Readings for First Sunday of Lent: Dt. 26: 4-10; Ps. 91: 1-2; 10-15; Rom. 10: 8-13; Lk. 4: 1-13.
Last Tuesday's edition of "Democracy Now" had Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez interviewing Daniel Immerwahr, and associate professor of history at the University of Chicago. Dr. Immerwahr has just published a book called How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States. For me, it was an eye-opening conversation, because it described the actual extent of U.S. empire that remains hidden even, as Dr. Immerwahr noted, from PhD historians.
Yet more importantly, for today's reflections on this first Sunday of Lent, the interview revealed how the hidden U.S. empire actually involves our country in devil worship as defined by this Sunday's Gospel episode.
Actually, that's been the case for Christians in general ever since the 4th century of our era, when their predecessors threw in their lot with Constantine's Roman army. Since then, they've (we've!) been worshipping Satan while calling him "God." Today's Gospel calls attention to that contradiction. It implies that Christians should no more support their country's foreign policy (or what pretends to be the Christian Church) than if it were run by Hitler or the devil himself.
Let me explain.
Begin with Dr. Immerwahr's description of the hidden U.S. Empire. He traces its inauguration to the period immediately after our country's founding. It was then that settlers incorporated territories seized (in clear violation of treaties) from Native Americans. Then beginning in 1845, the U.S. absorbed nearly half of Mexico -- Texas first and [after the Mexican-American War (1846-'48)], what became Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. By the end of the 19th century, the U.S. had added Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Hawaii, Alaska, Guam, and Wake Island.
If we add to this the implications and actual invocation of the Monroe Doctrine (1823) in order to control the politics of Latin America, we can see forms of U.S. colonialism extending throughout the western hemisphere.
Coups in Africa [e.g. Congo (1961), Ghana (1965), Angola (1970s), Chad (1982)] established U.S. hegemony there. Similar interventions in the Middle East (e.g. Iran in 1953) along with the establishment of Israel and Saudi Arabia as a U.S. proxies controlling political-economy throughout the region established United States imperial outposts there.
Factor in the 800 U.S. military bases peppered across the world and one's understanding of our empire's extent expands exponentially. (Russia, by contrast has 9 such bases; the rest of the world has virtually 0). To understand the sheer numbers involved, think of our continued military presence in South Korea (35,000 troops) Japan (40,000), and Germany (32,000). Besides this, of course, there are the active troops who daily kill civilians and destroy property in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and elsewhere. In total we're told that there are about 165,000 troops deployed in 150 countries throughout the world though, in the light of what I've just recounted, even that number seems vastly understated.
In any case, all of that describes an extensive, highly oppressive, and extremely violent American Empire.
And we're proud of it. Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson thought of colonialism as marvelous. However, by the first decade of the 20th century, politicians became increasingly uncomfortable with "the 'C' word," and exchanged references to colonies for the gentler euphemism, "territories."
But whatever name we give it, the reality of U.S. empire stands in sharp contrast to today's Gospel reading and its description of Jesus basic proclamation with its negative judgment on empire and colonialism.
As a prophet and actual victim of empire, Jesus made his fundamental proclamation not about himself or about a new religion. Much less was it about the after-life or "going to heaven." Instead, Jesus proclaimed the "Kingdom of God." That phrase referred to what the world would be like without empire if Yahweh were king instead of Rome's Caesar. In other words, "Kingdom of God" was a political image among a people unable and unwilling to distinguish between politics and religion.
According to Jesus, everything would be reversed in God's Kingdom. The world's guiding principles would be changed. The first would be last; the last would be first. The rich would weep, and the poor would laugh. Prostitutes and tax collectors would enter the Kingdom, while the priests and "holy people" all of them collaborators with Rome would find themselves excluded. The world would belong not to the powerful, but to the "meek," i.e. to the gentle, humble and non-violent. It would be governed not by force and "power over" but by compassion and gift (i.e. sharing).
That basic message becomes apparent in Luke's version of Jesus' second temptation described in today's Gospel episode. From a high vantage point, the devil shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the earth. Then he says,
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