What DID Jesus Do?

In this evil and chaotic world, it seems that there will always be both external and internal oppression. Which, external or internal, oppression gets national priority, church priority? The "What would Jesus do?" question can be answered by "What DID Jesus do?"

In New Testament times, Palestine was occupied by the superpower Rome. Rome's professed goal was to spread peace and prosperity around the Mediterranean Sea area. But in the process, Roman oppression was, at times, quite brutal. Jesus said that he had come to release the oppressed so it would have made sense for him to join forces with the Zealots, a religio-politico nationalistic Jewish band of freedom fighters.

But, strangely, Jesus never mentioned Roman oppression, but he zealously went after internal Jewish oppression---Jew oppressing Jew. He focused on the religio-politico-economic elite who operated the Temple as "a den of robbers," a rich gang of predatory thugs.

Today, the U.S. is zealously waging a war on external terrorism/oppression; this is a bi-partisan war which both presidents Bush and Obama have waged. So it appears that waging war against external oppression is !00% American. Is it 100% biblical?

If Jesus were an American in 2014, would his priority be against the external terrorists or our internal terrorists? Would his priority be spending billions on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or those same billions on rebuilding poor black communities, our inner cities? On militarizing the police or rehabbing houses?

Is our first black president making the Jesus choice? One could argue that he is doing some of both, but clearly his primary war is on external oppressors. Ferguson is no accident; it is the result of "racist social engineering" and theological bankruptcy. It needs a Jubilee justice transformation initiated by the church and assisted by the nation.

If you doubt the above, read the article "The Case for Reparations," by Ta-Nehisi Coates in the June 2014 issue of The Atlantic. Read it on your knees, in an attitude of repentance. 9-11 was tragic with the death of around 3,000 individuals, but the slave trade and slavery caused millions of deaths to say nothing of psychological death (broken spirits) and social death (broken marriages and families). Which demands our priority?

This is not all ancient history. Coates writes:

"In 2010, Jacob S. Rugh, then a doctoral candidate at Princeton, and the sociologist Douglas S. Massey published a study of the recent foreclosure crisis. Among its drivers, they found an old foe: segregation. . . . 'High levels of segregation create a natural market for sub-prime lending [predatory mortgages], and cause riskier mortgages, and thus foreclosures, to accumulate disproportionately in racially segregated cities' minority neighborhoods."

"Plunder in the past made plunder in the present efficient." Wells Fargo's 'wealth building' seminars were a front for wealth theft."

Coates' powerful 15 page article is filled with words like theft, robbery, plunder, predatory and terrorist---synonyms of oppression.

One suggested solution: The American church should help Habitat for Humanity triple it housing approach with these added features; hire numbers of excons and low-level drug offenders, develop their job skills in the building trades, couple with drug treatment, and obtain federal and state grants/credits for solar energy heating. No interest charges plus very low heating bills would reduce the costs of home ownership sharply. The Habitat approach requires work by the potential homeowner; this is much better than welfare.

Only a Marshall Plan by the church and government can get the job done.