Eyes and Ears

We hear much in our time about God being unhappy with America due to something we are or aren't doing. "God will judge us because we...." You fill in the rest. I've heard everything fill in that sentence from notions of political corruption and corporate greed to aborting babies and engaging in what people think are unjust wars. I've also heard that we will incur God's wrath if we don't support Israel, if we stay in the United Nations, and if Mr. Obama is elected President of this nation.
Now, I agree that some of those things should not be in the life of a people. (By the way, in my opinion, staying in the U.N. and electing Mr. Obama President are NOT in that list.) But I seldom hear anything about an issue that just continues to rear its head time and time again, and because of which I believe God may judge us indeed as harshly or more harshly than any of the above (with one possible exception).
God has always been especially interested in the powerless. He has always been the friend of the poor. He has evermore been on the side of the innocent, the child, the one unable to care for himself...the widow and orphan. He has also always been critical of those who would take advantage of someone who is in a powerless position in life...reserving the nastiest and harshest condemnations for people who would somehow run roughshod over the sick, the infirm, the children, and the powerless.
Look at the Beatitudes. Look at the rest of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew. Look at the story of the rich man and Lazarus. Look at what Jesus says about letting the children come to Him. Look at how Jesus treated the widow, the sick, and the infirm. Look at what Jesus says to the Pharisees about how they treat others.
Look at the Law of Moses and how that law treats the poor, women, and the powerless. Even though that law might be somewhat primitive for some of us, in that day, it was light years ahead of any other culture in the treatment of the servant or other powerless person.
I don't care what spin one tries to put on these passages of Christian Scripture; the meaning is plain as day to me. God has taken a special interest in the powerless. And if there is any judgment to come in this nation, it will be, I think, because we shove the sick, the widow, and the orphan into the corners of our lives. We push the homeless into the cracks of our society. We shuffle our children into the abyss of irrelevance. We tell the poor to just go get a job. And many of us do it in the name of "compassionate conservatism."
"They should get a job."
"Why don't they take better care of themselves?"
"They'll just buy cigarettes and beer with that money."
"Their families should care for them."
Do you find any of those types of comments in the words of Jesus when he dealt with people of little means? "Blessed are the poor in spirit." "Blessed are the meek." "Let the little children come to me."
I shudder to think of what God thinks of our Veteran's Administration, for example, which was ordered by law in 1996 to provide a full month's veteran's benefit to a surviving widow, even if that veteran died on the first or second day of the month. As of this writing, that STILL has not happened. Widows continue to have their checking accounts accessed to retrieve that last month's payment, and continue to be hounded by the VA if they can't get the money out of the bank account. Only the outcry of a couple of Senators who are also veterans has prompted the VA to decide that it needs to reprogram its computers to comply with the law.
I am appalled at the waiting lists that people who are sick and infirm have to be on for an interminable amount of time in order to receive basic life services. For some reason, we seem to have all kinds of money to build great edifices and purchase grand furnishings for government offices, but can't provide home services (washing clothes, cleaning house, etc.) to a paraplegic.
I can hardly stand it when I hear that there is no treatment available for the mentally ill, the addict, or the dysfunctional family; yet we seem to have all the money in the world to fight a war, bail out Wall Street, and junket to the south sea islands.
I tremble to think that we are throwing away children both by abortion as well as through inadequate educational opportunities, by forcing them to live in crime-infested neighborhoods, in looking the other way as they are abused and used, and neglecting their cries for help by not providing a safe and helping environment. (I worked this one for a time...don't you dare tell me we're doing all we can...if you do, you don't have a clue.)
I am angry at our Social Security system which takes months on end to process a request for disability, asking for more and more information, delaying upon delay; finally denying the claim only to reverse on appeal. By the time it's all over, the need is beyond critical and many just drop out of the process before any help arrives.
I'm even outraged at the fact that in Sedgwick County it takes upwards of four months to receive a death certificate from the Coroner's office due to backlogs, lack of personnel, and stifling inefficiency. (You know well that until a death certificate is issued, the person is not legally dead and no benefits, life insurance, or other business affairs can be paid or consummated.) Families in crisis and mourning deserve better, and I think God notices things like that and how we handle those things.
Yes, we may be a great nation, at least in the eyes of some. But I think the true measure of greatness is how we treat those who cannot provide and care for themselves. And I think we are even now being judged accordingly. I don't like where I think this is going, and I think the Christian community bears much responsibility for this fiasco. We have not been and are not the eyes and ears of Jesus. If we were, the world would be a much different place.