Saul_now_Paul,

is that a broad side of a barn or are you just happy to see me? *waggles eyebrows*

Hi Saul_now_Paul,

If your God says to me go and warn those who defile the land and its peoples, should I go or should I stay?

George

A picture worth a thousand words...

How many sitting in the pews are now persuaded that Jesus is the champion of capitalism, wanting to bless the rich and keep the afflicted poor in prison where they belong?

What percentage of those persons would slap you in the face for suggesting otherwise?

George

What did God say? How did you hear it? What is the warning?

When God sent Moses and the other prophets, did he say, Tell them I say this... or did he ask the prophets to quote obscure dead anarchists?

Why do you think rich are more evil than poor?

Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey as king fulfilling the prophesy of Zachariah in 480 BC.  He was proclaimed as King. The one who would unshackle the chains of oppression. After 750 years of foreign military oppression, the one prophesied by Daniel was riding into town to kick Roman butts.

But that didn't happen the way they expected, so they wanted him killed.

Jesus setting us free has nothing to do with military or monetary oppression.

The only thing you have at your disposal to make things better for everybody. The rich are lost too. Is to introduce them to Jesus. Not threaten that the 99 should attack the 1. That is evil too.

Other Side = Kindom?

This being my 1st post/comment ...  I will thank the reader in advance for overlooking any improprieties in my method of inserting quotes ... I do not do well with the 'he said ... she said'  formatting ... I copy and paste a lot then either leave it alone or rewrite it to make it subjective ...

"If your God says to me go and warn those who defile the land and its peoples, should I go or should I stay?"

I Say .... Stay and help the peoples ...  "The pressing human task today is not to endure further misapplications of the power system, but to detach ourselves from it, and cultivate our subjective resources as never before. "

Hi UnDefinitive,

Nice to have you drop in at the Cafe. It offers a sharing and learning opportunity and you will soon find that your own voice is what we are looking for in the first place. Your style will surely develop with practice.

I appreciate how you take the question go or stay and answer with a slight twist. We cannot go wrong, whatever we take to be true, to "stay and help the peoples".

Hope you will find your way around and share how things look from where you sit in the circle of perspective.

George

Thanks Saul_now_Paul, for the good questions.

I am at least a little puzzled by this, suspecting that you would well know what God is now saying, how we now hear it and what the warning now is. Have you not been following in the way for some time?

Plainly, God is saying what God has said from the beginning, in the manner which was revealed in all the prophets and in Jesus of Nazareth, who is called the Christ.

The warning, now as ever, "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at land".

This begs the question, what does it mean to repent? I suspect you know this well enough. Have you not turned away from the vain promises of false shepherds who have abused the sheep for their own gain? Have you not taken up your cross and suffered with Christ outside the city wall? Have you not sold all and given it to the poor so that you might follow, in spirit and truth, in the way opened by Jesus?

God calls prophets to do and say remarkable things. Sometimes they quote sources and sometimes they are original. Does the apostle not quote the pagan poets when making his case before those hostile to the liberating word given in the name of God?

All things are available to the servant of God, things in heaven, things on earth, things past, things present, things yet to come. All means are given so that we might reach all persons.

I do not think any is more evil than any other. Surely you know that there is none righteous, no not one? Its just that the rich and powerful take their riches and powers to be signs of God's favour, when they ought take them as a trust to be exercised for the benefit of all.

None are to be excluded from the free gift of daily bread. How often do the fat shepherds not squeeze the living out of the lean sheep and leave them for dead by the wayside?

Let me quote a dead man to support my position: "But woe to you who are rich, for you are receiving your comfort in full. "Woe to you who are well-fed now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.…"

Would you suggest that Luke has it in for the rich? Or, is he simply expressing what the prophetic spirit has always expressed?
 

Surely you know about the rich man who passed by the destitute poor man by his front door every day? Surely you know how God assesses the situation and does what is right?

Who wanted him killed? The fat shepherds who exploited and oppressed the sheep? The high and holy stewards of God's trust who stuffed themselves and starved the multitudes? The temple builders who taxed and indentured the workers of the land without consideration of their health and happiness?

This leads me to suspect that the way of Jesus may not yet be realized in your understanding or your actions. Jesus makes it plain that following in the way of the cross, in spirit and in truth, will bring the hostility of the powers who exploit and oppress the land and its peoples for the sake of profit and power.

How nice for those powers if we take the will and purpose of God revealed in Jesus and move it out of history and into some ethereal realm. As if we have never prayed in earnest, "your will be done on earth as it is in heaven!"

Here you misunderstand me or misrepresent me. I urge none to attack any. I do warn those who hold the power of God in trust, the priests and the politicians, that they yet have opportunity to repent and turn to seek justice, love mercy and walk humbly.

I do this as one who is under orders. I may be rejected, but this will do nothing to diminish or obscure the consequence that follows wherever power is abused to favour the few at the expense of the many.

Here is the substance of my warning to the religious and political leaders of our time. I pronounce it in the name of the one who calls and leads me in the way which is narrow and straight.

Aren’t shepherds supposed to feed sheep? You drink the milk, you make clothes from the wool, you roast the lambs, but you don’t feed the sheep. You don’t build up the weak ones, don’t heal the sick, don’t doctor the injured, don’t go after the strays, don’t look for the lost. You bully and badger them.

And now they’re scattered every which way because there was no shepherd—scattered and easy pickings for wolves and coyotes. Scattered—my sheep!—exposed and vulnerable across mountains and hills. My sheep scattered all over the world, and no one out looking for them!

‘Therefore, shepherds, listen to the Message of God: As sure as I am the living God—Decree of God, the Master—because my sheep have been turned into mere prey, into easy meals for wolves because you shepherds ignored them and only fed yourselves, listen to what God has to say:

“‘Watch out! I’m coming down on the shepherds and taking my sheep back. They’re fired as shepherds of my sheep. No more shepherds who just feed themselves! I’ll rescue my sheep from their greed. They’re not going to feed off my sheep any longer!

I say this as a follower of the homeless shepherd who builds up the weak, heals the sick, seeks out the lost and rescues them from the exploitive and oppressive power of priests and politicians.

George

GeoFree wrote

The 1% ers, are correct , they are in there Gods favour

Big or small , all are in Gods eternal plan

you mean like this ,,,,,

http://thetruthwins.com/archives/72-types-of-americans-that-are-considered-potential-terrorists-in-official-government-documents

number 72 , evangelical Christians 

George ... I am in total agreement with the substance of your warning to the religious and political leaders of our time. Pronouncing it in the name of the one who calls and leads you in the way which is narrow and straight is valid authorization for you to do so to my mind.  Whether you are shepherd or a sheep or an anarchist or a prophet or quoting a shepherd or a sheep or an anarchist or a prophet (dead or alive) does not concern me in the least ... the words ring of truth to me.

Simply put ... what I am concerned with is my personal responsibility in the resistance against the exploitive and oppressive powers that do not seem at this point in history remotely on the verge of repentence!  In God We Trust  is printed on each Federal Reserve Note that the 'rich' seem to hold as their bills of right(eousness).  I feel called as one of the 99%  to withdraw my consent to the 1% to continue oppressing me with paper bills!  If there was some way of removing the 'root of all evil' from this equation we would have no rich and poor ... we could all trust in the abundance of God equally ? 

On the other side of Empire there is Kingdom?

If Empire in any form is the opposite of Jesus' kingdom, then the two necessitate each other. Then one has to go through hell in order to get to heaven, and some get stuck in hell on the way.

Hi Undefinitive...

This is the key question, which each has opportunity to explore and embody. I have found the heart of the matter is located in my imagination. What I think about matters; if it finds its way to action.  Not great grand schemes but small repeated motions adding up to patterns of care and compassion; the formation of character.

I was often frustrated because my study, my practice and my advocacy seemed so ineffective. The big picture did not seem to shift even an iota because of my effort.

Gradually I realized that even the smallest expression of justice, mercy and humility added at least that measure to the persons most directly affected. A kind word, a bright smile, a listening ear, a helping hand.

The key being my recognition that the person met along the way is a person loved just as I am loved. Not some distant other to be either pitied or ignored, but the divine image cloaked in unfortunate circumstance.

The rich man who passes by the poor man is not faulted for being rich. He is faulted for failing to see his "neighbour" by his door. He has divided the world into those who count and those who do not count. Much as we see in our own time.

I like Bob Marley on topic. He sings "Exodus, movement of Jah people." I see this as those who long for another way stepping out, vacating the structures of exploitation and oppression to discover a new economy where each has according to need and each gives according to ability. For me, this is the meaning of daily bread as gift and responsibility.

Your icon is eloquent!

George

I sense that S-n-P likes the idea of the 1 left standing ... alone in the Roman idealism of defeating everything (mortal God syndrome) versus the unknown state of the excluded (eliminated God as social). Such is considered demos in some myths ...

This raises a great veil separating the real God from the unreal spirit of well distrubuted intentions ... perhaps just an odd edifying of contrary faces to complement ARM's comments that stuck out to me as the Roman Janis close to jah when transferred to Greek terminology that is Classically Interminable ... and thus it goes on in CS Lews terms of indearment ... when in real-lifepowers nothing to too good to not put a holie in it ... or is that a wholly lyre? They must be countered by myths ...

GeoFree

this thread, kind fits in with my thread mark of the beast