If you were able to go to the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria between December 2024 and April 2025, you will have been able to see the From Warhol to Banksy exhibit. Part of that exhibit was a small piece by street artist Banksy called Christ with Shopping Bags.
I saw this piece during a family visit to the gallery during the Christmas season, but the image haunts me still.
As we say in the Creed, Christ was crucified under Pontius Pilate. During Holy Week we reflect upon the fact that Christ was crucified by the empire.
The empire of the time was of course the Roman Empire. As Luke’s gospel reminds us, Jesus’ life, death and resurrection took place when Tiberius Caesar was Emperor, Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea and Herod was ruler of Galilee (Luke 3:1). When Jesus was a child, Herod was so threatened by him that he made the terrifying order that all male children under two be killed, and when Jesus was an adult, the Empire arrested and crucified him.
Empires come and go, but what they all have in common is the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few. Empires are always after more territory, more power, more privilege. They inevitably turn first to economic coercion, then to political power, then to violence.
Trump’s second term has, of course, brought empires back to the fore. We can no longer ignore the empires of the world and our part in them.
The image of Christ with shopping bags is helpful to me as it reminds me of my complicity in empire. The comforts of capitalism have lulled most of us here in the West into ignoring the plight of the poor and the hungry. In my own lifetime the gap between the rich and the poor has grown considerably here in Canada and across the globe. Earlier this year, I pulled my car into the parking lot of a supermarket only to see that someone was sleeping in a parking spot. I let them sleep, found another spot and did my shopping.
I am haunted by this moment and by the comforts I enjoy, my car, my house, the regular meals with family and friends, while “the son of man has nowhere to lay his head.” (Matthew 8:20).
When I pray, “lead me not into temptation,” I will have this image of Jesus on the cross with shopping bags in my mind. For the kingdom to come, “on earth as it is in heaven,” the empire must be resisted. Our only allegiance should be to the Kingdom of God, where the mighty shall be brought down from their thrones, the hungry filled with good things and the rich turned empty away.
