OCCUPY THIS! (Or "What Would Jesus Do?)

Earlier this year, I was asked to write an article for a magazine that never came into being.  In light of the current "Occupy Wall Street" movement, I thought it worth re-printing and sharing with all of you.

Let me know "what you think".

Love,

Rayel

Like Taking Candy From a Baby…

by Rayel

Copyright 2011.  Lisa Rayel Jeffrey.  All Rights Reserved.

As I write this, the news reports that the top executives of Goldman Sachs Investment firm just gave themselves 111 million dollars in bonuses.  Not salaries.

Bonuses.

The CEO and President received 24 million dollar bonuses each.  The CFO, 21 million dollars, and so on.

That’s just ONE investment firm of many on Wall Street.  The other investment firms have rewarded themselves similarly, meaning that the year end bonuses on Wall Street alone, will go way into the billions, if not trillions—NOT COUNTING the billions MORE in year end bonuses being given to top executives in Corporate America, as they lay off millions of workers.

THIS on the heels of the wealthy Republican politicians literally “holding hostage” the unemployed and poor children, refusing to extend both unemployment benefits OR subsidized school lunches until they got their extraordinary tax concessions—which include the ability to leave up to 20 million dollars to their children TAX FREE.  This will further extract trillions and trillions of dollars from the economy, further sinking all the public institutions and infrastructure these tax dollars would support.  As if our roads, schools, hospitals and social services weren’t suffering enough.

Why am I talking about such things in a Christian magazine?  Particularly, one devoted to evangelizing God’s mandate to “prosper”?

Well, I found myself in a Facebook “conversation”, over this, with a fellow Christian who felt that “the problem” was that the poor needed to stop expecting “free lunches” and get over their “outrageous sense of entitlement”.

Hmnn….  Let’s see.  So, we’ve got multimillionaires extracting more millions from a depleted economy, and LITERALLY taking food out of babies’ mouths to do it  (By the way, you should know that Governor Schwarzenegger has cut almost all Child Care funding here in California AFTER getting elected on a campaign pledging commitment to CHILDREN), BUT the POOR are the ones with the “outrageous sense of entitlement”?

Well, I couldn’t help but wonder what Jesus would say about all this—and how HE would define “prosperity”.

I turned to my trusty friend, The Bible, and was lead to Psalm 112.

Come along!  Read with me!

(vs, 1-5)  Praise the Lord!  Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who delights greatly in His commandments.

          His descendants will be mighty on the earth, the generation of the upright will be blessed.

          Wealth and riches will be in his house, and his righteousness endures forever.

          Unto the upright there arises light in darkness; he is gracious and full of compassion, and righteousness.

          A good man deals graciously and lends; he will guide his affairs with discretion.

(vs. 9)  He has dispersed abroad, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever; his horn will be exalted with honor.

So, we see that yes.  It IS important to leave an inheritance for our children.  That’s the mark of the righteous.  That’s the reward of those who obey God – that his descendants will be blessed!  That he WILL prosper!  And, I’m gonna talk more about that in later articles.

BUT—

It ALSO says that he is to be COMPASSIONATE.  In fact, it says he should be FULL OF COMPASSION!  This “screw the poor”, “I’ve got mine, you get yours” attitude is decidedly ANTICHRISTIAN.  And, anyone who calls themselves a Christian and feels this way is fooling themselves.  Jesus Himself, dedicated His entire ministry to reaching out to the poor and the alienated who were excluded from the temple system.  They couldn’t worship in the temple.  They had to perform their ceremonial baths in a pool outside of the city.  If they were sick, they were considered not worthy of a blessing from the High Priest.  In fact, the temples were connected by an elaborate tunnel and bridge system so the Priests could leave their homes and go directly into the temple without even having to touch the “commoners”.  BUT, you’d better believe hefty taxes were still extracted from those very sick and poor.

Jesus was born “in the hood”.  “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” they asked.  (John 1:46)  Like, “What good thing can come out of Cabrini Green?  Or Nickerson Gardens?  Or The 5^th Ward?”  Jesus grew up seeing the oppression of these people – HIS people.  These poor people were HIS family and neighbors.  The folk that raised HIM!

He grew up seeing so many of their bodies dot the landscape, rotting on crosses, because, indeed, the Romans crucified over 2,000 Jews BEFORE Him.  It was their favorite way of punishing even the hint of insurrection.  Leaving decaying bodies hanging for weeks sent a message that was hard to confuse:  Don’t even THINK about dismantling this system.

But Jesus did.  He challenged the High Priests.  He confronted the moneychangers.  He warned of those who played religion, but whose hearts were actually far from Him.  Hearts cold and indifferent to the suffering of others.

And, He sought to INCLUDE the poor…AND the rich.  His disciple, Matthew was a wealthy tax collector.   Come onboard! Jesus said, Just stop stealing!  He called the Roman Centurion who asked Jesus to heal his servant with just a word, a man of great faith.  The disciple, Luke was a wealthy physician, and indeed, Theophilus, to whom the books of Luke, and Acts were addressed, is speculated to be among the wealthiest members of society who perhaps underwrote publication of the books.  Jesus’ ministry was subsidized by many wealthy women and it was the wealthy Joseph of Arimathea who gave Jesus a proper burial.

Jesus had no problem with people prospering.

But do you think Jesus would think it’s ok to give the wealthy Roman rulers billions of dollars in bonuses and tax breaks while cutting off subsidized lunches and day care to children of the poor?

I don’t know.  What do you think?

As we go into this new year, in this new decade, be mindful that TRUE prosperity, in GOD’S eyes, is a two sided coin.

One side says,

“Give”

The other side says,

“…and it shall be given unto you.  Good measure.  Pressed down, shaken together and running over shall men give into your bosom. (Luke 6:38)

It’s not heads OR tails.  It’s heads AND tails.  Flip often!

Happy New Year y’all!

BE love…. and love will follow.

Rayel

Rayel is the founder and Executive Director of Rayelity Check Ministries, a faith based, non-profit organization dedicated to offering children and adults in crisis, assistance and tools for effective living (www.MySpace.com/RayelityCheck  and www.RayelityCheck.org ).