Dear Alice, Terence, Rosso and Rebecca,

Warning: This Red Hand File contains references to Jesus from the outset.

Jesus cared about the spiritual wellbeing of all people, but he was clearly on the side of the poor. He loved the weak, the dispossessed, the marginalised, and let us not forget the disreputable - if he was looking for company, he would seek out the downtrodden and the outcast. It’s true he didn’t have much time for the wealthy, and he certainly didn’t believe their chances of entering the Kingdom of God were very high, as unlikely as a camel passing through the eye of a needle, he warned. Rosso, I’m sure you know the dramatic story of Jesus overturning the moneylenders’ tables, admonishing the merchants, whipping them, and driving them out of the temple. Alice, I can imagine you doing something similar at our show in Sydney, kicking over the merch stall and flogging the t-shirt vendor, if our merchandise doesn’t meet with your approval! But I digress. Jesus loved the poor and those in need and didn’t much like the rich. But was Jesus’ message a socialist one?

One of my favourite stories in the New Testament is where Jesus and his disciples shared a meal with Lazarus. As they sat together, a woman named Mary entered the room with a jar of aromatic oil, poured it on Jesus’ feet, and then wiped them with her hair. Judas Iscariot objected furiously, asking, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages!” Jesus replied, “Let her alone.  She has done a beautiful thing to me. For you will always have the poor with you, and whenever you will, you can do good to them, but you will not always have me.” It is clear that Judas perceived their ministry entirely as a political endeavour. Jesus, on the other hand, was responding to the limitless intensity of the woman's love, the lavish act of adoration, the gorgeous poetry of the moment. 

Jesus' ministry was as much rhapsodic as political, with many of the gospel scenes filled with a broken-hearted yet rapturous, mystical imagination. Jesus entered a world marked by profound injustice as a radical force for social change, but also as a poetic instrument of enchantment - enchantment not as a distraction from the harsh realities of the world, but as an aspiration, a wish cast upon the earth. 

Which brings me, Rebecca, to Ezra Klein’s deeply affecting conversation with Patti Smith. I loved it. I marvelled at Patti’s ability to hold that which is of this world, the political, so effortlessly alongside the transcendent, without one compromising the other. Even though they are both dreams and acts of desire, this merging of the political imagination with the sacred is no easy task - it is something I have never had the lyrical, or indeed emotional, breadth to do. I love Patti for this - she is not Jesus, but she is Jesus-like in her mission. I am glad she is in this world.

Love, Nick