from deeper spiritual and existential questions. It’s tempting to see an opportunity where power is made available. The subconscious is a mysterious thing. So many good intentions get lost in it. “We’ll use power for good” is what we tell ourselves. But goodness does not require power; it is its own. And goodness never looks like dominating power over others.

Ivan Illich commented on this dynamic when he wrote, “The devil came and took Jesus out into the desert. The Gospels call this devil the Satan, which means the tempter. And what the tempter invites him to do, ultimately, is to worship power, the powers, the powers of this world. Jesus replies to the tempter, “You shall worship only God, not power”; and, with these words, the New Testament creates the cosmic atmosphere in which the Samaritan can dare to step outside his culture, and the guardian spirits that watch his ‘we.’”

Whatever we say about Christianity, we say it looks something like this. A co-suffering, liberating love that leads a person to step outside their own milieu to pick up a half-dead enemy in a ditch. We cannot worship power and God because God locates Godself not in power but in the least, lowest, despised, and rejected of the world. We worship the crucified one, “slain from the foundation.” The Cross, not the tomb, reveals God. The tomb reveals the emptiness of worldly power and violence.

Back to James and John. We must not demonize them nor ostracize ourselves from the sons of thunder. Many, if not most, of us would feel exactly like them, yearning for immediate transformation and almost certain we know how to wield power to achieve it. But we must heed Christ's warning. It’s possible to experience oppression and still worship power.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, touches on this very thing in his book The Message. Observing the West Bank’s apartheid-like conditions, he remarks, “I want to tell you that your oppression will not save you, that being a victim will not enlighten you, that it can just as easily deceive you.”

The cycle of force is almost ceaselessly persistent. So we ask God for the grace to practice nonviolence—to overcome oppressive injustice without becoming the next unjust oppressors. But if we’re not going to fight power with power, how do we pursue justice and build what’s good?

A dear friend of mine recently endured some dehumanizing treatment from a couple of fundamentalists—destructive, false, and hurtful words. They reached out to me, and I struggled to respond. I know this pain. Words often fail in the presence of it. After a few moments of staring at the screen and searching my heart, I shared an exchange that I recently had with Minnijean Brown-Tricky. She is one of the Little Rock Nine who desegregated Central High School in 1957 and went through the most unimaginable torment from racists. I had asked Minnijean how she made it through the insanity of the mob. She smiled and said,

“There’s no template for going through a difficult thing… you just go through it.”

Our civil rights leaders all share this thread: the strength to go through. To do good work is to light that candle and step out. Good works thrust us into realms where we face evil deeds, even if done by folks convinced of their own righteousness. You just go through. We go and keep going.

Somehow, by grace, resilience will be our resistance. We’ll keep doing the dishes, clear-eyed, without any opium in our veins, and resilience will be our resistance. Amen.

Lord, I have started to walk in the light,


Shining upon me from heaven so bright;


I bade the world and its follies adieu,


I’ve started in Jesus, and I’m going through.

Refrain:


I’m going through, yes, I’m going through;


I’ll pay the price, whatever others do;


I’ll take the way with the Lord’s despised few,


I’m going through, Jesus, I’m going through.

Many they are who start in the race;


But with the light they refuse to keep pace;


Others accept it because it is new,


But not very many expect to go through.

I’d rather walk with Jesus alone,


And have for a pillow, like Jacob, a stone,


Living each moment with His face in view,


Than shrink from my pathway and fail to go through.