Tag: Reparations

Marianne Williamson, Reparations & Restorative Justice

Readings for 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time: WIS 11:22-12:2; PS 145:1-2, 8-9, 10-11, 13, 14; 2 THES 1:11-2:2; JN 3:16; LK 1:1-10

Today’s readings for the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time bring up questions of restorative justice and reparations for the harm we may have caused others as individuals and as Americans.

The day’s main focus is the familiar story of the tax collector Zacchaeus.  This very wealthy man was inspired by Jesus to give half of his possessions to the poor and to restore to those he had defrauded four times as much as he had embezzled.

Zacchaeus’ example makes me think of Marianne Williamson’s campaign for president which has made reparations a central plank in her platform.  

Of course, Marianne’s reparations focus is the African American community. But her rationale for it suggests something far beyond race relations within the United States.  It intimates as well reparations to victims of U.S. foreign policy and to Mother Nature herself.

Let me explain and then show how the explanation is related to this day’s readings.

To begin with, yes, I’m still supporting Marianne Williamson for president.  She is the only candidate who confronts us with the undeniable truth that Americans need a fundamental change in consciousness if we are to address the unprecedented problems currently facing humankind.

That’s what Marianne means by “miracles” — changes in fundamental perceptions. That was also central to Jesus’ proclamation about the Kingdom of God. We must think differently about the world and act accordingly.

So, it’s not a question of merely tweaking the reigning economic system or of reviving Roosevelt’s New Deal. What we need is an entirely new world vision that operates from the premise that everything we see is completely upside down. Reality stands 180 degrees away from what our culture tells us. All of it. If our culture says “black,” we should think “white.” If it says “good,” we should think “bad.” If it says “peace,” we should know they’re getting us ready for another war.

Instead, we are all one – women, men, children, immigrants, refugees, animals, plants, and the very air we breathe. That’s the basis of Marianne Williamson’s candidacy. There are no foreigners, no sacrosanct borders – no America First. In fact, the United States must take 100% responsibility for the world’s ills.  

My decision to continue my support of Marianne Williamson was reinforced by listening to a campaign speech she gave at Yale University last week.

There she made the following points that she has always centralized in her approach to politics and to simply living as an evolved human being in our troubled world. Notice how they echo today’s Gospel themes, reparations and restorative justice:

  1. We all know that until we identify and address the root of our problems in our personal, family, and community relationships, we’ll never truly solve those problems.
  2. However, what is true in our personal lives also applies to our nation, because nations are simply groups of individuals.
  3. As Americans, we have been unwilling to face up to the harm caused by slavery, Jim Crow, and segregation on the one hand and to the resulting wealth accumulation in the white community on the other.
  4. The same holds true for U.S. foreign policy which has been based on colonialism and neocolonialism which are simply euphemisms for forcefully transferring wealth from the Global South to the Global North.
  5. Such transfer-by-force has been destructive not only to people but to the natural environment destroyed by industrialized agriculture, rainforest destruction, overfishing, and massive waste disposal in what’s been called the Third World.
  6. We thus owe reparations to African Americans, to the Global South, and to Mother Nature.
  7. Marianne’s presidency would have us directly confront those problems as the sine qua non for solving our national dilemmas, world poverty, and impending climate catastrophe.

Now, those are truly radical positions (in the etymological sense of that term). No other candidate – not even Bernie or Elizabeth Warren – addresses them at the level of consciousness emphasized by Marianne Williamson.

So, think about that and Marianne’s position on reparations and restorative justice as you read the selections included in this Sunday’s liturgy of the word. You’ll find them here. They all invite us to radically transformed ideas of God, ourselves and of those we live with – particularly on the other side of the street, on the other side of the tracks and on the other side of the world.  (Note that the first reading is from the Book of Wisdom which imagines God’s Spirit as female.) What follows are my reading’s “translations.” Please check for yourself to see if I’ve got them right:

 WIS 11:22-12:2

 The Real Master 
 Of the Universe
 Is immense 
 And intense
 In her presence
 In everything
 And everyone.
 To her
 Our “sins” and addictions
 Are trivial.
 They mean nothing
 In her vast
 Scheme of things
 Where all people
 Are loved and cherished
 Just as they are – 
 As God created them.
 “Repentance”
 Means rejecting
 False guilt 
 And “wickedness”
 While repairing
 The hurts
 We’ve inevitably inflicted
 On others.
  
 PS 145:1-2, 8-9, 10-11, 13, 14
  
 Where God is recognized
 As Love
 Her name 
 Is constantly extolled.
 She is lovely herself 
 And merciful
 Never angry
 But kind and compassionate
 Always.
 So, set aside
 “Fear of the Lord”
 And embrace your Queen
 Who keeps her word,
 Does nothing harmful
 And favors her
 Heavily burdened
 And (necessarily) fallen 
 Children.
  
 2 THES 1:11-2:2
  
 Rabbi Paul’s
 Constant prayer for us
 Is that we might be
 Like his teacher, Jesus
 Who recognized
 Everyone and everything
 As lovable
 And full of grace.
 In fact,
 Jesus is among us 
 Each day
 Whenever we gather
 Together
 And not merely in some
 Far distant future
 As false teachers say.
  
 JN 3:16
  
 Yes, our wise Queen
 Has given us Jesus 
 Who showed us Life 
 In its fullest form
 That we might live
 Happily ever after
  
 LK 1:1-10
  
 Zacchaeus,
 The rich exploiter
 Of his own people,
 Was a tiny man
 In more ways than one,
 But as an example 
 Of repentance and reparation. 
 He rose above the crowd
 To see Jesus differently.
 Imagine his surprise
 (And the anger
 Of his victims)
 When Jesus 
 Saw him differently
 And invited himself for dinner.
 The result?
 Zacchaeus grew
 Into a giant
 On the spot
 Giving half his possessions
 To the poor
 And paying 
 Four times 
 His extortions!
 Four times!!
 How’s that
 For reparations?

I hope you can see the connection between those readings and Marianne Williamson’s emphasis on reparations for slavery and restorative justice for resources stolen in a system of unequal trades identified in the Global South as neocolonialism. The readings (and especially the example of Zacchaeus) show that such policies based on a clear moral sense of justice should represent the twin pillars of domestic and foreign policy.

No other candidate has identified those pillars with the clarity and conviction of Marianne Williamson. In the end, no other candidate — and very few spiritual leaders of any stripe — challenge us to rethink our entire understanding of life.

According to Williamson and Jesus, life, truth, and our health as a nation are to be found in exactly the opposite direction from that indicated by the reigning ideology.

Marianne Williamson and the “Dark Psychic Forces” of Capitalism (Sunday Homily)

Readings for the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time: ECC 1:2; 2:21-23; PS 90: 3-6; 12-14; 17; COL 3: 1-5; 9-11; MT 5:3; LK 12: 13-21

Marianne Williamson shone brightly again during the first night of the second Democratic debate. This time, with only nine minutes of exposure, she had the whole country talking.

As with her first appearance, her name was the most Google-searched among her nine debate rivals. And afterwards, the Washington Post, for instance, noted her contributions with headlines like “Marianne Williamson Had A Big Night in the Democratic Debate,” “Marianne Williamson Made the Most of Her Limited Time . . .,” “Marianne Williamson Makes the Case for Reparations in her Breakout Debate Moment,” and “I’ve Worked for Marianne Williamson. She’s No Kook.”

Additionally, “Democracy Now,” the following day gave more time than ever to Marianne’s remarks about the Flint water crisis, and about reparations, though, in the process, Intercept columnist, Mehdi Hasan felt compelled to dismiss her (without explanation) as “a little bit kooky, let’s be honest.”

Meanwhile Cody Fenwick writing for AlterNet favorably included Marianne’s comments about reparations among his “Nine Best Moments” of the primary debate. However (significantly for our focus here) his article, “Here Are 9 of the Best Moments and 7 of the Worst from the 2020 Democratic Primary Debate,” created a special category for what her campaign considers her most significant remark. Fenwick classified the following as a “Moment that Defied Category.” He wrote, “In the course of a rousing speech about the shameful government-triggered water crisis in Flint, Michigan, the author’s speech took a bizarre turn: ‘If you think any of this wonkiness is going to deal with this dark psychic force of the collectivized hatred that this president is bringing up in this country, then I’m afraid that the Democrats are going to see some very dark days.’” Without further comment, that statement concluded his article.

Thinking it somehow “bizarre,” Fenwick was evidently confused by the reference to a “dark psychic force,” even though Williamson immediately explained its meaning. She was referring to “the collectivized hatred that this president is bringing up in this country.” His confusion resulted, I think, from Williamson’s entry into unexplored debate terrain as she attempted to drive the conversation deeper than the clichés and normalized insanity that characterized many of Tuesday’s exchanges (like Steve Bullock’s disagreement with Elizabeth Warren about first use of nuclear weapons).

What “dark psychic forces” did Williamson have in mind? Judging from her books Healing the Soul of America, and The Politics of Love, they are habits of mind and spirit inculcated by a culture that tolerates, if not celebrates:

  • The collectivized hatred she specifically referenced
  • The mind-set that actually considers first (or any!) use of nuclear weapons as acceptable
  • White supremacy and white nationalism
  • American exceptionalism
  • Imperialism and neo-colonialism
  • Child abuse at our borders
  • Regime change wars
  • An all-encompassing gun culture reflected not only in law, but in our films, novels, newspapers, and magazines – and especially in military policy

That’s just the short list of the dark forces in question. But for Williamson, all of them can be synopsized in the single term “fear.” Systemically, they can be summarized in the term “capitalism” and the terror-filled interlocking systems of individualism, competition, and greed that system inspires.

And that brings us to the theme of the liturgy of the word for today’s 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time. On my reading, all of them present a light-hearted critique and rejection of the underlying spirit of capitalism. But see if they speak to you in that way. Take a look at them here.

In any case, what follows are my “translations”: 

ECC 1:2; 2:21-23 (A Book of Hebrew Wisdom)
  
 Accumulating property
 And money
 Working hard to get it
 Worrying about it
 Losing sleep over it . . .
 Is all foolishness.
 And in the end,
 You can’t take it with you.
 How silly to fret
 About possessions!
  
 PS 90: 3-6; 12-14; 17
  
 So, soften your heart.
 Life is short 
 It passes
 Like the seasons
 Like grass.
 You might even die 
 In your sleep tonight.
 Instead, enjoy life NOW.
 Be happy and kind
 And careful
 In whatever you do.
 That’s true prosperity.
  
  
 COL 3: 1-5; 9-11
  
 As St. Paul says,
 Use your Christ consciousness
 To look beyond 
 The material
 To discover
 True wealth – 
 Your invisible life
 Within.
 After all,
 Happiness 
 Has nothing to do
 With idolizing money
 Or pleasure, or deceit.
 It’s all about
 Living with
 The consciousness of Jesus
 That all humans
 (wherever they come from)
 Are sisters and brothers.
  
  
 MT 5:3 (Blessed are the poor in spirit)
  
 In fact,
 Christ’s values
 Are the exact opposite
 Of the world’s.
  
  
 LK 12: 13-21 (Parable of the wealth-obsessed rich man who dies in his sleep)
  
 So, don’t be foolish
 Worrying about
 Inheritance and money
 You didn’t even work for.
 After all,
 Life’s not about
 How much you have.
 Instead,
 Laugh with Jesus
 At fools who spend
 Entire lives
 Focused on mammon
 Only to die
 Before they’ve had time
 To enjoy the rich Life
 God has given
 To everyone
 Equally. 
Notice how the readings lament and make fun of lives based on greed and focus on material accumulation. Such goals produce anxiety, sleeplessness, jealousy, and frustration. They end with a completely wasted life and early death. 

As opposed to the Prosperity Gospel, this is what Jewish Wisdom Literature, the prophets, Jesus of Nazareth, and leaders like Marianne Williamson have to say about excessive material wealth. It's not the point of life. Instead, love, justice, and the inner peace and community they produce is what fullness of life is about. 

Readings like today's remind us of the gloomy and literally unspeakable (i.e. off-limits for discussion) forces that drive our culture. They are encapsulated in our economic system that emphasizes individualism, competition, violence and fear. The system is capitalism-as-we-know-it.

By bringing that up and in terms of "dark psychic forces," Williamson places herself beyond normal political discourse. To mainstream commentators, that makes her puzzling, bizarre, weird, and "kooky," even kookier than those advocating the omnicide of nuclear war.

However, to those of us seeking escape from business as usual, it made her the best candidate on last Tuesday's stage.
 
The favorable reaction to Williamson's statements there shows that increasing numbers are recognizing her truth.

	


	
	






	
	

		
Americans Love Jesus, but Hate His Politics
	


	

		






Readings for 7th Sunday in Ordinary Time: 1 SM 28: 2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23; PS 103: 1-4, 8, 10, 12-13; I COR 15: 45-49; LK 6: 27-38





This Sunday’s instruction from Jesus stands on its own. Comment seems hardly necessary.





Instead, Jesus’ unadorned words
should turn bright red the faces of all in our country who claim to be his
followers. For they contradict our economic system and entire way of life
driven as it is by the military-industrial complex, unending wars, and an
economic system that victimizes the poorest among us, while enriching beyond
belief a tiny minority. 





Moreover, Jesus’ teachings call entirely into question the “realism” of mainstream politicians. Such realism ridicules anyone (like Marianne Williamson) who might have us adopt Jesus’ approach before it’s too late. 





Think about that in the light
of our readings from the Gospel of Luke these past few weeks. In case you’ve
forgotten, here’s a summary of Jesus’ absolutely radical, highly political program
found in the passages we’ve read. To begin with, he describes his entire purpose
in this way:





“The Spirit of the
Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me 

to bring glad tidings to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to
captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”





Notice the undeniable political thrust of Jesus’ teaching. He emphasizes bringing good news to the impoverished. He wants to clear out the prisons, to cure the disabled and liberate those oppressed (by the Roman empire that controlled Israel in Jesus’ day). Notice he is proclaiming a Jubilee Year with its debt forgiveness, release of slaves, and radical land reform. That’s Jesus’ agenda. It’s undeniably political; it’s directed towards the poor.





And just in case we might miss the point, our readings of just
last week had Jesus continue like this:





“Blessed are you who are
poor,

for the kingdom of God is yours.

Blessed are you who are now hungry,

for you will be satisfied.

Blessed are you who are now weeping,

for you will laugh . . .

But woe to you who are rich . . .

Woe to you who are filled now,

for you will be hungry.

Woe to you who laugh now,

for you will grieve and weep.

Woe to you when all speak well of you,

for their ancestors treated the false

prophets in this way.”





As I indicated last week, those words should shock us. Jesus’
words turn everything upside-down. It’s the poor who are God’s favored, not the
rich. According to his promise, the poor will govern God’s Kingdom (a highly
politicized image for what the world would be like if God were king instead of
Caesar). By contrast, the rich, well-fed, the apparently happy and admired stand
in God’s disfavor. 





Read those words again. Imagine if our leaders insisted that they instead of the Ten Commandments be posted in front of our court houses and on school walls! “Blessed are you poor! Woe to you rich!”





But the evangelist still isn’t
finished. Here’s what he has Jesus say in today’s Gospel selection: 





“To you who hear, I say, love
your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray
for those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic. Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand
it back. Do to others as you would have
them do to you . . .  (L) end expecting nothing back . . .”





And yet, despite such clear instruction, here’s what our “Christian” criminals in Washington do (with scarcely a whimper of objection from us “believers”):





  • They spend more on war than the next 12 countries combined.
  • They’re currently fighting wars against poor people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Ethiopia – having just destroyed Libya and previously most of the countries in Central America.
  • Against all the principles of international law, they’re tightening the screws on Venezuela causing hunger and shortages of medicine in order to spark rebellion against a government that has not attacked the United States.
  • They have their eyes set on regime change in Nicaragua and Cuba which have harmed the U.S. in no way at all.
  • They’re cooperating with Saudi Arabia in bombing to smithereens Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East. (And virtually none of us can explain exactly why. Can you?)





With that in mind, doesn’t it
seem true to say U.S. policy (especially towards the world’s poor) is 180
degrees opposed to what Jesus is reported to have said? It’s as if Jesus taught:





“To you who hear I say, hate your enemies. Annihilate those
who disagree with you. Curse those who speak ill of you. Condemn those who retaliate
against you. If someone defends himself by striking you back, waste him. And take
everything from the person who tries to recover what you yourselves have stolen;
put them in prison and throw away the key. Ignore those who seek alms from you;
they’re just lazy freeloaders. And jail the one who takes what your system
denies him making sure he pays back every cent with interest. Do others before
they can do you. Lend at the highest rate of interest the market will bear –
even if it causes women and children to starve.”





Just look at the world such departures from Jesus’ wisdom have
produced!





Still, when someone (e.g. like Marianne Williamson) comes
forward calling the nation to a radical spiritual change based on the
elementary teaching found not only in Christianity but in all religions – viz. “Do
unto others as you would have them do unto you” – she’s dismissed as “impractical,”
“unrealistic,” and “new age” 





No, that teaching is “old age.” It comes from Jesus! It represents his political program.





Isn’t it time for politicians to reverse course and follow
the teachings of the spiritual Master they claim as the Savior of the world? For
starters, truly following Jesus’ political program that we’ve reviewed these
past few weeks would have us:





  • Assume leadership in the fight against climate change
  • Cut our defense budget by at least two-thirds
  • Withdraw from all foreign wars
  • Repair the damage done by those conflicts
  • Close our country’s military bases across the world
  • Forgive the debt of the former colonies
  • Completely reform our prison system from one dominated by punishment to one centered on rehabilitation
  • Make reparation to the descendants of former slaves
  • Renounce interference in foreign elections (as we would have others do in relation to our own voting system)
  • And so much more





You get the idea. I get the idea. Or maybe we can’t . . .

	


	
	






	
	

		
Announcing: A New Series on Presidential Candidate, Marianne Williamson
	


	

		






[The quadrennial election-season is upon us. Accordingly, today’s posting is the first in a series on Marianne Williamson and her candidacy for President of the United States. The series will explore parallels between her platform (as articulated in her 20th anniversary edition of “Healing the Soul of America”) on the one hand and “A Course in Miracles” (ACIM) on the other. Postings to follow will also connect ACIM and Williamson’s policies with liberation theology – the most important theological development of the last 1500 years, and the inspiration for the Global South’s most effective social movement since the middle of the 19th century. The thesis here will be that Marianne Williamson is actually a U.S. liberation theologian, but in the tradition of 19th century abolitionists, as well as that of women suffragists, Martin Luther King, and Mohandas Gandhi. As such, her candidacy promises our country the revolutionary impetus that liberation theology provided for the profound socio-political changes Latin America has experienced over the last six decades.  Apart from more formal explanations of this thesis, the latter’s point will be made in the form of weekly Sunday homilies reflecting on the narratives of Jesus’ words and deeds as presented in each week’s liturgical readings.]





Marianne Williamson for President! She’s a Liberation Theologian










On Monday, January 28th, Marianne Williamson declared herself a candidate for President of the United States. In making her declaration, this great spiritual leader, who has a larger social media following than any Democratic candidate declared so far, implicitly proposed addressing in 21st century, non-religious ways the spiritual hunger that Williamson and others in the “higher consciousness community” consider endemic to the human condition, whether that hunger is recognized or not.





However, the difference between Williamson and others in that community  is that she consistently applies her spiritual insights to the public sphere. And as we shall see shortly, she does so in a manner that completely respects the convictions of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs – and atheists, along with those who describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” 





Because of its inclusive approach, Ms. Williamson’s
candidacy promises to build on the accomplishments of 19th century
abolitionists, and on those of 20th century women suffragists, and participants
in the American civil rights movement. The abolitionists and many suffragists
were highly committed Quakers. And, of course, King was a Baptist minister.  Following in their footsteps, Williamson
promises to at last offer progressives (and the country at large) entry into a
sphere that conservatives – Christian fundamentalists to be exact – have
controlled at least since the 1980s. It’s the essential realm of faith and
spirituality. 





Failure to enter that sphere has hamstrung the left whose
“enlightened” tendency has been to reject and ridicule rather than embrace what
many consider the deepest dimension of being human. That tendency has not
simply cost progressives votes on election day. Even more fundamentally, it has
incapacitated them by its implied blindness to the spiritual hunger shared even
by humans in general. Put otherwise, Williamson is confronting the right on its
own turf.





In daring to do so, she is boldly following in the footsteps
of Martin Luther King who demonstrated the ability of faith to awaken critical
thinking capacities belonging to ordinary people. King as well as Malcolm X,
and the abolitionists that preceded them all tapped into the undeniable power
that religious language, symbols and metaphors possess to actually motivate
ordinary people to work for social justice and profound political change. The
same, of course, is true of Mahatma Gandhi and the liberation theologians of
the Global South. In fact, I’ll argue in future postings that Marianne
Williamson could easily be classified as a liberation theologian.





Before I get to that however, please recognize that during
her campaign Williamson does not plan to wear her identity as spiritual teacher
on her sleeve. And that’s her strength too. Instead, she’ll employ her
spiritual consciousness and conviction fostered by years of spiritual
discipline to guide her campaign in the right direction which will inevitably
call for deep psychological – not to say – spiritual – transformation for all
of us. 





Recently, she described that transformational direction in an extended interview with CNN’s John Berman. Williamson said her most prominent issues would be:





  • Medicare for All 
  • A permanent tax cut for the middle class
  • Free education for all children (including
tuition for public colleges)
  • Government support for children’s services
  • A Green New Deal





Those, of course, are proposals similar to what have been
proposed by Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, whom Williamson supported in
2016. 





Why then run, Berman asked, before Sanders and Warren have
officially announced? Won’t her campaign be somewhat redundant in the face of
two veteran politicians who, he intimated, have a much better chance of getting
elected?





Williamson’s response was significant in that it clearly
underlined not so much her competitive edge even over candidates like those
just mentioned, but the added value her candidacy represents. Ms. Williamson
wants to expand the conversation, she said, to address the psychological and
spiritual issues underlying what she sees as the severe disease that mortally
threatens the American body politic. As long as those remain unaddressed,
conversation and policy proposals, however excellent and whatever their sources,
will remain at less-helpful superficial levels. It will be like watering the
leaves of a plant, when its roots remain dry and shriveling. 





And what root causes is Williamson referring to? Basically,
she says, it’s an amoral economic system. It is capitalism-as-we-know-it that
has focused on short term gains while allowing market forces instead of common-sense
spiritual principles (as elementary as the Golden Rule and democracy) to assume
their irreplaceable and decisive roles in the organization of our country’s
politics.





Such assumption now has millions of children living in
chronic despair and trauma. (Williamson always begins with child welfare.) The
system has also created layers of racism and fostered wars across the planet.
It has made our country destructively expert at waging wars but unwilling to
wage peace.





Williamson reminded her interviewer that Franklin Roosevelt
considered the administrative aspects of the presidency as secondary to the
moral leadership the position affords. She pointed out that her 35 years of
naming and addressing such moral dimensions of public policy is what qualifies
her to exercise the moral leadership F.D.R. referenced. That’s Williamson’s
competitive edge. It’s her added value. It’s what no other Democratic candidate
offers so clearly.





When asked about paying for her program, Williamson
chuckled. She asked: Isn’t it interesting that interviewers always raise that
tired canard? When it comes to giving a $2 trillion tax break to billionaires,
very few, she said, will ask, “Where will the money come from?” Even less do
they raise that question when it comes to fighting wars – not even wars like
the one against Saddam Hussein in Iraq that was entirely illegal and based on
lies.





Marianne Williamson had a similar response when asked about
the reparations she advocates for African-American descendants of slaves. She’s
proposing a fund of $100 billion for the purpose. It would be paid out over a
period of 10 years to finance economic and educational projects to benefit the
community in question. 





There are precedents for this she added. After World War II, Germany paid out $89 billion in reparations to Jewish organizations in the country. President Reagan signed into law the American Civil Liberties Act to similarly repair harm done to every survivor of the internment camps set up for the Japanese-Americans during the same World War. Moreover, following our nation’s Civil War, General Tecumseh Sherman proposed giving every freed slave 40 acres and a mule. Instead, former slaves were given the Black Code Laws that plagued them till the mid-1960s. It’s time, Ms. Williams said, to make good on Sherman’s reparational promise which was never kept.





From all of this, you can see that Marianne Williamson with
her huge social media following is a serious candidate. For people of faith and
advocates of social justice without a shred of religious faith, she presents a
strong antidote to the religious right that has cornered the field of language,
symbols, and metaphors by which most people in the world make sense of the
world. 





Williams knows that field inside-out. She recognizes that surrendering that field to reactionary forces is what renders progressives relatively weak before the 75% of Americans who identify as Christians. In the spirit of the abolitionists, women suffragists, and civil rights activists – in the spirit of Gandhi and liberation theologians – she wants to reclaim that turf and the specifically moral influence missing in the Democratic White House since the FDR era. 





(Next week: My Meeting with Marianne Williamson. ) 

	


	
	






	
	

		
(Sunday Homily) Zacchaeus, White People, and the Case for Reparations to African Americans
	


	

		
reparations


Readings for the 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time: WIS 11: 22-12: 2; PS 145: 1-2, 8-11, 13-14; 2 THES 1: 11- 2: 2; LK 19: 1-10.


In the June 2014 issue of the Atlantic Monthly, Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote an article called “The Case for Reparations.” There he argued that the United States owes a huge debt to African Americans. It’s a debt compounded by 250 years of slavery, 90 years of Jim Crow, 60 years of separate but equal and 35 years of racist housing policy. Until those debts are paid, Coates wrote, America will never be whole.


Today’s gospel story about Zacchaeus, the tax collector, relates to Coates’ concern.  It addresses the problem of unjustly acquired wealth and reparation. As such the reading opens a question very much on the minds of our country’s African American community as described in Coates’ Atlantic piece.


White people probably disagree. Surveys show that nearly 75% of us oppose reparations. Slavery happened so long ago, the dissenters argue. They deny that slavery constitutes a factor contributing to the contemporary wealth gap between blacks and whites. At any rate, they think reparations are impractical and even impossible. Needless to say, Christians in that group see no connection between their faith and the reparations Coates was writing about.


Today’s Gospel reading calls such convictions into question.


There Jesus invites himself for dinner to the home of Zacchaeus, a tax collector. The latter is so overjoyed by the invitation that his very first reaction is to divest himself of his wealth and to make reparations for his ill-gotten affluence. He exclaims, “Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over.”


The first part of Zacchaeus’ promise (“Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor”) represents recognition on the tax collector’s part that his extorted wealth constitutes a crime against poor people in general. So it calls for general divestment on his part. He’s going to give away half of his property – half to the poor of Jericho where he’s been overseeing tax collection for years!


The second part of Zacchaeus’ promise (“And if I have extorted anything from anyone, I shall repay it four times over”) is directed specifically to identifiable victims of his extortion. He’ll return to them four times what he defrauded – four times!


Luke’s remembering and repeating a story where wealth divestment and reparation are the very first reactions of a rich person to Jesus’ offer of table fellowship is significant. It seems to suggest that such rectifications are not only recommended for those deciding to join “The Way” of Jesus; they constitute a requirement of discipleship.


All of this suggests that in today’s Gospel we find an invitation to open our eyes to the fact that, far from impractical, reparations are not only possible but required from people of faith. In fact, they have already been proven to work. For instance, in 1988, President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act that recognized the need to redress the wrongs suffered by Japanese-Americans unjustly interned in World War II concentration camps. Cash payments were made to survivors.


But slavery and its aftermath have been far more hurtful than that particular instance of wrongful imprisonment. Consequently, much more than one-time payments seem due to the descendants of the millions of slaves whose unpaid labor contributed so mightily to the building of America.


Reparations are also due for Jim Crow, low wages, glass ceilings, denial of loans, and segregation’s practices of red-lining. All such measures have prevented the descendants of slaves from participating in the American Way of Life that has remained largely closed to blacks.


As shown by police killings from Ferguson to Baltimore and the resulting Black Lives Matter movement, as shown by the resistance of heroes like Colin Kaepernick, by the brave example of the Black Panthers (whose 50th anniversary we celebrate this year), it’s time for a national conversation on race – for a Peace and Reconciliation Commission to consider the form that long-overdue reparations might take.


Suggestions for spending the estimated $14.2 trillion owed the descendants of slaves include:


    

  • A federal employment program offering well-paid jobs to all our country’s poor.
    • 

  • The provision of state-of-the-art day care centers to help newly-employed parents.
    • 

  • A housing program providing decent dwellings for African Americans in urban centers now being gentrified.
    • 

  • Major upgrading of public schools attended by black children – to make them equal to those in affluent white suburbs.
    • 

  • De-militarization of urban police forces and the introduction of community controlled policing.
    • 

  • Release of non-violent offenders from prison and the restoration of their voting rights.
    • 

  • Transformation of prisons from places of punishment and degradation to centers of education and personal reform.
    • 



All such reparations are clearly possible. They will not happen without the national conversation just mentioned and without a Peace and Reconciliation Commission.


However, as Ta-Nehisi Coates says, absent such measures our country will never be whole.


Today’s Gospel reading seems to endorse his observation. It invites Jesus’ followers to lead the way.