Mammon

Saturday, 15 August 2009

• I fear, as an American, God’s corporate judgment on America.

  Jesus talks about God’s evaluation of nations as a whole in sheep/goat terms.  I’m not *really* scared — I understand redemption….

  But I remember how sick I felt in my stomach as a kid when I knew I had disappointed my parents. I’m afraid that God will look at His rich American church in The Great Hereafter and we will feel sick… for we will see the weak, the poor, the minorities, the underprivileged, the starving, the hurt ones that we set aside because they weren’t neat enough,
  clean enough,
  rich enough,
  smart enough.

  I own an iPod, a television, a computer, a cell phone, a stereo, an XBox…. a college education, two master’s degrees, and hundreds of books. I go to movies a couple times a month, drink Starbucks lattes about once a week, and eat out occasionally.

  I have friends in Christian ministry in America & around the world who have seen their support drop by half due to the economy.

  I have brothers & sisters in Christ who will not eat much today because they don’t have much; fellow believers whose homes will be vandalized because they are Christian; whose jobs are the worst of their society because they aren’t following the preferred religion.

  I enjoy multiple American comforts because immigrants (legal or not) perform the “worst” jobs so that I don’t have to. I buy cheap merchandise made by workers in developing nations who lack any basic guarantee of safety or fair income.  I teach at a school that barely 1% of people on earth could afford.  And, for the record, my parents could have never afforded NCS for me … as it was, they sacrificed every creature comfort to pay my tuition.

  I share the planet with fellow humans who are starving, sick, and poor. Who live in cardboard houses, receive little health care, and will never need an iPod because their country doesn’t have a stable power grid to keep its battery charged.

  I am ashamed and disgusted.

  … we will answer for these things…

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• 

  Gatsby tune

• 

  Couldn’t have said it better

• 

  The End. Almost.

• 

  Just wanna note the fact that we buried my dad on a particular June 10th about 14 years ago. You never stop missing yo…

• We had a visiting preacher a few years back open out of Ezekiel 16. For all that Christians like to treat homosexuality as the *biggest* of the sins we don’t do; Jerusalem was called out for being *worse* than her sister Sodom. Why??

  And your elder sister is Samaria, who lived with her daughters to the north of you; and your younger sister, who lived to the south of you, is Sodom with her daughters. Not only did you walk in their ways and do according to their abominations; within a very little time you were more corrupt than they in all your ways. As I live, declares the Lord God , your sister Sodom and her daughters have not done as you and your daughters have done. Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty and did an abomination before me. So I removed them, when I saw it. Samaria has not committed half your sins. You have committed more abominations than they, and have made your sisters appear righteous by all the abominations that you have committed. Bear your disgrace, you also, for you have intervened on behalf of your sisters. Because of your sins in which you acted more abominably than they, they are more in the right than you. So be ashamed, you also, and bear your disgrace, for you have made your sisters appear righteous. Ezek 16:46-52 esv

  Maybe the “powers that be” in the US today (who by some accounts seem bent on redistributing the wealth) are going to make us (the church) do what we were *supposed* to be doing all along. What good are we if we just say “be warmed and filled”??  [from Savage1992]

• @Savage1992 – We read our OT so little, we forget that God talks far more about social sin and injustice than He does about what we consider “moral” crimes. It’s easy to stone a murderer.  It’s hard to take care of poor people over a lifetime.  [from lorojoro]

• @LoroJoro –  Indeed!! Social injustice ranks WAY high on God’s care-o-meter. And just because it’s fun to say “shit”… my favorite Tony Campolo quote (that we’ve discussed before)…

  “I have three things I’d like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don’t give a shit. What’s worse is that you’re more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night.” – Tony Campolo

  [from Savage1992]