Afflicting the comfortable

PANAMA. Have you made your New Year’s resolutions, yet? I hope not, because I have two more for you to consider. They are: “In 2009, I shall work hard to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. ”

Comfort the afflicted— No argument here; everyone agrees that this is our Christian duty, as Jesus says in James 2:14-17:

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

Conversely, good works alone won’t buy us a seat in heaven, either. We also need a courageous faith that existentialist philosopher Soren Kierkegaard called in Fear and Trembling , the “faith to leap blindly into the abyss.”

And then, if we don’t feed the physically and spiritually hungry in Panama we are “talking the talk”, but not, “walking the walk”. Physical hunger is killing Panama’s children where, says the United Nations, 40 percent are in poverty or extreme poverty and 25 percent are so malnutrated their brain cells are dying. Yes, we are raising a society of brain-dead children.

Some of these children belong to our maids and gardeners to whom we pay $12 a day and brag as to how little we pay, all the while pretending to be Christians. Does what I’m writing make you uncomfortable? Maybe even a little hypocritical? Good.

What about the spiritually hungry? Those people who are helpless and hope-less, like the single mother without a home, no food for her children, no job, no future. Or, poor people who are preyed upon by gangs of pre-pubescent killers who charge $50 a ‘hit’.

Or, how about our two top Supreme court judges who wouldn’t retire at the expiry of their ten-year term without 6 months vacation pay, or almost $50,000. Is not that the kind of greed that sent Jesus for his whip?

Now, are you getting ‘ bocu ’ uncomfortable? Very good.

Afflict the comfortable — This is where many of our Christian Faithful either split hairs, or run for the hills. Father James Heft, a well-known professor in the religious studies department at the University of Dayton, in Ohio, says Jesus didn’t want people to become too comfortable or sure of themselves because of their position within the religious community or their fulfillment of the Jewish laws.

In fact, Jesus was an outsider who often broke the law in order to comfort and heal. Think of how the church was scandalized by his healings on Sundays, or of Jesus’ destruction of property, and assault and battery of merchants in the church Temple whom he also libeled, insulted, frightened, and took a whip to. Today all these acts would likely get Jesus “tasered” and facing some serious jail time?possibly, in California, certainly in Las Vegas, especially if his name was OJ.

Here’s how Matthew Chapter 21: verses 12 through 15: describes Jesus’ temple misdemeanor that would send him to the slammer to bunk with Bubba, today:

And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves.

And He said unto them, it is written, my house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves. And the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple; and He healed them.

And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that He did, and the children crying in the temple, and saying, Hosanna to the son of David; they were sore displeased.

Indeed, the chief priests weren’t ‘comfortable’ at all with Jesus’ words and actions. They knew they were wrong. Much like Bernard Madoff, the former chairman of the NASDAQ stock market, who, unlike the James brothers, stole $50 billion from the rich—to give to the rich.

The Rebel, the ‘whip-cracker’, that’s a Jesus I can relate to. Like Marlon Brando in The Wild On e, when asked by frightened townfolk, “So what are you against now?” And Brando replied, “I don’t know. What have you got?”

Is there someone who’s criticism makes you uncomfortable? Perhaps, a friend, or even a fellow member of your church’s congregation?

Well, chill out. Remember, Jesus was a wild one. He didn’t go to the Temple to plead his case before the church Council or ask for the Administrator’s approval. He didn’t wait for the annual Congregational Meeting to act or bluntly speak his mind.

No, he went in with a controlled anger and wrecked the place. Again, that’s my Jesus, a biblical Brando. Do you have that same righteous anger as Jesus has shown? Does your God love Republicans and Democrats? Does She embrace both straight and gay? And, finally, does your God make you uncomfortable, even frightened? I hope so.

Arthur Pink’s The Attributes of God , quotes Psalms 7: 11, which says, “God is angry with the wicked every day. Pink then adds, “there are more references in Bible concordances to the anger, fury and wrath of God, than there are to His love and tenderness.”

Jesus’ teachings were not just nice words, in fact, they made many of the comfortable, quite uncomfortable. And, as Oprah and Martha Stewart might say, taking people outside of their religious ‘comfort zone’ can be a “good thing”.

But it can also get you killed. Jesus, Martin Luther King, Anwar Sadat, Yitsak Rabin, and Benazir Bhutto, are only a few of the many who have been cut down for their religious and political beliefs.

In a small way we honor these fallen heroes when we combine our faith and good works. So, for 2009, let’s resolve to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. Match deeds to words and join church and community groups where we can feed ‘ buco ’ bodies and ‘ buco ’ spirits. And, let’s get angry over wickedness. And, make wicked people uncomfortable through our actions, as well as our words.

In a word, resolve to be more Christ-like for 2009—let that be the one resolution you keep this coming year.