Occupy Church

I admit to some ambiguity – which isn’t something I gravitate to – about the whole Occupy Wall Street movement. I shouldn’t have any. I’m a liberal, Christian Protestant preacher who finds wisdom and wonder in the words of the prophets and of Jesus. I am passionate about access and inclusion and caring for the ignored and overlooked – and more than that – I nurture a healthy anger about a system that allows and even cultivates an underclass. Occupy Wall Street, or as of yesterday, Occupy Delaware, should have me on the streets in a collar demonstrating the church’s allegiance with the oppressed.

Yet…I’m not.

I wonder if I had come of age in the late 1950s and 1960s if I would have been ambivalent about the Civil Rights movement. Would I have been one of those lukewarm churches addressed in King’s letter from a Birmingham jail when he decried that:

There was a time when the church was very powerful--in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.

Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent--and often even vocal--sanction of things as they are.

If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.

I think some portion of those young people are now occupying the streets of lower Manhattan, Oakland, Seattle, Fletcher Brown Park, and cities across this country and Europe; and it’s no longer just the church that disappoints, it’s the culture at large and the society in general.

Still, we could dismiss them and their cause as a gaggle of whining white kids who didn’t get the job of their dreams and are now throwing a tantrum. Could well be.

Yet, it's true that the disparity of wealth in America has never been so stratified.

In the mid-1970s when some of us hit the job market, the ratio of pay between the CEO of a company and that of an average worker was 30 – so if the worker earned $20,000 per year, the CEO earned $600,000. In 2005, the average worker earned $41,861, while the average CEO made $10.9 million, or 262 times that of the average worker.

Government bailouts of banks, and bonuses paid to executives of those same institutions, are legitimate concerns and reasons for discontent as well. The movement that began in Zuccotti Park in New York City is mainly protesting social and economic inequality, corporate greed, corruption and influence over government. The protesters' slogan, "We are the 99%", refers to the difference in wealth in the U.S. between the wealthiest 1% and the rest of the population.

But again, they just might be a bunch of 20-somethings who have faced their first real challenge in a life that’s been “a trophy for everyone on the team,” “gifted” classes, and AP everything.

Then again, maybe it’s a legitimate cause of justice.

Regardless of ambiguity, what business does the church have in talking about it anyway?

This is Stewardship Sunday – and one might expect a sermon about all the wonderful things going on inside, what Aria Swanson dubbed last week, these “marble walls.” You should be hearing about the value your participation with this community adds to your life and all the ways in which you can increase and enhance that value. A good stewardship sermon might even sprinkle in a few facts about rising costs to operate this venerable shrine or to pay this ever so professional and talented staff. A great sermon would tug at your heart strings, seduce you to greater giving with appeals to gratitude, scriptural warrants about “grateful givers” and the quid pro quo of “much is given, much is expected.”

Instead, we’re wondering aloud about the meaning, purpose, and value of an increasingly large and unruly archipelago of protest.

I believe this gets us, however circuitous, to the heart of Christianity.

Recently taken to task for bringing issues of social justice into the sanctuary, I responded that if we don’t read the Bible as a social justice document, we may be missing the point.

Skip the Hebrew Scriptures for a moment and consider how often Jesus and the early church are depicted as concerned about money, wealth, and its influence and power – both on individuals and society.

Matthew 19:21 Jesus said to [the young lawyer], "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me."

Matthew 6:21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Luke 16:14 The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all this, and they ridiculed him.

Acts 8:20 But Peter said to him, "May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain God's gift with money!

1 Timothy 6:10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.

Matthew 21:12 Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.

It’s not a huge leap from the temple to Wall Street.

But then again, I suffer from ambiguity.

I kind of like Wall Street – at least I like it when the Dow Jones spikes a couple hundred points and I know my IRA is a tad more robust. I like Wall Street when people like you make money in the market and feel ever so generous about throwing a few shekels into the basket. I like Wall Street when it funds and fuels companies that further research and development that improves the lives of people and organizations around the globe.

What I think I have is a genus-species problem.

Reach back to your first biology class when you had to memorize

Kingdom

Phylum

Class

Order

Family

Genus

Species

“Kids Prefer Cheese Over Fried Green Spinach.”

What I think I have is a genus-species problem.

One cannot, for instance, take the story of Jesus overturning tables in the temple as an indictment against Jews or Judaism, but is rather a condemnation of the greed found by unscrupulous merchants in the temple court. The genus of Judaism, the species of greed.

The genus is an economic system based in capitalism, symbolically centered on one particular street in New York; the offending species is corruption, greed, and coercion of that system.

Perhaps therein lies the crux of ambiguity, a genus-species problem.

I hear criticism of the Occupy Movement based almost exclusively on the demographics or behavior of the protestors, and that’s the species, but the genus is a systemic shift toward an unjust economy wherein more and more people are finding themselves outsourced, underemployed, or simply left out. In a word, marginalized, and the marginalized have always been the focus of the Gospel.

Jesus inaugurated his ministry with this clear and unambiguous mission statement:

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because God has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." (Luke 4)

You might hope that the church leaders who listened to Jesus that day were impressed with his knowledge of scripture, with his self-understanding, with the clarity of his call – but they were none of that – they were enraged and like an angry mob led by Bull Connor and his dogs and fire hoses, chased him out of town.

John Dominick Crossan said, “Those who live by compassion are often canonized. Those who live by justice are often crucified.”

The church has a voice and it must be heard even at risk of offending, of losing members, of taking a hit, of even facing extinction. Too many of us are vested in the institution, some might say “too big to fail,” but if we are to faithful to Gospel, it is a daily requirement to risk it all.

We work hard here to keep our gaze outward—from West Virginia to The Gambia, from Eastside Charter to 3^rd Floor Tutoring, from Friendship House to Malawi—we work hard to keep our gaze outward. Yes, we take care of our people, we tend to the education, fellowship and spiritual nurture of our members and friends – but that is not an end to itself no more than occupying city parks across this land or Jesus flipping a table in the temple were ends to themselves.

Frankly – this worship service is not an end in itself for if we think this hour-long performance on a Sunday morning is what church is about? Friends…we are sorely mistaken and misguided.

Jesus undoubtedly knew the words of the prophets for he quoted them often. Surely, as the church elders were chasing him out of the temple, Amos’ admonition had to be joyfully ringing in his ears…

[Thus says the Lord God:]

I can't stand your religious meetings.

   I'm fed up with your conferences and conventions.

I want nothing to do with your religion projects,

   your pretentious slogans and goals.

I'm sick of your fund-raising schemes,

   your public relations and image making.

I've had all I can take of your noisy ego-music.

   When was the last time you sang to me?

Do you know what I want?

   I want justice—oceans of it.

I want fairness—rivers of it.

   That's what I want. That's all I want.

 (Amos 5:21-24, from The Message)

One thing about God, there’s simply no ambiguity!