When the War Lords of the Old Testament invented a god, they did so in their image, one to be feared and obeyed, as they were. Their deity was contrived as loving but is observably abusive. Those obedient to/abused by the War Lords and their invented deity were to love but only their rulers and each other as obedient neighbor. They were to hate the disobedient as enemy sinners who deserved to suffer; stoning, burning, hanging. This included Samaritans. In the Gospel Jesus is asked to by a scholar of the Law to repeat an Old Testament Law to fear/love God. Jesus repeats it and includes its love of neighbor – which meant fellow obedient Jews. It did not mean enemy sinners such as Samaritans. But when the scholar presses him, “And who is my neighbor?,” Jesus responds with exactly that abomination. He tells the story of the Good Samaritan and thus praises a sinful idolater as a loving neighbor.
The Good Samaritan is a beautiful story. It edifies love and it does so as exemplified from a group of people historically hated and ostracized. Typical of the Gospel, love is celebrated and fear is refused. Jesus is not afraid of warlords, nor the warrior deities or military religion they invent with its defending scholars. Jesus does not fear their abuse. In the face of it all, Jesus is bold. Are we? Are we, in the face of ruler abuse, bold? Or, are we instead merely calculating liberals rather than bold peacemakers? There is currently a white supremacist administration acting as fascists (autocrats exalting nation and race for their own gain). More and more they act like Old Testament War Lords defending an invented War Lord deity demanding obedience and spawning fear. This administration has mirror image War Lords and mirror image neighbors whom they love in Russia and China and Saudi Arabia and North Korea and the like. This administration also has disobedient enemy sinners who deserved to suffer. Rulers and their Fox based media include in their targeting as enemy sinners truth tellers and thinkers, especially whistle-blowers. The conserving party’s liberal wing provides air time for the whistle-blowers but also to the rulers. As this fascist administration hinders democracy with a ferocious corporate socialism, liberals agonize over use of the term democratic socialism.
As this fascist administration owns and controls media, bold peacemakers develop alternative social media like The Peace Lab, Common Good, and Sojourners. As this fascist administration hates enemies, bold peacemakers are loving their neighbors through The Simple Way and Christian Communities Development Association. As this fascist administration plunders earth’s resources and liberals want merely to reform colonialism’s practice of extraction energy, bold peacemakers are forming indigenous cooperatives like Del Laboratorio Al Campo that is creating sustainable sources of energy and purified water for use on small sustainable farms. As this fascist administration violates human and civil rights and liberals want more humanitarian missions for soldiers and more sensitivity training for police, bold peacemakers like Rev Traci Blackmon and Rev. Osagyefo Sekou are doing street activism for safety to help abolish Militarism’s soldiering and police agencies along with their white supremacist Unite the Right rallies such as at Charlottesville and Ferguson. As this fascist administration dehumanizes and demonizes ‘the other;’ Mexicans, children, LGBTQ, and Muslims and liberals wring their hands at the use of terms like concentration camps or Trump camps, bold peacemakers are loving their neighbors at the southern border through Puente Internacional Matamoros Brownsville/Team Brownsville, Border Angels, Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project (ASAP), and Never Again Is Now.
Prayer: Spirit, together we grow bold.
Question: How bold am I?
July 14, 2019 Gospel Luke 10:25 Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time