Dear People of Christ Church,

This week, I've been marinating on what, exactly, is going on across the country with the "Occupy" movement. It started with "Occupy Wall Street" and has now spread all over-Alabama to Washington state. And, of course, Boston. My family went down on Monday night but were advised a few minutes into our visit that the police planned to come at nightfall (it was around 6:30 when we got there) and that it wouldn't be the best place for kids. There has been a decent response from the faith community; a group called the Protest Chaplains is blogging and visiting, and there is a sacred space tent. Bishop Shaw went yesterday for an ecumenical service of support. A UU minister who lives in my neighborhood lead vespers last Sunday night.

As a softie bleeding heart, I'm inclined to be sympathetic; after our wedding in 2003 (in New York), my husband and I cut the reception short so everyone could go downtown to the anti Iraq war protest. I love a good protest. The difficult thing about what's going on now is that the method has little do to with the problem. The financial crisis was not caused by local branches of Bank of America. It was a result of a financial system that relied more and more on abstract amounts of abstract money moving from spread sheet to spread sheet and a government that stopped regulating much of anything assuming the market would fix it all. It didn't, and here we are. Still, you could just as well occupy "the internet" as Dewey Square; there's no "there" there.

The problem is meeting an abstract problem with a concrete complaint; there is truly no way that the message can be transmitted in a "rational" way, because it is not a "rational" problem. Corporate incomes have no relationship to the production of real goods and services. CEO pay increases into the tens of millions as regular workers are laid off. The United States is closest to Russia and Iran when it comes to income inequality. The "Occupy" movement is using the most basic means of communication possible: putting a (tent) stake in the ground, putting their bodies where they will be seen.

What does this have to do with the kingdom of God?

Something about how we are in the world but not of it, how we put others' needs ahead of our own, how "the least of these" are to be cared for first, the shepherd going after the one lost sheep. That there is enough -there really is. It's not tea party vs occupiers, it's not even 1 percent vs 99 percent. It's all of us. Jesus went to the cross for everyone, not just the morally pure, not just the vegetarians, not just the poor. He didn't go just for the successful, intelligent, and brave, either. That means that each of us has a responsibility to the others. We are all just as much in need of that grace. We are all in just as much need for food and shelter and love and forgiveness.

This does not mean everyone has to go out and quit their jobs and become organic farmers who make their own clothes. I want there to be a bank and a banker when I need a mortgage. I want a small business to be able to open because someone invested their money in it. I want all of us to have well-paying jobs so we can finish our capital campaign with handicap accessible bathrooms! But I also want us to be critical enough to ask how, and why, our economy works the way it does, and to do what we can to make it a just one.

Is this not the fast that I choose; to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rearguard. (Isaiah 58: 6-8)

Thanks be to God!

Sara+