The Tower

"In the Spring, when kings go off to war, David sent Joab, along with his servants and all the Israelites, and they destroyed the Ammonites, attacking the city of Rabah. But David remained in Jerusalem." II Samuel 11.1

I saw an interesting cartoon not long ago. The image was a tower with a few people standing on the parapet, wine glasses in hand, looking down on the crowd below. The onlookers were obviously wealthy and peaceful as they watched and appeared to chat.

                Below them, at the bottom of the tower, was a crowd of people who were fighting and beating one another. Protest signs with opposing viewpoints were "flying" in the image. The scene was no less than utter chaos and in my mind I could "hear" the screaming, the anger, and the violence. These folks were clearly angry with one another and oblivious to their surroundings as they fought. Not one of them was looking upward, but instead they were focused on beating and destroying one another. The caption startled me. It read, "Just the way we like it!"

                Imagine with me for a moment what the people below, obviously not well dressed and certainly not sipping from lovely wine glasses, are seeing. They are focused on one another. They may not even be aware of the fact that they are the entertainment for those few on the parapet. Many of those people fighting below believe that winning will move them from the crowd to the parapet of the tower. There is a minuscule possibility that any of them will achieve that dream; yet as long as they continue to believe that the people and circumstances keeping them down are those they are battling? The fighting and bickering will not cease.             

                 King David was a poor boy who rose to power, not on his own merits, but according to the story, it was because of God's agency and Israel's delusion of conquest and might. The story tells us that David did many good things as the people's king; yet he forgot the work of a servant king and instead was blinded by power and privilege. He, too, stood on a parapet, surveying the people below. He chose to send people to fight battles, while he stayed behind to enjoy the good life. He took what wasn't his, because he had the power to do as he pleased. Lives were changed and lives were lost because of David’s selfish choices.

Promising the many what only the already few have is the perfect way to keep the many fighting on behalf of the wealth of those few. Couching that fighting in love of country allows the war machines to profit while the disadvantaged die.  The fact is that no one wins in a war, or a fight. The common belief that one side is victorious and the other vanquished is simply not true. We believe the fallacy that leaving one "side" dead or bloodied and maimed, means that we won. No one wins. The "prevailing" side gleefully writes the narrative while the "vanquished" ones take their anger and turn it to revenge. All too soon the simmering revenge boils over and another war, another fight begins. Without a thought, we accept the lie that billions of dollars spent on a plane, or a bomb, or a tank, will protect our troops and bring home victory. Those billions fill the pockets of the CEOs and their investors while those troops pay, literally and figuratively, for their own protective gear. Innocent people die from war and famine every day. Soldiers come home broken, some beyond repair, or in body bags that leave loved ones to mourn and suffer the consequences of actions by those they do not know. Those CEO's, the wealthy, the investors, these are people who do not go into battle. Their children, their loved ones, may never see an actual conflict except from afar. They do, however, benefit greatly from the fighting and anger of those “below” them. None of this bickering and fighting has anything to do with the teachings or the life of Jesus. Some people call this "American Christianity". However, when we examine the world, we see that it's not only here in the USA. This dis-ease is found all over the world. Those individuals who benefit most will claim it is "(insert your favorite religious practice to hate) Terrorism."  The truth, however, is greed and the love of power are the driving forces.  You see, power over others allows us to see and judge the world in terms of winners or losers. Powerlessness allows us to practice jealousy and hatred without perhaps being aware that we are the powerless ones in the story. However, power or not, the truth is that we are all sinning.    

Jesus had quite a lot to say about this subject. More of the stories he told were about wealth and power than we want to admit. In fact, Jesus was fairly tough on those in power and those who saw themselves as better because of the wealth and perceived status they claimed, regardless where they were in the social system. I find it most interesting that so many who claim the name of "Christian" want to ignore these teachings. They are difficult teachings, yes, yet far truer to the Gospel found in Scripture than the Gospel as proclaimed in many places. Instead of the truth of those teachings that make us uncomfortable, many of us choose to focus time and energy on things that Jesus never said. If we pray differently, speak formulaic words, and get our sins "washed away"; if we give more to our congregation and pastor; we will be "blessed" with abundant money and power for ourselves. Admonishing the poor; creating a culture of guilt and blame; making an impossible list of things we can never accomplish; denying our common humanity; judging one another by "sins" that we have defined yet Jesus never spoke; these are all ways to keep God's children arguing and powerless in the presence of Evil.

  In Luke 21.1-4 Jesus has just been talking about the consequences of arrogance and unjust behaviors of the rich and powerful. One small incident during this conversation Luke tells us is said in front of everyone - yet cleverly directed to the disciples. Jesus looks up and sees wealthy people giving their offering at the Temple. A widow approaches the Temple and places "two small copper coins" into the offering box.  Jesus turns to his disciples and says, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them; for all of them (the wealthy) have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on." (Luke 21.1-4)   

                Walter Brueggemann, in his book "Money and Possessions", says that the Scriptures are all a cautionary evaluation of money and power. That is a way to understand this story. I also see the story as a metaphor about power, money, and the have/have not consequences. Those who have the power share some of their money in order to highlight their "generosity".  Jesus commends the woman because, although it would cost her dearly, she has given all that she has. The incredibly wealthy few people tend to give in order to receive deference and good press. They may "contribute" to the business of war; yet they do so in anticipation that there will be a huge return on their investment. They may establish funds and foundations to aid others. Yet those funds and foundations are carefully calculated to minimize the impact on the wealth they have, while causing the rest of the people to genuflect at that purported generosity. These billionaires lose little or nothing as they gain accolades and more power.

                The poor, however, are forced to give whatever they have, even their lives, each day. Ironically, both the monied and the poor have bought the same life narrative. Anyone can be a billionaire, it is said. Truthfully, that is a lie. You see, there truly is a finite supply of wealth in this world, and in order for some to have more, others must have less.  That narrative has allowed CEO's to receive upwards of 900x what their employees earn. It allows for dismissal of the fact that the CEO would have nothing, were it not for the actual work that employees do. Think about it for a moment. How much money would a corporation, its CEO, or its investors really have if it were not for the people maintaining the equipment, running the machines, and so on? When do you suppose was the last time that a member of the Walton family, or the Gates family, or the Buffet family rang a cash register, stocked a shelf, or delivered goods to a store? It is the work of the people who will never live in gated communities, or mansions, dine at exclusive restaurants, travel the world, own multiple homes or vehicles that affords those billionaires to be able to enjoy all of those amenities.

In 1920 songwriters Raymond Egan, Gus Kahn, and Richard Whiting gave us the song, "Ain't We Got Fun?"  A commentary on the growing income and life disparity in the USA, the song brought the phrase "...the rich get rich and the poor get poorer" into the US catchphrase lexicon. It was sadly accurate in its description of what came to be known as "The Roaring Twenties" in the USA. By the end of that decade the rich were truly richer and the poor were definitely poorer. The stock market couldn't sustain the disparity and crashed. Wealthy folks suffered, yes, however the poor suffered most of all. The Roaring Twenties ended with the Great Depression. It nearly happened again at the beginning of the 21st century.

On September 11, 2001, the tower(s) came down and the people who could least afford it, began paying for another war. In 2001, the USA invaded Afghanistan, "to fight terrorism" and to "seek justice for 9/11". That became a quagmire much like the VietNam war had proven to be in the 1960's. Yet, that nightmare wasn't enough for the war profit machine. In 2003, despite what many suspected and most came to realize, a false narrative  plunged the USA into another unwinnable war, this time with Iraq.  Military "support" corporations saw profits sky-rocket, wealth increased for some people, and the rest of the people paid through taxes, their health, their wages, and their lives. Meanwhile Saudi Arabia, the nation that had enabled the destruction of those towers, yet was a wealthy benefactor for the few in the USA, was left unscathed to continue its terror campaign of beheadings, and subjugation of women, the poor, and those who did not adhere to the state religion. As the wealthy and powerful continued to genuflect before Saudi Arabia, their patience with those who suffered the most in the aftermath of 9/11 ebbed and funds to aid those public servants and their families began to see cuts and cessation. By 2007 the perilous economy could no longer be ignored. So Congress, whose members had joined the lofty wealthy thanks in no small part to their wealthy benefactors, decided to "bail out" the systems of wealth that had produced the problem. Wall Street received a huge gift from the federal government, under the guise of "trickle-down economics", an already proven disaster. Money, and its benefits, never trickles down. It evaporates upward and is vacuumed into the already wealthy pockets. Economic logic would have dictated those "bailout" funds be dispersed to the people who were suffering. That money would have evaporated upward.  However, that is not how greed and power operate.  As long as those of us not on the parapet continue to believe it is those we see ironically as “beneath” us, nothing will change. It isn’t the poorest of us that continue to drain the money from government, or the people on the parapet. It is those very folks we want to emulate who are destroying the rest of us, in the name of greed and power.

In 1929, the Great Depression saw huge soup kitchens, people dying from diseases that they couldn’t afford to treat, and a market so gutted that it took many years for change to be apparent. Change came in the way of increased wages, social services, healthcare for the most vulnerable, and protected retirement funds. The 1980’s saw the decline of those protections and the 2007 was the danger signal. Yet, this time those elected to represent and legislate for the health and welfare of all citizens chose not to fulfill their responsibility. Money is a seductive lover. The warning was not heeded, and we may be at the point of no return.  Free meal sponsors are struggling with funding to feed those in need. Community clinics are struggling to care for increasing health concerns. Each day, it seems, more good people fall off the grid and into the abyss. Do we truly believe that we are living as God intends? We hear and say a great deal about being Christian. What about the words of the One we claim to follow? Do they even matter anymore? Jesus stands at the edge of the world, and weeps.