jimrigby.org

“Domination delegates the physical violence on which it rests to the dominated.” -Theodor Adorno

As we rise to power within a system, it becomes less and less necessary to be personally violent in order to dominate others. At some point, the system does our dirty work for us. When we become powerful and gain undue influence upon forming the laws, any movement of resistance against our exploitation can be deemed a crime. In olden days, the escaped slave was considered the criminal, the vicious master, the victim. In our day, chains are no longer necessary. Economic conditions have become a prison system of their own. At this point, we do not need to personally rob others at gunpoint. We can hide behind unfair economic conditions, and, if anyone resists us, the police will bring the guns. The poor will be deemed criminal just because we have put them in prison. The violence of the whole system, of course, will be remembered as law and order.

Certainly violent crime must be prosecuted, but the greatest crimes go unpunished so long as the overall system of domination is seen as order.

Probably the criticism I get most as a preacher (and on this blog) is, “why are you so negative? We know there are problems in the world, but we can’t do anything about that. We come to church to feel better.”

I certainly understand that feeling. John the Baptist used to be my least favorite figure in scripture. I like happy thoughts as much as anyone, but here’s the problem. Our current level of consumption as a nation has put us on a collision course with catastrophe that no pleasant words can prevent. We either change course or we will bring enormous suffering into the world. When I look into the faces of our children I am overcome with grief for the world we are giving them. Would we rather be comfortable in worship, than be transformed into agents of their best interests?

And, in looking at our own children, I cannot help but think of the children of the world our nation puts in harm’s way. Who will be their voice in a nation that does not want to hear? If we realized they have the same worth as our own children, would be not be crying from the roof tops?

So some weeks I do sound a bit like John the Baptist. I am not trying to make people feel bad, but I still believe there is a chance to save our planet if we are willing to change ourselves. The Hebrew word for “repent” simply meant to “turn.” Feeling quilty wasn’t the point, the point was to change direction.

I have no idea whether it is too late to prevent climate disaster, but I do know that choosing to join the struggle for the earth, for the animals and for our human family, will give us noble lives regardless of what happens. I do not see this position as pessimistic, it is simply the reality we have inherited. I do not mean to be negative, I just believe our chances of facing this crisis are infinitely better with our eyes wide open.

“People feel like the system is rigged against them, and here is the painful part, they’re right. The system is rigged.” -Elizabeth Warren

I sure wish the US was ready for someone like Elizabeth Warren to be President. I’m afraid we have one more sequel in the Clinton/Bush/Obama tragedies. It will be nice to have a woman president like Hillary, but I’m not sure we can wait 8 years before we begin to radically reform our economy. I’m not sure I can go through 8 more years of the murderous foreign policy she represents.

Until someone recognizes and names the robbery going on by our financial institutions and prosecutes their crimes, we will continue to lose this shell game we call our economy. And until someone can remember that the purpose of a military is to protect the people of our nation, not the economic interests of American corporations, we will continue to have presidents whose job will be to supply noble rhetoric to our acts of barbarity.

But I still have hope. After we have exhausted every other possible option, maybe our wounded nation will try sanity.

“It’s an unthinkable trade-off, but it’s happening. Although the 2013 SNAP (food stamp) budget of $78 billion is less than the 2012 investment earnings of 20 wealthy Americans, SNAP is being cut while not a penny extra is taken from the multi-billionaires.

The children, who make up nearly half of the 48 million recipients, will now get $1.40 for a meal instead of $1.50.”

-Paul Buchheit, Common Dreams

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/11/11

Some religion is an escape and a contraction from the immensity of the universe. Religion is frightened people huddling together surrounded by a circle of stones to find a sense of closure in an infinite cosmos. But religion is also expansion. Religion is also a courage to open to something larger than ourselves.

Ancient images of a God in the sky may have always been a kind of primordial memory that we human beings come from stellar dust as well as terrestrial carbon. It is possible that some religion has been an aching memory that we are born of exploding stars, that  our true life story goes back for billions of years, and that we when we look up at the sky some part of us knows we belong to it all.

Our minds are only now discovering through science  what our bodies may have always known. We belong to it all.

John Merrick was a real life person who suffered from a disease that greatly distorted his appearance. He was discovered working as a circus “freak.” This is a scene from a play about his life called The Elephant Man:

John Merrick: [after seeing pictures of Dr. Treves’ family] Would you care to see my mother?

Dr. Frederick Treves: [surprised] Your mother? Yes please.

[John pulls out a small portrait]

Mrs. Treves: Oh but she’s… Mr. Merrick, she’s beautiful!

John Merrick: Oh, she had the face of an angel!

[sadly]

John Merrick: I must have been a great disappointment to her.

Mrs. Treves: No, Mr. Merrick, no. No son as loving as you could ever be a disappointment.

John Merrick: If only I could find her, so she could see me with such lovely friends here now; perhaps she could love me as I am. I’ve tried so hard to be good.

[Mrs. Treves begins to cry]

 

Is there anyone who does not, in the deep of night, feel a freak? Is there anyone who does not still hear the echoes of  cruel laughter of others at our tenderest soul? Knowing that we are all worthless and ugly to some people leaves its scar on us all. And is not this same wound the source of our greatest cruelty, and our profoundest kindness?

I appreciate the bravery and sacrifice of our soldiers. For that very reason I hate war.

After today’s parades are over, 63,000 veterans will spend the night without a home. Almost a million veterans have been diagnosed with a mental disorder since 2,000. It is estimated that 22 veterans take their lives every day. If you love a veteran, isn’t it time to face the fact that there is something terribly wrong? How long can we stand by silently by while our leaders send brave men and women off to fight questionable wars and then, when the war is over, throw them away?

And are soldiers any less brave because they were born on the other side of a border? Are they less worthy of honor if they believe the lies of some foreign leader rather than the lies of our own?

The word “libertarian’ is a bit confusing. In it’s original iteration it was a synonym for “anarchist.” In the United States we usually use the word to the word “libertarian” to refer to someone who deems individual freedom an ultimate organizing principle, and reserve the word “anarchist” for violent nihilists like the Joker in Batman. Nothing could be further from the truth. The word “anarchist” originally meant “no leader” and was a rejection of all forms of co-ersion and domination.

In some parts of Europe the anarchist movement split into two camps, one based on individual liberty and the other, still anarchist, embraced the common good through socialism. Errico Malatesta was an Italian anarchist. His rejection of individualist anarchy is a nice expression of the problem I find with American libertarianism. I have not been able to make clear what I am trying to say, so hopefully Malatesta can say it better:

“However, I deny that that kind of individualism can be included among anarchists, despite their liking for calling themselves so.
If anarchy means non-government, non-domination, non-oppression by one human being over another, how can any call themselves anarchist without lying to themselves and the others, when they frankly claim that they would oppress the others for the satisfaction of their Egos, without any scruple or limit, other than that drawn by their own strength? They can be a rebel, because they are being oppressed and they fight to become oppressors, as other nobler rebels fight to destroy any kind of oppression; but they sure cannot be anarchists. They are would-be bourgeois, would-be tyrants, who are unable to accomplish their dreams of dominion and wealth by their own strength and by legal means, and therefore they approach anarchists to exploit their moral and material solidarity.
Therefore, I think the question is not about “communists” and “individualists”, but rather about anarchists and non-anarchists. And we, or at least many of us, were quite wrong in discussing a certain kind of alleged “anarchist individualism” as if it really was one of the various tendencies of anarchism, instead of fighting it as one of the many disguises of authoritarianism.”

Mikhail Bukunin was a Russian anarchist who made the same diagnosis of individual anarchism or libertarianism. He saw freedom and equality as equally binding on the human conscience. One without the other always meant tyranny.

“We are convinced that freedom without Socialism is privilege and injustice, and that Socialism without freedom is slavery and brutality.

When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called “the People’s Stick.””

I would never argue with the value of freedom or equality, but when one of them is lifted up without the other, problems are never far behind. To paraphrase Bukunin, freedom without equality is just a fancy word for bullying, equality without freedom is just a fancy word for a herd.

In this Sunday’s sermon we will look at Jesus’ statement, “those who seek to save their souls will lose them.” The saying flies in the face of those traditional Christian theologies that claim our business is saving souls. Obviously Jesus didn’t see things quite that way. I was in a hurry when I put this list of world scripture readings together. I would like to add a Jewish and non-theist quote as well. I hope they will widen our mental contexts to hear what Jesus is saying. As always, he’s not talking about religion. He’s talking about life. I thought some of you might enjoy reading the various scriptures.

Christian   Matthew 6:24-25 (Inclusive Bible)

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, they must deny themselves, and take up their cross and follow Me.  For whoever wishes to save their life will lose it;  but whoever loses their life for My sake will find it.  For what will it profit those who gain the whole world and lose their soul?  Or what will someone give in exchange for their soul?

Buddism   Diamon Sutra 

Subhuti, what do you think?  Does a holy one say internally, ‘I have obtained Perfective Enlightenment?’  Subhuti replied, “No, World-honored One… If a holy one of Perfective Enlightenment said, ‘Such am I, he or she would necessarily partake of the idea of an ego-identity, a personality, a being, a separated individuality.”

Hinduism   Srimad Bhagavatam

Shun all pride and jealousy.  Give up all idea of “me” and “mine”… As long as there is consciousness of diversity and not of unity in the Self, people ignorantly think of themselves as separate beings, as the “doer” of actions and the “experiencer” of effects.  They remain subject to birth and death, know happiness and misery, are bound by their own deeds, good or bad.

Albert Schweitzer

Just as the wave cannot exist for itself, but is ever a part of the heaving surface of the ocean, so must I never live my life for itself, but always in the experience which is going on around me.

Taoism   Tao Te Ching

One who tiptoes cannot stand;

One who strides cannot walk.

One who shows himself/herself is not conspicuous;

One who considers himself/herself right is not illustrious;

One who brags will have no merit;

One who boasts will not endure.

From the point of view of the Way, these are like “excessive food and useless excrescences”

Which all creatures detest.

One who has the Way does not abide in them.

I don’t watch television, but when I see repeats of television shows on youtube I am more and more convinced that our nation is becoming completely desensitized to the pain of others. “Stealing candy from a baby” used to be a term for despicable villainy, but for the last three Halloweens, Jimmy Kimmel has asked parents to lie to their children saying that they ate their children’s candy during the night. The “punchline” of the joke is then to watch the children cry. In addition to whatever issues might come up for children hearing that their parents betrayed their trust, they will also have to deal with a viral video where their parents made them the butt of a joke in front of the whole nation.

If you haven’t seen it, watch the video and see what you think:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK-oQfFToVg