Sunday, March 21, 2010

One last verse, so good it needs to stand alone

Matthew 25:41-45
Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.' They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?' He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least among you, you did not do for me.'

Dear Church,

So basically, if you refuse to give health care to the 30 million uninsured people of this country, you're refusing to give it to Jesus. Good luck with that, you know, in the next life.

Dear Country,

Thank you for passing this bill. We're not done yet, but this is a big, big step.

xx

3 comments:

Lindserannie said...

Read this earlier today and when I came here your post reminded me of it:
http://www.news-record.com/content/2010/03/19/article/leonard_pitts_jr_the_gospel_according_to_glenn_beck

mrs.notouching said...

Amen! A president that is delivering on his campaign promises - what a concept!

Kyle said...

Anne passed on your post to me, 'cause she knew I'd like it.

I'm sure there are a thousand ad hoc rationalizations which seemingly justify, in the minds of those who have aligned themselves with a different political agenda on this issue, not reading this passage in the most simple, strait-forward way that Jesus obviously intended it to be heard. "Well, Jesus obviously meant that we should only care for 'the least of these' through our churches and through charitable-giving managed by private charities and private enterprise. Clearly, Jesus did not mean for us to care for people merely as an basic part of the social contract we bind ourselves to in the course of participating in a political community or nation-state. Of course, we ARE a "Christian" nation, but not SO Christian as to actually, as a nation, and separate from our churches, enact Christian policies (well, unless it comes to discriminating against gays, etc.)."

We really do pick and choose which parts of the Bible we choose to follow and pick and choose when we want to be a "Christian" nation and when we don't...