Drug War Forces Residents to Flee Mexican Town (on Texas Border)
Warring Mexican drug cartels have claimed a new victim along the U.S. Southern border: the town of Ciudad Mier. Constant gunfights and spiraling violence between rival drug gangsters have forced the evacuation of the Mexican town. A shelter for fleeing residents of Mier has been set up in the Lions Club in the nearby town of Miguel Aleman, and it has become, in the words of Mexico's Proceso magazine, the first refugee camp of the Mexican cartel war.
Some 300 families have sought sanctuary from intolerable conditions in Ciudad Mier, where hoodlums from the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas mafia are battling for supremacy. Their brutal turf war has engulfed all of northeast Mexico, which borders Texas.
"The situation is critical," says a ranch worker named Jose. "We can't live there anymore peacefully. There are gunfights night and day. Every morning we wake up to dead bodies all over town. People are really afraid."
At the Lions Club, a steady stream of vehicles pulls up to unload donated food, clothing, blankets and Bibles. Help is coming from the municipality of Miguel Aleman and from sympathetic Texans across the river in Starr County. According to Mier refugees, only a few dozen residents — besides the narcos — remain in their town of 6,500. There is no city government and no police; almost all clinics, schools, cafes and stores have closed; water and electricity are spotty. They describe cowering in their homes during firefights, in a town of shattered windows and torched businesses.
A Mier city official, who asked that his name not be used, reads from a desperate communique being sent out to the media and to anyone else who will help. "We know of more than 111 kidnappings of local people. There is no social life — no baptisms, no weddings, no family reunions. Everything is caused by the confrontations between the armed groups," he says.
Smugglers have long coveted Mier for its isolation and proximity to the Rio Grande. Three years ago, the federal government named Ciudad Mier a Pueblo Magico, a "Magic Town," for the touristic value of its colonial buildings. But today, the city official says the federal military has abandoned them. The roughly 300 families who fled Ciudad Mier have found shelter at the Lions Club in the nearby town of Miguel Aleman.
"We ask the army for help, and they never come. They come after everything is over, when they know there's nothing going on. They come in to haul off burned trucks and bodies," he says.
Several townsfolk say it was one particularly gruesome display that convinced them it was time to leave. "They killed the brother of a friend of mine. They cut him in pieces and hung him in the plaza," says Maria Elena Tamez, wearing rosary beads and reclining on a plastic mattress. "They put a sign on him, but I don't know what it said." She says her daughter and other children in the Lions Club shelter have nightmares about the dismembered man swaying from the tree in the plaza. Several residents say the army told them to leave Mier last week because things were "about to get worse." It is not known if the military is planning an offensive to retake Mier, but that's what people here are waiting for.
Earlier this month, more than 600 federal troops were sent to nearby Matamoros to find and kill the infamous drug lord Tony Tormenta. The national security spokesman for Mexican President Felipe Calderon was asked to comment on the Mier situation, but there was no immediate response.
- gleaned from NPR
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Friday, October 23, 2009
Sermon: Sunday, October 25, 2009 - Mark 10:46-52
Sermon: Sunday, October 25, 2009 - Mark10:46-52
I was born on a ranch near Colorado City, Texas, which is about 65 miles west of Abilene, and I grew up there. You’d never know it today, but in the 1950’s, it was a busy place where it was hard to find a parking place downtown, especially on a Saturday. And I was downtown on most Saturdays, because I wanted to be at the Palace Theater for the matinee, which always included cartoons and sometimes serials. Plus, the Palace was air conditioned one of the few buildings in town that boasted such a convenience in those days, so it was a great place to be. I would pay my 20 cents entrance fee and then spend my extra dime on candy – usually a giant butterfinger bar – and settle in for the afternoon.
I remember many things about that movie theater, like how gooey the floor was, but I particularly remember it because it was there that I saw my first horror picture. I went that day with Reggie Noble and Skipper Warren, and I think the movie was called “Attack of the Giant Scorpions.” Anyway, it scared me badly, especially when one of the scorpions, which had become giants because of atomic bomb tests (naturally), grabbed a lineman off a phone pole and stung him to death before my horrified eyes. I didn’t sleep for about a week.
I liked most things about downtown on a Saturday except the man who was always there between the movie theatre and the Ben Franklin store. He stood rattling coins in a tin cup, his half-closed eyes showing filmy whiteness that gave me the creeps. He was not quite as scary as the giant scorpions, but he unnerved me, and I hurried on by him, always having the irrational fear that he was going to reach out and grab me.
Then, one Saturday, the blind man was gone. I never saw him again.
At the time I didn’t know the story about Bartimaeus the blind man cured by Jesus. If I had, perhaps I would have had a little more understanding of the blind man on the sidewalk in Colorado City. Maybe I could have regarded him with compassion instead of fear.
Jericho was also a busy place; a good place for a blind beggar. The crowds went back and forth, and Bartimaeus sat in his usual place, begging for coins, just as he had done for many years. No doubt he was pretty much invisible to those who passed by every day. He was part of the landscape, not even worth noticing. Perhaps those who did stop and drop him a coin thought that it was money wasted, because, after all, nothing would ever change.
I don’t know how Bartimaeus felt. Perhaps he, too, thought that nothing would ever change, or perhaps there was still some unspoken hope inside him.
When the noisy crowd came down the road, Bartimaeus knew that Jesus was in the midst of it. No doubt he had heard stories about the healing rabbi who was creating such a sensation. Perhaps he heard people around him talking and speculating about Jesus.
And suddenly that wisp of a hope blooms inside Bartimaeus, and he begins to shout and scream and make a scene. People around him tell him to be quiet, but he won’t be silent, because he knows that more than anything in the world he wants to see, and this – however slim – is his one chance. He doesn’t act in the humble manner appropriate for a beggar. He wants the attention of this man whom he gives the Messianic title Son of David.
And like so many of the healing stories and parables about Jesus this one, too, is filled with irony. Jesus has been trying to make the disciples, his closest followers and truest believers, understand who he is, but they just don’t get it. Last week in the readings from Scripture, after Jesus had spent his time telling the disciples that he came not to be served but to serve and not to be king but to suffer and die, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, come to him and ask to sit it his right hand and his left hand. They just don’t get it.
But Bartimaeus gets it. Here down the road comes the real deal, and this blind man sees him when those all around him cannot see who he really is.
I’ll bet that after his healing, Bartimaeus never took his vision for granted. I’ll bet he saw every face and every leaf on every tree, and I’ll bet he was never blind to blind beggars as the crowds had been to him.
This story always makes me think about how little I really see. I don’t see the poor along the city streets; there is too much of interest that catches my eye instead. I don’t see the people around me for who they really are; I just see them for who I think they are. I don’t even see the beauty of the world around me, because I am usually in a hurry, or late, or worried about something that ultimately is of no consequence. And most seriously of all, I don’t see Jesus, who is always in my sight in the guise of friends and strangers and all of creation.
I do think about that blind man in Colorado City who patrolled that portion of the pavement between the Palace Theater and the Ben Franklin store, counting the parking meters as he went to know where he was. I particularly think about him as I have now developed macular degeneration and am experiencing gradually diminishing sight. My prayer is that as my vision gets worse, my ability to see Jesus Christ my Savior in his many guises will become clearer.
I was born on a ranch near Colorado City, Texas, which is about 65 miles west of Abilene, and I grew up there. You’d never know it today, but in the 1950’s, it was a busy place where it was hard to find a parking place downtown, especially on a Saturday. And I was downtown on most Saturdays, because I wanted to be at the Palace Theater for the matinee, which always included cartoons and sometimes serials. Plus, the Palace was air conditioned one of the few buildings in town that boasted such a convenience in those days, so it was a great place to be. I would pay my 20 cents entrance fee and then spend my extra dime on candy – usually a giant butterfinger bar – and settle in for the afternoon.
I remember many things about that movie theater, like how gooey the floor was, but I particularly remember it because it was there that I saw my first horror picture. I went that day with Reggie Noble and Skipper Warren, and I think the movie was called “Attack of the Giant Scorpions.” Anyway, it scared me badly, especially when one of the scorpions, which had become giants because of atomic bomb tests (naturally), grabbed a lineman off a phone pole and stung him to death before my horrified eyes. I didn’t sleep for about a week.
I liked most things about downtown on a Saturday except the man who was always there between the movie theatre and the Ben Franklin store. He stood rattling coins in a tin cup, his half-closed eyes showing filmy whiteness that gave me the creeps. He was not quite as scary as the giant scorpions, but he unnerved me, and I hurried on by him, always having the irrational fear that he was going to reach out and grab me.
Then, one Saturday, the blind man was gone. I never saw him again.
At the time I didn’t know the story about Bartimaeus the blind man cured by Jesus. If I had, perhaps I would have had a little more understanding of the blind man on the sidewalk in Colorado City. Maybe I could have regarded him with compassion instead of fear.
Jericho was also a busy place; a good place for a blind beggar. The crowds went back and forth, and Bartimaeus sat in his usual place, begging for coins, just as he had done for many years. No doubt he was pretty much invisible to those who passed by every day. He was part of the landscape, not even worth noticing. Perhaps those who did stop and drop him a coin thought that it was money wasted, because, after all, nothing would ever change.
I don’t know how Bartimaeus felt. Perhaps he, too, thought that nothing would ever change, or perhaps there was still some unspoken hope inside him.
When the noisy crowd came down the road, Bartimaeus knew that Jesus was in the midst of it. No doubt he had heard stories about the healing rabbi who was creating such a sensation. Perhaps he heard people around him talking and speculating about Jesus.
And suddenly that wisp of a hope blooms inside Bartimaeus, and he begins to shout and scream and make a scene. People around him tell him to be quiet, but he won’t be silent, because he knows that more than anything in the world he wants to see, and this – however slim – is his one chance. He doesn’t act in the humble manner appropriate for a beggar. He wants the attention of this man whom he gives the Messianic title Son of David.
And like so many of the healing stories and parables about Jesus this one, too, is filled with irony. Jesus has been trying to make the disciples, his closest followers and truest believers, understand who he is, but they just don’t get it. Last week in the readings from Scripture, after Jesus had spent his time telling the disciples that he came not to be served but to serve and not to be king but to suffer and die, James and John, the sons of Zebedee, come to him and ask to sit it his right hand and his left hand. They just don’t get it.
But Bartimaeus gets it. Here down the road comes the real deal, and this blind man sees him when those all around him cannot see who he really is.
I’ll bet that after his healing, Bartimaeus never took his vision for granted. I’ll bet he saw every face and every leaf on every tree, and I’ll bet he was never blind to blind beggars as the crowds had been to him.
This story always makes me think about how little I really see. I don’t see the poor along the city streets; there is too much of interest that catches my eye instead. I don’t see the people around me for who they really are; I just see them for who I think they are. I don’t even see the beauty of the world around me, because I am usually in a hurry, or late, or worried about something that ultimately is of no consequence. And most seriously of all, I don’t see Jesus, who is always in my sight in the guise of friends and strangers and all of creation.
I do think about that blind man in Colorado City who patrolled that portion of the pavement between the Palace Theater and the Ben Franklin store, counting the parking meters as he went to know where he was. I particularly think about him as I have now developed macular degeneration and am experiencing gradually diminishing sight. My prayer is that as my vision gets worse, my ability to see Jesus Christ my Savior in his many guises will become clearer.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Article - Traditional Anglicans want to join Roman Catholic Church
Traditional Anglicans want to join Catholic Church
By Nicole Winfield and Rohan Sullivan Associated Press
Mar 9, 2009 - 5:26:47 PM
Dispute over ordination of women, other liberal trends caused Anglican split almost 20 years ago
VATICAN CITY — The Vatican is considering welcoming into the Roman Catholic Church a group of traditional Anglicans who broke away from the global Anglican Communion nearly two decades ago over women’s ordination and other issues, officials say.
Vatican officials stress that no decision has been made and no announcement is imminent. Still, Anglicans across the spectrum of belief are closely watching for any signs of movement.
Absorbing the breakaway Traditional Anglican Communion would be a small but notable victory for Pope Benedict XVI, who has made unifying Christians a goal of his papacy.
At the same time, any invitation by the Vatican is likely to upset leaders of the 77 million-member Anglican Communion and would hurt the Vatican’s decades-long efforts to strengthen ties with that fellowship of churches. Anglicans split with Rome in 1534 when English King Henry VIII was refused a marriage annulment.
The Traditional Anglican Communion formed in 1990 as an association of orthodox Anglicans concerned about what they considered the liberal tilt in Anglican churches, including the ordination of women. Members of the group are generally Anglo-Catholic, emphasizing continuity with Catholic tradition and the importance of the sacraments. The fellowship says it has spread to 41 countries and has 400,000 members, although only about half are regular churchgoers.
The traditional group aims to unify the Anglican and Catholic churches, according to Archbishop John Hepworth of Australia, who is the leader, or primate, of the Traditional Anglican Communion. They have accepted the ministry of the pope, but also want to maintain their Anglican traditions — one of several potential impediments to unification.
“We seek a communal and ecclesial way of being Anglican Catholics in communion with the Holy See,” the group wrote, in a letter Hepworth presented two years ago to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
The head of that Vatican office, Cardinal William Levada, wrote Hepworth in July 2008, saying he was giving “serious attention” to the Traditional Anglicans’ proposal. But he noted that the situation within the broader Anglican Communion, with which the Vatican has an official dialogue, had “become markedly more complex.” The Anglican Communion is on the brink of schism because of internal rifts over how it should interpret what the Bible says about gay relationships and other issues.
Hepworth has called the letter a sign of “warmth and encouragement,” and the traditional Anglicans posted the note on their Web site. But Monsignor Marc Langham, who is in charge of Anglican relations at the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, said that Levada’s letter was a “standard Vatican holding letter” and suggested interpreting it with caution.
“It’s very easy to turn expectation and hope into hard fact,” Langham said in a recent phone interview.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, confirmed that the traditional Anglican group and the Vatican have been in contact for some time and would continue to talk.
“Their request has been taken into consideration,” he said. But he dismissed as “absolutely unfounded” reports in the Australian media that a decision on welcoming the Traditional Anglicans was near.
Benedict’s recent efforts to bring together Christians has hit many obstacles.
In January, he lifted the excommunications of four bishops of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, which broke from Rome because of its opposition to the liberalizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council. That decision sparked a public outcry since one of the four bishops denied that 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust.
Separately, progress between the Vatican and the Anglican Communion has stalled because of the same issues that have fractured the fellowship itself: women priests and bishops, the ordination of bishops in same-sex relationships and the recognition of same-sex unions.
The Traditional Anglican Communion opposes those trends as well.
Still, Langham, of the Vatican, said it was “unlikely” that there would be a mass conversion of traditional Anglicans into the Catholic Church.
“Conversion is an individual process,” he said. “In our congregation, we would have trouble with that concept.”
As an example of the many outstanding unresolved issues, he noted that Hepworth, a bishop, has been married. “There are various problems with this, not least the tradition of married bishops is alien to the Latin rite,” he said.
Yet, the Vatican has made no secret of its willingness to welcome into its fold Anglicans who want to convert, even married Anglican priests. After the Church of England voted to ordain women in 1992, several hundred Anglican priests defected to Catholicism.
“Rome will continue talking, it’s not going to turn anybody away,” noted Simon Barrow, co-director of the British-based religion think tank Ekklesia. “But on the other hand it’s going to be extremely cautious about a group of people who want to enter but with reservations.”
Associated Press Writer Rohan Sullivan reported from Sydney, Australia.
On the Net: Traditional Anglican Coalition newspaper: www.themessenger.com.au
By Nicole Winfield and Rohan Sullivan Associated Press
Mar 9, 2009 - 5:26:47 PM
Dispute over ordination of women, other liberal trends caused Anglican split almost 20 years ago
VATICAN CITY — The Vatican is considering welcoming into the Roman Catholic Church a group of traditional Anglicans who broke away from the global Anglican Communion nearly two decades ago over women’s ordination and other issues, officials say.
Vatican officials stress that no decision has been made and no announcement is imminent. Still, Anglicans across the spectrum of belief are closely watching for any signs of movement.
Absorbing the breakaway Traditional Anglican Communion would be a small but notable victory for Pope Benedict XVI, who has made unifying Christians a goal of his papacy.
At the same time, any invitation by the Vatican is likely to upset leaders of the 77 million-member Anglican Communion and would hurt the Vatican’s decades-long efforts to strengthen ties with that fellowship of churches. Anglicans split with Rome in 1534 when English King Henry VIII was refused a marriage annulment.
The Traditional Anglican Communion formed in 1990 as an association of orthodox Anglicans concerned about what they considered the liberal tilt in Anglican churches, including the ordination of women. Members of the group are generally Anglo-Catholic, emphasizing continuity with Catholic tradition and the importance of the sacraments. The fellowship says it has spread to 41 countries and has 400,000 members, although only about half are regular churchgoers.
The traditional group aims to unify the Anglican and Catholic churches, according to Archbishop John Hepworth of Australia, who is the leader, or primate, of the Traditional Anglican Communion. They have accepted the ministry of the pope, but also want to maintain their Anglican traditions — one of several potential impediments to unification.
“We seek a communal and ecclesial way of being Anglican Catholics in communion with the Holy See,” the group wrote, in a letter Hepworth presented two years ago to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
The head of that Vatican office, Cardinal William Levada, wrote Hepworth in July 2008, saying he was giving “serious attention” to the Traditional Anglicans’ proposal. But he noted that the situation within the broader Anglican Communion, with which the Vatican has an official dialogue, had “become markedly more complex.” The Anglican Communion is on the brink of schism because of internal rifts over how it should interpret what the Bible says about gay relationships and other issues.
Hepworth has called the letter a sign of “warmth and encouragement,” and the traditional Anglicans posted the note on their Web site. But Monsignor Marc Langham, who is in charge of Anglican relations at the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, said that Levada’s letter was a “standard Vatican holding letter” and suggested interpreting it with caution.
“It’s very easy to turn expectation and hope into hard fact,” Langham said in a recent phone interview.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, confirmed that the traditional Anglican group and the Vatican have been in contact for some time and would continue to talk.
“Their request has been taken into consideration,” he said. But he dismissed as “absolutely unfounded” reports in the Australian media that a decision on welcoming the Traditional Anglicans was near.
Benedict’s recent efforts to bring together Christians has hit many obstacles.
In January, he lifted the excommunications of four bishops of the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, which broke from Rome because of its opposition to the liberalizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council. That decision sparked a public outcry since one of the four bishops denied that 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust.
Separately, progress between the Vatican and the Anglican Communion has stalled because of the same issues that have fractured the fellowship itself: women priests and bishops, the ordination of bishops in same-sex relationships and the recognition of same-sex unions.
The Traditional Anglican Communion opposes those trends as well.
Still, Langham, of the Vatican, said it was “unlikely” that there would be a mass conversion of traditional Anglicans into the Catholic Church.
“Conversion is an individual process,” he said. “In our congregation, we would have trouble with that concept.”
As an example of the many outstanding unresolved issues, he noted that Hepworth, a bishop, has been married. “There are various problems with this, not least the tradition of married bishops is alien to the Latin rite,” he said.
Yet, the Vatican has made no secret of its willingness to welcome into its fold Anglicans who want to convert, even married Anglican priests. After the Church of England voted to ordain women in 1992, several hundred Anglican priests defected to Catholicism.
“Rome will continue talking, it’s not going to turn anybody away,” noted Simon Barrow, co-director of the British-based religion think tank Ekklesia. “But on the other hand it’s going to be extremely cautious about a group of people who want to enter but with reservations.”
Associated Press Writer Rohan Sullivan reported from Sydney, Australia.
On the Net: Traditional Anglican Coalition newspaper: www.themessenger.com.au
Saturday, March 1, 2008
March 2, 2008 - Lent 4A
The Fourth Sunday in Lent
March 2, 2008
1 Samuel 16:1-13
Ephesians 5:8-14
Psalm 23
From the Gospel for today: (John 9:1-41)
As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
In Jewish thought of the time, illness and deformity could come from sin. The disciples' question just assumes that suffering is caused by sin. It could be the parents' sin. Exodus 20:5 says, "I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me" –– a thought that is repeated in Exodus 34:7; Numbers 14:18; and Deuteronomy 5:9. Or it might be the blind man's sin. If so, his sin had to take place in the womb, because he was blind from birth. In the Jewish thought of the day, that was a possibility, in part because of reflections on the struggle of Jacob and Esau in the womb. *
The Pharisees, in particular, thought that not keeping the letter of the Jewish law could result in illness, deformity, and poverty, so they tended to despise those who were deformed, ill, or poor. (If such a catastrophe happened to a Pharisee, of course it came from some other source.)
Today, we know that we have to be careful about what we ascribe to sin, because sin and suffering are not always related, and yet sometimes they are. In the most obvious case, if a pregnant woman smokes crack, her baby is going to suffer. And yet many babies are born with problems whose mothers refused to even take an aspirin or antihistamine during pregnancy.
But more to the point, our job is not to point out sin like the disciples in the reading for today. Since Christ came and died for our sins and the sins of others, our job is to help those who suffer just like Christ helped the man born blind, much to the amazement of the disciples and the rage of the Pharisees.
I don’t know your family history, but my ancestors – and thanks to hard work I didn’t do I have a fairly complete record of them – worked hard for the Social Gospel. For one homey example, the Victorian ladies in my family not only spent one full day a week cooking and mending clothing at the church and taking hot meals and clothes to the poor and visiting the sick, they also marched for the vote for women, defying society and convention and sometimes family to do so. They felt that men and women were created equal, and they put on crinoline skirts and hats with feathers and carried signs that said “Give the Vote to Women,” and we are all indebted to them and millions like them and richer for their dedication.
In the late nineteenth century one of my ancestors must have been pretty intimidating. He rode up to a lynching with a shotgun across his lap, took the black man that was about to be lynched with him, and rode away to safety through the center of town, daring anyone to stop him and the man he had rescued. Perhaps he helped make up for some of my slave-owning ancestors.
My ancestors, and yours, worked to end sweat shops, to establish eight-hour work days, to establish unions, and to secure voting rights for all Americans. And they did this primarily because of the strong Social Gospel teachings of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.
Perhaps here I should pause and give you a definition of the Social Gospel. I don’t think I can do better than a definition offered by the Presbyterian Church around the turn of the twentieth century: "The great ends of the Church are the proclamation of the Gospel for the salvation of humankind; the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God; the maintenance of divine worship; the preservation of truth; the promotion of social righteousness; and the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world." It may be a little dated in language for 2008, but it says it all. It is an attempt to spell out the work that Christ left for his Church to do. (For another definition see Matthew 23.)
One would assume that is the mission of all Christians today is to help all those who are in need and who suffer, no? Actually, no! Look at the prosperity churches. They say that God wants everyone to be rich. And those who aren’t rich? Well obviously, they have not heard the Good news, are sunk deep in sin, and thereby deserve their poverty.
Fortunately, the prosperity churches are relatively few in number and exist mainly on television. Unfortunately, a far more serious threat exists in our country today. That threat comes from Christians who, in spite of Christ’s message, in spite of stories like the one last week of the woman at the well, in spite of the story today of the man born blind, understand Christianity in an Old-Testament way and miss his message of salvation through grace alone and his command to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and help those who suffer. This might only be sad, except that these Old-Testament Christians have become an organized force in our society seeking to undermine the work that generations of Christians – Lutherans and Episcopalians and other historic and traditional churches – have done trying to fulfill Christ’s command to help those in need. They want to undo the work of the Social Gospel, to undo what our ancestors in the faith worked so hard for, to undo what we as Christians today should be trying to do.
These Old-Testament Christians not some easily-identifiable cult. Rather they look just like you and me. But they say and do strange things. They take Christ message about sin and turn it 180 degrees. They have the attitude of the Pharisees toward the blind man. They say they say that drug abuse is not only a sin, but also that people who take drugs are sinners by nature and moral failures in our society, and that is why they take drugs. Note that carefully. They are born inferior and that is why they take drugs. And that is also why they live in neighborhoods where drugs are sold, and send their kids to schools where there are drug dealers, and are lazy, and don’t get better jobs so they can move out to the suburbs where there is no drug abuse. (Pharisees always tend to be a little out of touch.) Therefore, these people with drug and drug-related problem are born in sin don’t deserve help, or compassion, or assistance – only punishment. After all, they are obviously damned anyway, or they wouldn’t be living like that. (Now if the family of these Old-Testament Christians is touched by alcohol or dug abuse, then obviously it is a disease, and not a sin or a moral failure. I hope you understand that.)
I call these Old-Testament Christians who mouth the words of Christ but ultimately reject them the New Pharisees, because just like the Old Pharisees, they feel that because of their innate moral superiority they have rights that other people do not have. Obviously, they are going to reject the Social Gospel. Instead, Christianity becomes just about keeping certain selected rules and regulations, pointing out sins in others, and punishing sins that they find offensive – almost always involving morals, not greed or consumption or pride.
Not surprisingly, having rejected the Social Gospel, they want to get rid of rights that do not benefit them. Many of the Old Pharisees were wealthy and were part of the ruling class. That is true of the New Pharisees. And Like the Old Pharisees, they have banded together to make laws to benefit themselves. For example, they have made great strides in getting rid of taxes in the upper tax brackets, removing taxes on luxury goods, and making sure that they never pay taxes on their estates, no matter how fabulous, that they pass along to their descendants. But their greatest triumph has been teaching wannabe New Pharisees to live poor and vote rich. They frequently cite Scripture, and protecting the sanctity of the family, and, need I say, patriotism, to achieve this end. Consequently they have a huge supporting block of wannabees. It is a variation on the old pyramid scheme.
This has allowed them to set their sites on new targets, that is, things that the New Pharisees don’t like or need or that don’t enrich them. They generally call these things entitlements. For example, they often want to get rid of Social Security. No one is entitled to assistance in old age. They should have worked harder and saved more money so they didn’t need entitlements. They are opposed to medical insurance for poor children. Poor children are not entitled to anything. Let their parents, or parent, or grandmother, get a job, or another job, or three jobs, and pay for their medical care. Obviously these children, or their parents, or someone, are sinners, or they would already have insurance. And, of course, we don’t have to even mention universal health care, because no one is entitled to health care. Which is easy for people who can afford it to say.
Is this the Social Gospel? No. Absolutely not. Is this even Christianity? It doesn’t look like it to me. Christ taught us to help others, not to take away from those who have little so we may much may have even more.
Some people think the greatest crisis facing the Church in this country is falling attendance at Sunday worship. I think the greatest crisis is the New Pharisees. Everywhere I go I see more and more churches that accept only those who are deemed “good enough” to be New Pharisees. Do you believe like we do? Do you vote the right way? Will you be told what to do? Will you accept our interpretation of the Bible, no matter how flawed? Will you forgo thinking for yourself. Then welcome! You can be a New Pharisee! No wonder attendance is down. Who would not be turned off by such an attitude? If you have to pass the New Pharisees’ scrutiny even to be a member of the church, why would you bother, unless you were one of those people taught to live poor and vote rich, then you might join in hopes of being a “Real Pharisee” some day, rich and entitled and eventually sitting at God’s right hand for keeping all the rules, and you would be allowed to join as a sort of “second class Christian” to embellish the Pharisees’ work and image.
Well, let’s talk about us for a minute. This church advertises on the college radio station. We like those folks and support them, and, of course, it is the only place we can afford to advertise. Our ad clearly states that we are “accepting” and “inclusive.” In other words, everybody is welcomed, and people don’t have to pass any kind of “Pharisee test” to be allowed to worship here. We can’t put mud on peoples’ eyes and make them see – Oh that we could! – but we can offer them a worshiping family who won’t tell them that they were born sinners and have no hope but rather that they have forgiveness of sins through grace alone and are entitled to the love and care that Christ commanded of his Church. Small and poor as we are, we can live the Social Gospel. We can be anti-Pharisee.
I think we all need to be on Pharisee Watch. They are in churches, they are on television, they are in government, and perhaps most alarmingly and dangerous of all, there is a Hidden Pharisee, a mole, that tends to lurk deep down inside each of us and blinds us to the truth. Blindness is a terrible thing.
“They don’t even speak English.”
“Mark my words, she’ll turn out just like her mother.”
“Anybody who gets AIDS deserves it.”
“Since global warming is a myth I can use all the resources I want to.”
“People are poor because they are lazy.”
“The solution is to build more prisons.”
and my favorite
“Cal ought to stick to preaching and stop meddling!”
That Hidden Pharisee inside each of us is the most dangerous of all. He, or she, is the one we really have to be on guard against. The Hidden Pharisee is the one who blinds us to the message of Christ, to the needs of others, and to our own ability to be Christ’s hands and feet in a broken and hurting world. The Hidden Pharisee blinds us to the Social Gospel. Perhaps we should pause and read and reread the words of the most enlightened Pharisees from todays Gospel who witnessed the helaing of the blind man and heard Jesus, "Surely we are not blind, are we?"
* Exegesis by Richard Niell Donovan at sermonwriter.com
March 2, 2008
1 Samuel 16:1-13
Ephesians 5:8-14
Psalm 23
From the Gospel for today: (John 9:1-41)
As he walked along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
In Jewish thought of the time, illness and deformity could come from sin. The disciples' question just assumes that suffering is caused by sin. It could be the parents' sin. Exodus 20:5 says, "I the Lord your God am a jealous God, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject me" –– a thought that is repeated in Exodus 34:7; Numbers 14:18; and Deuteronomy 5:9. Or it might be the blind man's sin. If so, his sin had to take place in the womb, because he was blind from birth. In the Jewish thought of the day, that was a possibility, in part because of reflections on the struggle of Jacob and Esau in the womb. *
The Pharisees, in particular, thought that not keeping the letter of the Jewish law could result in illness, deformity, and poverty, so they tended to despise those who were deformed, ill, or poor. (If such a catastrophe happened to a Pharisee, of course it came from some other source.)
Today, we know that we have to be careful about what we ascribe to sin, because sin and suffering are not always related, and yet sometimes they are. In the most obvious case, if a pregnant woman smokes crack, her baby is going to suffer. And yet many babies are born with problems whose mothers refused to even take an aspirin or antihistamine during pregnancy.
But more to the point, our job is not to point out sin like the disciples in the reading for today. Since Christ came and died for our sins and the sins of others, our job is to help those who suffer just like Christ helped the man born blind, much to the amazement of the disciples and the rage of the Pharisees.
I don’t know your family history, but my ancestors – and thanks to hard work I didn’t do I have a fairly complete record of them – worked hard for the Social Gospel. For one homey example, the Victorian ladies in my family not only spent one full day a week cooking and mending clothing at the church and taking hot meals and clothes to the poor and visiting the sick, they also marched for the vote for women, defying society and convention and sometimes family to do so. They felt that men and women were created equal, and they put on crinoline skirts and hats with feathers and carried signs that said “Give the Vote to Women,” and we are all indebted to them and millions like them and richer for their dedication.
In the late nineteenth century one of my ancestors must have been pretty intimidating. He rode up to a lynching with a shotgun across his lap, took the black man that was about to be lynched with him, and rode away to safety through the center of town, daring anyone to stop him and the man he had rescued. Perhaps he helped make up for some of my slave-owning ancestors.
My ancestors, and yours, worked to end sweat shops, to establish eight-hour work days, to establish unions, and to secure voting rights for all Americans. And they did this primarily because of the strong Social Gospel teachings of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.
Perhaps here I should pause and give you a definition of the Social Gospel. I don’t think I can do better than a definition offered by the Presbyterian Church around the turn of the twentieth century: "The great ends of the Church are the proclamation of the Gospel for the salvation of humankind; the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God; the maintenance of divine worship; the preservation of truth; the promotion of social righteousness; and the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world." It may be a little dated in language for 2008, but it says it all. It is an attempt to spell out the work that Christ left for his Church to do. (For another definition see Matthew 23.)
One would assume that is the mission of all Christians today is to help all those who are in need and who suffer, no? Actually, no! Look at the prosperity churches. They say that God wants everyone to be rich. And those who aren’t rich? Well obviously, they have not heard the Good news, are sunk deep in sin, and thereby deserve their poverty.
Fortunately, the prosperity churches are relatively few in number and exist mainly on television. Unfortunately, a far more serious threat exists in our country today. That threat comes from Christians who, in spite of Christ’s message, in spite of stories like the one last week of the woman at the well, in spite of the story today of the man born blind, understand Christianity in an Old-Testament way and miss his message of salvation through grace alone and his command to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and help those who suffer. This might only be sad, except that these Old-Testament Christians have become an organized force in our society seeking to undermine the work that generations of Christians – Lutherans and Episcopalians and other historic and traditional churches – have done trying to fulfill Christ’s command to help those in need. They want to undo the work of the Social Gospel, to undo what our ancestors in the faith worked so hard for, to undo what we as Christians today should be trying to do.
These Old-Testament Christians not some easily-identifiable cult. Rather they look just like you and me. But they say and do strange things. They take Christ message about sin and turn it 180 degrees. They have the attitude of the Pharisees toward the blind man. They say they say that drug abuse is not only a sin, but also that people who take drugs are sinners by nature and moral failures in our society, and that is why they take drugs. Note that carefully. They are born inferior and that is why they take drugs. And that is also why they live in neighborhoods where drugs are sold, and send their kids to schools where there are drug dealers, and are lazy, and don’t get better jobs so they can move out to the suburbs where there is no drug abuse. (Pharisees always tend to be a little out of touch.) Therefore, these people with drug and drug-related problem are born in sin don’t deserve help, or compassion, or assistance – only punishment. After all, they are obviously damned anyway, or they wouldn’t be living like that. (Now if the family of these Old-Testament Christians is touched by alcohol or dug abuse, then obviously it is a disease, and not a sin or a moral failure. I hope you understand that.)
I call these Old-Testament Christians who mouth the words of Christ but ultimately reject them the New Pharisees, because just like the Old Pharisees, they feel that because of their innate moral superiority they have rights that other people do not have. Obviously, they are going to reject the Social Gospel. Instead, Christianity becomes just about keeping certain selected rules and regulations, pointing out sins in others, and punishing sins that they find offensive – almost always involving morals, not greed or consumption or pride.
Not surprisingly, having rejected the Social Gospel, they want to get rid of rights that do not benefit them. Many of the Old Pharisees were wealthy and were part of the ruling class. That is true of the New Pharisees. And Like the Old Pharisees, they have banded together to make laws to benefit themselves. For example, they have made great strides in getting rid of taxes in the upper tax brackets, removing taxes on luxury goods, and making sure that they never pay taxes on their estates, no matter how fabulous, that they pass along to their descendants. But their greatest triumph has been teaching wannabe New Pharisees to live poor and vote rich. They frequently cite Scripture, and protecting the sanctity of the family, and, need I say, patriotism, to achieve this end. Consequently they have a huge supporting block of wannabees. It is a variation on the old pyramid scheme.
This has allowed them to set their sites on new targets, that is, things that the New Pharisees don’t like or need or that don’t enrich them. They generally call these things entitlements. For example, they often want to get rid of Social Security. No one is entitled to assistance in old age. They should have worked harder and saved more money so they didn’t need entitlements. They are opposed to medical insurance for poor children. Poor children are not entitled to anything. Let their parents, or parent, or grandmother, get a job, or another job, or three jobs, and pay for their medical care. Obviously these children, or their parents, or someone, are sinners, or they would already have insurance. And, of course, we don’t have to even mention universal health care, because no one is entitled to health care. Which is easy for people who can afford it to say.
Is this the Social Gospel? No. Absolutely not. Is this even Christianity? It doesn’t look like it to me. Christ taught us to help others, not to take away from those who have little so we may much may have even more.
Some people think the greatest crisis facing the Church in this country is falling attendance at Sunday worship. I think the greatest crisis is the New Pharisees. Everywhere I go I see more and more churches that accept only those who are deemed “good enough” to be New Pharisees. Do you believe like we do? Do you vote the right way? Will you be told what to do? Will you accept our interpretation of the Bible, no matter how flawed? Will you forgo thinking for yourself. Then welcome! You can be a New Pharisee! No wonder attendance is down. Who would not be turned off by such an attitude? If you have to pass the New Pharisees’ scrutiny even to be a member of the church, why would you bother, unless you were one of those people taught to live poor and vote rich, then you might join in hopes of being a “Real Pharisee” some day, rich and entitled and eventually sitting at God’s right hand for keeping all the rules, and you would be allowed to join as a sort of “second class Christian” to embellish the Pharisees’ work and image.
Well, let’s talk about us for a minute. This church advertises on the college radio station. We like those folks and support them, and, of course, it is the only place we can afford to advertise. Our ad clearly states that we are “accepting” and “inclusive.” In other words, everybody is welcomed, and people don’t have to pass any kind of “Pharisee test” to be allowed to worship here. We can’t put mud on peoples’ eyes and make them see – Oh that we could! – but we can offer them a worshiping family who won’t tell them that they were born sinners and have no hope but rather that they have forgiveness of sins through grace alone and are entitled to the love and care that Christ commanded of his Church. Small and poor as we are, we can live the Social Gospel. We can be anti-Pharisee.
I think we all need to be on Pharisee Watch. They are in churches, they are on television, they are in government, and perhaps most alarmingly and dangerous of all, there is a Hidden Pharisee, a mole, that tends to lurk deep down inside each of us and blinds us to the truth. Blindness is a terrible thing.
“They don’t even speak English.”
“Mark my words, she’ll turn out just like her mother.”
“Anybody who gets AIDS deserves it.”
“Since global warming is a myth I can use all the resources I want to.”
“People are poor because they are lazy.”
“The solution is to build more prisons.”
and my favorite
“Cal ought to stick to preaching and stop meddling!”
That Hidden Pharisee inside each of us is the most dangerous of all. He, or she, is the one we really have to be on guard against. The Hidden Pharisee is the one who blinds us to the message of Christ, to the needs of others, and to our own ability to be Christ’s hands and feet in a broken and hurting world. The Hidden Pharisee blinds us to the Social Gospel. Perhaps we should pause and read and reread the words of the most enlightened Pharisees from todays Gospel who witnessed the helaing of the blind man and heard Jesus, "Surely we are not blind, are we?"
* Exegesis by Richard Niell Donovan at sermonwriter.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
