Now why is it that when mass destruction and untold human suffering fit their agenda, the fundamentalists preach it as “God’s Wrath”, but when it doesn’t it is but “signs of the end times”? I have spent the last few days experiencing these tremors and even had a night of both tornado warnings and an earthquake within a couple of hours of each other. Hey, you have to be made of tough stuff to live here in the Sooner State.
Still, why does the “reddest of the red states” get a break? Why is God’s wrath not pressing down on us like Pat Robertson said about both 9-11 and Katrina? It would be difficult to argue that it is because we aren’t hard enough on gay people. We have Sally Kern , we have all kinds of anti-gay legislation (some in defiance of Supreme Court rulings) and we have a culture that generates events like this and this. So, we should be fine with Pat Robertson’s god. Our abortion laws are among the toughest in the country, so that should put us in the Robertson/Falwell god’s good graces. And it can’t be because we’re too liberal, our name comes from the Choctaw language and combines the words okla humma, meaning “red people”. We seem determined to prove it as a political statement too.
So what is it? Is it just a matter of convenience? When the storms hit or the earth shakes in a place where your narrative easily fits then it is God’s wrath, but when it doesn’t then the pretty innocuous “end times” label comes out? Or, even though I don’t share the fundamentalist theology, can we see something else? I mean, what if they are right? What if this is God’s wrath? What could God be mad about in Oklahoma?
Several thousand years ago the prophet Isaiah said these words to Israel:
Hear, O heavens, and listen, O earth; for the Lord has spoken:
I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me…
What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord;
I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts;
I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.
When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand?
Trample my courts no more; bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me.
New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation—
I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity.
Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me,
I am weary of bearing them. When you stretch out your hands,
I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers,
I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes;
cease to do evil, learn to do good;
seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.
(Isaiah 1:2 and 11-17 NRSV)
Jesus, who quoted from Isaiah in his first sermon (according to Luke), tells his disciples this:
When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him,
then he will sit on the throne of his glory.
All the nations will be gathered before him,
and he will separate people one from another
as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats,
and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.
Then the king will say to those at his right hand,
‘Come, you that 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 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.’
Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry
and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?
And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you,
or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick
or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you,
just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,
you did it to me.’ Then he will say to those at his left hand,
You that are accursed, depart from me 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 nothing to drink,
I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing,
sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer,
‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty
or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’
Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you,
just 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.
(Matthew 25: 31-46 NRSV)
Oklahoma ranks as the 4th hungriest state in the nation, and this was in 2010. While this has changed some, we still rank near the top of a list no one wants to claim. While we know that poverty correlates tightly with education, we continue to cut education while still seeking to lower taxes and play musical chairs with our remaining education dollars to the detriment of students.
We continue to seek draconian immigration laws which would have amazingly far reaching consequences and would prey upon the immigrant community (legal or otherwise) all in the name of being tough on immigration.
Oklahoma continues to feed a private and public prison system that is filled to capacity, locks up more women per capita than any other state, and whose overall incarceration rate ranks third among the 50 states.
Oklahoma, like most of the country, continues to be OK if you have the money, but a harder place to live in if you don’t. And the economic disparity continues to grow, with many unable to climb out of economic holes. Debt and affordable credit make the “Oklahoma dream” (much less the American one) a more and more distant possibility for many.
Food, housing and the crunch of living paycheck-to-paycheck is a terrible combination here in this state. At the end of 2010, more than 779,000 Oklahomans were on food stamps. More than 30 percent of the state’s children were receiving food stamps last December. The growth in Medicaid enrollment is similar – a 43 percent increase since 2002. Currently more than 885,000 Oklahomans receive some Medicaid services. Meanwhile these services get cut. Worst of all, more and more children are growing up on poverty, which typically means more issues down the road.
Again I want to say that I am not a believer in the fundamentalist version of God. But if I were, why would I think that God’s wrath is be visited upon us because of either homosexuality, which the Bible supposedly mentions about 7 or so times, or abortion, which is ambiguously connected to scripture at all, instead of how we treat the marginalized among us – what the Bible refers to as “widows and orphans”? The Bible mentions the “widows and orphans” or the “poor” dozens and dozens of times – ALWAYS with the stipulation that God wishes us to care for such as these. Jesus NEVER mentions homosexuality, but he calls out our treatment of the “least of these” as the very essence of how we will be judged.
So, if God is behind “a whole lotta’ shakin’ goin’ on”, we might reconsider why. It may not be for the reasons you think. If God is going to be pissed about something, I think that our tradition is pretty clear about what will be the subject of God’s wrath. It ain’t the AIDS ministry or the couple who have been together for 25 years (but happen to be of the same gender). It ain’t the single mother on welfare or the child in poverty. It ain’t the ACLU or the Planned Parenthood office. It ain’t even the prostitute or the panhandler or the meth addict. It is the halls of Congress where cuts are made for ideological dogma…the corporate board rooms where CEOs pull down vast wealth while they ship jobs overseas…the churches where a message is preached that your personal salvation and prosperity are the points of a life of faith, instead of your hard work and sacrifice in loving your neighbor as yourself…your participation in the building of the Kingdom of God.
