We experience fighting and violence day by day. There is the trooping of the colour and the services of remembrance, but that is not it. Activities of state around the world are done with soldiers, so that we absorb the message that without soldiers the state cannot survive. We have war heroes on large columns, victory arches, no lost war memorials, and each day it is drummed into us that only the military can keep us safe. But that it not it. We have pictures each week, perhaps each day, of areas of the world being bombed. Even if it is our forces doing the bombing, the subconscious message is, if you do not have armed forces, you are in danger. But that is not it. Behind it all is the great modern lie.

We do not know what the great lie is, but it is there close to the centre of your head and my head. You will see violence, every day in the news and in fiction. You are ten million times more likely to see a murder on television than you are in real life. It is the normal part of life, normal millions of times, indisputably there. You live with violence. It is around like the dog and needs feeding each day. Not real violence, or though it may be that too, but normal violence each day in your head. Choose your channel. Billy the Kid, Rambo. James Bond, the Iraq news, the Syrian News, the Nazis, WW1, WW2, Star Wars, Tom and Gerry, Cowboys and Indians, Star Wars, Dan Dare, War Games, Poirot, East-Enders, Dennis the Menace, Murder She Wrote, chess, Churchill, the Orient Express and thousand of others. Millions of kids steer through war games. Murders proliferate in Oxford and violence becomes normal, normal, normal. You are inured; six bloody letters say it all, injured without the j. It is preconscious, unconscious, subconscious. It closes down the mind’s shop before opening time. And those who do peace are weird, fixated, use arguments and go on marches. They are obviously abnormal. That rules the world. 

We do not see peace. Sometimes there will be a symbol of a dove or an idyllically smiling family, but there will be no news reports on peace – ceasefires yes, but not peace. There will be no peaceful couple relating with understanding on TV, because it is not dramatic. The media do not do peace, because there is no hook, no suspense, no thrills. TV does not do a peaceful day in Solihull. You do not watch people driving on the left, even though it solves a lot of conflict. You do not see understanding, empathy, shopping, education, walking, hospitals, DIY, waiting, caring and all the normal things we do as peace, because peace is so super normal it is invisible. It is the only way to live in families, estates, cities and flying on aeroplanes. It is the pre-requisite, the sine qua non, of markets, holidays, systems, networks, humour and hobbies. Actually, neither the Queen or the Duke of Edinburgh has knocked anyone off the board for sixty years.  Peace means that we can like other people.

So, the great lie is out. Rather than violence being normal and peace a distant ideal, actually peace is as normal as Hallo and violence does not work. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” was a total complete failure. Ask the dead. Hitler was wrong. Wars, knife attacks, nuclear weapons, murders do not work; they are the aberrations of human living. Violence, the stuff we have in our heads as normal, fucks everything up. Of course, sorting it out is a bigger question, though not as big as it seems. But the difficult bit, which is actually the easy bit, is turning this switch in our heads, turning off the normal violence switch. It is merely a simple re-orientation. No murders in Oxford. No War Games. Oh, Germany, Malaysia and dozens of other countries were largely peaceful today. Soldiers were bored again. The tomato harvest worked. A bad temper is bad. How can I help him? Revenge is out. James Bond does not exist. Then, when millions of us turn the switch, this crisis ridden world can be addressed, and we can, in Jesus’ words, make peace. Peace is free, gives instant benefits, is normal, it works, it produces civilisation, not to mention, love, joy and hope and good buildings. So, let us each turn the switch on violence as normal, whatever it takes, and then see what happens.

So, we call you out,

you who hide behind Whitehall,

the Pentagon and the talk of defence,

but sell the killing stuff wherever you can.

Come out, all of you.

You have designed the kit,

to blast homes, tanks and planes

with people inside, limbs spread,

and children not understanding.

Come out. You have sold suave contracts,

bribes, dictators, wherever there is money.

The arms fair is not, because there

will be death and destruction.

Since you were named “merchants of death”,

you have hidden, languaged your business

into good patriotic stuff,

planning to kill, but for our good,

although the deterrents do not work,

because we use them.

Come out. You killers of the planet,

you planners of death, even millions,

in nuclear fireworks. Come out.

Walk out of your factories, sales facilities,

your meetings with politicians, the military,

for the game is up, the war game, stupid at last,

and we will line you up against a wall

and shake hands with you,

and subsidize you while you make something useful

and end your job description for ever,

and make peace, cheap and God-blessed

for all people.

Often the biggest changes emerge almost unnoticed, and in the 1920s a world-shaping change emerged in the new affluent United States in both the East and West. What do you do when you are rich and self-obsessed, when, In Jesus words, life has become pulling down barns and building bigger ones? Of course the elites of Europe built palaces and stately homes and dressed in finery and pranced about. And the eastern elites did the same. Their venue was the Waldorf-Astoria and their new sumptuous homes. But this was different. They were not nouveau riche, but just rich and the culture was that of the flappers partly divorced from the old culture of Europe. Indeed, many US writers and poets like Hemingway and T S Eliot fled back to Europe to do their work.. It was added to something else in the West, Hollwood, which would change the world. There is much more to Hollywood than this, but this – is big. ENTERTAINMENT – is so big, it dominates all.

What is it? It is something which engages, titillates, rewards the egos of those entertained, but there is nothing beyond it. You come out of entertainment with nothing but a warm feeling. You are rewarded for spending money. You feel good without doing good. You get rich and then you are rewarded by a plethora of forms of entertainment. That is the point of life, though those words would never be spoken, because the hollowness would be out.

Then, it spread. It consumed five, ten, twenty, thirty perhaps hours of everybody’s life. Instead of worshipping God, they were entertained, and the entertained person was often no more than the slightly flattered or exited ego lost in the shallowness of the moment. That was one of the biggest changes in modernism, the emerging on unending shallowness, superficiality and manipulation. Of course, the films, music, soaps, whodunits, cartoons, suspense, musicals, dancing and the rest were often far richer than this characterisation, but the flood tide of the entertained life which began in the 1920s in earnest, was the long slow drift to the trivial. This was the vast flotsam in the estuary of world history. It would dominate American culture and after 1945 much of the rest of the world, often with disastrous effects. The only real question of entertainment was, “Did you like it?”  

The Archbishop of Canterbury seems set to accept an invitation to chair a post-Brexit Reconciliation Panel. Justin Welby’s political position on Brexit is: the people decided to leave in the Referendum and in honour bound we must see it through. He is now looking to chair a reconciliation forum reflecting, as he sees it, Christian principles of national mutual respect, a bit like shaking hands at the end of a rugby match. It is, of course, meant for the best, but there are a number of problems with this position.

1. Members of the Church of England tended to vote Brexit (66%) and contributed strongly to the Referendum outcome, and so Welby’s Church is not neutral. The call to accept the Brexit position and work with it is already one-sided and, as events will probably show, premature.
2. The Referendum has a questionable role in UK politics. For example, when it occurs might easily change the result. The poll could have happened six months later and with longer reflection the result might have been different. Arguably, it was called to solve a problem in the Conservative Party, and the result might have reflected anti-Government sentiment at the time.
3. Christianity does not believe the people, or rulers, are right. The prophets, and Jesus, emphasized the failings of both, and so it is possible to make wrong decisions. Indeed, we frequently do. Our political responses should reflect this underlying truth.
4. The Referendum was unfair (on both sides). The Remainers main effort was to scare people into remaining, as it has stayed since the event. The Brexiteers told lies, like the obvious side of a bus one, and refused to acknowledge that what they were saying was not true. They ran a social media campaign, based on dubious money, which was propaganda based rather than debate based. This was not new; there have long been dodgy election practices – slit-eyed Blair etc. – that pervert proper votes, but the fact remains, it was a dishonest campaign. Many issues, like Northern Ireland, were not on the Table.
5. The result reflected two media biases. The first is that major media outlets, especially the BBC, has failed for decades to report EU politics, except occasionally, giving few people any idea of what the EU does. Secondly, there have been a series of press reports about the EU of the “outlawing bent banana” variety, which have been untrue and really libellous, aiming to discredit it. Boris Johnson, now Prime Minister, contributed to this genre. Rich media outlets have born false witness to the EU.
6. Age is important. Given the remain votes of the young and the Brexit votes of the old, it is already likely that the voting pattern now will have moved to remain. There were no votes for 16-18, when arguably, because they may have to live with the vote for life, they should have been included in the franchise. Each and both points question the idea of mandate to leave.
7. The Church of England is an ecclesiastical organisation, and has not understood, let alone, shared the views of Christian Democratic parties throughout the EU. They have been and are crucial to peace, community, economic justice, workers’ rights, subsidiarity and just markets. The Church of England, and Welby, should not be turning their back on these deep and important Christian insights, but recognizing them over here. This they have failed to do.
8. Perhaps the deepest failure of the Referendum Campaign is that it was entirely a selfish event. All sides were preoccupied with our “national interest”. There was no discussion of what was good for Europe. We were similarly selfish on the refugee issue. Germany welcomed a million displaced people. We struggled to reach 10,000, grumbling in the process. That we could be concerned with European reforms which might make things better has not been on the UK Agenda since Thatcher. A Christian leader should hold to account our national selfishness, not merely give the pot a stir.
9. All European nations have deep and important Christian faith communities and sharing with them has been part of our Christian heritage for more than a thousand years. Often the Church of England has not been good at being part of European Christianity, though it tries a bit. The Brexit move would be a major retreat into Christian nationalism, a constant danger for the Church of England.

So, for these first six reasons Welby’s response to the Referendum is open to serious question. It is not a done event. The Bible reminds us, it is no good saying “Peace, Peace” when there is no peace. This is not a finished rugby match. And for these three others reasons, leaving the EU is a Christian defeat which we should not accept.

Priti Patel is Minister of State at the Home Office. It is suggested she should withdraw from any Cabinet discussions on an advanced military satellite system contract that the MOD is considering next year to avoid a conflict of interest. It is amazing this is not already seen as an unacceptable conflict of interest for her as an MP. We read in the Parliamentary Register of Members Interests:- “From 1 May 2019 to 30 June 2019, Strategic Adviser, Viasat Inc, of 6155 El Camino Real, Carlsbad, California 92009, a global communications company. Expected remuneration of £5,000 a month for a commitment of approx. 5 hrs per month. (Registered 3 June 2019; updated 31 July 2019)”  Viasat will be bidding for that contract.

Priti Patel is paid £79,000 for her work as MP and another £71,000 as Secretary of State. As an MP and Minister of State she should be working sixty or more hours a week in those two jobs, above the European directive of 48 hours a week maximum for what is good for you. She also receives £161,000 from Accloud, a web communications company. She gives approximately 20 hours a month to them as a non-executive director, one of four. The Viasat Contract  brings in another £60,000 a year bringing her annual income from these four jobs to £380,000 or so, aside any other income. On the assumption that she actually works 60 hours a week with four weeks holiday, she is receiving £130 an hour for every hour she works, which is insulting to all the people caring, delivering, cleaning, doing agricultural work, selling and packing for far less than a tenth of that amount. Work should be honoured and properly and fairly paid. In the Viasat contract she receives £1000 an hour. It cannot be earned.

The issue is the Viasat Contract and its purpose. What is the work for? Viasat work in military and government communication systems, especially those developing “secure” satellite links across warzones and military systems. It is a very high tech company operating mainly with the US military satellite systems and it has few potential customers because it is so advanced. The UK Government and defence system is one of them. The planned bid for the MOD contract next year fits this pattern. Viasat  has some 6500 workers, many of them highly technical and full time. It is unthinkable that Priti Patel might have technical, military or other expertise to bring to this company at the end of a sixty hour plus week doing three jobs which should require high commitment. This money is not for work done in the normal sense.

So, what work has Priti Patel done in the past?  She has worked for a Public Relations Firm, Weber Shandwick, partly in relation to British American Tobacco’s interests. She also worked for Diageo defending alcohol interests. In 2017 she was sacked as a Minister for secretly having a series of meetings in Israel while on a private holiday discussing we know not what. She was dismissed by Theresa May for operating outside ministerial guidelines. She said she had cleared it with Boris Johnson, her secretary of State. He denied it and she was asked to resign. The meetings suggest opening up some kind of Israeli influence on Conservative Government policy, perhaps in relation to the Palestinian aid. Her work seems to have been in transmitting influence from interested parties into Government operations, both in Westminster and the EU.

So, the question is, What is Viasat paying Priti Patel a thousand pounds an hour to do? The declared work is as a “Strategic Advisor”, and the obvious strategic advice is on gaining contracts in the MOD, where Patel has no expertise. The contract occurred before she became a Minister, but influence seems the purpose of the contract. It is merely a question of the level of influence, not the character of it. What else can it be? Of course, both parties have the right to answer the question, but the question is, does the money go to Patel so that a lucrative contract might go to Viasat? The question needs answering by both parties. Why were Viasat paying Patel a thousand an hour? What “advice” did they hope she would give that they did not already understand in what we hope is an open contract procedure? To Patel the question is: What was she accepting a thousand an hour to do? We should have honest answers to these questions. Otherwise we know with high certainly that another munitions or government contract is being illicitly sought through political influence and another politician has been bought to provide the influence. That should never be part of UK politics.

The Queen, a gracious Head of State, is surrounded by soldiers, changing guard, being inspected, sloping arms and marching round her. She emphatically does not need them, but they are history, we love them and they can stand very still. Yet, the symbol remains real. Still the military are inside UK Governments, and the peace protesters, as we might call them, are on the outside at Greenham Common, marching against the Iraq War, or waving placards outside arms fairs. It is the military who defends the State and peace and disarmament are outside, and in some sense disloyal to the State.

Why is peace on the outside and the military on the inside? Governments have been very protective of their right to declare war. We need it to protect you, they declare. And people, or even Parliament, are not to be trusted over complex decisions. In the past, citizens who were likely to be called up and die, would not easily vote for War. The atmosphere has changed, as we discuss in a moment, but the UK is still one of the least democratic on this issue, as George Eaton set out last year.

A 2010 survey of 25 European democracies found that 11 had “very strong” parliamentary war-making powers: “Prior parliamentary approval required for each government decision relating to the use of military force; parliament can investigate and debate use of military force.” Four countries had “strong” powers (prior approval of military action in all but exceptional circumstances), two had “medium” powers (the ability for parliament to demand troop withdrawal and to investigate and debate military force) and four had “weak” powers (parliamentary notification required). Only four countries (the UK, France, Cyprus and Greece) had “very weak” powers: no parliamentary approval or debate required. ( New Statesman, 11/4/2018)

Both George Brown and William Hague committed themselves to enshrining in law the Parliamentary right to vote on going to war, but it has not happened. Democracy isn’t quite trusted. There is now an “expectation” that Parliament will be consulted about War, but that, too, is problematic. Parliament did vote over the Iraq War, but with some strong arm twisting and using the apparatus of Government. Most would agree that if it had been admitted there were no weapons of mass destruction and if the state apparatus of propaganda had not been so strong in relation to the media, the War would have had little support, and most now recognize it as a wrong war.

But now, again, the military is on the inside, as it is with most Conservative Governments, and Jeremy Corbyn, who has been critical of UK military activity is presented as a dangerous outsider, another example of peace campaigners who are labelled dangerous. It is never clear quite why peace is dangerous, but the rhetoric settles over Conservative governed Britain.

Perhaps the lesson is that the peace people, though democratic means and honest persuasion, need to re-present the military, the idea of “defence” and disarmament, not as protest, but as a necessary reform of the inner working of politics. It is not good enough for peace to be on the outside. War obviously does not work anywhere, and it is time politics, inside and out, came up with an alternative. Maybe it needs turning inside out.

Spying and Covert Politics.

Everybody should think about spying and the secret services; it is one of the world’s great problems. Since WW2 it has been linked with internal repression, dirty tricks, international sabotage and the generation of war. The big spy agencies want work and they get it by promoting distrust. Their business comes from spreading fear, plots, arms threats and antagonistic international relationships. As a result, they have created a distrust industry which is taking over the world.

Distrust is self-validating. Once you create it, it can expand. Spying causes perhaps a quarter of the world’s international problems and wars. We distrust the new “enemies”, but never distrust the spy system. It remains invisible and beyond question.  World-wide, spying and so-called intelligence is damaging us. The spy people have learned to be well-paid and nearly invisible. Like James Bond, they defend us, so how could we even question their necessity.

In fact, the problem is ramping up. This massive distrust system is now invading all our lives in mass surveillance, because we have now been persuaded that none of us can be trusted. It has always been both spying and propaganda and covert politics.

The Scale of the Issue.

First, you would want some examples of the damage it does. Here are a dozen from different periods.

1. In 1924 it produced the forged Zinoviev letter just before the October election to help bring down the first Labour Government.
2. The Gestapo, the Nazi secret service run by Goring and Himmler, absorbed, controlled and ran the police and the armed forces. Secret power was the CENTRAL INSTITUTION in the Nazi state repressing opposition, doing international deals, working towards the World War and planning the Holocaust.
3. At the end of WW2 the US recruited about a thousand Nazi spies against the USSR under Reinhard Gehlen in 1945-6 to report on the USSR’s Communist menace and start the Cold War.
4. The US Secret service formed a plot with Belgium to assassinate Patrice Lamumba, the first independent democratically elected Prime Minister of the Congo to initiate 50 years of political chaos.
5. The CIA ran a three year destabilisation programme in Chile before the coup against the democratically elected Salvador Allende and colluded in the coup. His successor General Pinochet was a thug.
6. In the 1970s the CIA ran the Secret Service of the Shah of Persia which kept him in power and vast arms sales flowing in from the US, but provoked increasing resentment leading to the downfall of the Shah, the imprisonment of hostages and long-term hostility between Iran and the US.
7. The CIA attempted dozens of assassination attempts on Castro in Cuba, then arranged the failed Bay of Pigs invasion and helped set up the “Cuba Crisis”.
8. Most commentators are agreed that the Vietnam war was a mistake and unnecessary, can caused by the Gulf of Tonkin non-incident. The Wikipedia version is, “On 2 August 1964, USS Maddox, on an intelligence mission along North Vietnam’s coast, allegedly fired upon and damaged several torpedo boats that had been stalking it in the Gulf of Tonkin. A second attack was reported two days later on USS Turner Joy and Maddox in the same area. The circumstances of the attacks were murky. Lyndon Johnson commented to Undersecretary of State George Ball that “those sailors out there may have been shooting at flying fish.” An undated National Security Agency publication declassified in 2005 revealed that there was no attack on 4 August.”  Perhaps four million died in the War.
9. In the 1980s the CIA spent several billion dollars training and equipping the Afghan Muhajideen to fight against the USSR in Afghanistan. One of the training groups funded and supplied by them was Al Qaida and 9/11 followed and much Middle East terrorist activity.
10. The CIA and MI6 both conclude that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, despite US inspectors, and helped start the second Iraq War. The conclusion was untrue and the War was illegal, based on a lie, and has destabilized much of the Middle East.
11. Putin’s background is spying and the SVR in Russia has begun widespread spying and disruption techniques. Nevertheless, for example, the Skripal murder was carried out because Skripal was acting as a double spy, a fact not reported in the western media.
12. The recent incident in the US/Iranian tension turns out to be shaped by US intelligence following the Iranian tanker Grace 1 and suggesting it was seized in the straits of Gibraltar, provoking later Iranian responses in the Strait of Hormuz.

This list is far from complete. Indeed, the spy communities would laugh, because of what it leaves out. Nevertheless, these are major destructive events across the world causing wars, promoting lies not truth, teaching destructive behaviour and undermining democracy.

The World-Wide System.

The United States has dominated this system since 1945. But other states have followed. Britain, France, the USSR had strong systems. Israel developed a vast system linked to the US, and now China runs a political and technological spy system. They were not just spying, but usually providing money and weapons to ferment the governments they wanted to be in charge.

The outcome of this process was anti-democratic. All over the globe militaristic and totalitarian or absolutist regimes are supported against democracy. We, the US and UK, said we were democratic, but a case could be made that  we were against democracy. In Egypt, before and after the Arab Spring, we armed the military governments. We supported the Shah in Iran and Saddam in Iraq. We killed the democrat, Lumumba in the Congo. Blair armed Gaddafi to attack his own people. The US supported Marcos and dozens of other military leaders who bought their weapons, and all the time the secret services were there, doing the needful, spreading weapons, lies, disinformation, propping up corrupt regimes, smoothing the way for US multinational to extract oil, minerals, metals and food from compliant nations. The words, “Banana Republic”, entered the language for a US food company and a CIA government in central America.

Now, of course, spying, propaganda, surveillance, covert operations and even war have entered the electronic phase. They promise to mushroom into a vast system of distrust and misinformation, swaying voters, obscuring the truth and always backed by big money, the money of the states and the super-rich who want to order everything their way. How can we stand against this?

The Bad and the Good – Jesus.

To see how bad the bad is, we need to see the good. So, finding out about countries is a good thing. You learn their language, meet them, understand the country and see their point of view. If nation shall speak peace unto nation, we must meet and learn about one another. Of course, most of this kind of understanding comes from learning their language, meeting them, reading their papers and literature. We watch their media, study their government and culture, observe their faith, economies, social relationships and cities. In Christian terms, we welcome the stranger and often we are the stranger on holiday or travelling abroad. Within this framework, there is no secrecy, or spying, because there is no need for secrecy. Evildoers act in secret, and where evil is not, things are out in the open.

Spies do secrecy and good societies do openness. Jesus did openness. Indeed, he had a principle of openness. Things will out and should be brought out. “What is done in the secret places will be shouted from the housetops.” But more than this, practicing openness is a principle. Jesus has been brought secretly before the High Priest, Annas, in a mock trial. It should have been public, and Jesus’ defence is the public nature of his teaching. “’I have spoken openly to the world,’ Jesus replied. ‘I always taught in synagogue or at the temple where all the Jews come together. I said nothing in secret. Why question me? Ask those who heard me. Surely, they know what I said.” (John 18 20-21) So none of his words were conspiracy, or plots or aimed against others in secret. Public evidence matters in opposing prejudice, malice, political intrigue, covert killing and imprisonment, secret evil and violence. Jesus’ trial is our legal system. But it is much wider than that.

The light has come into the world, but the powerful move in the dark, because their deeds are evil. Live in the light, says Jesus. Openness, transparency, doing what you say, freedom of information, not doing things behind people’s backs, no hidden democracy are right and good. The Christian principled opposition to spying, covert operations, manipulation behind the scenes and supporting dictators has hardly been heard; it is time to do Jesus’ principles. Unless, following Christ, we live in the light, we are but ants in an anthill. We are pawns of this principality and power.

Christianity is the Light set on a Hill.

So the challenge for two billion plus Christians worldwide is to be the light set of a hill, to live in the light, to be fearless against secrecy, to combat national spy and surveillance systems, to be uninfluenced by covert and illicit communication, not to be tossed about by waves of engineered public opinion, to both follow and witness to what is true and to defeat the world of spying, covert operations, political subversion and propaganda but demanding the different way of our politicians and standing truths in the public square. So, we’ve got work to do.

^{Jesus was arrested in the garden of Gethsemane. Although Judas came to identify him in the dark and facilitate the arrest, Jesus stepped forward, identified himself and insisted that only he be arrested. There were Roman guards and the High Priests soldiers to take him; so there was already collusion between the two authorities. It would be argued to the Romans, based in the Antonia fortress at the north end of the Temple building, and close to Gethsemane, that Jesus would cause disruption at the enormous Passover Festival. That he came quietly would slightly confuse them. Jesus hands were bound, as was normal in an arrest, but normally great Rabbis would not be treated like this. Only the dark made it acceptable. Jesus would be taken down into the Kidron Valley and round the South east corner of the city wall into the lower city. The Roman guards after the arrest probably went back to the barracks, because they would not be allowed in the house of the High Priest, Annas. It was deep into the night and there would be few people about. Jesus head might be covered to prevent him being identified, for this was a massively contentious arrest of the most awesome Teacher of the era.}

^{So, at this stage, the arrest was mainly under the direction of Annas, the High Priest, or more accurately Annas the father-in-law of the High Priest, Caiaphas. Annas was High Priest from 15-20AD and was followed by five of his sons in the job before Caiaphas. So, this was an elite family show and really Annas was in charge, and Annas wanted to establish control of the whole process. When arrested Jesus should have been publicly tried when a charge was brought against him. If it involved the death penalty, the case had also to be referred to the Roman authority Pilate. Trials were conducted by local small Sanhedrin, with 23 judges, or by the Great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem of 71 members meeting in the Hall of Hewn Stones on the edge of the Temple Complex. But this was not a proper trial. Jesus’ arrest at night, so as not to attract the attention of the vast crowds in Jerusalem was deliberately clandestine, and he was taken to the House of Annas.}

^{This was like all political moves to take out political opponents who are a threat. This week in Russia Putin had imprisoned his main political opponent, and, it seems, tried to poison him. Politicians have long eradicated their threats, and Jesus was a threat. Twice he had overturned the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple, exposing the veniality of the system. Annas was piling up money in the Temple Treasury, using God for money. Jesus was bringing the issue out, had just exposed him this week. “It is written, ‘My house will be a house of prayer’, but you have made it a den of robbers.” The crowds were repeating it. Of course similar things were going on in religious shrines around the world. At Delphi the oracle was used as a money spinning system. Priests relied on cashing in on religion. Superstition made money. Later on, it would be indulgences. But Jesus stood against all this. You do not make money from God because God is the Father of all and it does not matter where you worship as long as you worship in spirit and truth.}

^{We need a short detour on to Peter and John. Once the focus was on the arrested Christ, it would have been relatively easy for some of the disciples to follow at a distance to see what would happen to Jesus, and Peter we know would do that. Did John go with him, and is John the disciple who gained access to Annas’ House? There is something we do not know about John. The weight of the Synoptic Gospels is set in Galilee and the weight of John’s Gospel is set in Jerusalem. What is it with John and Jerusalem? I suspect the answer is Nichodemus. John 3 does not appear there by mistake, but because John knew this private conversation directly from Nichodemus, and Nichodemus was on the Great Sanhedrin. We are not told, but he could have been one of the shadowy figures in this gathering, letting John in and later helping Peter to gain access. The appearance in front of Annas was not the “trial”. That would occur with Caiaphas. It was Annas sizing up how Jesus could be handled and softening him up for the later appearance before Caiaphas. The interchange is interesting.}

^{We hear that Annas questions Jesus about his disciples and his teaching. Why? Perhaps he was worried that the disciples would spread the word among the crowds and there would be a riot and trouble. Annas would be managing everything. His focus in discussing the teaching of Jesus would be to see if Jesus could be seen as claiming to be God and thus guilty in their eyes of blasphemy. How could that accusation be made to stick? We know where Annas was fishing, because that is where the “trial” later went. Jesus response to Annas is in terms of the public integrity of the trial process. “I have spoken openly to the world” Jesus replied. “I always taught in synagogue or at the Temple, where all the Jews come together. I said nothing in secret. Why question me? Ask those who heard me. Surely they know what I said.” Jesus is not subversive. The charges will be false. Let’s be open about this. Yet, the statement is three things. It is an insistence on the process of public trial with witnesses and not extracting from bound or tortured prisoners – confessions which are not true or fabricated. It is an insistence on public trial, witnesses who can be questioned, evidence and specific charges. Actually, this event lies behind what happens normally in courtrooms around the world. Innocent until proven guilty is obviously right because Christ was innocent. But second, it is also a principle of public openness. Jesus had taught that what is done in the secret places will be shouted from the housetops.}

^{This is a world-wide principle. I’m convinced Nichodemus was there, allowing John into the big posh house of Annas, and then Peter with a nod to the gatekeeper. He had the Sanhedrin status. Nichodemus knew Jesus’ words to him inside out. “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” (John 3:19-21) When Jesus makes this statement about being judged in public, Nichodemus can see this principle in action before his eyes. On the one hand the arrest at night, the pseudo trial before Annas to set up the murder of Jesus because of the evil money-making system of Annas and the Temple Party. The truth in the light and evil in darkness. Nichodemus can see Christ’s walk in the light – open teaching, cleansing the Temple, facing down the evil. So it has ever been. The Nazi Secret service, Stalin, Nixon and Watergate – everywhere evil tries to hide, stay underground, avoid the light. All of us seek sometimes to have the dark place in our lives where evil can hide, and here Jesus insists it must be in the open, in the light, and that remains the truth under which we live throughout human history.}

^{But, immediately, Jesus is defeated. He is rude to Annas. Annas is asking him questions and as Chief Priest of the Chief Priests should be answered. Jesus does not give a fig for power or status and responds, if you want answers to these questions, then ask the witnesses. There were plenty about. I’m ending the conversation here. Similarly, later, he would refuse to talk with Herod Antipas, though his life depended on it. Herod had murdered John the Baptist and you do not dress up a charade as a valid trial. They mocked him. He said nothing. But Annas was furious. The answer insulted him. “Why question me?” It is one of his officials who strikes Jesus across the face, but Annas’s fury is in the hand.}

^{Christians are sometimes too nice. The curate’s bad egg is “good in parts”. Jesus does not bend. “Is this the way you answer the High Priest?” the official rasps out. “If I said something wrong,” Jesus replied, testify as to what is wrong. But if I spoke the truth, why do you strike me?” Of course, Jesus had not “said” anything. He has refused to say anything and has stayed with the principles of trial and openness. He has also already faced death from these people and knows it is coming. Here the trial is wrong. The powers that be are corrupt. Addressing the whole business of human politics and its corruption is underway, and Annas sent Jesus, still bound, to Caiaphas, the high Priest and his Son-in-Law for the proper pseudo trial. The houses were probably quite close in the Upper City. And so, our politics must be in the light, following Jesus. Come on. Let’s bring it all out.}