Friday, December 06, 2013

"Herod would have brought him forth" - Jesus to Punish the Rich


Part of Fukushima Prefecture, Japan



Jesus to Punish the Rich

A major source of man's suffering is poverty.

Conversely, to be rich and keep the status of being rich, rich men would do anything horrible to others.  They will make the poor poorer, so that they can be richer.

They will take political power to control society where they live with poor people, namely their enemy.  Indeed, the rich regard the poor as their enemy, so that they will take any cruel measures to suppress the poor and make them unable to challenge the rich.

Even ancient rich Judaists didn't feel pain when they saw poor Judaists.  Rich Israelites acted like strangers to poor Israelites. There had no neighborly love, no friendships, and probably even no love for brothers, provided that neighbors, friends, and brothers are poor.  So, despite a strong religious tie among Israelites, there was a clear gap between the rich and the poor among Judaists.

What is worse, the rich Israelites tied up with Romans.  So, it must have been expected that someday soon poor Israelites would spark a revolution targeting rich Israelites and Romans.  However, it was impossible for poor Judaists to defeat Roman troops.  They would be defeated and put into a more horrible state.  

Then Christ Jesus emerged to give the last chance for rich Israelites to repent and save unity of all the Judaists.  Accordingly, His teaching was focused on poverty and wealth or economics.
Jesus, the Radical Economist
June 11, 2012 
If the teachings of Jesus were really taken seriously, the Christian Right wouldn’t be devoting so much time to protecting the wealth of the wealthiest. True Christians would be demanding redistribution of the world’s riches in ways far more radical than modern politicians would dare propose, as Rev. Howard Bess explains.

By the Rev. Howard Bess
....... 
Torah is very straightforward. Land and ultimately all wealth belong to God, who places property in the control of human beings, not as owners but as stewards who must share it and return it to God every 49 years for redistribution.

For Israelites, time was divided into blocks of seven years. Land was not tilled in the seventh year. After a series of seven, seven-year blocks of time, a Year of Jubilee was declared. During the Year of Jubilee, all land was to be returned to the control of the priests, who, in the name of God, were to make a new and fresh distribution of all land.

In other words, the wealthy were supposed to surrender their stewardship and the poorest of the poor were given land with the encouragement to be productive for God and their fellow Israelites. All slaves were set free and all debts were canceled.

At the time when the Israelite system of Sabbaths and a Jubilee was codified, the economic and political structures may have accommodated such radical economic and social changes in a one-year observance of Jubilee.

Hundreds of years later, however, when Jesus lived and taught, the combination of Roman rule, compliant fat-cats and religious elites made the observance of Jubilee impossible. So, almost every Israelite knew what Torah said, but the prescription had not been followed in anyone’s memory. The poor had given up on the idea of a Year of Jubilee, but apparently not Jesus.

According to Luke’s gospel, early in the public ministry of Jesus, he went to a synagogue gathering and read a passage from Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. God has sent me to bring good news to the poor. God has sent me to proclaim release of captives and liberty to the oppressed. This is the acceptable year of the Lord.”

Everyone in his hearing understood what he was saying. Israelites had gone too long without a Year of Jubilee. It was time for the wealthy to turn loose what they had accumulated. It was time for the poor to receive their full stewardship.

But most poor people had taken on the understanding of life that their oppressors presented and taught. It was true then; it is still true today. So, the Year of Jubilee code was regarded as impractical. However, the principles of the ownership of God, the end of slavery, and economic justice still were possible.

The Israelites who held wealth and power knew what was in Torah, but they were not interested in reading it with new eyes of compassion and justice. (When Jesus finally took his message to Jerusalem – riding in on a donkey to mock the rich who favored horses and turning over the money tables at the Temple to protest religious corruption – he was deemed an insurrectionist and was executed.)

Jesus died almost 2,000 years ago, but the laws of Sabbaths and Jubilees are still on the books today. Torah still has a powerful message, especially since the evils of greed and mindless ownership are with us in ever growing magnitude. Resulting inequities and injustices surround us. 
http://consortiumnews.com/2012/06/11/jesus-the-radical-economist/
Put simply, a state of being rich means a lack of love of one's neighbors.  If a rich man loves his poor neighbors as Jesus taught, he would distribute all his money among the poor neighbors to be one of them eventually.

You cannot stay rich, if you have great love of your neighbors.  You would be surely as poor as they are.  You cannot make money sacrificing or neglecting your poor neighbors.

So, economics can be translated into a matter of love of neighbors.  Indeed if there were no rich men in this world, no economics theories now being respected would be of no use.

Jesus' teaching to love your neighbors as much as you love yourself tells everything about His economics.  It means that money should be equally possessed by all the people.  But you can earn money as much as possible, so that you distribute it among the poor.  You may have big money to distribute to your neighbors.



http://antioligarch.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/the-year-of-jubilee/


In addition, there some movement today concerning this spirit.
Jubilee 2000 was an international coalition movement in over 40 countries that called for cancellation of third world debt by the year 2000. This movement coincided with the Great Jubilee, the celebration of the year 2000 in the Catholic Church. From early 2001, Jubilee 2000 split into an array of organisations around the world.



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Act 12:5 Peter therefore was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him.
Act 12:6 And when Herod would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains: and the keepers before the door kept the prison.
Act 12:7 And, behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light shined in the prison: and he smote Peter on the side, and raised him up, saying, Arise up quickly. And his chains fell off from his hands.