GOP Greed Breaking Fifth Commandment

Exodus 20:12, the fifth of the Ten Commandments, reads, "Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you." (NRSV) Scholars tell us the honoring of one's father and mother is not actually about young children cleaning their rooms when their parents tell them to, the point is rather for adult children to take care of their aging parents. And if this happens, their "days may be long", because someone following this commandment is taking care of them.


So how would cutting Social Security and Medicare, two programs that directly help aging parents and differently-abled people unable to physically support themselves, fit with the fifth commandment?


It appears that Speaker Boehner and other House GOP leaders would rather cut aid to sick people and the elderly than dare to ask corporations and the wealthy to pay their fair share. This is sinful. The GOP has lectured the country on moral values for a while now, but this stance shows their true colors - they have sold their moral integrity to the highest contributor. The would rather create public policy that rewards selfishness and greed, than balance the country's books and show some financial responsibility.


The GOP claims to want fiscal responsibility, but when they have an opportunity to make an impact on the deficit by ending the Bush tax cuts, they are too cowardly to do it. 


They claim to want fiscal responsibility, but when handed a surplus by the Clinton administration, the Republican White House and Congress turned it into a substantial deficit. 


I'm not so naive as to expect politicians to always tell the truth, especially when the truth contradicts their chosen narrative. But I do expect people who claim to be public servants to at least once in a while actually serve the public, and not throw our grandparents under the bus to save their contributors a few dollars. 


If we honor our fathers and mothers, we too will live long in this land we've been given. If not, well, here comes oligarchy. 

Why Did Jesus Die?

“In the temple precincts [Jesus] came upon people selling oxen and sheep and doves, and bankers were doing business there too. He made a whip out of rope and drove them all out of the temple area, sheep, oxen, and all; then he knocked over the bankers; tables, and set their coins flying. And to the dove merchants he said, ‘Get these birds out of here! How dare you use my Father’s house as a public market!’” (John 2:14-16)

There is a lot of imagery during Holy Week, of Jesus as the “Lamb of God”, an innocent, being led calmly to slaughter on the cross. During the passion readings, which you will hear on Thursday evening and Friday at noon, Jesus is, actually, fairly calm and non reactive.

But in this story, which happens at the beginning of the week before his death, Jesus is anything but lamb-like. 

Jesus is angry. Jesus is reactionary and violent. Jesus goes into the area around the Temple in Jerusalem, and sees merchants trying to sell animals for ritual sacrifice, and the money changers exchanging foreign currency to buy these animals, likely at unfair rates, and Jesus flips out. He yells at them (according to Matthew 21:13), “My house shall be called a house of prayer; but you are making it a den of robbers!”

In the typical Christian experience of Holy Week, we start with Palm Sunday, the pageantry and expectation of the Messiah, the Anointed, coming triumphantly into Jerusalem, only to die and then be resurrected on Easter. Many Christians miss the death part, if they don’t come to church on Thursday or Friday, and so they miss out on the emotional roller coaster that Holy Week can be. 

But even more so, if we skip the stories of that week, we miss the point that Jesus’s death wasn’t just for later Christians to make theological points about salvation. Jesus’s death was because he was angrily shouting out for justice, turning the tables over on systems of inequality, and crying out for a new relationship with God--ironically one of reverence and piety, not sacrifice.

Make no mistake, this week is about the brokenness and pain of Jesus’s suffering and death. But we should never forget the very human events that brought that death about. Jesus gave his life because he was unafraid to cry out against injustice, to call people to account for their oppressive actions, to fight for a transformation of the world toward greater justice and mercy. 

May this be our guide as we follow his example.

On Wisconsin

Last night, the Wisconsin Senate spat in the face of every working family in their state. I'm angry, and terribly disappointed in their sinful act.


Governor Scott Walker was quoted by the BBC as saying, "'This is about protecting the middle class and doing it in a way that avoids massive tax increases and massive lay-offs.'"


First of all, the middle class only exists in this country because of collective bargaining. Second, tax increases and lay offs were already avoided because of the concessions the Governor got from the unions through the process of, say it with me, collective bargaining. 


(CBSNews.com reported 2/22, "Public sector unions have conceded to Walker's proposal to roll back their benefits in order to help balance the state budget.")


More to the point, I get that the GOP's endgame is to cut the Democratic party off at the knees. Unions have given an enormous amount of financial and political support to the Dems over the last several decades. 


But here's the important question that no one seems to be asking - why? Why do unions support more Democratic candidates than Republican? Because the Democratic party has enacted policies that support working families. That's why. 


When the GOP stops being the party of "no" and starts being the responsible, values-based party their rhetoric suggests, enacting policies that are pro-family and pro-workers, my guess is that the Union money will start to be a little less partisan. 


My heart goes out to the good people of Wisconsin. They do not deserve such callous and hateful leadership.