Hitting on All Cylinders

Clear the room!

Tom is going to talk about a religious/spiritual issue!

What is the most important theme in the Bible?  What is most often repeated again and again and again?  Disregarding highly theological concepts, such as Jesus saves and what that means, or how we are led out of the wilderness by our faith in God, what is it that the Bible comes back to repeatedly?

It is implored in the opening words of Jesus, in that he has come to free the captives and let the oppressed go free.  It is in taking care of the least of us, in providing for the widow and the orphan and the sick and the disadvantaged.  Verse after verse in the Bible implores us to take care of each other, to stand against the exploitation of the powerless by the powerful.

In our times, there is much dispute over what this means.  We live in a culture that borders on Social Darwinism, where the prosperity gospel flourishes, and where generosity is often trumped by fear or jealousy. We hear arguments that the exhortation to take care of the poor does not include government involvement, that it is sufficient just to give personally,

It's a cliche to say what Jesus would do if he saw the way we were making these distinctions, but I still can't help but feeling that he would smack us in the face (verbally/symbolically, of course - unless we had a table to overturn), and tell us to snap out of it!  He was not very big on exclusions or limits.  We need to combat poverty and human misery at all levels - individual, church, community, nationally and globally.  Anything less will not get the job done.

We need to be working individually.  The charity that was most touching in A Christmas Carol was Scrooge's generosity towards his employee Bob Cratchett.  We need to have that kind of responsibility and caring with the people that we come in contact with. If you are an employer or have any other kind of control over other people, you have the power and responsibility to treat those people better than the general culture demands.  Even if it cuts into your own ability to live at a fancier level than you could otherwise.

We need to work with our churches.  If you are in a church that believes in social and community action, become involved with those missions.

We need to work within our communities.  There are many problems that can be addressed at the community level.  The outpouring of support in our area for Chase Brauda (who recently passed after a valiant struggle)and Amris Bedford, very sick children in our area , has been very touching.There are many other community based groups that do good things to make life better.

We need to work nationally.  There are underlying reasons why poverty and disadvantage under-gird our society and those solutions cannot be found individually or locally.  And sometimes that does mean entering the political arena.  There is much to say about this, but in the interest of brevity, and the fact that I've got to go to work very shortly, I will save that for another blog post.

We need to work globally.  We live in a rapidly shrinking globe, with more and more interaction and inter-dependency, and to think the problems in places outside of the US can be ignored is naive and dangerous.  We are meant to take care of all of our brothers and sisters.  I'm of the school of thought that believes that national borders don't mean a whole lot to God.

None of us are saints.  We are all fall short of this five level approach in one way or another,  I know I certainly do.  How active we are at each level may vary, but if you have total disdain for any of the levels, it's going to be almost impossible to succeed.  I believe that most of us are struggling to succeed.

There is no room, however, for people who believe the poor are poor because of their own doing, and it is up to them to pull themselves up without our help. I have no patience with people who quote the idea that the poor will always be with us and use that as an excuse not to do anything.  The fact that it is a never-ending battle does not mean it is not a battle worth fighting every day and in every way.

March onward, Christian soldiers, and those of goodwill in other faiths!  Keep up the good fight!