God's Coming Dominion and Wal-Mart

“Because the poor are despoiled, 
        because the needy groan,
     I will now rise up,” says the LORD;
    “I will place them in the safety 
         for which they long.”  Psalm 12:5

As the mad dash of Christmas shopping began in earnest last week, with Black Friday sales that started on Thursday, there were also protests at Wal-Mart.  In the DC area, a large crowd - though not nearly so large as the crowds inside - gathered to complain that Wal-Mart paid its employees too little, gave them scant benefits, and used intimidation and coercion to keep them keep them silent. I don't know about any intimidation or coercion, but the low pay and lack of benefits are public record.

In today's gospel, a blind man shouts at Jesus and his entourage as they pass by. People tell the man to be quiet.  Presumably Jesus has more important matters.  After all he has just explained to his followers that he is headed to Jerusalem, to arrest, abuse, and death. But Jesus comes over to the man and gives him what he longs for.  And I have to think that Luke includes this story in this spot as a reminder to us of Jesus' priorities.

As we enter into another Advent, we will once again hear of God's long awaited dominion. From Luke we will hear that this dominion will lift up the poor and the lowly, but will bring down the powerful and send "the rich away empty." The gospels speak of a coming great reversal that we are called to become part of now.

Over the centuries, Christians have often been involved in efforts to help the poor and needy. At times such efforts have helped transform society and make God's kingdom a bit more visible.  But at times these efforts are charity done to make us feel better. Churches spend huge sums of money to go on mission trips to exotic locales, but the run of the mill poor in our midst are often invisible to us. Wal-Mart employees who don't make enough to live on don't quite generate the interest or excitement of a mission trip to Haiti.

I don't mean to disparage missions to Haiti. I am not against such things at all. But if we pass by the blind man on the side of the road, scarcely noticing him as we travel along the way, we have gotten off track.

I am no socialist, but it is clear that unrestrained capitalism is antithetical to the gospel picture of God's kingdom, the new realm or dominion of God.  We Presbyterians claim that one of the primary purposes of the church is "the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world."  I take it that a similar purpose is what made it impossible for Jesus to ignore a blind man on the roadside, even when he was so focused on going to Jerusalem.

Me, I'm sympathetic to those workers at Wal-Mart, but hey, they're having a really big sale on flat screen TVs inside.

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