Reposted with permission from the BlackVoices section on HuffingtonPost.com.

On Minas, Occupations and Tony Perkins

From Huffington Post BlackVoices

By The Rev. Dr. Margaret Aymer

Two days ago, Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, made an astounding claim. Writing about the parable of the minas, or talents (Luke 19), he argued:

"One of the last instructions Jesus gave his disciples was "Occupy till I come.""

Perkins asserted, first, that Jesus meant this parable to be a positive example for his followers; and second, that the parable demonstrates that Jesus supported unrestricted, free-market capitalism. He was wrong.

As the truism states "a text without a context is a pretext for a prooftext." Sadly, Perkins read the parable of the minas out of context. What is the parable's context? It varies, as the parable occurs both in Matthew 25 and in Luke 19. Let's start where Mr. Perkins starts -- with Luke.

In Luke, this parable follows the miraculous conversion of Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus is a tax-collector -- someone who works for the occupying power Rome, and who uses his power to defraud his neighbors (cf. Luke 3:12). Imagine the astonishment of Jesus' disciples when Zacchaeus voluntarily gives up half of his possessions to the destitute, returns all monies he has defrauded and then imposes upon himself a 300 percent fine to be given to those he has cheated just because Jesus comes to dinner (Luke 19:8)! Can you imagine that happening on Wall Street?

Zacchaeus' conversion is the immediate literary context for the parable of the minas in Luke. According to Luke, Jesus tells this parable "because [the disciples] supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately" (Luke 19:11). Of course they did! Seeing Zacchaeus' miraculous transformation, the disciples probably assumed that the immediate return of the promised day of "good news to the poor" was immanent (Luke 4:18-19). Instead, Jesus tells them the parable of the minas.

Consider this: Jesus doesn't begin this parable "The kingdom of heaven is like..." And, the slaveowner, whom Perkins assumes is the hero, is described as someone who has gotten rich through violence and cheating other people out of the fruits of their labor. The slaveowner does not deny this. (Luke 19:21-22).

More context: this time cultural. The economy of Jesus' day was a peasant economy. In this culture, the belief was that if you got rich, you got it by cheating someone else (Rohrbaugh). Honorable people did not cheat other people and profit off of them. Honorable people were content with what was theirs in the first place. This is why the slaveowner in the parable doesn't deny his status as a rich, violent cheat. He is one.

The slaveowner's actions contrast sharply with Jesus' teachings about money in Luke's gospel. Jesus announces his mission as the proclamation of good news to the destitute (Luke 4:18). Jesus honors those are destitute, weeping, hungry and maligned while shaming those who are affluent, laughing, stuffed and praised (Luke 6:20-24). Jesus sees wealth and something that can make you unable to be a fruitful disciple (Luke 8:14; 14:31-33; 16:13; 18:18-23). And Jesus tells kingdom parables against hoarding wealth (Luke 12:13-21); and against ignoring the destitute at your gate (Luke 16:19-31).

Given this context, the only hero of the story of the minas is the slave with one talent. This honest slave judges his master's actions, refuses to participate in corrupt behavior, acts with honor and integrity, and tells the truth about his master's injustice. For his trouble, he faces impoverishment, banishment, shame, and even execution, which is perfectly consistent with the path of discipleship that Jesus has described throughout Luke's gospel. Jesus has told this parable not about the way things ought to be, but about the way things actually are under Roman occupation. The rapacious win. The honest are impoverished. The protestors are killed.

So why would Jesus tell this story? For the same reason that Jesus says "the one who would be my disciple must take up a cross and follow me" (Luke 9:21-26). Jesus tells this story because it's true. Jesus tells it to curb the enthusiasm of the disciples, to remind them of the true cost of discipleship

Finally, consider the same parable in a different context, Matthew's gospel. There, it stands as part of a diptych, a two-paneled picture that constrasts the world that is with the world that ought to be. One panel presents a picture of the world run by a rich and violent cheat who acts like a king and requires his slaves to be corrupt or face banishment.

But on the other side of the diptych, we have a picture of the final judgment of the world by the Son of Man, the apocalyptic figure usually equated with Jesus or God. In it, the Son of Man sits enthroned, judging between the people, just like the slaveowner taking account of his slaves. But, his criteria are radically different:

I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me." ... 'just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.' (Matt 25:35-36, 40 NRSV)

Jesus is clear. A rapacious slaveowner does not model Christian behavior. Instead, look to the truthtellers and advocates, to those who work for the least of these. These, Mr. Perkins, truly "occupy" Christianity.

Luke 19:11-27:

As they were listening to this, he went on to tell a parable, because he was near Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. So he said, "A nobleman went to a distant country to get royal power for himself and then return. He summoned ten of his slaves, and gave them ten pounds (minas), and said to them, 'Do business with these until I come back.' But the citizens of his country hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, 'We do not want this man to rule over us.' When he returned, having received royal power, he ordered these slaves, to whom he had given the money, to be summoned so that he might find out what they had gained by trading. The first came forward and said, 'Lord, your pound has made ten more pounds.' He said to him, 'Well done, good slave! Because you have been trustworthy in a very small thing, take charge of ten cities.' Then the second came, saying, 'Lord, your pound has made five pounds.' He said to him, 'And you, rule over five cities.' Then the other came, saying, 'Lord, here is your pound. I wrapped it up in a piece of cloth, for I was afraid of you, because you are a harsh man; you take what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow.' He said to him, 'I will judge you by your own words, you wicked slave! You knew, did you, that I was a harsh man, taking what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow? Why then did you not put my money into the bank? Then when I returned, I could have collected it with interest.' He said to the bystanders, 'Take the pound from him and give it to the one who has ten pounds.' (And they said to him, 'Lord, he has ten pounds!') 'I tell you, to all those who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them-- bring them here and slaughter them in my presence.'" (Luke 19:11-27 NRSV)

The Rev. Margaret Aymer is Associate Professor of New Testament and Area Chair of Biblical Studies at the Interdenominational Theological Seminary, Atlanta, GA

Jorelys Rivera: A Harvest Reaped Too Soon

From Huffington Post BlackVoices 

By Alisha Gordon

When news broke that 7-year-old Jorelys Rivera was missing, in my mind I assumed she would turn up safely. Like so many other cases of a child abduction, most times they turn out for the best -- a child returned to their mother safely and some nimrod behind bars for using their own kid as a pawn.

Jorelys' case wasn't as simple.

This week, her lifeless body was found in a community dumpster, discarded like yesterday's trash. After an autopsy, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said that Jorelys died of blunt force trauma. In addition, she was stabbed and raped.

The circumstances surrounding her disappearance and murder are pretty cut and dry -- and I'm going to try to get through this post as logically as possible -- but as I heard the details from her autopsy, I asked God, why does He allow these things to happen? After proverbially cowering in fear of a bolt of lightning striking me down, God quickly replied, "I made man a free moral agent. Not a robot."

That got me to thinking about the age-old question I hear people ask about why God lets certain things happen. Is it that He's letting them happen or just the freedom of man (which is subject to who he serves spiritually) rule in today's world? The rising anger I have for the man who did this to Jorelys desperately wants an answer.

When God put man on the earth, He gave us dominion over everything...

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

-- Genesis 1:26

...and Matthew 6:24 tells us, No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.

People, who commit horrific crimes like in the case of Jorelys Rivera, have taken two powerful spiritual principles and perverted them to perpetuate evil. Every human being has the ability to choose and every human being has a spirit in them that is submitted to one side or the other. There is no gray area in spiritual matters; either you serve and live for God or your serve and live for satan. It's a hard pill to swallow (and the straddle-the-fence syndrome we suffer from doesn't like it), but it's the truth.

How do we begin to understand with our minds and hearts when acts of violence against children begin to inundate our news? In recent weeks, we've heard news stories of children being molested, raped, even murdered by their own parents. My daughter is turning seven this Friday and I think of all the times I was in earshot of her playing outside in the front yard or the times I sent her outside to get something out of the car alone. Sweet Jorelys thought she was in safe, familiar place, doing something as routine as getting drinks for her friends. I'm sure it was something that she did regularly.

There's no room in my mind that can fathom or even understand the sinful, dark heart that took Jorelys' life and only God knows who could do such a horrible thing to an innocent child. More and more recently, our children have gone under an attack of some sort, being maimed and persecuted -- and again the question we ask is "why?"

God made it very clear in His Word that "Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him," in Psalm 127:3 so if we live in a spiritual world where there is a clear line of demarcation between good and evil, the attacks on children are not God's doing or His will. Satan wants to take everything good, anything God can use to glorify Him and STEAL it. What better "harvest" to take than children?

If there is a child in your life, in any capacity, pray for them. Love on them. Understand the current state of natural and spiritual affairs occurring in this world and the blatant attempt to destroy our most precious harvest on earth: children.

Follow Alisha L. Gordon, M.Ed. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AlishaLGordon