Corporate Prisons: Pilate continues to mingle the blood...

See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?' 

-Luke 13:7b

Arizona, like many states, has chosen to cut education funding while increasing the funding for incarceration. As Pilate taught politicians centuries ago it is simply easier to snuff the light out of problematic populations than to actually value their existence as human beings. It was inherently easier for Pilate to simply murder another set of Galilean dissidents, this time as they worshipped at the temple, than to actually alleviate the issues causing the dissidence to begin with. It is simply easier for the Governor of Arizona to hand our youth, especially our youth of color, over to enslavement within corporate prisons than it is to alleviate the issues facing our communities, including the severe lack of a robust and funded education system. 

Surely, however, those sent to prison are more deserving of such, on account of their sin, than others. In the vast majority of cases, especially the cases that essentially provide slave labor for corporate prisons, the reality is that they are not more sinful than those who are not so enslaved. It is just that they do not have the material wealth, and the skin tone, to readily avoid being sentenced to such. There are those whom we must restrain for the basic safety of others, the majority of those corporate prisons profit from are not such individuals. It is easier, and a far quicker profit, to imprison them, however, than to nurture and care for them.

As Christians we simply are not allowed to enter into and condone these actions. We are not allowed to assume that those imprisoned are simply more sinful than those who manage to avoid imprisonment. Sometimes a tower crumbles, sometimes a police action profiles a certain ethnic group, the people in that tower and the people in that ethnic group are not spectacularly more sinful or deserving of their fate... they are simply the ones at the wrong place at the wrong time. Pilate focused his police actions on Galileans, whom he perceived as inherently dissident. Our current government focuses its police actions on People of Color, a group America has viewed as subhuman from the signing of our constitution.

As Christians we are not allowed to simply strike a person from the soil. We are not allowed to simply watch as those in power cut down the lives of those around us through imprisonment and lethal force. Our duty is to stand between the powerful and those they wish to abolish. Our duty is to clearly state that, despite what the powers might be, no one is a waste of space.

As Christians we are, in fact, called to go farther. We must ensure that basic realities, such as nourishment, attention, and care are provided to those who are at risk of being destroyed by the forces our government places against them. We are, indeed, called to bring about a system where such things are readily provided, with out question, to each and every individual as a basic reality.

To do otherwise is to not stand with Jesus, but with Pilate... and to stand with Pilate is to stand with the very part of humanity that longs to sacrifice others, even God, for the sake of power and the maintaining of privilege.   

Jesus, Our Mother of Political Critique...

I mean to turn Jerusalem into a heap of dust, the lair of Jackals...

                                                                                           -Jeremiah 9:11a

The young chicks are hungry, but the ground provides them no food...

The Jackals, the Foxes, the Serpents are loose and in their midst...

Then the Mother Hen has returns, knowing her life will soon end.

Jesus is scathing today in his critique of the unworthiness of certain politicians. This gospel is a strong critique against any Christian who voices the concept that the church should not be political. It is impossible to follow Jesus and not enter into the realm of political critique, even vicious political critique, of our leaders and rulers when necessary.

Before Israel became a Kingdom it had a law code. This code has sharp expectations about providing for the poor, the immigrant, the refugee. The reason why whole cities are laid to waste, the rich and powerful of Israel are conquered and forced into slavery, the reason why Israel as a kingdom falls is because they fail to live into these codes... because they fail to provide for the poor, the immigrant, the refugee. It is for that reason that the kings are continually brought low and the land of Israel is turned into a heap of dust.

Herod has in his imagination that he is a legitimate king, a worthy king, a true heir to the house of David. He fashions himself as a paradigm of what a Jewish ruler should be, looking out upon his subjects as their rightful ruler. Jesus looks upon Herod and calls him a fox, a jackal, a serpent.¹ Jesus is naming the reality that under the Roman Empire the kingdom of Israel has become nothing more than a pile of dust and that the alleged rulers, Herod particularly, are nothing but Jackals seeking to suck the last bit of sustenance out of the oppressed people.

The desire of Christ, the desire of God, is to be a Mother to the people, to be the mother hen who can come in and shield her chicks from the attacks of foxes, serpents, and jackals. For such have the prophets and prophetesses come again and again to stand between the rulers who would use the poor and oppressed for their own ends instead of support them. Just like the mother hen who stands while her chicks flee before the jackal so have many prophets and prophetesses died. Just like the Hen is God our Mother soon to die upon the cross.

Before she does, however, before our God goes to the Cross for us she makes overwhelmingly clear what is the role of the leaders, the rulers, the powerful, in our midst. Our God makes overwhelmingly clear what the role of government is in our society. The role of political leaders, the role of government, is to make certain that the needs of the poor and the oppressed are met. The role of political leaders is to ensure that the immigrant and refugee find a haven. The role of the political leader is to bring about a situation where the ability of the poor to survive is foremost above the need of the rich to get richer.

When the opposite occurs, when a political leader derides the needs of the poor, fails to provide for the sick, fails to give a home to the homeless, a place of rest for the refugee... then we are to follow the path of Jesus and name those leaders the jackals, the foxes, the serpents that they are. We are to become with Jesus, the Mother who will stand between the oppressed and those who would eat the marrow of the poor for their own nourishment. To do any else is to fail to come forth in the name of the Lord.

---

1 In Biblical Literature and translations these have been somewhat interchangeable negative epithets and it has not always been clear which was the appropriate translation.^↩

The Temptation of Lady Liberty...

Liberty is good right? An automatic good to such that anyone who speaks of restraining liberty must obviously be a bad person. If that is the case then today I am reveling in being more than a wee bit naughty.

What most people do not realize is that Liberty exists in two modes, negative and positive. These are not moral qualifiers but relational modifiers. Negative Liberty is liberty away from something while Positive Liberty is liberty of having something.

We can speak of really awesome ideas, liberty from a society steeped in systemic sexism, in terms of negative liberty. We can speak of really horrible ideas, liberty of being a sexist a**hat, in terms of positive liberty.

Generally, however, negative liberty is an expectation out of social obligation while  positive liberty is an expectation towards a social obligation. If I am an employer who wants the liberty to not provide equal pay to men and women for the same work than I want the liberty from that social expectation. If I am a female employee who wants equal pay for equal work then I want the liberty of a fair wage, of a social obligation.

Today let us consider Christ to be Lady Liberty, that it is indeed Lady Liberty's skin harshly tanned in the desert, her stomach clenched in hunger amidst the sand, the refreshing rivulets of the Jordan water that had caressed her skin and filled her now parched throat at baptism so far removed to hardly be a memory. It is to her that the tempter does come to place in the midst of trial.

And so our Lady Christ comes upon her first temptation. There is the liberty of the natural order, that which divides flora and fauna, that which is organic, from the minerals and rocks, that which is inorganic. Our Lady Christ can easily take liberty from this rule, such is in her capacity, disrupt the natural order, and destroy the lines between the inorganic and the organic. Our lady does not do so. She recognizes the freedom allowed to all on account of the natural order. That liberty is one she wishes to maintain for all, not destroy for her momentary hunger. She, our Christ, chooses to maintain the freedom of our relationship with the created world.

Lady Christ then is taken to readily view all the empires of the world. There is a liberty of association that has been given to humanity, not that we have oft used it well. Still that liberty is there and the potential it gives us is inherently important for us to be who we are. For Lady Christ this liberty we have is a burden to her work. It means she must build friendships, change minds over time, be swarmed by mobs that want to use and abuse her, and often be dismissed as a wandering peasant rabbi. Would it not be easier, perhaps, for Lady Christ to just be the Ultimate Empress? To forgo all the slow process of building relationships and just force us to her will for our betterment? This for her would be a liberty from so much that hinders her work in this world but she holds to maintain for all the liberty of association over the easy path of force and submission that strips away such freedom. Our Christ, in her wisdom, maintains the freedom of our relationship with each other.

The tempter is not finished with our Lady Christ at that point, however, for her he has one more exchange upon the height of the temple. There Lady Christ is tempted to remove all doubt about God and who she is from the high priest and leaders of the Jewish people. To strip from them any space for doubt, any contrivance of choice, any concept of belief, and turn both her space in the divine metaphysic and that of God into a singular point of knowledge. The end of questions about who she is and the very existence of God would be a boon to our Lady Christ. This movement from the freedom of our relationship with God to one of absolute obedience through direct unfiltered knowledge would bring an end to her work, but also an end to something pivotal from before our creation. Rejoice then that she, our Christ, chose to maintain the liberty of our voluntary relationship with God.

And so the Temptation of Lady Liberty comes to an end. With the liberties allowed us by our relationship with creation, each other, and God in place. With the destruction that would result in a movement from said liberties, regardless of how readily such might at the moment ease her work, kept at bay.

None of us have the capacity that Our Lady Christ had that day when confronted by the devil. We cannot break the very fabric of the relationship humanity has with the created order, the whole of humanity, or God. We can ask ourselves, however, are we seeking to be in the midst of the liberty of those relationships or seeking to be in the midst of liberty from them. We can ask are we moving towards the space that Our Lady Christ choose that day or are we moving to the space she rallied against.

As we contemplate this lent and this election season on what and whom we should vote for we must consistently ask ourselves if we are seeking to be in the midst of proper long term relationships with creation, with each other, and with God in the choices we make or are we simply seeking freedom from those relationships as they may easily serve our immediate needs, wants, and and goals.

What this means, however, is that we must at points speak out against forms of liberty that would break those relationships. Liberties many seek to destroy and corrupt creation. Liberties many seek to subjugate, oppress, and lessen the capacity of others to be in the midst of the human relationship as equals beings. Liberties many seek to destroy individuals ability to enter into doubt, curiosity, and belief into God and replace it with an obedience to a certain subset of interpretations about what God may be held by only certain Christians. It means we must be bad, even more than a wee bit naughty, and fight against the implementation of these liberties within our social order.

The temptation of Lady Christ, of Jesus Christ, ended many centuries ago but our entering into the choices that Jesus made there, or going against them, perpetuate to this day. We can choose to follow Jesus in seeking to fully bring about the liberties of our relationship with creation, each other, and God or follow the tempter and seek to be free from them. I pray that as we again elect our leaders we will not elect those whose platform is based on seeking freedom from this core obligations we should hold and in so doing bring away from Jesus and towards the will of the tempter.

This is why we need to rally around those who speak for the Liberty of Living Wages, Liberty of Education, Liberty of Health Care, Liberty of Housing Security, Liberty of Employment Security and why we need to walk away from those who seek Liberty from providing Living Wages, Liberty from providing Education, Liberty from providing Health Care, Liberty from providing Housing Security, Liberty from providing Housing Security. Jesus called us into creating a community that is based on the Liberty of Love, not the Liberty from Loving, and that is the form of society that we are called to create as Christians. This is why it is the obligation of every Christian to vote, to create a society that emboldens the Liberty of our relationships to creation, each other, and God, that where we love our neighbor as ourselves and by so doing enter fully into Love of God.

AZ Voter Registration

reparing tents not making booths... political alignments and Christian discipleship

There is a systematic problem with Christianity, all types and stripes of Christianity... the longing to make a booth and dwell in it. To be clear this has nothing to do with maintaining our buildings. Christians are, in fact, quite ready to abandon their building if it means they can maintain the mental booth they are sitting within. To see this in reality visit any mainline parish in a neighborhood that has experienced white flight... it was much easier for them to abandon a building than for the parishioners to actually move beyond the tightly held conceptions of what their church and neighborhood was supposed to look like.

What I am speaking to is the finding a method, a construct, of being Christian within which we are comfortable, advocated for, and given privilege and then making it our default spiritual and religious dwelling. It does not matter if this is a Tridentine Mass method of being a Christian or an Eco-Queer construction of Christianity... if either is made a booth, a permanent residence for one's expectations of Christian living, then one is eventually going to be in trouble when it comes to going about a Christian life.

Which does not mean abandoning our constructs and methods. The issue is to not make them booths, which gather to become settlements, and soon we have an intractable enclave readily fortified with guards at ever pass. What we have to make them into is tents. Tents whose parts can be gathered, placed in a pack, and moved where the spirit calls us. Tents whose parts will wear, and break, and need to be fixed, replaced, or crafted again from scratch. Tents that over time will transform into completely new dwellings as the grow and move with us on our walk with Christ.

This is the only means by which we can remain Christian... for if we choose instead to simply live in our booths it is far more likely that we will stop being a Christian and start being a Tridentine Mass Method or an Eco-Queer Construction... when what we are called to be are Christians responding to the Spirit in the midst of Tridentine Mass in the midst of Eco-Queer and integrating the Proclamation of Christ Crucified from both into our understanding of the God we can never house but only ever be on a Journey towards and with.