By Dr. Lani Wilson

Good Day, prayer and fasting group. We approach the MLK, Jr. Holiday weekend. As we pray for God’s little East Oakland way station, we acknowledge His grace and mercy for such volatile times as we witness and experience. They are not small things to appreciate.

The word this week is “strike.” Strike. We may think of the physical application as in hitting someone; or we may think of the labor action of unions; we might also think of the California’s Three Strikes Law passed in 1994 that was finally “substantially amended” for the better in 2012 (www.courts.ca.gov/20142.htm). The word has eleven different uses as a verb and six as a noun. However, for Christians we might be more inclined to think of the strikes that The Christ suffered while He was being tortured by Roman soldiers.

Some of them started spitting at him. They blindfolded his eyes, then hit him, saying, "Who hit you? Prophesy!" The guards, punching and slapping, took him away.
Mark 14:65 (TMB)

Again and again they struck him on the head with a staff and spit on him. Then they knelt down and paid homage to him.
Mark 15:19 (NET)

Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. And the soldiers wove a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They kept coming up to him saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and striking him on the face.
John 19:1-3 (NRSV)

The Message Bible translates Mark 15:19 more graphically: “They banged on his head with a club, spit on him, and knelt down in mock worship;” the NRSV translation says, “They struck his head with a reed, spat upon him, and knelt down in homage to him.” Surely, The Christ knew the worst was yet to come.

But there is an instance in the Passion of our Jesus that is only mentioned in John (…naturally, right? It would only be in the Johannine Gospel) and it occurs before Jesus is taken to Pilate.

Then the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his teaching. Jesus answered, “I have spoken openly to the world; I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all the Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret. Why do you ask me? Ask those who heard what I said to them; they know what I said.” When he had said this, one of the police standing nearby struck Jesus on the face, saying, “Is that how you answer the high priest?” Jesus answered, “If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong. But if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?”
John 18:19-24 (NRSV)

Listen to The Message Bible translation of this passage:

Annas interrogated Jesus regarding his disciples and his teaching. Jesus answered, “I’ve spoken openly in public. I’ve taught regularly in meeting places and the temple, where the Jews all come together. Everything has been out in the open. I’ve said nothing in secret. So why are you treating me like a conspirator? Question those who have been listening to me. They know well what I have said. My teachings have all been aboveboard.” When he said this, one of the policemen standing there slapped Jesus across the face, saying, “How dare you speak to the Chief Priest like that?” Jesus replied, “If I’ve said something wrong, prove it. But if I’ve spoken the plain truth, why this slapping around?” Then Annas sent him, still tied up, to the Chief Priest Caiaphas.

Jesus sounds shocked that He was being hit, slapped, struck, as if He had never been hit before.

During Jesus’ lifetime there were competing sects of Judaism before and after His death and resurrection, in addition to the polytheism of the Greeks and Romans. Although the Romans ruled with the proverbial “iron fist” for almost 1000 years, they allowed religious diversity as long as it did not usurp their political and military primacy: The empire must have been a hotbed of religious fervor!

Is the literature that Jesus was familiar with in his early years yet in existence in the world? Is it possible for us to get at it? Can we ourselves review the ideas, the statements, the modes of reasoning and thinking, on moral and religious subjects, which were current in his time, and must have been [resolved] by him during those silent thirty years when he was pondering his future mission? To such inquiries the learned class of Jewish rabbis answer by holding up the Talmud. Here, say they, is the source from whence Jesus of Nazareth drew the teaching which enabled him to revolutionize the world; and the question becomes, therefore, an interesting one to every Christian, What is the Talmud? …The Talmud, then, is the written form of that which, in the time of Jesus, was called the Traditions of the Elders, and to which he makes frequent allusions.
Rabbi Michael L. Rodkinson, The Roadmap,
“What is the Talmud? come-and-hear.com

Jewish childrearing practices, like most if not all familial mores, have changed over time, as they must. The Torah and Wisdom books of the Hebrew Bible spoke of a definite authoritarian position on parenting, likening it to the discipline of God of His people. In response to the question “Does Judaism advise spanking a disobedient child?” Rabbi Victor Appell answers,

The Bible says yes. The "rebellious son" is to be put to death by stoning (Deut. 21:18-21), and Proverbs (13:24) teaches: "He who spares the rod hates his son."
Reformjudaism.org

But Rabbi Appell goes on to explain that this may not have been the case by the time Jesus was born.

But by the talmudic period, these harsh doctrines of parental discipline were replaced with an emphasis on kindness and compassion. The Talmud defines the "rebellious son" out of existence (San. 71a), rules that a teacher could punish a student at most with a leather shoelace (Bava Batra 21a), outlaws hitting grown children (Mo'ed Katan 17a), and declares: "With a child, push away with the left hand, and draw near with the right" ( Sotah 47a)--the right hand normally being the stronger. As a result of these rabbinic teachings, traditional Jewish homes were noted for treating their children with love and warmth. –
See more at: http://www.reformjudaism.org/practice/ask- rabbi/does-judaism-advise-spanking-disobedient- child#sthash.oKZHC6cM.dpuf
Ibid.

So the old “spare the rod and spoil the child” philosophy dated from hundreds, if not thousands, of years before Jesus’ time. The Talmud has been the backbone of Judaism for millennia and was originally an oral tradition. After the destruction of the temple and the dispersion of Jews throughout the known world, Jewish leaders struggled to keep The Law alive among a scattered people and the ancient comments on The Torah rabbinical sages by were codified in a written version. Prior to and during Jesus’ lifetime, there was a power struggle between the Pharisees, who advocated an interpretive observation of The Law, and the Sadducees, who adopted a literal adherence to The Law.

Figurative interpretation was inaugurated in the days of the Great Assembly when its members resolved to keep themselves distinct from the Samaritans, their inveterate enemies, who adhered to the literal interpretation of the text, which, in the opinion of the Pharisees, was falsified by them. This study, however, commenced to make progress at the time of the Sanhedrin, or from that of the Macedonian conquest of Judea, when the term "Great Assembly" was changed to the Greek "Sanhedrin." It spread into every college where were assembled sages entrusted with the guidance of congregations, with instruction of the Law, of ordinances relating to clean and unclean, to property, to crimes. All sages who interpreted the biblical passages figuratively, unlike the Samaritans, were called "Pharisees." The Samaritans of course persecuted those Pharisees (see App. No. 1), objected to their interpretation, and did them great injury whenever they had the power. At last, Janai, Hyrcanus the First, overcame them, burned their temple, devastated their city, and compelled them by force of arms to conduct themselves according to the doctrines of the Pharisees, though he himself in his latter years became a Sadducee.
The History of the Talmud, Chapter 1
www.sacred-texts.com

Is it possible therefore that Jesus had never been struck before in punishment (No, we are NOT going into a discussion on corporal punishment)? He may or may not have been spanked as a child, but we do know that He must have witnessed physical brutality and unapologetic barbarism as a Galilean Jew in Palestine under Roman rule: They perfected crucifixion as a deterrent against political upheaval. Is it possible that in His Jewish family, there was more discussion about why certain behaviors were better than others? Or was it a combination of both: When children were younger, they were physically disciplined and then as they matured, there was more discussion? What might be interesting for us to consider is the following.

• The tone of Jesus’ inquiry about why the “police” (NRSV and TMB translations) were “slapping” Him around: Was He indignant about being hit? Or was He surprised about being struck? Was His tone sarcastic?
• When Jesus reacts to being struck, He makes a demand of Annas. “Jesus replied, ‘If I’ve said something wrong, prove it’” (John 18:22a, TMB). That sounds like a direct challenge, but in actuality it is a circular, rhetorical question: What is He asking Annas to disprove? The fact that He is Who He says He is? Whether or not He has been open and transparent about where and when He taught? That His teachings were not a fulfillment of The Law? That those He taught really knew what He said?
• The second half of his response to being hit was another conundrum for this high priest and the police. “But if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me” (John 18:23b, NRSV)? So is Jesus saying that if where and what He said is just as He said, if the people whom He taught confirm His teachings, if He taught in synagogues and temples in the open, then why should He be hit? In other words, “If I’m telling the truth, why am I being punished?” The expectation in this question is almost childlike, but it is a question that has multilevel implications: “You want Me to tell You what I’ve been doing and teaching even though you’ve heard about it because I’ve been doing it openly in public. Why do you hit Me when I tell you what You already know?”

Jesus must have been exasperating to the powerful, the corrupt, the Elite: He drove them crazy. And the damning of their intentions and efforts was His innocence.

Why was John the only gospel to contain this particular episode? What was the message we are supposed to draw from this other than the obvious, that He was being railroaded to His death? What was the significance of Him being hit in front of one of His own, a Jewish high priest, by a defender of the status quo, the “police”? And most importantly, why would Jesus leave these kinds of questions for us to examine thousands of years later? It seems too simplistic to explain it away as just another example of His innocence, of the fulfillment of the ancient scriptures. Is He talking to us today?

If the contemporary American Black Church represents the status quo, a testament to progress achieved, then where’s the party? Shouldn’t we be celebrating all that’s been accomplished because God is faithful? Shouldn’t people be flocking to our houses of worship because we are the prime example of reward if we just behave and wait “it” (slavery, injustice, racism, inequity) out? More likely, the dissolution and dilution of our praxis is rooted in the fact that during the Civil Rights era, Martin King was fighting against these very elements in the Negro church of that status quo.

You may well ask, "Why direct action, why sit-ins, marches, and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are exactly right in your call for negotiation. Indeed, this is the purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has consistently refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. I just referred to the creation of tension as a part of the work of the nonviolent resister. This may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly worked and preached against violent tension, but there is a type of constructive nonviolent tension that is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must see the need of having nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men to rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.
“Letter from a Birmingham Jail”
Martin Luther King, Jr., 16 April 1963
http://www.uscrossier.orgpdf

Of course we know that the non-violence that Dr. King practiced was a result of Mahatma Gandhi’s (a Hindu) influence on American Black intellectuals.

King defined segregation as a sin and an evil inimical to God’s plan for mankind, asserted the worth of all human beings, even segregationists, and embraced nonviolence as the best path to victory. In all this, says Dickerson, a historian at Vanderbilt University, he was echoing ideas developed during the 1930s and 1940s by thinkers such as Mordecai W. Johnson, president of Howard University in Washington, D.C., and Benjamin E. Mays, dean of Howard’s divinity school and later president of Morehouse College in Atlanta. Many black religious thinkers in the 1930s and 1940s traveled abroad for ecumenical conferences and made pilgrimages to India to learn from Mahatma Gandhi about Satyagraha (“soul force”) and its application through direct nonviolent action. As early as 1930, Johnson had urged African Americans to take up Gandhi’s approach; he later said, after visiting Gandhi in 1936, that “nonviolence is not passive resistance but rather is an active force,” and that “it must be practiced in absolute love and without hate.” When Howard Thurman, a professor at Howard and a Baptist minister, met Gandhi that same year, the Mahatma asked why African Americans espoused Christianity rather than Islam. Thurman gave his fullest answer to that question in Jesus and the Disinherited (1949), in which he explained that as a poor Jew within the oppressive Roman Empire, Jesus was on the side of the downtrodden.
The Wilson Quarterly, Wilson Quarterly Archives
In Essence/Autumn 2005, “Before King”
“African American Religious Intellectuals and the Theological Foundations of the Civil Rights Movement, 1930–55” by Dennis C. Dickerson, in Church History (June 2005), Dept. of Religion, Florida State Univ., Dodd Hall M-05, Tallahassee, Fla. 32306–1520.

Was that “first strike” on the face of The Nazarene in John 18:22 akin to the “first strike” on the face of the American Black Church in the 1930s and 1940s? Or were Jesus’ answers to Annas the high priest like a “first strike” on the American Black Church in the early 2000s? “But if I’ve spoken the plain truth, why this slapping around?” John 18:23b (TMB). Sagging pants, hip-hop, LGBT, interracial relationships, living together outside of marriage, embracing other religions: Imprimaturs of this young adult generation. Are we slapping, striking our young people in the name of the meager status quo we’ve achieved?

An unexpected slap on the face is both punishing and shocking. If #blacklivesmatter is the non-violent revolution of the 21st century, then is the American Black Church the status quo, cum Pharisees, Sadducees, and the Roman Empire? Is Jesus telling us with His slap-to-the-face, unanswerable conundrum questions to “wake up”?

By World War II, the black church was becoming “a militantly critical and confrontational force against Jim Crow,” and the struggle against evil abroad strengthened the resolve to fight segregation at home. After the war, the groundwork was in place for the crusade that changed America.
Ibid.

Should not the “evil abroad” strengthen our resolve to fight for equity for all people: i.e., Syrian immigrants, Occupied Palestinians, Undocumented Mexicans, Chinese Christians in the PRC (People’s Republic of China), LGBT communities, political refugees, Haitians, and yes, even poor Whites? Aren’t African-American Christians the quintessential example of forbearance and courage, longsuffering and forgiveness, vigor and resilience? Isn’t the message of that bronze, brown Jesus the blood in the heart of that struggle? Isn’t the power of His shed blood the ultimate answer to Annas in verse 23b?

“But if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?”

Shouldn’t the Black Church be out there screaming, “Black lives matter?” Shouldn’t our churches be centers of planning, respite, and support for the young people of all cultures, colors, and religions in this movement? Shouldn’t we be talking about this openly every Sunday? Shouldn’t we see this social justice movement as a part of our legacy of social justice for which we are respected? Isn’t open support and action the practicum for our worship, Bible study, and personal salvation? Where are we? Where did we go? Can we make it back? If The Nazarene is leading that parade, don’t we want to go? Maybe if we join Him there in spirit and truth, the parade will march right on back into the church.

There is one thing which came to me in my early studies of the Bible. It seized me immediately. I read the passage: 'Make this world the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness and everything will be added unto you'.
Mahatma Gandhi on “The Message of Jesus”
Religion of Mahatma Gandhi, Bombay Sarvodaya Mandal & Gandhi Research Foundation

“Question those who have been listening to me. They know well what I have said. My teachings have all been aboveboard.”
John 18:21b (TMB)

We’re coming, Jesus, we’re coming. Don’t give up on us. Don’t leave Your little East Oakland way station without us! Keep pricking us. Keep poking us. Keep slapping us. We’ll get it together. We will. We will…because You did and we can jump right back in. You promised and we believed. We believed before and we can believe again. It’s a new day, another battle in the same war, and You are victorious. Use us as You see fit because we don’t fit anywhere else.

Don't you ever feel sad
Lean on me when times are bad
When the day comes and you're down
In a river of trouble and about to drown

Just hold on, 'cause I'm coming
Hold on, I'm coming
Just hold on, I'm coming
Hold on, I'm coming

Just hold on, I'm coming
Just hold on, hold on
“Hold On, I’m Coming”
Sam and Dave

We’re leaning on you, Jesus.

Hold on, I’m coming!

Amen.