What is it to drive out the ruler of this world?

now the ruler of this world will be driven out and I will draw all people to myself. -John 12:31

So some foreigners approach some rural hicks in the big city wanting to get an audience with the vagabond rabbi currently making a stir around the big city of Jerusalem during the big festival when everyone should be paying attention to the named religious authority…  Now the hicks do not really know what to make of this, is this a good idea or a bad idea, so they confer amongst themselves, then with a bit of caution approach the rabbi they have been tagging along with for a few years now… and it’s a really simple question… “do you want to speak with some foreigners who are in town to see the big show”… like a simple yes or no will do just fine… and suddenly the heavens are opening up, God is speaking through angelic voices, and Jesus is prophesying about how he is going to die…

it is a topsy turvy wibbly wobbly world out there people.

How does a basic request about non-Jews approaching Jesus become a moment for direct Godly revelation and death prophesies? It is a complete non sequitur, a+b does not equal c, unless the context itself is what forces the revelation. That the entire prophesy is an admonition to the disciples about their hesitancy. How quickly they, truly nothing more than rural hicks from Bethsaida near Galilee, a non-descript hovel of fishermen huts outside the little known town of Capernaum, have made themselves special by trying to make themselves Jesus’ gate keepers. Two individuals, truly country hicks following a vagabond rabbi with no official authority, outsiders in so many ways to the big city of Jerusalem and its festivals orchestrated by the official respected leaders, and what do they do? They seek to create as much of a hierarchy as they can to lift themselves up above pretty much the only people they can find lower than themselves.

This is kyriarchy, any system that depends on dominance and submission in order to work. It is the complex web of sexism, racism, heterosexism, cissism, ageism, classicism, etc. etc. etc. in which we all live and have our times of privilege and oppression. It is the ruler that continues to influence the vast majority of decisions and actions made by almost every one of us humans wandering around the world. It is so intrinsic that it is only through centuries of struggle that we have begun at all to truly understand its grip upon us. So natural that quite often instead of eroding it we unintentionally or actively build it up.

 

Jesus was lifted up, not to the top of the kyriarchy, but to the point of complete ostracization on the cross. He created a well, a descent into the utter lowest depravity of hell, so that he was lower than the lowest point to which any one can be sent, and from this deep point in the utter depths of the darkest register of the human condition, Jesus can draw all to him, like drops of water all gathering towards the lowest point in the well.

Our purpose as a Christian Community is to help create that well in the world. To create the space that throws the kyriarchy on its head. To respond, when someone asks if a person is worthy to enter into our presence, with a prophetic admonition resounding with force of angels, yes and how dare you think for a moment that is not exactly what we are here to do.