It's Time to Take Sides

It’s time to take sides.

We have a president and administration who are ripping children – even infants – away from their parents and putting them in prison camps where they sleep on concrete floors with bright lights on 24 hours per day and lack proper sanitation, even diapers for babies. They are mocked and abused by guards, and some have died.

Our country demonizes, rejects, and abuses the poor and the desperate, especially those who come to us seeking asylum from destitution, dangerous political instability, and gang violence often targeted at them personally – people who are following US and international law as they seek asylum here, as if that should even concern us half as much as their needs.

Neutrality is complicity.

Matthew 25:31-46:

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.  Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.  And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.  Then the King will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.  For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.”  Then the righteous will answer him, saying, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?  And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you?  And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?” And the King will answer them, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.”

Then he will say to those on his left, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.  For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.”  Then they also will answer, saying, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?”  Then he will answer them, saying, “Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.”  And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

We American Christianswill be judged.  Do we really think God will say to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant”? (Matthew 25:21)  

“Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me.”  Our cruelty and callousness are the nails in the hands and feet of Jesus.

Friends have told me not to say things like this about Christians who disagree with me.  But this is not about Democrats and Republicans, this is about following Jesus’s plainly spoken words.  We can disagree about the size of government or the merits of the welfare state, but true church unity, true loving community, cannot be formed by the kind of Christian “who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.” (MLK)

The prophet Amos condemned those in his day who lived in luxury while they exploited the poor and maintained systems of inequality and injustice.  According to him, God vehemently rejected these people’s worship:

“I hate, I despise your feasts,
    and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.

Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings,
    I will not accept them;
and the peace offerings of your fattened animals,
    I will not look upon them.

Take away from me the noise of your songs;
    to the melody of your harps I will not listen.

But let justice roll down like waters,
    and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” (5:21-24)

We can no longer pretend to be neutral in the name of loving one another.

My friends, it’s time to take sides.