Two thousand years ago, in a land on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, a man displaced by legal decree searched desperately for a safe place for his wife to give birth. Two years after the child was born they were displaced again as they fled “The Slaughter of the Innocents.” The king was just “mowing the grass,” a routine part of his periodic killing sprees to remind his subjects who was boss and to make sure no one would rise up against him. The king was paranoid about losing his power even though ironically, his rule was dependent on the whims of a much larger empire.
Thirty years later, the child became a man who confronted the power structure not by force of arms, but by rehumanizing the outcasts. The hierarchy of the power structure was built on a foundation of people at the bottom: the diseased, the disabled, the foreigner, and women. This man challenged the system by recognizing their humanity publicly. As a result he gained a following large enough to catch the notice of the powers that be. The religious and political leaders considered him a threat to their precarious alliance, so they conspired to have him charged with a crime and executed in what today we call a targeted killing.
In the subsequent years this man's followers gathered in his name and broke bread together. They took his teachings to heart to welcome the stranger, bear ill will towards none, nor raise a sword against another human being. Their numbers spread throughout the land. But their growth was perceived as a threat so they were persecuted as enemies of the empire. A few centuries later, the tables turned when an emperor saw their faith not as a threat, but an opportunity. The followers were not just welcomed as friends of the empire, they became the religion of the empire. They would become the empire’s standard-bearers. The persecuted would become persecutors.
The religion of the empire became so focused on miracle, mystery, and authority that it lost touch with humanity, its own and the humanity of others. The religion and the empire became so intertwined as to be indistinguishable. It fomented internicene battles, inquisitions, tortures, and crusades. It gave its blessings to conquests and subjugations. It became a grotesque caricature of the beliefs and goodness it claimed to hold.
But there were those brave few who remembered the teachings and the humanity of the one they followed. They renounced the trappings of empire: wealth, position, and violence. They spread their faith not by argument nor by the sword, but by their example of breaking bread with each other and sharing their bread with those rejected by the empire. They were never a majority. They often faced persecution for rejecting the values of the empire. But they were enough to keep an imperishable flame lit in the hearts of those who followed the way.
