Mammon, demons, and the State of California

They went across the lake to the region of the Gerasenes.  When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to meet him. This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him any more, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones.

When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him. He shouted at the top of his voice, "What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? Swear to God that you won't torture me!" For Jesus had said to him, "Come out of this man, you evil spirit!"

Mark 5:1-8 NIV

Its 2008, we are in the middle of recession and it's budget time in the state of California.  

One of the things frequently placed upon the chopping block in situations like this is funding for mental health services.  Although this doesn't directly affect my employment, it does directly affect the population with whom I work.  Last year I got to witness first-hand the dismantling of a nationally recognized program that assisted the homeless mentally ill population of our community.  Several of these people subsequently had negative involvement with law enforcement and the program I work in inherited them. 

These people need other people to assist them, at least for a couple of years, in making a workable way of life for themselves.  They have real “demons” that need exorcising before they can live a life most people consider normal: having a stable residence where they feel safe to sleep at night and to keep their possessions, having a job that gives them sense of contributing to the world they live in, a caring community of people that don't try to take advantage of them, a sense of wellness that comes from regular meals and the ability to keep up basic hygiene.

In the absence of the assistance that the social services agencies that are being cut provide many of these people will continue to self medicate with illicit drugs, will steal to survive, or to get drunk or high, will live in the small forgotten places of the Empire, and will engage in behaviors that at best we will consider to be bizarre, and at worst will put themselves or others in danger.

   

We will respond in the only way we will have left. We will incarcerate them. They will be “chained hand and foot”, and they will eventually be released. Then they will go back to living “among the tombs and among the hills” and they will be even more broken than before, and the whole process will begin again.  

Now, I don't want to create the impression that I only believe in a metaphorical interpretation of the Gospel, that the only thing we can learn from the story above is compassion.  I believe that Jesus was God incarnate.  I believe that the story above, or something similar to it, probably actually happened.  I think that we all need the love of God that Jesus offers to us.  I also believe that we must do what Jesus did.  We must seek out the broken and reach out to them in compassion.  We must heal the world around us, like Jesus did. 

God, teach us that are strong and affluent to suffer, rather than balance our budget on the weak and the broken.  

Midday in the Garden of Good and Evil

A few years ago I went to a largish conservative evangelical church in a largish town in Northern California. One Sunday a group was stationed in the foyer registering voters and passing out voter guides. When I read the guide it advocated for traditional "Christian values" and provided suggested votes on various propositions up for consideration.

One issue discussed was a proposition that would put a 1% tax on any personal income above 1 million dollars and put that money towards providing services for the state's mentally ill population. It would be used to fund programs that I had seen work. Opportunities for them to obtain stable housing, supportive community services, or divert them to treatment rather that to jail when they encountered the criminal justice system.

I have come into regular contact with this population for years and have seen programs like this change people's lives. I've also seen programs like this dry up and blow away as they are written out of the budget on a state level, leaving the previous recipients of services to fend for themselves, sometimes leading to further negative involvement with the criminal justice system. Trust me, no one saves money by sending these people through the court system, paying for the time of the judge, attorneys, clerks, bailiffs, and probation officers, as well paying for housing in the jail (often times single celled due to behavioral issues, and requiring special medical attention), and maybe later prison. This is not to mention the moral concerns of criminalizing mental illness.

The voter guide advocated for voting against the proposition. It offered that we should not put a 1% tax on the rich for the sake of the mentally ill because they did not feel that the money already given was well used by the state mental health system.

What does that have to do with being a Christian? How does that position express the values of the Kingdom of God?

"Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, "These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved." She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, "In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!" At that moment the spirit left her."
Acts 16:16-18 NIV

Put yourself in the situation. You've got a girl who is being exploited by someone else, is apparently demonized, and is engaged in fortune telling for the profit of her masters. If we set aside the controversy over whether there are actually personal evil spirits (I tend to think there might be) and whether fortune telling is wrong (I tend to think any attempt to gain insider info is egoistic) and grant them, simply for the sake of argument, the value that the writer seems to place upon them, there is something further to consider. The girl is telling bystanders to listen to what you are saying. What do you do? It's simple to look at the text and give the answer already provided, but that would be cheating. :) Remember, it took several days of Paul being troubled before he knew what to do.

Do you tell others not to listen to her, thus causing onlookers to wonder what to do with the fact that she is advocating for you? Does this mean they should or shouldn't listen to you? After all, look at what you do to those who advocate for you?

Do you do nothing and simply accept her acclamation? This might be perceived as a validation of her fortune telling, and a tacit acceptance of her demonization and status as an exploited slave.

Or do you do what Paul does and take the time to ferret out the evil from the good, explicitly reject what is wrong in the situation and redeem what is worth saving?

It's all too easy for us to be robbed of the truth when its made to walk along side a lie. When presented with stewardship of the environment coupled with a deification of the same we often fail to separate the two. We might either reject stewardship because we don't want to worship nature, or take care of the earth because "She is our Mother."

We can marry the immorality of drug or alcohol use to the addiction that is both the cause and effect of it and either absolve the addict of the responsibility for the consequences of his actions as a victim of circumstance or brand him an unredeemable criminal who should simply receive the the punishment due his crime.

We can mistake the religious rhetoric of the far political Right coupled with civil religion for the voice of God, or we can react to this melange of political ideology and religion and in our compassion reject any religious affiliations or thoughts and buy the party line of the political Left.

We can equate legitimate struggle with questions on the nature of a prepackaged (correct or not) view of God (or Scripture, or Church, etc.) with rejection of obvious "Truth", or assume that matters of faith are not worth consideration because of the mindless acceptance of oversimplified positions we can encounter.

We like simple answers so we gravitate to the poles on the scale. We want shortcuts to being right. We want someone to chew our food for us.