A Playlet
Holy Week 2018
Carmine Gorga
cgorga@jhu.edu
Scene 1.
Jesus enters Jeruedusalem triumphantly on Palm Sunday, with people shouting Hosanna.
Scene 2.
On Holy Friday, people shout "crucify him." And Jesus dies on the Cross, uttering these last words: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."
Scene 3.
On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated.
Scene 4.
What links MLK to Jesus is that they were both talking truth to power. They both addressed the issue of money and power. What people still do not understand is that both Jesus and MLK had nothing against money and power. They were only against the immoral use of money and power.
Scene 5.
Jesus was very clear about the moral use of power and money: Through his actions and his words, he pointed out that the right approach to money and power is through economic justice. MLK reached the same conclusion during his final days on earth: he called for the implementation of economic rights. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a moral leader, also called for a Bill of Economic Rights ("economic bill of rights") during his last Presidential Address on January 11, 1944.
Scene 6.
Jesus was very clear about the content of economic justice; his mission was to restore the Jubilee. Jubilee is the announcement of freedom from want, by giving Time to God on the seventh day of the week, the Sabbath Day; rest to Land and cancellation of Debts every seventh year; return of the Land to original Stewards on the morning of the Jubilee Year (7x7=49).
Scene 7.
Economic Justice is at the core of the economic process; economic justice is exercised through four economic rights and responsibilities--thus we pay due homage to MLK and FDR.
IMAGES
SCENE 1. Standard images, projected on a background screen, of Jesus entering Jerusalem and voices exclaiming Hosanna. (Is [copyright-free] music available?)
SCENE 2. Standard images, projected on a background screen, of people shouting, "crucify him." And Jesus uttering these last words: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."
SCENE 3. There must be images available.
SCENE 4. Background voice: "Many of Jesus' friends had money and power.'
SCENE 5. Following slide on background screen:
Slide 1: Economic Justice
VOICE OVER BACKGROUND: For more info on economic justice, please see "Concordian economics: An Overall View." Available at http://econintersect.com/a/blogs/blog1.php/concordian-economics-an-overall-view . There, economic justice is linked back to back to the economic process:
Slide2. -- The Economic Process
Concordian economics "has the answers to universal poverty and the anxieties of the affluent." Vincent Ferrini.
SCENE 6. Following slide on background screen:
This link projected on screen: "The Economics of Jubilation: Blinking Adam Smith' Fallacy Away." Available at ers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1489570 .
VOICE OVER BACKGROUND: Adam Smith's fallacy is the assumption still ruling the world of economics that somehow Private Greed Transmutes into Public Good.
SCENE 7. Following slide on background screen:
Four Economic Rights and Responsibilities
VOICE OVER BACKGROUND: For more info on economic rights and responsibilities, please see "Bold New Directions in Politics and Economics," The Human Economy Newsletter, 12, 1 (1991) 3-6, 12. Available at http://www.spectacle.org/0513/gorga.html.
