The Gospel of Obama?

I was going to entitle this something like "Obama is Jesus?" or "The Reformissional Obama Christ"; just something to enflame you to want to read by blah, blah below:

With all the clatter that has erupted over Obama’s healthcare proposal, I’d like to interject a thought into the subject/anger generated over the proposal of offering healthcare to illegal immigrants: How much of our judgment is based on the word “illegal”, and, how would we see the issue differently if we substituted for illegal the words “the widows, the orphans, the oppressed.” I think we react to the term “illegal” because it connotes that something is being taken from us that is OURS. If we are so self-righteous about protecting our stuff, we hardly have to look to the 'thieves' that cross our borders. We should be protesting the thieves in congress; we should be angry that 90% of the farm subsidies in this country don’t go to farmers who are trying to earn a living for their families but to millionaire democrats on Long Island who have figured out how to work the system for their benefit at the expense of those who it was entitled for. That one is just one example! What if we thought of the “illegals” as those who come here to escape the poverty and oppression of their own country in an effort to just put food on the tables for their families? When we want a better life for ourselves we go across the street to get a different/higher paying  job. The illegals have to go across the border to simply find work. And much of the work that is done is the work that we so self-righteously and arrogantly won’t “stoop down” to do. I admit that when I have a yard that needs cleaning up I’d much rather pay Mr. Lopez to do it, not because I have an attitude to help those ‘less fortunate’ (and how bigoted is that thought) but simply because I don’t want to do it. It’s not about charity; it’s about my own laziness! What if we saw the illegals as honest, hardworking peoples that are simply trying to put food on the table and carve out some semblance of a better life like the rest of us (roughly the same amount of State deficit in California goes across the border in Mexico by those that work here illegally, i.e. those trying to provide for families back home. That might be a naive assumption). What if we saw this issue as not what is wrong with the illegals, but what is wrong with us? Why are we so protective of our stuff (“I need that extra $50 I spend in taxes to pay for my storage unit because my house doesn’t hold all my junk!”). Why the storehouses? Who ‘owns’ our stuff? Why so tight-fisted? Maybe the illegals come here because we refuse to leave our comforts and go there. I don’t have a mission trip to Nicaragua on my calendar.

This isn’t to say that there can’t/shouldn’t be legal means to have our neighbors enter this country, but aren’t we, at some point, left with the same problem? Millions of legal ‘illegals’ taking what is ‘ours’, taking away what is rightfully mine, taking away from what I want to provide for my family? Would we really feel better about the situation then or does it merely provide a distraction while we think of ways to add to our stuff and build a fortress to protect it (You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?)

I know the issue is more complex than this. But rather than focus on the terminology created by politicians and radio hosts what if we looked into the heart of Jesus to see what he wants for all his children, those with nothing and those with storehouses.

This isn’t to suggest that Healthcare Reform is The Good News/Gospel, or that Obama’s intentions are something missional.

Just a few thoughts…