04.29.05
NEWS!
Here are some news items with the headlines re-written:
Austrian immigrant thankful that “Minutemen” weren’t around when he came off the boat.
Boston Archdiocese looking forward to buying back $21 million dollar rectory.
Army decides Baghdad isn’t enough; they own the air around U.S. bases as well.
Houston decides information only good for those who know how to conform.
Peter, Palaemon and Merope CD’s handed out to soothe Ouzo fueled trips.
Agent Orange not as effective as U.S. hoped.
EU’s sweet deal turns bitter as poorer countries finally win one.
India takes cue from United States, gives bastardly small proportion of wealth in aid.
I guess that’s enough.
04.27.05
Fez
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So I’m sending in my application to the Brueggeman Center for their fellowship program. I’m having a difficult time deciding exactly what it is I would like to research while there. I have so many things I would like to invest myself in. The possibilities include:
AIDS and the church’s response to it, global weapons disarmament, globalization and its effects on indigenous peoples, US supported dictators and militias, The Sudan crisis, US corporations and their human rights abuses around the world, Debt cancellation and the Jubilee principle, civilian victims of conflict…
I’m leaning towards one of the last two. I’ve been meditating on the Jubilee principle for some time…and the civilian victims has always been a pressing concern, reawakened by the death of Marla Ruzicka.
Help me think about it…
04.26.05
Palmer
For those of you that don’t know who Mark Palmer is, go here:
Buy books, donate online, send him a check, pay him a visit, pray for healing.
04.22.05
and a Song
In light of my post on Marla Ruzicki, I wanted also to post this song. It’s a song by Jackson Browne, who has become a favorite of mine in the last couple years. Keep in mind this song was written about 20 years ago…you wouldn’t know it.
Lives in the Balance
I’ve been waiting for something to happen
For a week or a month or a year
With the blood in the ink of the headlines
And the sound of the crowd in my ear
You might ask what it takes to remember
When you know that you’ve seen it before
Where a government lies to a people
And a country is drifting to war
And there’s a shadow on the faces
Of the men who send the guns
To the wars that are fought in places
Where their business interest runs
On the radio talk shows and the T.V.
You hear one thing again and again
How the U.S.A. stands for freedom
And we come to the aid of a friend
But who are the ones that we call our friends–
These governments killing their own?
Or the people who finally can’t take any more
And they pick up a gun or a brick or a stone
There are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire
There’s a shadow on the faces
Of the men who fan the flames
Of the wars that are fought in places
Where we can’t even say the names
They sell us the President the same way
They sell us our clothes and our cars
They sell us every thing from youth to religion
The same time they sell us our wars
I want to know who the men in the shadows are
I want to hear somebody asking them why
They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are
But they’re never the ones to fight or to die
And there are lives in the balance
There are people under fire
There are children at the cannons
And there is blood on the wire
Sad
I was reading through some blogs yesterday and read Riverbend’s. Please go read it and click on the link about Marla Ruzicka and Civic Worldwide.
I have to tell you that I was incredibly saddened by this. And maybe not for the best reasons. I hear all the time about people that are dying in baghdad, and while each story often furthers my disgust at war and deepens my sadness at the senselessness of it, I’m seldom truly affected as I was in this case.
This woman was doing a job I would like to be doing. She was young and beautiful and passionate. She was a voice for the voiceless, powerless and wounded. And you know what, I haven’t heard a thing about her anywhere else. Do these things make her special? Different from all the others that have died over in Iraq and elsewhere? I guess somehow they did make her different, based on my reaction to reading the news…
But I wish I felt this way every time. Would I be overwhelmed? Would it be simply too much to be broken for everyone? I wonder if she was. Or did she need to be less emotionally involved in order to stay sane? It’s hard to imagine that her life required her to be less passionate about people…
I don’t know what else to say. It’s just sad.
04.20.05
Simplicity: Jesus’ Indifference to Wealth
Mark 12:
13Later they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus to catch him in his words.
14They came to him and said, “Teacher, we know you are a man of integrity. You aren’t swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not? 15Should we pay or shouldn’t we?”
But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. “Why are you trying to trap me?” he asked. “Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” 16They brought the coin, and he asked them, “Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?”
“Caesar’s,” they replied.
17Then Jesus said to them, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”
And they were amazed at him.
I picked this section of scripture for two reasons. One, I think it most appropriately shows the indifference that Jesus pays to wealth. And two, because I think it’s one of the most misused sections of scripture. In my mind, it is right up there with Luke 19, which has been turned into a call to wise investing by the combination of American affluence and biblical illiteracy.
In the lives of American Christians, the scripture above has been most often used to solidify a person’s argument that we are to be subservient to the political powers. “Pay your taxes! Respect the president! Obey the laws! Choose a political party!” And of course, most often, this has meant allegiance to the Republican party (at least in terms of Evangelical Christians). This message is not often preached when a Democrat is asking us to pay more taxes for public programs.
But, as with much of Jesus’ commentary, we miss the point. We miss the point because we don’t understand the context and we miss the point because we’re too interested in making sure the scripture lines up with our ideology.
The context is a gathering of the chief priests, teachers of the law, and elders, who were looking for a way to legally kill Jesus. So they ask him this question in the hope that he would defy Caesar. Their understanding was as deep as ours when it comes to the subversive nature of the Kingdom. Jesus had in fact already announced his supremacy in many ways, though the Pharisees were unable to see it. They want him to advise the people not to pay tax to Caesar, which would show both defiance of Caesar and a criminal act in not paying the tax.
Jesus’ answer to their question was to rebuke their deceitfulness and ask for a coin: a coin printed with the picture of the Caesar, similar to our money printed with political leaders. While none of our leaders have claimed to be God, there certainly have been many who claimed to be acting on His behalf, and we have given them much adoration.
What does he do with this coin? He asks to whom it belongs. It belongs to Caesar. It is imprinted with his face. Jesus’ instructions are born out of a belief that His Kingdom has nothing to do with the kingdoms of the world, which includes their politics, their wealth, their identity and their pride. “This money was created by Caesar so he could monitor his people…so his people could pay each other…so his people could keep track of their wealth. Let him keep it! It has nothing to do with My Kingdom! Give Caesar what is his! God requires more of you…and that’s what you must give Him!”
Don’t we see? Christ’s statement did two things at once. It made clear that members of the Kingdom owed no special fealty to Caesar. And it made clear that the money of worldly kingdoms was of no importance.
Let me make a distinction right here. I am not saying that Christ told them not to pay Caesar. And I am also not saying that Christ claims money has NO importance. Both are false in light of the entirety of the Kingdom proclamation. What He wants is allegiance to God alone, not to Caesar. His implications in the Denarius passage are the same as when he claims to be the Messiah, the King: Caesar is not. And his indifference to the denarius only shows that he is NOT bound by it…in any way. It echoes other areas of the Kingdom announcement where we begin to see that maybe his only plan for social reform is non-cooperation and non-idolatry (non-cooperation with worldly kingdoms and non-idolatry of what they produce).
What we instead need to garner from this passage is the idea that the Kingdom, the reign and rule of God, is not bound, influenced, or defined by any worldly kingdom. The money we use to buy food, to give our tithe, to give above our tithe, to eat at The Ear in Greenwich Village, and to donate to Mark Palmer’s medical fund is given to us for use by the United States or England or Botswana or China or Grenada.
What does indifference to money breed? If we are truly indifferent to our money, then we have realized that it only has power that we give it. If it only has power to feed the hungry, alleviate the plight of the poor, and equalize disparity, then we have probably found the root of the indifferent attitude: that money is only important when used to further the Kingdom. Any other power we give it can only breed pride, greed, arrogance and injustice.
To be short, Jesus is simply saying, “Your money should have no power other than for use by the Kingdom.”
As I am writing this, I feel pretty strongly that it’s the weakest section so far of my simplicity musings. I’m hesitant to post it. But I know it will be strengthened by comments, and I invite them.
04.18.05
Library finds
Man…I used to love going to the library and finding a good CD or film or book. Now I work there. I’ve been picking up extra hours in the audio/visual and circulation departments the last few weeks. This has allowed me not only to be present when said items are being checked in and out, but also when brand new items come in. What I took home last week:
Books:
How to Speak Spanish (with Audio CD’s – “Escuche y Repita”) : a refresher for me.
How to Speak Swahili: definately not a refresher
CD’s:
Being There, Wilco
Finally Woken, Jem: Not typically my kind of thing, but I like it.
Films:
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
On the Waterfront
City of God
Sideways
The Motocycle Diaries
Bourne Supremacy: My curiosity got the better of me…bad movie.
Devil’s Playground: Documentary about the Amish “rumspringa”, where they turn 16 and get all ‘worldly’ before deciding whether to join the church.
04.14.05
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Quotes from Paul Rusesabagina last night:
“What I saw leading up to the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, I see now in Darfur.”“We have NOT learned from history.”
“Americans were very vocal when they protested with South Africa…why are you not doing so now for the Sudan?”
“Peace is never negotiated from the top to the bottom. It always comes from an honest, sincere cry from the bottom.”
“If you want, you can make a difference.”
“Behind every developing-world dictator is a western power pulling the strings.”
“The ICTR (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda) is a failure to the international community. They have spent billions of dollars and prosecuted less than 25 people. It is useless…The Nuremburg trials prosecuted the Nazi leaders in less than a year.”“The West is not reliable, but what else so we have?”
And this was said yesterday by John Bolton, the current nominee for Ambassador to the U.N.:
(paraphrased because I’ve already spent an hour and a half fruitlessly searching for the quote)
Question: “If you had been ambassador to the UN during the Rwanda crisis, would you have handled the situation differently.”
Answer: “No, I don’t think I would have done anything differently.”
