There was a human being in the first century who was called ‘Divine’, ‘Son of God’, ‘God’, ‘God from God’ and whose titles were ‘Lord’, ‘Redeemer’, ‘Liberator’ and ‘Saviour of the World’. Most people, of any faith, would recognise those descriptions and titles as belonging to Jesus of Nazareth. And they do. But if you had mentioned that collection of titles to anyone in the Roman Empire in the first century, they would have had no doubt whom you were talking about – Caesar. It was the Emperor who was divine and the bringer of peace and salvation to the world. This was not even a religious belief as we might now understand the term – if you lived in the Roman Empire, the divine character of Caesar infused every aspect of life, whether financial, political, social or military. It was the theological foundation of the whole system.[1]
In around the year 14CE, when Jesus was a teenager, Herod Antipas began to create a new city on the shores of Lake Galilee. He named the city Tiberias, in order to curry favour with the new Emperor Tiberius. This venerable tradition has continued into the present day, of course. Here in Australia, newly discovered places were called Melbourne and Sydney after the noblemen who sponsored expeditions, or Victoria after the Queen of the day, or just ‘Queen’s Land’. And don’t get me started on King’s Park and Queen’s Park. But I digress. Herod Antipas was in conflict with his brother Herod Archelaus to the south, and was trying to stake his claim to the whole Israelite territory. The best way to convince the Emperor that he was the right person to be King of the Jews was to collect lots of taxes. He needed an economic boost, a stimulus package, and he saw Kenneret, Lake Galilee, as an unexploited source of funds.
Prior to the establishment of the town of Tiberias, fishermen could cast their nets from the shore, or go out in very small boats to catch small amounts of fish. Herod Antipas changed all that using new regulations. Every boat and fishermen would now be taxed, and their catch had to be sold to a single buyer – Herod Antipas. Herod’s factories would dry and salt fish for export, as well as making the highly prized fermented fish sauce called garum. So when we imagine the fishermen around Lake Galilee, the ones who Jesus calls to leave their nets behind, we need to imagine them in a depressed marketplace, where they are constantly scrabbling to catch enough fish to get by. But they would have a memory of easier times, when they could catch and sell fish at market, and where they had some economic autonomy. The fishermen had moved from being independent producers, to wage slaves on minimum income.
It's worth pausing for a moment to reflect on this dramatic social and economic change. It still happens, of course. Farmers with small holdings get bought out by big conglomerates because they can’t compete, then work for wages on the land they once owned. Certain industries get incentivised over others, so providing university degrees to overseas students increases but manufacturing rail carriages decreases. Rulers of every stripe make these large scale decisions, often very shrewdly, but ordinary people get caught up in policy decisions. So it was around Lake Galilee. Within a generation, independent, sustainable fisheries run as small family businesses with relative stability, became intensely competitive cogs in a soulless machine, scrabbling for their share of the profits.
This rapid change was symbolized by a name change. The rise of the city of Tiberias as the administrative, economic and political hub in the fertile northern region of Palestine saw another change. Instead of being called by its traditional name of Kenneret, the Sea of Galilee was now called the Sea of Tiberias. The identity shift was complete. A Roman puppet-ruler, with his Roman town on the Roman-dominated inland sea, producing wealth for the Roman Empire.
So I expect you don’t need me to explain why Jesus walking on the waters of Lake Galilee is a powerful and subversive act. And inviting Peter, who would go to Rome and preach the gospel and be martyred for his proclamation, to walk with him? The symbolism is clear, and only becomes clearer at the conclusion of the story – those in the boat worshipped him saying ‘truly, you are the Son of God’.
The application of Roman imperial titles to Jesus, and the elevation of Jesus over the Emperor, was a deliberate act of defiance to the Empire. As I’m often at pains to point out, Jesus was not executed because he encouraged people to be nice to one another. Rather, because he proclaimed an alternative source of power, and encouraged people to resist the power of the Empire and instead submit themselves to the power of a just and loving God.
It can be rather nauseating to be told that ‘God is in control’ or ‘God is in charge’. Sometimes things like that are said to stymy genuine questioning or genuine lament. Why was there a vast explosion in Beirut this week? ‘Well, I don’t know, but I know it’s all part of God’s plan’. It just makes me want to vomit.
But for these early followers of Jesus, and I hope for us, to acknowledge that God is truly in charge was not to abdicate responsibility or concern, it was not to dismiss or silence people’s questioning, it was to adopt an obligation to live differently. God is in control. Herod and Tiberias and the Roman military-industrial complex are NOT in control. This means that the way I live my life, even if I’m a fisher living in grinding poverty, changes.
So for us today when we see the devastating effects of an accidental explosion in Lebanon, a country already wracked by decades of war between world powers, we don’t just sigh and say ‘I’m sure it’s all part of God’s plan’. We acknowledge and analyse the economic and political circumstances that allowed this tragedy to happen, and acknowledge that geopolitical machinations by wealthy nation states are NOT a part of God’s plan, and that by acknowledging God’s sovereignty we are standing alongside the ordinary people of Lebanon, those who just want to make a living and raise a family and live simple, decent lives.
To acknowledge that God is in control, is the necessary first step to acknowledging that all those who think they are in control, aren’t. Is it any wonder that so few of us are really ready to do that?
The Lord be with you
[1] I am indebted here to Crossan, J.D, God and Empire, Harper Collins 2007