The episode is a beautiful incarnation story and has repeatedly popped into my mind as I reflect on the current Occupy Wall Street protests (yes, this is the way my mind works). There is no precise correlation, but I couldn’t help but notice similarities. In our isolated attempts at living the American dream according to the rules the system imposed upon us we know there are problems, but there is a tendency to assume that some authority will somehow eventually fix our problem for us. So we wait patiently, abiding by the rules, taking comfort in our sweet but impotent religious rituals, dying slowly as we come to mistake the rat-race for reality. A few of us might get ahead, moved to the fast lane so to speak, which we take as a sign of hope that the system is working and that one day we might actually arrive. We might talk about freedom, and love, and justice, and mercy as if they are some ideal we can strive towards – a better world we can hope to someday arrive at – but they aren’t reflected in the shape of our everyday lives. That is consumed with inching forward in our individual existence.

So when something like Occupy Wall Street comes along it challenges the status quo. And if our hope is in the fulfillment of the status quo, a challenge to that makes us fearful. What if we lose our place? What if all the time we have spent was wasted? Shouldn’t we just wait for the people in charge to figure it all out and get us all running smoothly again? What is scary to some about the Occupy movement is that instead of giving comfort in the moment or hope in the continued status quo, it is calling for liberation. Perhaps that is not the message of every voice or even of the details, but the collective message is one calling people out to a different way. It is a message that the system is broken, we are hopelessly stuck, and we need to find a way out.

There might not be a TARDIS to incarnate the Doctor into our particular moment, but for the sake of liberation perhaps we are the one we have been waiting for. Liberation is the result of the event of love. Not a vague hope in the idea of love, but the event of love entering into and utterly transforming the tragedy of the status quo. As Jurgen Moltmann wrote about this love,

It is not the interpretation of love as an ideal, a heavenly power or as a commandment, but of love as an event in a loveless, legalistic world: the event of an unconditioned and boundless love which comes to meet man, which takes hold of those who are unloved and forsaken, unrighteous or outside the law, and gives them a new identity, liberates them from the norms of social identifications and from the guardians of social norms and idolatrous images. … [But] Just as the unconditional love of Jesus for the rejected made the Pharisees his enemies and brought him to the cross, so unconditional love also means enmity and persecution in a world in which the life of man is made dependent on particular social norms, conditions and achievements. A love which takes precedence and robs these conditions of their force is folly and scandal in this world.”

The impulse toward freedom, toward liberation, is slowly awakening across the nation. The doors have been thrown open; we now have to choose if we will drive out into the light. The protests are, of course, not perfect. There are the dangers of creating new constraining status quos, of corruption, or simply the re-iteration of the same status quos with new faces at the helm. These are the typical demons that prey upon those embracing the event of liberating love – demons that the guardians of the current status quo are sure to parade about in attempts to scare the timid away from joining the movement towards freedom. But love always involves risk. Freedom from the conditions and gridlock of this world is always tied to the ongoing event of love. Love – that unconditional event that liberates for the shalom of the whole – is not an ideal but that ongoing way of life. It takes work to live into a new identity – to figure out how to live differently. The call to occupy isn’t for a quick fix (which I sincerely hope it doesn’t settle for), but it is instead the call to usher in an entire new way of being that requires us all to drastically change as we enter into the difficult work of liberating love – despite obstacles, despite opposition.

It’s hard to speak of a different way in our world today. Perhaps all I’m doing is just reflecting on a good story here. But maybe it’s a parable, or better yet, a dream. And the world is waking up and sometimes dreams do come true.

That sort of denial of the created world in favor of escaping it all someday was difficult to hear, but it wasn’t surprising. As much as a few more moderate evangelicals attempt to deny that such “pie-in-the-sky-when-we-die” theology is still around, it still shapes the faith experience of the typical evangelical church most Sundays. What has surprised me recently is hearing similar dualism preached in churches that would never self-identity as being anywhere near such evangelicals theologically. But despite having disparate views on the Bible, justification, and inclusiveness, the outcome of such dualism in those churches is the same – a disparaging of the body and elevation of the soul. Be the roots a shallow neo-Gnosticism or popular Buddhism or simply a theology that starts with the Fall instead of creation, what get preached is that we are not our bodies.

It’s a way of viewing the world that makes that bumper sticker, “We are spiritual beings having a physical experience,” so popular. What gets valued is not the actions of faith – caring for others, studying the word, serving the poor, tending to creation, feeding the hungry – but finding spiritual contentment deep down in one's soul. While evangelicals admit that life now is messed-up and so look forward to escaping it all someday, progressive dualists want to escape it now through meditating, unplugging, and letting-go of any obligation to help build a better world.

And therein lies the problem. When faith is all about a dualistic escapism, it sadly allows no room for mercy. Evangelicals often mock calls to work to save the environment or end extreme poverty because this world is not our home and is all going to burn anyway. Progressive dualists similarly mock calls to work for justice as imposing unnecessary shoulds upon them that get in the way of them being present with their souls. Both forms of denying our embodiment in this world provide convenient excuses for ignoring the needs of others as individuals are allowed to focus solely on their own personal spiritual needs. It’s easier to opt out of loving one’s neighbor when one’s theology is built around such a hierarchical view of creation that not only divides our body and souls, but privileges the one over the other. And with such views held by those in power, the bodies of the marginalized (women, the poor, the racially other, the queer, the old, the disabled) continue to be oppressed and ignored by those whose theologies assume they aren’t worth being bothered about.

These are theologies that I can’t reconcile with the way of Christ. With the story of a God who, challenging the dualist religious assumptions of the time, became flesh and dwelled among us. Who broke bread, healed bodies, and suffered on the cross. Who says he despises our religious gatherings if all we do is pray and worship and neglect caring for the bodies of the hungry and the oppressed. I have to affirm creation in its wholeness – undivided body and soul included. My theology is embodied because spirituality encompasses all creation, not just the parts I happen to prefer. I think Elisabeth Moltmann-Wendel phased it best as she described what it means to live out this embodied theology –

Disembodiment is lovelessness. Insecurity, coldness, power and weariness are hidden behind abstraction. A theology of embodiment mistrusts all self-made fantasies of the beyond which are engaged in at the expense of the healing of people here and the realization of the kingdom of God on this earth. It is committed to a this-worldly expectation which here already looks for full, complete life, for wide spaces for women and men, and from this work derives the hope that nothing can separate us from the life and love of God.

“Blessed are the good-hearted, poets and the dreamers. And all us crazy, holy, hungry ones who still believe in something better.”

I went to the Wild Goose Festival for the community. Meeting for the first time this year in the hills of beautiful North Carolina, Wild Goose was a gathering focused on arts, justice, and faith. I went eager to reunite with old friends and to finally translate a few virtual relationships into reality. Oh, I was excited to hear David Wilcox and Jennifer Knapp and learn from respected Christian leaders, but it was the gathering of friends that drew me and my family to the fest. And while it was the community that brought me there, it was the communal experience of commitment that defined my time there. Those lines posted above from Carrie Newcomer’s song “Where You Been,” sum up perfectly the experience that was the Wild Goose Festival.

If anything, Wild Goose was a gathering of those who dream of a better way. A better way to be human, a better way to be the church. Not in a “we want to be better than you” sort of way, but more of a deep felt recognition that the world is not as it should be. It was that wrestling with trying to live into the lives God created us to live that became the conversation at Wild Goose. As part of that, one theme that kept resurfacing in the talks I heard was that of learning to be open to the full range of human emotions and experiences in the world. The typical Christian impulse in our country is to dwell upon the joyful aspects of life and faith. We put on the mask of pretending all is fine to the world. We hold church services oriented around worship, praise, and the uplifting parts of scripture. While there is nothing wrong with doing those things, they don’t allow the faithful to reflect the fullness of reality. As the great civil rights activist Vincent Harding pointed out in his talk, there is pain and suffering in the church. Institutional and social evils such as racism and the inequalities it produces affect the body of Christ – harming both those who commit and who suffer those sins. To pretend that all is well when all is obviously not well is to pretend at joy – not to experience it in reality. As Harding commented, to ever be able to truly laugh, one must also be allowed to honestly weep for all the pain and suffering. Pretending that all is well or to deny that the suffering exists harms our souls, preventing us from being whole healthy people. In his talk Soong-Chan Rah also called for the need to remember the words of lamentations in our churches. The Western church has exorcised such biblical passages of lament from our services, lectionaries, and prayer books, and we would do well to be reminded from the global church (that knows far more about experiencing suffering) that recognizing and lamenting our sins and pain is part of what it means to follow God.

While the church of course has a long way to go in regards to becoming balanced and healthy in such ways, it was encouraging to get a small taste of what that might look like at the Wild Goose Festival. I can’t speak for everyone there, but from the conversations I was a part of it truly did seem to be a gathering of folks who deeply dreamed of a better way. People who desired for our faith to mean something tangible. People, who, as Richard Rohr said there, don’t want to settle for the easy shallow faith of merely worshiping God – putting God on an idealized but distant pedestal to be admired but not known. They want to follow God in ways that transform their lives and therefore the lives of others as well. People who desire to follow God in ways that bring about justice, that seek to restore broken relationships, that always orient around caring about the needs of others. But also people who don’t trust in their own strength to do such things, who know the world and the church are messy, and that we need time for lament and repentance as part of our experience of following Jesus.

It can be easy to talk about such things, and I know I’ve done my fair share of talking before. But what I appreciated about the Wild Goose festival was that it forced us past the point of posturing to a place of transparent honesty. At most of our church gatherings, conferences, or cohorts we can easily erect a façade of self and allow others to see only what we desire them to see of who we are. We can talk grand ideas, look as pious/hip/committed as we desire, and then escape back into our solitary lives without anyone glimpsing our rough edges. But there is something about camping in close proximity in sweltering weather in fields crawling with ants and ticks, where the nearest water is a spigot several fields away, with your communal shit stinking up the port-a-potties and your children sleep-deprived from the excitement of camping and the loud bands that play into the wee small hours of the night that violently rips away any façade one might have attempted to hide behind. Everyone sees you crawling dishelved out of your tent in the morning desperate to concoct a coffee-like-substance over your tiny camp stove. Everyone hears you yelling at your kids to stop (literally) bouncing off the tent walls and go to sleep. And I’m pretty sure half the people there witnessed my tired, hot, and hungry children having a grand royal meltdown in the food area one day at lunch. It was just a few days, but it was real.

So when we came to worship together and share our passion for following God in transforming ways in this raw state of discomfort and exhaustion, it was more than just talk. We were those crazy, holy, hungry ones who believe in something better. It was a glimpse of the Kingdom of God that went far beyond just friends gathering to have fun together at a festival or to posture at caring for others. It was a gathering of the most committed Christians I know – those who long to follow God wholly. And that gave me great hope for the church. I had to laugh when I read after the festival that some opponents were deriding the festival, questioning our faith and referring to the event as Apostate-palooza (because *obviously* anything to do with art, camping, and justice can’t possibly be Christian). Yet I realized that they were right in a way. This was a gathering of apostates of the church as it has become – a often meaningless and impotent entity beholden to civil structures of culture and politics that cares more about power and privilege and shoring up hollow rituals and traditions than it does about loving others and believing in God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Wild Goose was a gathering of those crazy folks who are committed to a better way. We are apostates of meaningless religion, ready to strip away the facades and get at the real work of following God.

That was my Wild Goose experience – leaving me raw and tired and strangely full of hope.

My worldview of the time assumed that my faith was only in something yet to come, some final end and blessing (or punishment) that God would bring about some day. To that end I completely missed the message in both writers that there is a tangible significance to faith in the here and now – that God is already at work in the world and is inviting us to join in on that endeavor. My mistake was understandable as it is the same mistake that continues to be made over and over again in the church today. We as people are always tempted to the extremes and have difficulty grasping paradox and mystery. The idea that God’s Kingdom has come and is coming doesn’t fit into our nice and tidy systems, so we gravitate to one extreme or the other.

For some it is denying the supernatural consummation of all things by proclaiming that this world and our mission to do good in it is all that we as Christians are called to. Others of course go to the opposite extreme and are so heavenly (or hellishly) minded that they sometimes even refuse to care for the needs of today. We see this manifest in the recent debates stirred by Love Wins. I’ve found it most interesting that often those who are most insistent that God punishes people to everlasting torment after death are also the ones with the least inclination to do anything about the absolute hells on earth people currently experience. When confronted with extreme evils of oppression and injustice – like human trafficking, genocide, mass rapes, racism, and sexism the response (if any) is that one day (in heaven – if they can get in) God will wipe away every tear and then they will receive the release from oppression that Jesus said he came to fulfill. Either extreme denies God’s ability to be God. Either it claims that God isn’t the source of all things to which we will ultimately be reconciled to, or it claims that justice and love are not part of God’s essence. When God exists just for the now or just for the future we lose God.

The problem with extremes is that we start to assume that only the extremes exist. I’ve discovered in speaking to groups that depending on what sort of group I’m speaking to I get accused of being too evangelical if I mention how our acts of faithfulness matter in regards to God one day reconciling all things. Or I get accused of being too liberal if I speak about serving the needs of real people in the here and now because all I should be caring about is what happens when they die or alternately about moving beyond the constraints of the now and reflecting the pure goodness of God rightly. In this view, it has to be already or not yet. Apparently embracing a theology that translates the divine drama and the hope of consummation with God as an act of ongoing mission to the world that demands our self-sacrificial participation isn’t a valid position in the world of extremes. Third ways that promote a both/and approach are a lot messier and harder to navigate and so therefore are not merely rejected but simply ignored. It is easier to promote simple theologies that place how God works into nice and tidy boxes than live in the tension of trying to understand and respond to a paradoxical already and not yet.

The thing is I don’t have the patience to deal with theologies that pretend that God doesn’t have a larger plan of hope or that don’t bother to work for God’s tangible kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. Theologies that are so inward focused that all they seem to care to do it draw lines of who gets saved, or who’s a heretic, or who is too modern or liberal or whatever. God is bigger than such pettiness. I appreciate Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza’s comment that in her view, “the*logy is best understood… not as a system but as a rhetorical practice that does not conceive of language as clear transmission of meaning, but rather as a form of action and power that affects actual people and situation.” Theology is about the already and not yet of God working in the world. It is action and how we live into our understanding of God matters just as much (or actually more) than the words we say about God. We proclaim a deep belief in hope and an eschatological vision not by merely saying words but my enacting that hope in the world. It is that sort of faith that I can put my energy towards; I truly don’t have time for anything else.

His story intrigued me. I’m all for forgiveness and rehabilitation, but I also agree that the work of being a dentist cannot be separated from this man’s character. Hurting children isn’t acceptable; praising the work of those that harm children therefore isn’t acceptable. The person and the action must be judged together in order to protect others from harm. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not arguing here that we should always be pointing fingers, refusing to forgive, or live in constant judgment of others. Life is messy; no one is perfect and all that. I’m all for mercy, but at the same time if people are being hurt it has to be stopped. This man is being held accountable for how he hurt children. I hope he can repent and change and find mercy, but to stop the harm he had to be held accountable. The public outrage at his actions will ensure that he is held accountable in ways that prevent him from doing further harm.

But in a world full of suffering and pain, I find it interesting that there are very few “sins” left anymore that can so completely discredit a person and force the community to hold them accountable for their actions. Sure we might think Charlie Sheen or Mel Gibson are crazy and need help, or shake our heads when we hear of yet another athlete or entertainer who beat up their girlfriend, or admit a pastor’s misogyny might be bit extreme even as we buy his books – but falling out of favor or assuming boys will be boys is not the same as holding people accountable so that they will stop hurting others.

What if businessmen when given achievement awards were held accountable for the abuses committed in their sweatshops they own or for the pollution they have created? Or if “sealing-the-deal” gifts of visits to brothels full of trafficked young women were listed alongside a company’s stocks? Would we be willing to hold those people accountable for hurting others in such ways? Would it affect our respect for the company or whether or not we used their product? We freak out and lynch the dentist caught with child porn or even the pastor who has an affair because such things are close to home, but we continue to give awards and our money to those that abuse workers and sex slaves. So, why the double standard? Isn’t hurting people the same thing no matter who does it or where it takes place?

I was asking myself these questions last week after this story hit the news and found an interesting response to my musings in the words of Newt Gingrich. As he announced his intention to run for president, news stations brought up his controversial quote about Obama where he said that Obama was conning the American people with his anti-colonial Kenyan mindset and was fundamentally out of touch with how the world works. I agreed in part with Gingrich’s assessment, but not for the reasons he intended. In his view a president has to follow the oppressive and colonial ways of the world in order to achieve power and dominance at any cost because that is just the way the world works. Politicians, businessmen, bankers – the power holders in our world today often operate under a different system than the rest of us. They are looked down upon as weak, out of touch, and con-artists if they seek the good of the whole and not just themselves. We assume that they will abuse the environment and their workers, we expect them to visit brothels and sex slaves, we expect them to colonize and destroy – and never have to take responsibility for any of it, even if caught. Some of us have glimmers of hope when we see people in those worlds attempting to subvert those expectations, but we rarely hold such people accountable for hurting others. In fact we reward them for doing so if they manage to benefit us while they are doing it.

It’s obvious that there are people out there who never take responsibility for the hurts they have caused in the world. But what about our responsibility to hold them accountable for their actions? Most of us don’t even want to admit that we contribute to the systems that cause harm, much less speak out in an attempt to put an end to the suffering of others. We are even unsettled and uncomfortable when we have to face the depravity of men like this dentist who now must take responsibility for the harm they caused children. But I think stories like these need to push us to ask these questions – ask why responsibility and accountability are assumed to just not be part of “the way the world works.” And then choose not to be afraid of actually finding answers.

How can Mary sing that the Lord has done great things for her? It's a little crazy: how can this young, lower-class girl who finds herself knocked up sing that God has already–in the past tense–ended injustice and oppression? All she has to do is look around her to find evidence to the contrary.

I answered the question, working in the requisite readings. But days later the question is still haunting me.

What intrigues me is the gap between what the song proclaims and how the song is commonly used. As the exam question implied, we tend to get confused about the song's verb tense. It isn't simply past tense, announcing the fulfillment of the eschatological vision in which rulers are brought down and the lowly are lifted up. Nor is it simply a future hope for a time when all will be made right.

Instead it's both; it's the already and not yet. This can be hard to understand, in part because English lacks the aorist tense. The Magnificat testifies to God's work to reconcile all creation, work that has already begun and will continue forever. Like Mary, we are invited to be intimately involved in this work.

Mary wasn't crazy. She was carrying the hope of the world inside her; she knew that God had entered the world in a dramatic way. This changed everything–but to accomplish the change, the hope had to be proclaimed with assurance. We don't just place our hope in a past event or a future reward; we live into it.

When God sent Jesus to the world to reconcile all things, his incarnation and work on the cross did the job. Salvation dealt with the world's injustices and oppressions. But as humans we could not be transformed all at once–that desire is what got Adam and Eve kicked out of Eden. God works gradually in our lives and world, helping us grow up into the hope that is already there.

Like Mary, we magnify the Lord for already overcoming injustice and oppression–and we also work to end such evils. Mary trusted so profoundly in the reality of the baby she carried that she asserted God's fulfillment of hope in the past, present and future. Her faith challenges me to join her in magnifying God by making this hope a reality.

While I understand the need for discussion whether the release of these cables might endanger some people, I am uneasy condemning them simply because they reveal the embarrassing sins of the United States. In our country we have forgotten that social sin does indeed exist. Governments are not above morality and justice, but sadly often have the power and wealth to hide their sins from the judging eyes of the world. When all the people see is the façade the government constructs for themselves (while being sold the message that unquestioning patriotism is the highest virtue), it is easy for governments to avoid responsibility and accountability for their actions.
I don’t believe innocence is bliss. If my government is committing injustices or betraying the ideals of our nation, then the people who they supposedly report to should know about it. We are the only ones who can hold governments responsible – if we abdicate that role or if it is denied to us then government sin can abound.

But no one likes being called out on their sins. When John the Baptist called out Herod on his sinful ways, he was beheaded to shut him up. Intimidation and fear are the governments’ tools for keeping truth suppressed so they can continue to avoid responsibility. Amazon already gave into the pressure to be silenced, Julian Assange (WikiLeak’s founder) is currently in hiding, and the public is being told that revealing the truth is an act of terrorism. We are made to feel guilty for knowing the truth instead of the government owning up to those truths and taking responsibility for them.

Government is complex, I get that. But that doesn’t mean that it is exempt from morality. Perhaps WikiLeaks is the martyr that will wake us up to the need to hold our government to those basic standards of morality.

When I think of a cage, I imagine someone (or something) living in a world that is controlled by another. A fish in a bowl or a bird in a cage has its existence defined and determined by an outside force. It exists, but not in any way that determines the path of its own existence. A caged creature does not have a voice in its own life, and, more significantly, nor can it affect the world outside it. Like Neo trapped in the Matrix, the caged creature might assume it is living a full life; but even if it is unaware of the bars of its cage, they still exist to confine it. To be caged is to live a life without change. Static lives cannot participate in the act of becoming – be that becoming better selves or serving towards building a better world. Behind the bars, be they perceived or not, all chance of valor has truly gone beyond recall or desire.

In truth, I do see cages in Christianity. They might not be the cages that the email author implied, but we have erected structures that preclude our intimate involvement in our own faith journey. For instance, I’ve been immersed in studying theories of the atonement in seminary recently and I’ve seen how in allowing the atoning work of the cross to be perceived simply as a transaction that occurs on our behalf and not something we participate in with fear and trembling, we turn what should be a dynamic and transformative relationship with Christ into a static event. When salvation is fully outside of us, it becomes something done to us like unto kept creatures in a cage. But true grace does not involve God keeping us in a cage feeding us the scraps of salvation for his amusement. We are not caged creatures with no voice or role in the unfolding cosmic drama. Far from being an imposed act, atonement is an invitation to conversion and transformation, a chance to respond to Christ’s act of sacrifice through participation in the missional act of worship.

The tragedy of a broken world where all is not as it is meant to be finds salvation in Christ as it is transformed into wholeness. This isn’t done through human will as some seem so ready to accuse social justice Christians of, but nor is it an act of a mad scientist God experimenting on caged creatures. I love how Rowan Williams explains it, “The story of Jesus is not one of miraculous suspension and interruption of the human world, nor is it a story of human moral and spiritual heroism; it involves us in a self-declaration and a self-discovery.” Salvation is conversion, which is transformation. Transformation isn’t done to us, but it is a process that we are invited into in hopes of healing this broken world.

So I see how often Christianity becomes a cage. To believe that we are objects of some divine transaction who need not do the hard work of participating in the transforming restoration of all creation is to erect that cage around ourselves. We are songbirds who see no purpose but to stay behind bars singing pleasant tunes while all chance of valor, service, worship, and true relationship with God pass beyond recall or desire. Instead of becoming who we were meant to be (and seeing the world put right as well), we embrace the easy faith of a gilt cage unaware that we are living behind bars. Caged Christians don’t join in with Christ in the work of bringing freedom to the oppressed or healing the wounds of this world. If there is nothing to become, if everything just plays out outside of our cage, then there is no reason to ever desire to do great acts of valor in service of the redemption of all things.

But God is not a puppet master or mad scientist or even caring pet owner. When God desires relationship with us, it is not as one tending to a mindless bird in a cage. No, it is a relentless pursuit intent on redeeming our humanity through the continual transformation of that very humanity. Following God engages not just our mind and wills, but every aspect of who we are.

I, for one, am not content in a cage. I am not content with a faith that disengages from the discipline of becoming the person I was meant to be or from working to make the world as it was meant to be. I cannot believe God wishes for us a static life where our ultimate callings and purposes are domesticated by the assumption that we can be blessed without ever being a blessing. Relationship requires participation – not the numbing apathy of a cage. I do truly fear that cage – I fear living a life where I stop being transformed and stop participating in the work of Christ to bring justice and healing to our world. I fear a faith where I let the cage of my own theology confine me from participating in relationship with Jesus. I fear becoming so content in my cage that I stop becoming who I am meant to be.

This is the question Nehemiah addresses to the people of Judah when he sees the way they are treating the poor in the land. The families of the educated, aristocratic, and wealthy Jews had been exiled during the Babylonian occupation while the peasants had been allowed to stay in the land. When the Persians allowed these upper-classes to return to Judah, they immediately started oppressing the people who had remained in the land. Times were tough, but the rich continued to take advantage of the poor of the land sending them into debt slavery and taking their lands from them. So the oppressed people came to Nehemiah and said “Now our flesh is the same as that of our kindred; our children are the same as their children; and yet we are forcing our sons and daughters to be slaves, and some of our daughters have been ravished; we are powerless, and our fields and vineyards now belong to others." (Neh 5:5)

Theirs is a story told over and over again in our world today. Families in India find themselves in a position where they must borrow money to pay for a doctor and the lender takes advantage of them by imposing high interest rates. To attempt to pay off the debt their children must work rolling cigarettes or shaping bricks. But of course the debt never gets paid off and the children become debt slaves. Or to earn enough money to feed the family, a father in China arranges for his daughter to work a job in a big city factory, only when she arrives she discovers that she is actually captive in a brothel where she is repeatedly drugged and raped. These stories happen every day as economics and greed instead of love guide our actions. Or a wealthy country sends an occupying army into another land (for their “protection”), claiming the best strips of land and resources for themselves. They leave the country ravished and then offer high interest loans to help the country get back on their feet. The rich then continue to be sent payments from the poorest countries in the world.

Our flesh is the same as their flesh. Our children are the same as their children. But our children go to school, eat three meals a day, have toys to play with, are vaccinated against disease, and enjoy the luxury of the innocence of childhood which their children can only dream of. Their daughters are ravished, their lands have been stolen by corporations, their children trafficked or tricked into slavery under the economic system that helps us remain rich and in power.

When Nehemiah heard the plight of the people he burned with anger. After much thought, he brought charges against the nobles and the officials telling them, "The thing that you are doing is not good. Should you not walk in the fear of our God?” And the scripture says that the people were silent and could not find anything to say. They didn’t call him a socialist or complain that he suffered from white guilt. They heard the messenger of the Lord and were humbled by their sins. They pledged to stop taking advantage of the people who worked the land, promising to return whatever they had unjustly taken from them. And it wasn’t just a pledge to cover their rears or get them re-elected. It was an oath before the Lord, with the understanding that whoever failed to abide by their pledge would be ruined and cast away from God.

This weekend marks the Stand Up, Take Action event – an annual worldwide mobilization where citizens around the globe spread the message and take action against poverty and toward reaching the Millennium Development Goals to reduce poverty by 2015. Part of the call is to tell the world leaders who have pledged to stop injustice and oppression and reduce poverty that “we will no longer stay seated or silent in the face of poverty and the broken promises to end it!" It is celebrated in conjunction with Jubilee Sunday, a day dedicated to praying for global economic justice, deepening our understanding of the global debt issue, and for taking concrete action for debt cancellation for all impoverished countries.

This weekend is a reminder to listen to the words of Nehemiah and examine if we do truly walk in the fear of the Lord. To ask in what ways are we contributing to oppression and injustices worldwide and to pledge to put an end to such actions. We are God’s people, committed to following his ways. To take advantage of our brothers and sisters for our own material gain is in direct defiance of the way of life God calls us to. We must instead make good on our pledge to follow Christ. To take a stand against poverty and oppression and commit to ending such injustices worldwide. And like the people who heard the charge from Nehemiah respond not with grumbling or excuses or entitled justifications, but by saying “Amen," praising the Lord, and doing as they had promised.

That said, I do find it curious which passages those who see the USA as God-s new chosen nation see fit to claim as applying directly to us. For many years the theme verse for the National Day of Prayer was 2 Chronicles 7:14 "If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land." In context, the passage refers to God helping heal the land from drought and swarms of locusts, but it more often these days is a request for God to rid our land of abortion and liberals. But whatever the context, I find it most intriguing that this verse suggests only personal piety (prayer and repentance) as the required acts that God will reward. This promise of "If we pray, God will heal" fits nicely into the modern Evangelical culture that stresses piety as the necessary work of the people. Many churches shy away from acts of charity or justice due to the fear that they might become acts of "works righteousness" or distract us from personal habits like prayer and worship (as if such things are an either/or).

Choosing such passages of promise involves direct acts of selection and interpretation. The Bible is full of other such promises to Israel – telling them what is required of them in order for God to bless them – but those aren't often selected. For instance, take Jeremiah 7:3-7 -

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your doings, and let me dwell with you in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: "This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord." For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever.

If we do justice and take care of the immigrant and the poor and the homeless, and if we refrain from violence, and if we refrain from seeking after the idols of our age then God will be with us in our land. Why don't we hear church leaders applying those words to America? Why don't we have Evangelical churches mobilizing for National Days of Justice or Peacemaking or Welcoming and Caring for Immigrants? If we claim other words of worship requirement and blessing that were directed at Israel as mandates for ourselves in the modern church, then why aren't we claiming these words as well?

Our acts of worship and sacrifice – of taking our lives and making them holy by giving them to God – define our relationship with God. There should be nothing divisive or political about the decision to worship with acts of prayer or with acts of justice. God seemingly requires both of us. But we have allowed our politics to guide our interpretation of scripture – even to the point of which passages we claim as our own. We, like those Jeremiah calls out, seem to trust in the deceptive words "The Temple of the Lord." Instead of listening to all of God's words about worship and acting rightly, we assume that our group's interpretation is correct and holy. We hide behind the name of "biblical Christian", or "compassionate Christian", or "progressive Christian" or whatever other deceptive mantra we choose to repeat as a way to drown out the voice of God.

I really don't care about God healing or blessing America – God is far bigger than the petty boundaries of a nation. But I do care about the church following the path God has called us to – a path that listens to all of God's commands and doesn't run away from the acts of worship required of us. Which is why I think we should listen to whenever God says "If my people…"