I was commenting on MAJeff's
diary earlier today and found myself googling for stories in my own faith tradition.
When I read Ezekiel 34 ("Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy and say to them, Thus saith the Lord God...") I began to wonder how that same message would sound today. Here it is:
The word of God is clear: We are to speak out against corrupt national leaders.
Therefore, Woe unto to you in Congress and the White House who live off the backs of American workers yet care nothing for their needs.
You travel in chauffered jets, dress yourselves in expensive clothing, eat what you wish, access the best medical care, yet offer empty words of congratulations to the single mother who must work three jobs to support her children.
You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured.
You send your soldiers out to die in a foreign land, and if they come back maimed you deny them succor.
You have governed harshly and brutally.
You take food from babies and health care from children to feed the ravening maw of corporate profits.
Your have set your people at each others' throats, Conservative against Liberal, because when the people fight each other they have no energy to confront your sins against them.
You have become a wolf, feeding upon the vulnerable, tossing the carrion to your corporate cronies.
Out of the despised and powerless, I will raise new leadership for this people. I will find those who are unafraid to speak truth to power. If the media will not carry their voices, they will speak neighbor to neighbor, and their words will bubble through the blogosphere until you cannot deny them.
Even among the people, there are those who sin against their neighbors. Is it not enough that you live in this rich land? Must you take clean air and foul it with sulfur dioxide? Must you take pure water and dirty it chemical runoff? Or rich farmland and plow it into dust?
Lo, I call each of you accountable for your sins against this people and this land.
He who commits adultery against his wife has sinned against her, their children, and the committment between them. He who aquiesces in corporate wrongdoing has sinned against every person injured by that employer, against his own membership in the brotherhood of humanity, and against the Universe itself. The tax cut which results in the deaths of a hundred neonates whose mothers can no longer afford prenatal care is 100 times as evil as the abortion which results in the death of one child before birth.
To the voters, I say: Cast off the yoke of your oppressors. Choose among your leaders wisely. You have been taught: You shall know the prophet by his fruit. As is the fruit, so is the tree.
Therefore choose the grapes of honest confrontation, not the plastic waffles of corporate sycophants.
Choose the bread of honest labor, not the sawdust of unearned income.
Seek the milk of wisdom and understanding, not the poisoned koolaid of easy answers from toxic televangelists.
Let your taxes honor your responsibilities to your elders and your children, that your lives may be richer, your garages less cluttered, and your hearts open to the voice of my spirit.
I have given you a government that allows you to rule yourselves, if you so choose. But I expect you to choose the best among you to lead you--and I expect you to reject that lead if it fails to care for the helpless among you. You are my hands and my voice in this world-- do your taxes feed the hungry, teach the ignorant, offer to each worker a living wage for his labor?