Dr. Roger Ray, pastor
Oct. 30, 2011 Proper 26
Micah 3:5-12
5Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets who lead my people astray, who cry "Peace" when they have something to eat, but declare war against those who put nothing into their mouths. 6Therefore it shall be night to you, without vision, and darkness to you, without revelation. The sun shall go down upon the prophets, and the day shall be black over them; 7the seers shall be disgraced, and the diviners put to shame; they shall all cover their lips, for there is no answer from God.
8But as for me, I am filled with power, with the spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin. 9Hear this, you rulers of the house of Jacob and chiefs of the house of Israel, who abhor justice and pervert all equity, 10who build Zion with blood and Jerusalem with wrong! 11Its rulers give judgment for a bribe, its priests teach for a price, its prophets give oracles for money; yet they lean upon the Lord and say, "Surely the Lord is with us! No harm shall come upon us." 12Therefore because of you Zion shall be plowed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the house a wooded height.
Matthew 23:1-12
23Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2"The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat; 3therefore, do whatever they teach you and follow it; but do not do as they do, for they do not practice what they teach. 4They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on the shoulders of others; but they themselves are unwilling to lift a finger to move them. 5They do all their deeds to be seen by others; for they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long. 6They love to have the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues, 7and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have people call them rabbi. 8But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. 9And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father--the one in heaven. 10Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Messiah. 11The greatest among you will be your servant. 12All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.
Sometimes a good fiction is the best way to tell the truth. British comic book author, Alan Moore, in the 1980's, created an imaginary hero who fought against a fascist government while disguised in a Guy Fawkes mask and hat. For those of you who might not be fully briefed on British history, Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the Parliament building 400 years ago to retaliate for a series of anti-Catholic laws passed by Parliament. He was unsuccessful but his effort was immortalized with a holiday and a poem that sort of threatens the government not to go too far in taking away the freedoms of the people (Remember, remember the 5th of November gunpowder treason and plot. I see no reason the gunpowder treason should ever be forgot).
Moore was angry at Margaret Thatcher because he felt that she was pushing Britain towards becoming a police state. Twenty years later the Wachowski brothers used that character to express their disdain for the way the Bush administration was using the fear of terrorism following the 9-11 attacks to turn America into a police state. They produced the movie V is for Vendetta, set in a fictionalized future Great Britain, but the themes are clearly aimed at 21st century America.
The premise of the film is that Britain was attacked with a biological weapon which killed thousands of people. As the plot unfolds, we learn that the British government actually unleashed the terrorist attack themselves in order to frighten the population into submission. They took away individual rights and took charge of the media which they used to keep the people in a constant state of fear.
The masked hero of the film devises ways of humiliating the government and persuading the public to come out of hiding and unite against the government's abuse of power. At one point, V is able to take control of the government's emergency broadcasting system to deliver this stirring revolutionary speech, asking the people to set aside their fear and to unite against a tyrannical system. (V's speech)
So, it came as no surprise to me to see the film's Guy Fawkes masks on protestors at Occupy Wall Street events. It seemed to me to be such an appropriate piece of political theater that I bought a costume for myself which I have worn to a couple of demonstrations.
The media has behaved towards the Occupy movement as if its coordinated goal was to discredit the movement and act like they just don't get the point.
Yesterday, on CNN's morning news show, they actually brought in a high school drop out from the Atlanta Occupy movement to answer questions about the protest. Democracy Now interviews professors from Yale and Harvard and people like Kanye West and Michael Moore but CNN, with all of their journalist prowess, couldn't find anyone to talk to who was better informed than a 30 year old drop out who happened to be in front of their Atlanta office building. But as silly as that was, you have to tune the dial to the far right to get a message that is even more crazy than the characters in the movie. I'm talking about none other than my old friend Glenn Beck who said this early in the week (Glenn Beck: they will drag you out in the streets and kill you). Too crazy for Fox but still a part of the public fear mongering conversation.
I really despise the conspiracy theorists who seem to abound at virtually all protests and demonstrations because the truth is scary enough without trying to come up with crazy conspiracy theories. In fact, I think that some of the media division of society was not even intentional. I think that news talk shows started featuring someone from the left and someone from the right to appear to be a balanced program but in effect, what they have done, is to create a huge partisan split in the country in which the population is divided into two nearly equal parts who yell at one another, blaming one another for the current crisis as if our problems of poverty, lack of health care, paucity of jobs with a living wage and the foreclosure crisis was caused by either Republicans or Democrats, or, conversely, could be fixed by either Republicans or Democrats.
One of the morning news talk shows, MSNBC's Morning Joe, has regularly featured Joe Scarborough saying that he just doesn't understand why protesters are occupying Wall Street but then one morning this week he chastised his guests saying, "Don't you realize that Wall Street owns both the Republican and the Democratic party?" So Joe, you have answered your own question. Washington is not where the power is..... the power is on Wall St.
I don't think it was originally intentional but I do believe that the media keeps trying to pour us into the battle between Republicans and Democrats as if both Republicans and Democrats were not equally to blame and the voters on both sides of the divide are being equally victimized.
The only thing that scares the people in power is if the people who are not in power stop fighting with each other and start to unite. As soon as the economy started to tank, the first target we heard about were teachers unions and public employees' unions and labor unions. Was it the middle class wages paid to union members that ship wrecked the American economy? No, it was the middle class workers who built the nation and created the wealth that was traded in casino like financial instruments that have make a hand full of investment bankers rich but has robbed the pension plans of the middle class.
More than 2000 Occupy Wall Street demonstrators have been arrested, pepper sprayed, handcuffed, beaten with nightsticks and at least one Iraq veteran has sustained a nearly fatal head wound from a police fired tear gas canister. But there have still been no indictments, no arrests, no one jailed from among the greedy traders who wrecked the world's economy.
And the main stream church does what it usually does..... nothing at all. If they speak, they call for peace.... For people to calm down and to avoid using polarizing rhetoric.
Let me say this very clearly: Peace in the absence of justice is surrender. The people who ask you to realize that there are two sides to every story and we all just need to calm down and seek a middle path are asking the victims to surrender. And there is only one answer to that: NO!
The people who have affordable health insurance have been trained to resist changes that would bring the uninsured into access to health care, without ever questioning why we have to siphon off billions of dollars to pay insurance companies who do not treat patients, perform surgery or even empty bed pans. We have the largest percentage of our population without health care of any industrialized nation in the world while we boast of having the most scientifically advanced medicine. The problem is not the sick people.... The problem is the sick system.
We have been taught to scrap with each other over the crumbs under the table without looking up to the palace to see where our resources are really going. If you look at what the Old Testament prophets really did, most religious people today would swear that the prophets were not really religious. Look at this Micah text.... He isn't talking about how to go to heaven or how to get your sins forgiven, he is talking about how the powerful use warfare to make themselves rich.
And in the same vein, Jesus confronts the hypocrisy of religious leadership that worries about personal piety while people are genuinely suffering from hunger, homelessness and illness. People are camping out in the streets of our cities because our government works for the banks and our churches...... work for the banks.
We have traded honesty for lies, uncomfortable truth for comfortable indifference. We have abandoned the message of the prophets and apostles to be seduced by the rhetoric of the media and the political parties.
I want to tell you a short story before I let go of the microphone today. Last year lead guitarist for Rage Against the Machine, Tom Morello, became aware that virtually all of the guitars with which he and his peers were becoming quite wealthy were manufactured in South Korea in pretty miserable conditions. So, the Korean workers went on strike to demand justice and dignity in the workplace. In response, the makers of Fender and Gibson guitars shut down the Korean factories and moved manufacturing to mainland China.
A handful of the Korean workers pooled their resources and sent representatives to the annual Association of Music and Merchants trade show in Anaheim, California to plead their case to the millionaire rock stars who play their guitars.
Morello and others were persuaded to help the striking workers and they organized a concert to raise money to support the Koreans and their families. But just before the concert, Haiti experienced the devastating earthquake that left so many homeless and in desperate need. Those unemployed Korean guitar makers made the on-the-spot decision that the people in Haiti needed the money from the concert more than they did and they asked that all of the money be sent to Haitian relief.
Morello was inspired by their sacrifice to write Worldwide Rebel Songs to encourage that kind of unity among the victims of the world. Because that kind of unity will be necessary for all of us to rise up out of our apathy and by uniting with one another, restore dignity and freedom to everyone.
