Besides the Beatitudes, Jesus Christ gave us several other gems of moral wisdom. His "turn the other cheek" metaphor inspired the powerful non-violent spiritual leadership of Gandhi and Martin Luther King. The Golden Rule has acted as a cornerstone of civilized behavior. And Christ's hyperbole concerning rich men, camels and eyes of needles has served as a largely unheeded warning about greed and the accumulation of excessive wealth.
Were Jesus Christ incarnate today and living in America, what would he think of a nation inhabited by many who claim to be followers of the spiritual movement he founded? And how would the ruling elite of the United States receive him?
Imagine this scenario:
Jesus Christ returns to Earth as he was portrayed in the Gospels at the height of his ministry. Geographically, his manifestation occurs in a blighted urban core in a large American city. Despite his humanity, he is endowed with omniscience and omnipotence. But he will not use them to change the course of humankind. He is here to act as a mortal agent of change.
Jesus' initial reaction to the knowledge flooding his mind and the assault to his senses is a catatonic state. Horror at the rapacious and avaricious nature of the United States' social order overwhelms his consciousness.
Shaking off the initial shock, he succumbs to a wave of uncontrollable nausea. Thoughts of institutionalized racism, the wealth chasm, and the military industrial complex evoke a burst of primal and toxic hatred. He retches violently.
Having purged his loathing, Jesus sits back and rests quietly on a soiled mattress someone had dragged into the garbage strewn alley where he finds himself.
Surrounded by broken bottles, hypodermic needles, and used prophylactics containing their repulsive spent payloads, Christ falls into a deep state of reflection which is unhindered by the scurrying sounds of rats and roaches. As he contemplates the many horrific atrocities committed in his name, a resident of the alley brushes past him in a drunken stupor, urinates in his pants and promptly passes out.
A country claiming to practice his spirituality spends $600 billion a year on its behemoth murder machine while over two million of its own people live on the street and eat from dumpsters. Rage surges through Jesus' being. He grabs a chunk of broken brick, hurls it with abandon, and shatters what is left of a broken window. The thought that his ministry and martyrdom had spawned such inhumanity infuriated him.
Regaining his calm and composure, Jesus resumes his contemplation.
What is this abomination called Capitalism? Permeating nearly every facet of the United States (including his churches), exploiting human beings and the Earth, demanding perpetual war, and ensuring the comfort of a few through the suffering of the many, Capitalism is a cancer that reduces its blind adherents to empty, soulless shells.
Greed is good? Had his flock truly strayed so far that they enshrined selfishness, mean-spiritedness, ruthless competitive instincts, and avarice as virtues? What chance would his message of compassion and peace have competing with the clever propaganda and allure of immediate gratification purveyed by the likes of Fox, McDonald's, Wal-Mart, and Rush Limbaugh?
Grief-stricken, he cries in despair for the Native Americans, Black Americans, and the tens of millions of victims of the imperialist United States foreign policy in Latin America, Africa, the Philippines, Vietnam, Iraq, and Palestine. He smiles briefly at the thought of Judea and Galilee and feels a twinge of home-sickness. Joy and nostalgia are short-lived as thoughts of Palestinian suffering at the hands of the merciless Israeli government quickly intrude on his nostalgic reminiscence.
It perplexes him that the United States has not lived up to the rich promise spawned by the American Revolution that broke the shackles of tyranny against tremendous odds. Early Americans had created a phenomenal instrument with which to govern a nation when they wrote the Constitution. They even included a mechanism to amend its inherent flaws (i.e. the legalization of slavery). But despite the valiant struggle of many poor, working class, and minority Americans, the de facto tyranny of wealthy elitists has endured.
Jesus concludes that many Americans were amongst the blessed he had enumerated in the Sermon on the Mount and that many Americans would enter his Kingdom. Yet he agonizes over those millions who had succumbed to the propaganda and sold their souls for the hollow rewards offered by the "American Way". Torment consumes him as he realizes that conspicuous consumption, aggressive militarism, overt and covert racism, abject inhumanity, torture, theft of land and resources, corruption, "win at all cost", survival of the fittest, and pathological self-absorption are the hallmarks of the social and political systems of the United States. Jesus marvels that so many people would fall prey to such obvious spiritual cancers.
Limping severely, a one-armed man with a very bad prosthesis, matted gray hair, and a badly tattered Army jacket flops himself onto the mattress next to Jesus. He smells of alcohol and stale urine. Vacant eyes transfixed on the alley wall before him, he mutters unintelligibly as he pulls a rancid-smelling piece of meat from his pocket and begins gingerly munching with the remaining stumps of his severely decayed teeth.
Were Jesus Christ incarnate today and living in America, what would he think of a nation inhabited by many who claim to be followers of the spiritual movement he founded? And how would the ruling elite of the United States receive him?
Imagine this scenario:
Jesus Christ returns to Earth as he was portrayed in the Gospels at the height of his ministry. Geographically, his manifestation occurs in a blighted urban core in a large American city. Despite his humanity, he is endowed with omniscience and omnipotence. But he will not use them to change the course of humankind. He is here to act as a mortal agent of change.
Shaking off the initial shock, he succumbs to a wave of uncontrollable nausea. Thoughts of institutionalized racism, the wealth chasm, and the military industrial complex evoke a burst of primal and toxic hatred. He retches violently.
Having purged his loathing, Jesus sits back and rests quietly on a soiled mattress someone had dragged into the garbage strewn alley where he finds himself.
Surrounded by broken bottles, hypodermic needles, and used prophylactics containing their repulsive spent payloads, Christ falls into a deep state of reflection which is unhindered by the scurrying sounds of rats and roaches. As he contemplates the many horrific atrocities committed in his name, a resident of the alley brushes past him in a drunken stupor, urinates in his pants and promptly passes out.
A country claiming to practice his spirituality spends $600 billion a year on its behemoth murder machine while over two million of its own people live on the street and eat from dumpsters. Rage surges through Jesus' being. He grabs a chunk of broken brick, hurls it with abandon, and shatters what is left of a broken window. The thought that his ministry and martyrdom had spawned such inhumanity infuriated him.
Regaining his calm and composure, Jesus resumes his contemplation.
What is this abomination called Capitalism? Permeating nearly every facet of the United States (including his churches), exploiting human beings and the Earth, demanding perpetual war, and ensuring the comfort of a few through the suffering of the many, Capitalism is a cancer that reduces its blind adherents to empty, soulless shells.
Greed is good? Had his flock truly strayed so far that they enshrined selfishness, mean-spiritedness, ruthless competitive instincts, and avarice as virtues? What chance would his message of compassion and peace have competing with the clever propaganda and allure of immediate gratification purveyed by the likes of Fox, McDonald's, Wal-Mart, and Rush Limbaugh?
Grief-stricken, he cries in despair for the Native Americans, Black Americans, and the tens of millions of victims of the imperialist United States foreign policy in Latin America, Africa, the Philippines, Vietnam, Iraq, and Palestine. He smiles briefly at the thought of Judea and Galilee and feels a twinge of home-sickness. Joy and nostalgia are short-lived as thoughts of Palestinian suffering at the hands of the merciless Israeli government quickly intrude on his nostalgic reminiscence.
It perplexes him that the United States has not lived up to the rich promise spawned by the American Revolution that broke the shackles of tyranny against tremendous odds. Early Americans had created a phenomenal instrument with which to govern a nation when they wrote the Constitution. They even included a mechanism to amend its inherent flaws (i.e. the legalization of slavery). But despite the valiant struggle of many poor, working class, and minority Americans, the de facto tyranny of wealthy elitists has endured.
Jesus concludes that many Americans were amongst the blessed he had enumerated in the Sermon on the Mount and that many Americans would enter his Kingdom. Yet he agonizes over those millions who had succumbed to the propaganda and sold their souls for the hollow rewards offered by the "American Way". Torment consumes him as he realizes that conspicuous consumption, aggressive militarism, overt and covert racism, abject inhumanity, torture, theft of land and resources, corruption, "win at all cost", survival of the fittest, and pathological self-absorption are the hallmarks of the social and political systems of the United States. Jesus marvels that so many people would fall prey to such obvious spiritual cancers.
Limping severely, a one-armed man with a very bad prosthesis, matted gray hair, and a badly tattered Army jacket flops himself onto the mattress next to Jesus. He smells of alcohol and stale urine. Vacant eyes transfixed on the alley wall before him, he mutters unintelligibly as he pulls a rancid-smelling piece of meat from his pocket and begins gingerly munching with the remaining stumps of his severely decayed teeth.
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