Jesus has a gift for words and is a highly sought-after teacher. His words, which he gives away freely, attract great crowds as in this Sunday’s Gospel. He is never shown letting the people’s attention spoil him. In other words, he never expresses feelings of entitlement. He never expects others to please him or serve him because of who he is or what he can do. He does not seek privilege, living off others and what he can get from them. Jesus is not spoiled.
Being spoiled is often associated with children whose parents do not discipline them well, discipline meaning to teach. Children are referred to as spoiled brats who have theaters, pools, cleaning robots in their homes, personal iPhones, and more. It sets them apart from children who go to the community theater and pool, do chores, and use their parents phone. The expectation of entitlement, being pleased, served, is to live a more privileged life off someone else’s lack of entitlement, pleasure, due to their service. Nothing about it is kid’s stuff. To spoil comes from warfare and means to “strip an enemy.” It refers to the ‘spoils’ of war. It is derived from the practice of ranked soldiers who take, control, and allocate the resources of others whom they have dehumanized as an enemy. If the enemy is dead, they are stripped of all their valuables, the spoils of war. If the enemy is alive, they themselves also become spoils of war – a thing stripped of value; a slave. If a male slave – off to the fields, farm field or battle field; if a woman desired – into the bed, prostitution’s origins. Militarism’s warfare model continues to spoil. It propagandizes the rank of the few who are to be entitled, pleased, and served, living a more privileged life off the rest of us – who are dehumanized as spoil. The model extends beyond the military. It is operative in all Militarism’s spheres; politics, religion, and finances. A controlling and allocating few, living off the rest of us, is operative financially in slavery’s subsidiary – an unlivable wage. It is also operative in the spoiled financial warriors on display at capitalism’s annual Davos meeting. In attendance include the heads of philanthropic foundations and millionaire presidential aspirants. The few are Captains of Capitalism and they are spoiled by the financial warfare they wage. At Davos, as in their home nations, Captains of Capitalism make declarations of reform. But there is no reforming Militarism, nor its capitalist financial model. It is spoiled, rotten.
In the Gospel, Jesus leaves the attention of the crowd and joins his fishermen friends. They have worked hard all night but caught no fish. He tells them to keep at it and “they caught a great number of fish so their nets were tearing. They called others to help them.” When the fish are sold for profit the disciples do not become capitalists. Capitalists have spoiled the word profit. Profit means pro-forward – to accomplish, to do good – and it has nothing to do with capitalism. Capitalism is all about plunder. It is control by a few and allocation by a few – the spoils of warmaking. Capitalism consists of a separate warmaking class that controls and allocates resources, labor, and surplus and decisions about them. Doing so enables the capitalist to live a more privileged life off the rest of us. All of which spoils them and results in slavish inequality for the common people. In the Gospel story, Jesus highlights not owner warriors but a union of tradesmen. There is not war between soldiers but collaboration among fishermen. The fish are not spoils but food to nourish and share. No worker spoils food as Captains of Capitalism spoil it and so much else. They spoil food by controlling and allocating farmland for food products that cannot be consumed by humans; GMO laced crops, hormone infected livestock, and fuel. Captains of Capitalism also spoil politicians with money. They spoil the legal system from which they have purchased the designation of ‘Person” for their businesses. They spoil our economy forecasting its health from stock prices rather than quality jobs held at a living wage. They spoil our conscience prioritizing property rights over human rights. It is the capitalist owner class that is spoiled; spoiled brats. We needn’t be their parents enabling them, just teachers helping to guide them.
Prayer: Spirit, open us to sharing.
Question: In what ways is capitalism spoiling me?
February 10, 2019 Gospel Luke 5:1-11 Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time