Occupy/Incarnate

Jesus, we Christians must remember, was not content to be a removed deity, off in the sky judging humanity and moving efforts from the heavens. The story of Gospels is the story of an incarnational God - a God who not only walked among men and women, but was one of them. A lord who did not lord, a religious leader who welcomed all into the work of ministry. The story of the Gospels is, therefore, a testimony against centering and lording forces such as imperialism, statism, and capitalism, an alternative to presidents and corporations.

In that sense, however, the greatest remaining legacy to the witness of the incarnation in the US may not reside in the four walls of the institutional church. It does not belong to the power-hungry Religious Right in its various incarnations (let alone the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association). It does not belong to the Republicans, nor to the Democrats (shockers, I know!). But it also doesn't honestly belong to me or my friends in the Christian Left or much of progressive Christianity (at least as far as bloggers) - though I like to think we're preparing groundwork and pointing the way.

No, those on the ground, those in the trenches, those doing the dirty work - those are the ones demonstrating the incarnation by being and doing interconnectedly. Such actors are in every community of course, but as far as any large body where I see the work of community and salvation being worked out without authoritarianism, without massive centralization, that distinction goes to the Occupy Movement. Still. While the rest of us have just about forgot about them save a few slogans, they've been involved and part of communities in need; they've been incarnational this whole time.

So how did an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street, best known as a leaderless movement that brought international attention to issues of economic injustice through the occupation of Zucotti Park in the financial district last year, become a leader in local hurricane relief efforts?  Ethan Murphy, who was helping organize the food at St. Jacobis and had been cooking for the occupy movement over the past year, explained there wasn’t any kind of official decision or declaration that occupiers would now try to help with the hurricane aftermath.  “This is what we do already, “ he explained: Build community, help neighbors, and create a world without the help of finance.  Horst said, “We know capitalism is broken, so we have already been focused on organizing to take care of our own [community] needs.” He sees Occupy Sandy as political ideas executed on a practical level. (Emphasis mine)

How to make a difference that will last? Be incarnational.

The un-Kingdom of Jesus

Mark van Steenwyk on the un-Kingdom of Jesus from The Holy Anarchist:

Christ's kingship is inconsistent with traditional structures of power; and for this reason, Jesus tells Pilate that "My kingdom is not from this world" (Jn 18:36). Passages like these have, unfortunately, fostered an ineffectual other-worldliness among Christians. And they have been used to legitimate "real-world" kingdoms. Jesus rules some magical sky-kingdom, while princes and emperors can dominate flesh and land. 

But Jesus' reign isn't other-worldly. It isn't apolitical. It's just political in a radically different way... 

So, when Jesus said his kingdom wasn't of this world, he wasn't understood by Pilate or by the Jews or by his earliest followers as talking about the afterlife or some abstracted spiritual truth. Based upon the lethal response to Jesus (and the early reactions to Jesus' movement), the "Kingdom of God" was understood as a challenge to Caesar and his reign. Their two kingdoms clashed... 

The social, economic, political, and religious subversions of such an un-reign are almost endless - peace-making instead of war mongering, liberation not exploitation, sacrifice rather than subjugation, mercy not vengeance, care for the vulnerable instead of privileges, generosity instead of greed, embrace rather than exclusion.

So, what DOES this unKingdom look like if it's not domination, not of war or exploitation, subjugation or vengeance, neither privilege, greed nor exclusion?

Maybe it looks like a place where values are changed and transforming. Where we love others as we love ourselves because we love God.* Where the prisoners and the poor and the outcasts and the marginalized are prioritized - where the peacekeepers and the meek are elevated, where the hungry and thirsty are fed, where the prisoners are set free, where strangling financial debts are forgiven, and love is the law of the land.

Maybe it looks like Jesus' sermons and illustrations. And maybe the opposite of that is worldly.

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*Rather than the current manifestation of American Churchianity where we often say we love God and use "love" as a semantic weapon against others, telling them that, while we "love" them, they must conform to our dominating standards of what it means to be right or human or good. Which is not love at all, only greed and selfishness.

Shrewd Advice

Be wary of the shrewd advice that tells you how to get ahead in the world on your own. Giving, not getting, is the way. Generosity begets generosity. Stinginess impoverishes.

- Mark 4 (The Message)

The poor tend to know this. Out of spirit, we share, knowing that we usually get back when it is necessary and when we least expect it. And often a hundred-fold. It's a communal, involuntary insurance.

And it leaves us being gracious for what we have in terms of not just property, but family.

But sometimes we give out of our poverty and we're hurt for it.

A fellow, a neighbor, a stranger, a cousin, burns us. Steals from us when we house him. Lies to us about her kid's hunger or medical needs. Jimmy bums loose squares, always promising to pay back and never delivering. Some real nice lady does a business transaction with us but she runs into some problems and in an effort to speed up the process, we end up losing thousands of dollars that we don't have. Roy comes over for dinner every other day but then starts mocking the food and service.

It's easy to forget. To become stingy at this point. To take on the work and personality of the world around us.

Let's not. Let's not succumb to use the tools of the mean-spirited. He is in solidarity with no one; he cannot even trust himself. He dies alone and miserable, and lives alone and miserable.

Let us be continuously generous, for then we live as free men and women. Our wages may be restricted, our generosity even trampled on, but when we abandon our sisters and brothers in their time of need, when we refuse to share in the bounty of our meager harvest, we break the bonds of humanity, of friendship, of family, of our own very selves.

Share. It will be given back to us. A thousand-fold.

A Million Miles in the Wrong Direction

Jesus... did not think of equality with God

as something to cling to.

Instead, he gave up his divine privileges;

he took the humble position of a slave

and was born as a human being.

When he appeared in human form,

he humbled himself in obedience to God

and died a criminal’s death on a cross.

 - Philippians 2 [New Living Translation] 

Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.”
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me.
- Matthew 16 [New Living Translation]

I know it's a bit faddish - or at least that's what I've been told - but I prefer being called a Christ-Follower to being called a Christian. Although there are many reasons to hold onto the typical label*, the term Christian gives off the impression that conversion and purification is something that has happened at a specific moment in time. It is as if I've been Jesus'ed - as if Jesus had happened, and there is nothing else to be done. A moment in time, a simple prayer, some recitation and closed eyes and it's over. The rest is just waiting to happen.

But Jesus called his disciples to follow him. Daily. The book of Philippians instructs us that we are to follow in Jesus' acts of humility. Jesus told his first followers to pick up their crosses of sacrifice and forget the ways that the harsh, cruel, cynical world was teaching them. The world taught them to act in bitterness, told them to love and accumulate power, to bow down before the emperor as if he was a god.

And it only makes sense to, right? After all, the king's seat is the center of power and wealth. And if those are good things, surely those who control them are blessed by the gods, right?

Rather, Christ's followers are to follow him in submission. We see how the God-man acted in his sacrifice - in his actions of becoming a lowly, working-class "slave". In his

We are to follow him by turning our backs on the ways of the world and towards the things of God.

Although many Christians would agree with that assessment, I'm not sure they understand what the ways of the world are. And I'm particularly troubled that they may not understand what the ways of God are - whom God values and treasures. So though their intensity in the struggle may be commendable, the direction of their struggle can be easily misguided. We've gone very far, but in the wrong direction.

Jesus made it clear that his way is the way of the humble, the meek, the lame, the blind, the outcasts, the poor, the shepherds, the prostitutes, the dirty protesters, the aliens, the outsiders, the rejects, the mentally handicapped, women, people who look different than us, who sound different than us, those whose ways are strange to us...

According to Jesus and his early followers:

• We cannot worship both wealth and God in our churches - or our politics.

• We cannot consume all the world's resources while most of the world starves and follow the same Jesus who reviled gluttony and sided with the poor. That's gluttony. The US must repent, starting with Christians, for our consumptive culture.

• We cannot simultaneously hate Arabs and Muslims and claim to love Jesus.

• We cannot bear false witness while honoring the ten commandments. Such bold lies as when we allege that Muslims are trying to take over the Western world. Or that Sharia Law is a danger to the US Constitution. Or that Islam is a cult. No religious group that has been around for over a hundred (er, thousand) years and has over a million followers (let alone a billion) can be reasonably called a cult by any reasonable explanation.

• We cannot mock homosexuals and yet keep the two commandments (Love God, love neighbors).

• We either follow the desires of the world - fame, money, wealth, exclusion, power, gratification - or of Jesus - inclusion, healing, peace, service.

I am not suggesting that I am wonderfully following in these ways. I recognize that I let my anger and rage - often a selfish-influenced anger - get the best of me. I recognize and know my short-comings - or at least a few of them. I feel as if I've only crawled five miles in the general direction of Jesus. But that's not what this is about. This is about the error, the sin, of letting the sins of the prevailing culture - the ways of the world - take precedence over the gospel of freedom and deliverance for all - including the poor, the outsiders, the aliens, the sick, the hungry, the cold, the imprisoned, the lepers...

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*The sense of identification, the family, the history, the traditions, the security, etc. These are not bad in and of themselves and are in many ways a positive benefit of belonging to the universal church. In fact, in general they are good and necessary, and with a bit of soul-searching (apologizing and making up for past and present abuses, for instance) these attributes can once again be a blessing to the world and the name of Jesus. For now, however, we have some demons to exorcise.