"Who is the covetous man? One for whom plenty is not enough. Who is the defrauder? One who takes away what belongs to everyone. And are not you covetous, are you not a defrauder, when you keep for private use what you were given for distribution? When some one strips a man of his clothes we call him a thief. And one who might clothe the naked and does not—should not he be given the same name?
The bread in your hoard belongs to the hungry; the cloak in your wardrobe belongs to the naked; the shoes you let rot belong to the barefoot; the money in your vaults belongs to the destitute. All you might help and do not—to all these you are doing wrong"
"Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’
Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see 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 say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
I have always loved how simply Jesus spells it out.
As a kid, I always felt it was so implausible that the Jews would kill Jesus. Yes he claims to be God, which is a no-no, but how can a message of peace and love be so divisive? As an adult, I’ve come to realize that it’s divisive to people who are angry and filled with hate, to people who hate peace and love. The Pharisees of 30CE are the exact same as most Christians today. If you walked in to some Trump country Baptist church today and flipped over the collection plates and told everyone there they were going to hell because the want to deport immigrants instead of help them, you’d be shot for sure.
Do you think it’s a coincidence that MLK was only shot once he started speaking out against the rich and unifying the lower class (of all races)? I’m not saying there was a conspiracy (though I wouldn’t rule it out) or that MLK was the second coming or a prophet, but it’s pretty clear he started making the ruling class nervous once he started talking about class war.
It’s always a good time to remind people that MLK’s family proved in civil court that the government killed MLK (either through intent or negligence) to enough of a degree that the judge was convinced and awarded them restitution on the charges. And the only reason that the case didn’t go to a criminal court was because every judge who read the case refused it.
There absolutely was a conspiracy! Never forget the FBI murdered Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. Never forget what the FBI did to the Black Panthers and the American Indian Movement.
I am sending this to all my neo-lib and conservative leaning friends who go to church every day while people are being imprisoned and having their lives and rights taken away.
I don’t think it was the message of love that did it, more the implied message of “Jews are no longer the only people with the right to heaven and god - everyone is”
The Jewish people who saw the value/truth of this message became Christians. The ones who didn’t like the idea of not being The Chosen Folk anymore were the ones who called him a heretic
Where I’ve come in regards to the Pharisees is that they were willing to make violent concessions for the sake of a tenuous status quo. Passover was often a flash point of rebellious activity in Jerusalem (which is why Pilate is there in the first place; to keep Jewish people suppressed and to put down any riots or revolutions from would-be messiahs). Violence was not infrequent at the time. And every time there was violence, Rome would take away more freedoms from Jews.
So the Pharisees are put in a position to see Jesus as a potential catalyst for Roman violence. So they figure that if they help hand over another would-be messiah then they can have a quiet Passover. But this mentality winds up being a sort of Leopards-eating-faces situation because Rome destroys Jerusalem a few years later anyway (due to a would-be messiah—just one that the Pharisees thought might be the real deal this time).
Relevant quote from St. Basil:
I have always loved how simply Jesus spells it out.
As a kid, I always felt it was so implausible that the Jews would kill Jesus. Yes he claims to be God, which is a no-no, but how can a message of peace and love be so divisive? As an adult, I’ve come to realize that it’s divisive to people who are angry and filled with hate, to people who hate peace and love. The Pharisees of 30CE are the exact same as most Christians today. If you walked in to some Trump country Baptist church today and flipped over the collection plates and told everyone there they were going to hell because the want to deport immigrants instead of help them, you’d be shot for sure.
Do you think it’s a coincidence that MLK was only shot once he started speaking out against the rich and unifying the lower class (of all races)? I’m not saying there was a conspiracy (though I wouldn’t rule it out) or that MLK was the second coming or a prophet, but it’s pretty clear he started making the ruling class nervous once he started talking about class war.
It’s always a good time to remind people that MLK’s family proved in civil court that the government killed MLK (either through intent or negligence) to enough of a degree that the judge was convinced and awarded them restitution on the charges. And the only reason that the case didn’t go to a criminal court was because every judge who read the case refused it.
Hell we have a copy of the letter the FBI sent to Dr. King instructing him to kill himself and save them the trouble.
Whoa, TIL about this.
Yeah, but you knew, deep down.
There absolutely was a conspiracy! Never forget the FBI murdered Fred Hampton and Mark Clark. Never forget what the FBI did to the Black Panthers and the American Indian Movement.
Everyone needs to know about COINTELPRO
Mario Luigi King
I am sending this to all my neo-lib and conservative leaning friends who go to church every day while people are being imprisoned and having their lives and rights taken away.
I don’t think it was the message of love that did it, more the implied message of “Jews are no longer the only people with the right to heaven and god - everyone is”
The Jewish people who saw the value/truth of this message became Christians. The ones who didn’t like the idea of not being The Chosen Folk anymore were the ones who called him a heretic
Where I’ve come in regards to the Pharisees is that they were willing to make violent concessions for the sake of a tenuous status quo. Passover was often a flash point of rebellious activity in Jerusalem (which is why Pilate is there in the first place; to keep Jewish people suppressed and to put down any riots or revolutions from would-be messiahs). Violence was not infrequent at the time. And every time there was violence, Rome would take away more freedoms from Jews.
So the Pharisees are put in a position to see Jesus as a potential catalyst for Roman violence. So they figure that if they help hand over another would-be messiah then they can have a quiet Passover. But this mentality winds up being a sort of Leopards-eating-faces situation because Rome destroys Jerusalem a few years later anyway (due to a would-be messiah—just one that the Pharisees thought might be the real deal this time).