Page 64 - laten-08-06-2020

Soldiers

In Pilate’s Court

Matthew 27: 27-31
Introduction

od’s redemptive history, is a history of re-imaging people
Gfrom the images imposed upon by the Empires (Both
‘within’ and ‘without’). The liberative narratives from the
book of Exodus disclose God's intervention in re-imaging the
Israelites as ‘people’ over and against the exploitative empire of
Pharaoh, which discarded and disfigured the Israelites as ‘no
people'. Similarly, the prophetic literature also unveils God's
defiance against religious idolatry (Exclusivism and Exclusion)
and political repression that marred the image of people by
denying them equality and dignity. The crucifixion of Jesus was
also the result of Jesus' ministry that engaged in disordering
the ordered/systemic structures of evils such as socio-political,
religio-cultural, and economic, permeated by the Empires,
both, religious and political. In short, the redemptive history
of the scripture is a history of conflict between 'God' and 'gods'
(Empires), wherein God is continuously engaged in re-imaging
the image of ‘God-Self’ and ‘people of God’* , or in other words,
God is engaged in divinizing/spiritualizing, and, on the other
hand, gods (Empires) are indulged in disfiguring, dismembering
and demonizing the image of people.

People of God: It is not that everyone could be embraced under ‘people of God’. In
*Exodus, God categorically states ‘Your People’ and ‘My People’ to Pharaoh. God’s
people are not God’s people because of their ethnicity but because of their experience, an
experience of denial, dehumanised, discriminated and exploited. Whereas, the people
who are indulged in the politics of division, domination, discrimination, and exclusion
are Pharaohs and Pharaohs’ people.

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Lenten Meditations Re - Imaging People