The Old Testament, “Lord,” Yahweh, wears a MAGA hat: Make Atonement Great Again. Atonement asserts reparations or payments be made from the common people to “the Lord.” But by way of the earthly ‘Lords’ who took money from common people they judged as “depraved” and deserving of “the Lord’s wrath.” For that atonement price, the earthly Lords will show mercy. The Psalm too asserts a sinful humanity who should all beg, “Have mercy on me O Lord … Cast me not out from your presence.” “(B)e pleased with our sacrifices.” Again, atonement payments have been made to the earthly ‘Lords.’ So too Paul asserts people are “godless and sinful,” but, for a payment, which is Jesus’ death, they will be “mercifully treated.” Fortunately, Jesus wears no MAGA hat. For Jesus, people are inherently good, not inherently sinful. People commit sins, some serious, but only a few of us. Thus, Jesus tells parables in today’s Gospel of only one lost sheep among 99, only one lost coin among 10, and only one lost Prodigal Son in a whole family. In Christ, the Bible, its Lords, and their reparation payment system against humanity are ended.
In the U.S., atonement focuses on wealthy white rulers structuring a sin based system against we the people, Blacks especially. The system remains politically corrupt, abusively capitalist, and ethically violent. But it is of benefit to wealthy whites. It demands reparation payments from the people they enslave, people of color especially. People of color are “depraved,” and deserving of “the Lord’s wrath,” and white people’s Lordly’ wrath. MAGA assert people of color should be punished for their sins of fleeing violence and crossing white supremacist constructed borders. But also for simply living her, for voting, taking a knee, and doing anything while black or brown. White ‘Lords’ believe that all people of color are sinners, each one a black sheep, a lost coin, a prodigal son, and, more so, all their families. Thus, all deserve their white Lord’s wrath. They may beg for mercy, but even if they don’t, reparation payments can still be exacted from them – in the form of higher interest rates, mortgage rates, taxes, fines, rent, and down payments. All of it taken from lower wages. Atonement’s reparation payment system has, since ancient days, destroyed individuals, families, and whole cultures. Ta-Nehisi Coates gets at the truth of the destructive system targeting African Americans in his essay, The Case for Reparations, “Here we find the roots of American wealth … in the for-profit destruction of the most important asset available to any people, the family. The destruction was not incidental to America’s rise; it facilitated that rise.” Atonement’s sinful reparation payment system needs to be flipped. We can end the plunder-based reparations constructed by and propagandized as holy by slave owner ‘Lords’ set against we the people. We can begin a true reparation. The term reparation means to repair or heal. We repair / heal ‘Lords’ and their atonement slave system. It is a sin against the people.
Healing is the intention of House of Representative bill, HR 40 – Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act. Of it Coates writes, “(W)e stand to discover much about ourselves in such a discussion—and that is perhaps what scares us. The idea of reparations is frightening not simply because we might lack the ability to pay. The idea of reparations threatens something much deeper—America’s heritage, history, and standing in the world.” “The laments about “black pathology,” the criticism of black family structures by pundits and intellectuals, ring hollow in a country whose existence was predicated on the torture of black fathers, on the rape of black mothers, on the sale of black children. An honest assessment of America’s relationship to the black family reveals the country to be not its nurturer but its destroyer.” “White supremacy is not merely the work of hotheaded demagogues, or a matter of false consciousness, but a force so fundamental to America that it is difficult to imagine the country without it. And so we must imagine a new country.” “What is needed is a healing of the American psyche and the banishment of white guilt. What I’m talking about is more than recompense for past injustices—more than a handout, a payoff, hush money, or a reluctant bribe. What I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal.”
Prayer: Spirit, help us to imagine a renewed humanity.
Question: How will this system of white ‘Lords’ be healed by we the people?
September 15, 2019 Gospel Luke 15:1-32 Twenty Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time