Photo courtesy of Blake Lasater
I was in one of our local food markets. The check-out person asked me if I had all my Christmas shopping done. I told him I didn’t do Christmas shopping. He and a couple of people standing around just gaped at me. It was as though I’d confessed to something horrid. Later in the day, my favorite pastor, Blake Lasater, posted the following on Facebook. My gratitude for this man is immeasurable. Namaste …
Day 19 of Advent:
May the mountains bring prosperity to the people,
the hills the fruit of righteousness.
May he defend the afflicted among the people
and save the children of the needy;
may he crush the oppressor...
--Psalm 72
“It is convenient how we, the powerful and privileged, pick and choose the scriptures we like and ignore all the rest. It is such the irony because the Bible was written for the poor and oppressed.
The prophecies of the Messiah and coming King speak of the lowly being lifted up and the rich sent away empty. In this season of Advent as we anticipate the birth of the Messiah we should be asking what sort of Kingdom is coming, and what sort of Christian nation we are becoming.
It is heartbreaking to work in food pantries. It brings you face to face with the poor and oppressed. You see at once the ravages of an unjust economic system and oppressive culture. People who go hungry for days, waiting for someone to notice their pain. People who are plunged into poverty because they had a medical bill that no other civilized nation would tolerate. People who lose their job because their car broke-down and they had no other way to work. People who are living in their cars, in a tent, or if lucky, a few warm nights in a hotel, thanks to a generous soul. Rents are skyrocketing, and entry level housing is now portable Derksen buildings.
I'll be honest, it is getting harder and harder to believe in this current capitalist system that is crushing so many. I watch as multi billion dollar companies receive corporate welfare -- tax breaks, subsidies, and the like -- while the poor are condemned as freeloaders. I watch a government under both parties give tax cuts to the rich. I watch as Americans fret over billionaires being asked to pay more in taxes, but not a thought given to the kids who can only find a meal at school. I see businesses not paying a living wage, forcing their employees to rely on food handouts to stave off hunger. I listen as colleges and universities brag about their food pantries that feed students and faculty, as if this is something to brag about? Coaches making obscene amounts of money, tuition skyrocketing, and they think it acceptable their students and staff must rely on food pantries?!?
I listen in disgust as self-righteous preachers and Christians crow about how we are a ‘Christian Nation’. Show me how we are when so many are hungry, sick, and living on the streets. Make me understand. [Jesus] preached that the mighty would be toppled and the rich would be sent away empty. We live in a nation where inequality is reaching proportions never seen before in history. I see churches focused solely on their buildings and their worshiptainment, never giving a thought to the people outside huddling in the cold, their stomachs empty.
Yes, it is Christmas, we are full of joy at the thought of Christ, but that first Christmas was a radical, revolutionary idea that God was coming into the world to topple the powers and principalities that were crushing the poor. Christ will never be found in our shopping malls and mega-church; Christ will not be found around the fireplace of large mansions. Christ will be found in the tent cities, near the families living in cars, huddling in the cold with the homeless, standing in line at soup kitchens with the hungry.
Wealth is not a sign of God's blessings, but perhaps nothing more than a calling to do something to help others. We enjoy power and privilege, and when we look at the brokenness of the world and wonder why, we shouldn't blame God. We should blame those with the resources who could do something about it.
It is hard to imagine the great wealth so many have accumulated. A million seconds is just a mere 11 days; a billion seconds is 30 years. Such is the wealth so many are accumulating in this nation and world. These people shouldn't be praised; they should be shamed.
It is probably the devil's greatest feat turning the birth of Christ -- a baby born to impoverished refugees and laid in a feeding trough -- into an orgy of consumerism that enriches corporate elites.
Christ's birth was good news to the poor. It could be so again if we would refuse to tolerate the injustice and cruelty of an economic system that rewards the rich and punishes the poor.”
FEED MY SHEEP — A Poem by Mary Baker Eddy
“Shepherd, show me how to go
O’er the hillside steep,
How to gather, how to sow, —
How to feed Thy sheep;
I will listen for Thy voice,
Lest my footsteps stray;
I will follow and rejoice
All the rugged way.
Thou wilt bind the stubborn will,
Wound the callous breast,
Make self-righteousness be still,
Break earth’s stupid rest.
Strangers on a barren shore,
Lab’ring long and lone,
We would enter by the door,
And Thou know’st Thine own;
So, when day grows dark and cold,
Tear or triumph harms,
Lead Thy lambkins to the fold,
Take them in Thine arms.
Feed the hungry, heal the heart,
Till the morning’s beam;
White as wool, ere they depart,
Shepherd, wash them clean.”
“You will awaken to your own call, for the Call to awake is within you. If I live in you, you are awake. Yet you must see the works I do through you, or you will not perceive that I have done them unto you. Do not set limits on what you believe I can do through you, or you will not accept what I can do for you. Yet it is done already, and unless you give all that you have received you will not know that your redeemer liveth, and that you have awakened with him. Redemption is recognized only by sharing it.”
A Course in Miracles T-11.VI.9:1-6
