To oppress someone is to have your boot on their neck.
In the Bible, the Jews spent most of their time under the neck of other people’s boots. There were some golden years when they got to wear the size 12s, but they messed that up and spent the next several hundred years getting very familiar with different types of boot tread.
Jesus was born at a time when all the boots had a Roman brand. The Romans liked to hold their boot firmly against your neck and tell you that it was all for your own good. They were the bringers of peace, chosen by the gods to rule the world. A divine manifest destiny.
But they were going to make you bankroll their greatness. The Romans were the kind of folks who would take all your grain, and then dole a bit of it back to you throughout the year to show how generous they were. They thought you should be thankful for their boot. They were the kind that keeps the boot on strong, even when you tell them you can’t breathe.
The Romans had troops all around their empire. Folks with weapons whose job it was to “keep the peace”. They didn’t care about the people they policed. They deserved the hardships they faced. If only they would work hard they could become a tax collector or join the military and make something of themselves.
These troops with weapons had bosses all up and down the line. One boss managed 100 troops. He called the shots; his boot was strong. This man knew about power–his whole life was built around power and oppression. He had bigger bosses who stood on his neck as he stood on others. But, he knew how to get things done.
One of these bosses got stuck in Galilee. Land of the Jews, and not the Jews who knew their place, but these backwater Jews. The most thin-skinned people you ever saw. People who couldn’t understand that the boot was here to stay and they should just learn to love it.
One day at the post, some of his men come in with a report of yet-another crazy Jewish preacher. Just another trouble-maker who grew up without a daddy. He had a misfit group of friends around him, the kind you want to make sure your kids stay away from. One of whom had a long rap sheet, including trying to bust the heads of some policemen.
“Here we go again,” the men said at the command post. “Should we go bust them up, Cap?”
“Nah. I’m tired today. Let it wait till tomorrow,” the captain responds.
“Hey Cap, have you heard the new one about the Jew and the donkey…?”
The next week, some of his guys come in giggling. “Cap, you’re never going to believe this. Now they are saying that this guy can heal people. Can you imagine?”
“Ha, crazy kikes will believe anything, right?”
The soldier waves his arms, “Look at me, I can heal you! Boom! Paralysis gone. Boom! Seizures gone. What a bunch of morons.”
“Yeah, morons.” The captain’s smile fades away. “You know what? Maybe I ought to check him out myself, just to make sure it’s not getting serious.”
“Are you kidding, Cap? Don’t waste your time. Just another big nosed, poor-ass Jew with a lot of make-believe mumbo jumbo.”
“Yeah, sometimes these things get out of hand. And he’s got that one guy with him. Maybe we can find a weapon on him and pick him up for that mugging last week.”
“Suit yourself, Cap, but I wouldn’t go out there alone.”
The captain starts riding through the towns. He hasn’t spent much time on the streets since he got promoted ten years ago. He used to know this place really well. He knew where the trouble always started. He used to know how to get people to talk. Hell, he was the goddamn emperor around these parts.
He starts heading towards the tax collector’s booth where he gets most of his intel. But then he sees this big crowd coming in from the country, straight towards him. He grabs his radio to call for backup, but the people don’t have any weapons and they are moving really slow, so he waits and watches.
The people are all smiling and leaning on each other. Their eyes are strangely wide open. They all look like they are coming down from some mountain with the key to enlightenment. As the crowd gets close to the captain, they don’t seem to notice his uniform. Usually the captain walks with a full six foot radius around him that no one dares to break. But people start bumping him as they walk by like they don’t even recognize who he is.
Suddenly, there’s a commotion and the captain reaches for his weapon. Some guy is yelling and there’s a lot of people screaming around him.
The captain rushes over, ready to fire into the crowd, then sees a man with rags at the center of it all. “Shit, it’s a leper,” the captain says loudly to himself. An escapee from the colony. There’s nothing the Jews hate more than a leper walking around the city. It’s going to take a full squad to come out here and get this guy back, and this whole area is going to be in lockdown.
Then he hears what the leper is shouting. “Master, I wanna be healed! I wanna be healed! You can do it if you want, Master. Heal me, Master!”
The captain lowers his weapon and tries to figure out who the leper is talking to. There’s a shorter guy in the middle of the group. He’s got nappy hair and dressed like a peasant. But there’s something about his face that’s different. It’s the look of a man who understands. Who’s not playing the same game as everyone else. Who has the ability to start or stop a riot with a single word.
Everyone grabs their phones to start recording. The short man stretches out his hand and actually touches the leper and says, “Be clean.” The whole crowd gasps. They’ve never seen someone willingly touch a leper. Immediately the leper stands up straight and looks down at his arms and legs and feels his face. The healer leans in to whisper something to him and the man takes off running in circles.
The captain’s eyes gloss over. In his mind he starts thinking about the one thing he never stops thinking about. Eight years ago, he brought a new servant into his house. His house was in a mess with most of the servants about ready to kill each other. The captain would stay at the post for long hours just to avoid going home. But after bringing in this new guy, things changed. There was actually food ready for him when he got home. The grass was cut, the bushes were trimmed.
He started giving more work to the servant, odd jobs and errands to run around town while he was busy. This guy knew how to get things done.
Once, the captain had been involved in a case where they arrested a guy who was trying to knock off the temple treasury. About the time they were really going to let him have it, someone realized that it was the governor’s nephew. “This is it,” the captain thought. “I’m dead now.” The governor was ruthless and a little crazy and was the kind of man who knew how to hold a grudge. He didn’t take kindly to people messing with his family. The captain locked himself in his office for two days and never came out, trying to imagine which of ten ways they would kill him.
His phone rang off the hook for the first 24 hours, but he just let it go. At the end of the second day, after not sleeping at all, he saw finally checked it and saw that his servant was calling. He picked it up. “Master,” he said, “It’s all been taken care of. We let him go. I’ve cleared your calendar for next month when you will inaugurate the new stadium, named after our fair governor.”
“Wasn’t it supposed to be named for the old governor’s wife?”
“She’s been dead 10 years. She’ll get over it.”
But last year, when the servant was bringing in some evening wine to the captain, he froze and then spilt the wine all over the captain. The captain gave him a shot across the jaw and the servant apologized over and over and over again. But after that, he was never the same. He started having these really violent seizures. It was painful to watch and gave the captain nightmares.
For about 3 days the servant stayed in his room until finally the captain came in. In all eight years, the captain had never been in that room. He saw the servant lying on his small cot. “What’s wrong with you?” the captain asked. “I’m afraid I can’t move, master.”
The captain had spent a small fortune getting doctors and all sorts of quacks to come in to heal him, but nothing worked. Every day when the captain left, he glanced at the door of the room and tried to think of a new way to fix the problem.
A fast beat suddenly jolted the captain back to the present. Someone brought out some speakers and they start blasting some music. The leper starts dancing and the crowd goes crazy.
The captain looks around him. He’s completely surrounded by these big-nosed Jews, and he’s all alone. Even with his weapon, he knows they will overtake him eventually. He’s roughed up several of them in the past, but can’t tell the difference between them and wouldn’t know who to avoid if it starts getting ugly.
He tries to find the healer again. The healer jumps in the middle of the dance circle with the leper and they start popping up and down together.
The captain just stares at the healer for a long time. He just healed that man with a word. He has power beyond what the captain has ever seen. He looks like a man with true authority–not the kind of authority that the captain’s scared-as-shit boss was given just because he had a senator for a relative. But real authority. Authority like someone who was in charge, no matter who was calling the shots.
The captain wonders who the healer reports to in the world of the gods.
He stands there in awe of this man who has the same neck of all the people he’s stepped on his whole career. Everything he despises and everything he needs.
The captain freezes and then starts to turn back toward his squad car.
Then, suddenly, he whips off his hat and heads right into the middle of the crowd. Everyone shrieks when they see the captain in uniform rushing towards the healer. The music screeches to a halt. They scream and everyone drops to the ground with their hands up.
The captain gets right in front of the healer and drops to one knee, hat in his hand and says, “Master.”
The crowd looks around in confusion. The healer, still standing, says, “Excuse me?”
The captain says, “Master, my servant is paralyzed at home and suffers every day.”
A slow smile starts across the healer’s face and he flashes his bright white teeth. “And you want me to heal him?” he says almost as a joke. “Ok, I’ll come,” he says, with a little giggle as the entire crowd soaks in the irony of the moment.
“No, don’t come to my home, Master,” the captain says. “I’m not worthy for you to come.” People in the crowd stare at each other with perplexed faces as they hold their phones towards the action in disbelief.
The captain continues. “All you need to do is say the word. I know how this works. I have servants who do what I say. And I do what my officers say. Just say the word.”
The healer stopped and then looks around at the crowd. Then he gestures down toward the captain with his hand and says, “This is what I’ve been talking about, y’all. Why is it that this guy gets it and none of y’all do? This is it. This is the thing!”
Then he looks down at the captain and says “Go home, man. Your servant is fine.”
Photo by Matt Popovich on Unsplash
