It's been a rough week. Ireland got sold back into serfdom, unemployment benefits expired, and in a bid to bring the spirit of peace and generosity back to Christmas, Republicans threatened to filibuster the START treaty until tax cuts for the upper 2% of wealthy Americans were made permanent. Oh, and like a maraschino cherry high atop a lollapalooza of suck, we find out from Wikileaks that the Obama administration—with GOP help—basically has quashed the investigation into torture by slow-marching it to death.
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And where, might you ask, was the religious left (such as it is) during all of this? Begging for scraps, I'm afraid. They were "urging" Congress to pass the DREAM Act and "urging" them to ratify START and "asking"(!) the House to pass the Child Nutrition Act. These are all fine and worthy causes, to be sure. Yet somehow I don't think they're going to be effective. Put it to you this way, it's one thing to go up against a giant with a slingshot. It's quite another to take your rock out and replace it with a crumpled-up piece of paper.
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Yet, as I seldom tire of pointing out, the God of the Bible is quite partisan and quite divisive. You can't read about camels and the eye of the needle, let alone the Magnificat, without understanding that God is on the side of the poor.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! A thousand times yes, Pastor Dan. Read the rest of Dan's column.
To you who scream loud and long that the US is a Christian nation, I ask what about Jesus' teachings about the poor? I ask you people of faith who, even as you claim the Judeo-Christian heritage as the foundation of our nation, why you ignore the golden thread of God's justice that begins in the Hebrew Bible and runs right through the New Testament? How do you forget passages like this:
Thus says the Lord: Act with justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor anyone who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the alien, the orphan, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.
(Jeremiah 22:3)
And the words of Mary, the mother of Jesus:
The Magnificat
And Mary said,
‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
(Luke 1:46-53)
And the words of Jesus to the rich ruler:
Jesus looked at him [the rich ruler] and said, ‘How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.’
(Luke 18:24-25)
But somehow, some way, the most vocal of those who want to take back our country for Jesus always seem to remember Paul's words to differentiate between the worthy and unworthy poor:
For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work.
(2 Thessalonians 3:10-11)
Now, I'm all for getting the idle, sound-of-mind-and-body "busybodies" to work, every last one of them, if they can find a job! I'm sure that a good many of the "idle busybodies" would like to be back at work this very moment. Unfortunately, the unemployment rate rose from 9.6% to 9.8% since last month.
As Pastor Dan sums it up:
My God is the God of the poor. You can be for the poor or you can go to hell.
There's nothing nice about that. But then there's nothing nice about the absurd, reactionary, vicious and apparently successful class war the rich and powerful are waging on the rest of the nation, either.
Daniel Schultz, a.k.a. pastordan, is a minister in the United Church of Christ. He serves a small and very patient church in rural Wisconsin. He is the author of Changing the Script: An Authentically Faithful and Authentically Progressive Political Theology for the 21st Century, forthcoming from Ig Press.
Thanks to Cathy for the link.
