A Day My Life Changed : A Re-Posting

[Thanksgiving in the United States can be a time of being busy with truly important things, family, friends, God, and checking ones own humility, as hard as that last part can be to grasp for even the most humble amongst us.  And I am very happy and thankful to say that I am able to concentrate on just those very things this week.  So I leave my readers with this re-post about an event that helped me to see more clearly one of the most important things we will ever be given responsibility for, that is to respect the individual dignity of others.  So enjoy the read if you haven't already done so, and if you have, I hope you get something of value out of it still.]

Some times I look back at my late and short teaching career and wonder if I ever should have done it. Perhaps, I consider, the time could have been better spent, say, getting my computer science degree sooner, or I could even have started to write sooner, but no. Without that experience there are certain very important things I never would have learned.

As a teacher I was driven to take an interest in the character and destiny of each of my students. I know it sounds a little corny, but what exactly is the universal job description teachers have? Are we not there to help our students by encouraging high character in them, and then to train them in what they need to know and master in order to achieve the personal goals that derives from that high character? These are the sorts of things only a teacher or parent is likely to ever commit to, and having never been a parent, teaching was the reason for me. So in spite of my normal tendency to simply allow fools to be fools, I was driven by a job description to try and save them.

I remember in particular one middle-school student of mine that was a free spirit. He was smart, got good grades on his assignments, and was generally respectful toward his teachers, but from the point of view of my lead teacher and the school's principal he was sorely lacking in two very important areas. He was terribly disorganized to the point that the contents of his desk often overflowed into other students' spaces. That really annoyed them, but the second area of lacking was what really worried them. He tended to be a loner. He seldom associated with other students and when he did, the other students would become annoyed with something he'd say or do. Nothing serious. They were little things I don't remember exactly, but like say playing four square and not seeming to try, or starting to do his imitation of a flying saucer sound. The only thing I do remember is that there was little to no consistency or pattern in these things. He might frustrate students not trying one day and then compete in earnest the next, or just not play on another. In a nut shell, he was not just a loner, but a very creative one.

The moment of my enlightenment came as I was grading papers after school and he and his parents were meeting in the next room with the principal and my lead teacher. I heard bits and pieces of what was being said at first. It was an old story. For years he had attended this K-8 school, and for years the faculty had worked with him on his two shortfalls. The parents said things I could tell they realized they had said several times before, but the teacher and the principal sounded more determined to make progress. They noted it seemed that none had been made.

The principal, a woman I had great respect for, was talking when suddenly this young 7^th grade fellow shouted “shut up!”. I was horrified, both because he was being so extremely disrespectful and because I was worried for him and his future at the school. I was tempted to charge into the room, but wasn't sure what I could or would do, calm him down or scold him. I decided to stay at my grading work, but couldn't avoid hearing what was going on in the next room. He went on to tell them how it made him feel to be continually picked at, and asked them, still yelling and angry, to “just leave me alone!”. I heard adult voices, occasionally his parents but mostly my co-workers, attempting to reason with him, but he wasn't having any of it. He only continued to tell them off.

It was then that it happened, the thing that really mattered to me and my future, the proverbial lights came on.  The words came out of me like an involuntary sneeze, “you tell them”. I caught them enough that I couldn't be heard through the walls. It scared me for a split second, but then I felt something quite different than fear. I felt free and enlightened.

This young man had spent the last several years of his life under constant attack for in essence just being an individual. Sure, organization is important, but not enough to justify years and years of nit-picking and threats.  And sure, it's wise to worry a little when a child is left out of social circles, but not when it's his choice and when he has no ill will or feelings toward anyone. His stand in that meeting, taken out of context is just a student being extremely disrespectful and insubordinate, but in context it was the Boston Tea Party, Lexington-Concord, Rosa Parks in the front of the bus, and Robert the Bruce at the Battle of Bannockburn. He was expelled that day, and I called the parents shortly after to offer any and all help I could give them. My help was minor, but I was there to see him go on with his life, free of those who had sought to take away his individuality. To the best of my knowledge he's been very successful at being himself, and more than that.

One of the most significant measures of success in a person's life is who they've effected in positive ways, and just how positive. In this young man's case, he effected me. His moment of taking that stand that day showed me just how important the individual is. Without his stand, I probably wouldn't be writing right now. As a matter of fact I hate to think of what I might be doing, something meaningless, something depressing, something wrong.

I'd be so bold as to thank him by name, but I don't want to draw in the people I worked for and with at that time. That moment was also the moment I realized I was working with the wrong people, at least for someone like myself who cherishes the individual. So I'll leave it at this until I manage to contact him again more directly and less publicly, thank you, and sorry I was unable to see things before that day, but that wasn't going to happen without you doing it. The individual is bigger than all of us.

Naked Thoughts Revisited

What's it like to be indebted to someone who is set against you fulfilling your responsibilities and duties: the divine calling we all receive to be ourselves and whatever that may entail?

Is that what it's like to be almost a person without a country: the nation state you live in is bound and determined to undermine you being you?

Is that what it's like?

What do you do?

What can you do?

You do your duty and live on as God intends.

If the nation state you live in seems to be at odds with itself: providing you a safe place to live full of opportunities on the one hand while on the other working to try and corral your individual initiative, restrain your liberty, make decisions for you; then you take the good with the bad, but don't give the bad any unearned respect.

And what do you say to someone who suggests you're a hypocrite because of this: suggesting that you should forgo all benefits of the state you disagree with?

Tell them that by benefiting you through such policies, the state is clearly at odds with itself.  It is not you who are the hypocrite, but the state in its policies.

The state is only legitimate when it helps the individual or does nothing, and is illegitimate when it hinders the individual.

There is no true law that works against the individual.

There are a lot of laws that are in reality, not.

The test of this is not if the law serves you, but if it serves any individual who is true to their divine calling.

***

I'm sure there will be those who misunderstand what's being said here.  Context is the key.  I am saying nothing new for me here, just putting it in different words.  The individual is not some selfish sociopath or even necessarily you or me.  The individual here is that eternal occupant of the space we reserve for the third person.  Thus I said, "The test of this is not if the law serves you, but if it serves any individual who is true their divine calling."

Regarding Liberty

October 24, 2009

By Jean Lewis 

There are probably no two words which stir the emotions of Americans more than the words FREEDOM and LIBERTY. We cherish our freedom and the prosperity that it has allowed us to enjoy. Yet we have lost much of our freedom and liberty suffers.

I suggest that there are two primary reasons for the loss of so much of our liberty. First, is a failure of the people to fully understand the issues underlying freedom itself or the requirements and responsibilities of the individual if we are to remain a free society.

The second reason has been the willingness to give up a degree of freedom for safety, security, or some form of safety net against failure. In some cases this was done consciously but in the case of many Americans it was, perhaps, done without the realization of the price, in liberty, to be paid.

There are many enemies to liberty and we the people must be conscious of them and remain vigilant if we are to succeed as the stewards of freedom. America has been the lone lighthouse of freedom to the world for centuries and I fear that if we let this beacon be destroyed that the hope of mankind to be free is dead throughout the world. I do not propose that we force our ideas upon the world, but that we must live as an example to all; that we may show them the joys and rewards of being free and keep alive in their hearts the dream that some day all men may be free.

If we are to lead by example we must now show the world how a free people can restore freedom that begins to slip away.

Human nature is such that we often feel a need which is perceived to be urgent in the heat of the moment and it blurs our perspective as to our proper priorities. In the heat of the moment we forget that which is most important to us. Freedom and liberty are at the heart of all successful endeavors of man and without it there is no safety, no security, nor any safety net. The opportunity to succeed must always be accompanied by the equal right to fail.

Our actions and our decisions have consequences. Things we desire in life have a price. Only when man is willing to accept the consequences of his actions; only when man is willing to pay the price, only then... can man be free.

All peoples must realize that there is no compromise between liberty and tyranny. It is not possible to allow a single encroachment upon freedom and still preserve liberty. For once the door of the vault is but cracked open, the flood of force and tyranny floods in. We allowed the door to be cracked and it is now being thrown open wide to tyranny.

Our founding fathers had a strong distrust of central government and consequently they were ever mindful of protecting both the constitution and the liberty of man. One of the biggest underlying reasons we find our current loss of freedoms, and the mess of government, is that we completely reversed their view and began to look to the government as the cure all, the healer of all, and the source of all answers. We stopped looking at the government with an eye of suspicion and accepted their "know it all" attitude as truth.

There is danger in lying to another, but no danger as great as lying to yourself.

The government does not know what is best. The answers lay not in the halls of government. The government offers no protection. The government is not and never has been the answer to the problems of man. Those who seek the answer in a central government end up with the worst of both worlds....no protection and no freedom. It is time for Americans to realize the truth. Answers ultimately rest with the individual. Responsibility rests not on the government, but on the self.

No thinking American could study the thinking of our founders, or the documents they created to protect us from intrusive government, and question the wisdom of their thinking, yet we do so by our actions. To consider government the answer to our problems is to deny the thinking of our founders and to ignore the documents they created to preserve our freedom. Our actions claim they knew nothing about which they so eloquently spoke.

At the time our constitution was being considered many thousands of Americans believed that the question of independence hung precariously on the single thread of whether or not the people were sufficiently virtuous and moral to govern themselves. It was generally acknowledged that a corrupt and selfish people could never make the principles of republicanism work successfully.

Benjamin Franklin said, " Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."

If one looks upon our current government we see massive corruption, self serving politicians, greedy special interests and failure of government on all levels. I propose to you that the public has demanded more regulation and more protection from the government for many years...to the demise of our liberty.

There have been demands to protect from all sorts of harm. The government created all sorts of bureaucracies in response. We have the FDA, the SEC, OSHA, EPA, Social Security, Medicare, the list goes on.

I submit to you that we have enormous government and no more protection than we ever had. Arguably less. We have indeed ended up with the worst of both worlds as we have less freedom and no protection either. Did the SEC stop Madoff? Has the FDA stopped dangerous drugs from getting on the market? I could go one, but the answer is absolutely not. Rather we allow ourselves to be lulled into a false sense of security. We are shocked to find that in the end there really was never any way around the need for accepting responsibility for our own well being.

We are disappointed because we had unrealistic expectations. The truth is that we cannot expect the government to provide for us, protect us, nor care for us. It was, after all, never the intent of the founders that it should do so. Indeed, I would suggest to you that such a concept has always, in the history of the world, proven to be a false hope and a failed concept.

Perhaps one of the best examples in recent history is the Patriot Act under which we gave away untold numbers of rights as American citizens in the name of protection from terrorists. I submit that we are no more protected now than we were prior to the Patriot Act, but we certainly gave up our freedoms. Again the worst of both worlds. I submit to you that the terrorists won. The freedoms lost have done more to destroy our freedoms, and hence our country, than anything else the terrorists have done. As George Bush might have said, we must destroy liberty to protect liberty. (reference to his remark that to protect the free market we must destroy the free market.)

Yet, the terrorists didn't really do it. Our government passed the Patriot Act, and we let them.

Now, let us consider the idea of Liberty.

"Under English common law a unique significance was attached to the unalienable right of possessing, developing, and disposing of property. Land and the products of the earth were considered a gift of God which were to be cultivated, beautified, and brought under dominion."

John Locke was widely read by our founders. He stated that the human family received the planet earth as a common gift and that mankind was given the capacity and responsibility to improve it. He wrote that "God, who hath given the world to men in common, hath also given them reason to make use of it to the best advantage of life and convenience."

Locke pointed out that all property is an extension of a person's life, energy, and ingenuity. Therefore to destroy or confiscate such property is, in reality, an attack upon the essence of life itself.

Locke outlined the principle of "property" as follows; " every man has a "property" in his own "person". This, nobody has any right to but himself. The "labour" of his body and the "work" of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever, then, he removes out of the state that Nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with it, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property.

It is perhaps worth considering the words of Justice George Sutherland of the U.S. Supreme Court who once told the New York State Bar:

"It is not the right OF property which is protected, but the right TO property. Property, per se, has no rights; but the individual....the man.... has three great rights, equally sacred from arbitrary interference: the right to his LIFE, the right to his LIBERTY, the right to his PROPERTY.....The three rights are so bound together as to be essentially one right. To give a man his life but deny him his liberty, is to take from him all that makes life worth living. To give him his liberty but take from him the property which is the fruit and badge of his liberty, is to leave him a slave."

Abraham Lincoln once said that: "Property is the fruit of labor. Property is desirable, is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is homeless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently to build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence...I take it that it is best for all to leave each man free to acquire property as fast as he can. Some will get wealthy. I don't believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good.

I hold THIS truth to be self evident; that whatever property a person has acquired through the fruits of labor, whether land, patent, copyright, money, or other worldly good acquired through legal honest effort and labor is the sole property of that individual. There is no natural law that permits another to rob one of property so obtained.

It is the sole purpose of government to protect property. If property rights are not protected then we are slaves and there is neither liberty nor life worth living; they are so entwined.

Our founders recognized that we could not delegate any power to the government that we, the people, did not have the legal right to do.

Now. Think about that. We cannot take property from our neighbor at gunpoint nor by force. (IRS) We cannot counterfeit money. (Federal Reserve) We cannot play Robin Hood and steal from our neighbor on the left to give it to our neighbor on the right.
(income re-distribution)

To understand liberty, one must understand property. Consider the above paragraph. If there is no protection of property, where is the liberty? Where then is the life? Wherein would you find happiness? So without property rights we find we can have no life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness.

Our founders realized that the proper role for the government was to provide equal rights of opportunity and not to provide equal "things". Samuel Adams said the idea of a welfare state was unconstitutional. Obviously, you cannot protect property rights by theft of property.

I have said for many years that we have a great fallacy of government. It is no great secret that an entity may be controlled through the control of the money. It is through the control of federal dollars to the states that they have circumvented the rights of the states. The ability to tax removes the idea of a government responsive to the people. It is a theft of property and not a protection of it.

I submit to you that the money you work for is your property. That it has always been your property, and that no man has a right to take your property by force or at the point of a gun. The purpose of government was to have been to protect our rights. But when government is in fact the criminal who confiscates our property then I suggest to you that something is very wrong. They take the fruits of labor at the point of a gun and, if you do not believe that, try refusing to give it to them.

If it is taken by force it is theft; whether it is done by an individual or a government makes no difference. We were to be a nation of laws. If it is theft for you to steal the earnings of another by force, it is unlawful. If it is unlawful for you to forcefully take the earnings of another it is unlawful for government to take the earnings of anyone by force.

When you work and they take the fruits of your labor you are nothing more than a slave. The government was supposed to be working for the people. They were supposed to answer to the people. But when they take your property and fail to listen, then I ask you who is WORKING for whom. We have taxation but we have no representation.

They no longer appreciate your tax money as a contribution to the state, rather they consider what they allow you to keep as their benevolence. They are no longer representatives but rather the ruling elite.

A couple of years ago I decided we needed to eliminate the income tax. If we control the money then they have to respond to our wishes. If they control they money then we are forced to comply with theirs....and obviously they are not motivated to listen to us.

I finally realized that was not sufficient. We are now being taxed in so many ways that they would merely increase other taxes to offset the loss of the income tax. Nothing would change. No, the time has come to stop all their ability to tax. It is a theft of private property. It was a power granted which never should have been granted; for to take the property of another is not a right we have and therefore could never have granted to another. We had no right to do so to begin with.

Not until the people control their own purse strings and those of the government will we have a government which is responsive to the will of the people.

I realize that there are people who will consider such a suggestion radical, but I assure you that it is not unrealistic or unworkable. In Ron Paul's book Revolution, he has stated that the elimination of the income tax would take the federal government all the way back to the level it was at in....1997. Wow.

I am not going to get into the intricacies of how this can be achieved at this point. I save that for another day. For the moment I prefer my reader focus on the rightness and wrongness of the concept of the government taking your property and observe the results it has achieved.

As long as they control your money you work for them. As long as you work for them they control your life. We have been forced into slavery whether we care to acknowledge it or not. But I believe the truth sets you free and it is time for a healthy dose of truth in this country.

Remember, when the people fear the government you have tyranny. When the government fears the people you have democracy. (though we technically we have a republic..not a democracy...they are a little different.)

Now, it is perhaps time to explain another great lie and great theft. There have been entire books written on the subject and I wish to merely summarize the subject of the Federal Reserve and the effects upon both government and the people.

The Federal Reserve was sold to the people with a lie which was basically that it gave the banks a back up to prevent a run on a bank and prevent the collapse of the banking system. It was explained as a protection of the people and insurance for your money on deposit.

As with many things, our government deceived the public into accepting the idea while their real reasons for their wanting to create a central bank were far more sinister. The idea was conceived by the big bankers, the government, and the special interests.

It allowed the bankers to lend far more money and hence increase their profits. It allowed the government to increase the money supply at will and thereby finance projects they could not immediately pass on to the people in the form of taxes. It gave them the ability to print money as needed and to inflate and thereby devalue the currency.

The use of a central bank and the power to create money out of thin air goes a long way to funding the expansion of government and is at odds with the concept of liberty and property rights. The printing of money and the subsequent inflation and devaluation of the currency has the effect of lowering wages and transferring wealth from the poor and middle classes to the bureaucrats and special interests.

This has been going on for decades and the wealth of Americans has been steadily and quietly stolen. In the meantime the federal government has manipulated the money, the world markets, the economy, and expanded government with their counterfeiting of the money.

As I stated in the article entitled "State of the Union"; Lenin is said to have declared that: " the best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose."

Marx's Fifth Plank of the Communist Manifesto mandates a strong central bank monopoly. This was seen as necessary to maintain power over the entire economy and to protect against the encroachment of capitalism.

For the government it is cheaper in the short run to inflate than to borrow and much more palatable than immediate taxation to bay the bills. If a government cannot borrow or inflate the currency it would be much smaller and the country much more prosperous and safer.

This corrupt method of paying bills and avoiding direct taxation only serves to institutionalize a system that breeds contempt for liberty and self-reliance while feeding the growth of big government. Any institution that can do this is by nature tyrannical and is specifically what the constitution was trying to prevent. Authority to create money gives credibility to legalized counterfeiting.

The principle here is that we are expected to accept without question that we should welcome government action that destroys liberty in order to save it. It is precisely this idea that suggests we destroy the dollar in order to save it.

When a society such as ours is relatively free it is through the use of deficits, taxes, fear, and fiat money that power is solidified. The authoritarians need the central bank for this takeover.

In every government subsidized program including banking, medicine, education, agriculture fiat money looks like a panacea. The results however are always tragic. Poverty and chaos ultimately ensue and powerful special interests demand a bailout from the very victims of the fraud.

Witness the bailouts and the taxpayers who are on the hook to pay the expense of bailing out the special interests and all the while it has been the working man who has been robbed at every step of the process, the working family who has little left, must bail out the ones who were the beneficiaries all along.

We were sold the idea that this central bank was to protect us. HOW HAS THAT WORKED OUT FOR US? We sought protection and in return our wealth has been stolen, our freedoms sacrificed, and instead of protection we get debt.

We have gained the worst of both worlds. No safety and lost liberty; though in this case we were robbed all along the way as well.

The crash was caused by several factors but almost all of which were a result of the Federal Reserve and government meddling. None of this collapse was due to functions of a free market nor the fact there were not enough "regulations" in place. The crisis will, however, be used as an excuse to further curtail liberty, the functioning of the free market, and the passing of more regulations.

If we are to ever be truly free again, it must begin with the recognition by each individual that we were not born merely with God given rights, but God given reason and intelligence. These were gifts to provide us with the ability to think for ourselves rather than expect others to do our thinking for us, and the good sense to realize that no one is capable of looking out for us as well as we can do it for ourselves.

Americans used to take responsibility for themselves, their families, and their actions. They willingly paid the price for freedom. They accepted the consequences of their decisions and their actions. They asked nothing of their fellow man beyond being left free to pursue their dreams and their own idea of happiness.

Life is not a free ride. Government cannot provide for the individual. In the end, after you have given of all your property, and all your freedom, perhaps even your life, government will fail to provide...... as history has so frequently shown.

If we are to have Liberty, we must assume the responsibilities of the rule of self. In the end, the price of freedom is cheap by any measure and is the ONLY hope of prosperity for anyone.

At the time the Constitution was being submitted to the states for ratification Thomas Jefferson said; "May you and your contemporaries preserve inviolate the Constitution, which, cherished in all its chastity and purity, will prove in the end a blessing to all the nations of the earth."

Madison said " The happy union of these states is a wonder; their Constitution is a miracle; their example the hope of liberty throughout the world. Woe to the ambition that would meditate the destruction of either."

In conclusion I suggest to you that there will be no freedom, no restoration of liberty, no form of responsive government, until we restore the protection of our property.

There will be no protection of our property until the right to tax by the federal government is brought squarely under the control of the people, the Federal Reserve is abolished, and the currency restored to a commodity based system. Perhaps the return of the gold standard, but regardless, the central bank must go.

There are other changes which need to be achieved, but none so fundamental as restoration of property rights. For in our property rights we realize the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

for my readers who would like to understand more completely the operations of the Federal Reserve, may I recommend the book by Congressman Ron Paul, MD. entitled "End the Fed." It is a good explanation of the workings of the fed and it provides a view as seen from inside our congress as well.

Portions of the above are from the upcoming book entitled "Cold Hard Truth" soon to be released.

Copyright 2009. Jean Lewis. All rights reserved.

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What Do The Lost See In Us?

[This is a re-editing of a previous post.  I can only hope that like the sermon "Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God", this message becomes more powerful and relevant in its second run.] 

There's a popular story about some folks who took a copy of the Bible and cut out every part that spoke of social justice.  The claim is that there wasn't much after that.

I have a hard time believing the story though.  You see, they actually sell Bible's like that, ones where everything that supports social justice has been removed.  You can go to almost any bookstore in the western world and find one for sale.  In fact I own not only one but several.  One's even a parallel version with four different translations side by side.  I actually like all of these versions of the Bible a lot.

Is it because I like editing out the stuff I don't like in the Bible?  No, it's because every translation of the Bible I know of is like that.  There is no support for social justice in the Bible.  I can say all of the support for social justice has been removed because that support is nothing, and nothing has been removed.

As those who read me find out pretty quickly I'm an individualist and so it should come as no surprise that I might direct you to the story of Zacchaeus.  This is one of the clearest individualist moments in the Gospels.

Luke 19:1-10
New International Version (NIV)

"Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through.  A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus;" . 

Note that "he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy" i.e. Zacchaeus was the worst sort of rich man who made his money by cheating and through the abuse of government.  Does this sound like a familiar story to what happens far too often today?

"He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd.  So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way."

This is a big moment within the moment.  "He wanted to see who Jesus was".  In spite of all that the local people could justly see as bad about Zacchaeus he wanted to know "who Jesus was".  That's the beginning of wisdom cubed.  Not only did he admit there was something he didn't know worth knowing, but that something that he didn't know was Jesus Christ.

"When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, 'Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.'  So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly."

Jesus addresses Zacchaeus individually and demands something of him, a place to stay the day.  It's interesting that it was a demand and not a request.  Jesus clearly knew something about this situation the rest didn't or still to this day don't.  But the huge thing from Zacchaeus's point of view is that he welcomed Jesus gladly.  I suspect at this point he was saved, though of course this could just be Zacchaeus being hospitable to a guest and not the more momentous acceptance of Jesus Christ as his lord and savior.  So let's read on. 

"All the people saw this and began to mutter, 'He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.'"

The people are of course shocked at what they just saw happen between Jesus and this man.  Not only has Jesus "gone to be the guest of a sinner" but one of the very worst in their eyes.  I would add, in my eyes as well.  He abused government power to enrich himself and the oppression of government is bad enough without people exploiting it.  So unfortunately I could easily see myself in this crowd.

"But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, 'Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.'"

Here Zacchaeus seems to be painfully aware of what the crowd is thinking and doesn't want them to think his bad past has somehow been justified, so he offers a penance.

"Jesus said to him, 'Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.  For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.'"

Jesus's words here are where a huge lesson manages to hide from many of us.

"Today salvation has come to this house".  Why?  Because of Zacchaeus's offer to do penance?  No of course not, not if we truly understand how Christ's gift of salvation works. 

Jesus goes onto say, "because this man, too, is a son of Abraham."  So is Jesus saying Zacchaeus is saved because he's a Jew?  Is he saying he stopped being a Jew but became one again due to his penance?  Once again not according to the nature of Christ's gift of salvation or what the Bible says about being a Jew for that matter. 

Especially considering Jesus then follows the sentence with, "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost."  And who are the lost?  Jesus told a few parables about "lost" things, sheep, coins, and each of them had two important things in common.  One was that having the nine out of ten whatever they were was never good enough reason not to make finding the one that was missing a priority.  And the second key thing was that whatever was lost, there was just one of them.  It was never the lost group but always the lost one.  So when Jesus said, "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost", I'm pretty sure He meant the individual.  That is the lost message for many of us in the story of Zacchaeus.

What Jesus said about him being a son of Abraham was contextual, though not without great meaning itself.  He was saying Zacchaeus was just as important to Him as any of them.  But what the story of Zacchaeus should tell us is that Jesus came to save the individual and so much so that He risked the ire of groups of people in order to do it.

Jesus didn't die for your group.  He died for you.  His ministry, His mercy, His loving compassion is for individuals.  Anyone who attempts to help groups at the expense of individuals is clearly not being as they may claim, "Jesus in the world".

Christ's love is not compatible with social justice.  He calls me, He calls you, He calls individuals to reach out to individuals in need.  And it should go without saying but it doesn't, if we attempt to reach out as a collective to groups we do something wrong.  And what that wrong thing is, separating ourselves from His ministry.  For His ministry is Him reaching individuals.  The greatest individual of all reaching out to save the individual.

Each of us must try to see the individuals like Zacchaeus as He does.  Not in terms of socio-econonics like wealth distribution or in terms of one group of people being more or less worthy than others.  No group is getting saved.  If that was His goal He would only have come once and we'd all live in the Kingdom of Israel.  Individuals are who the son of man came for.  He came to save the lost, the ones.

If you're not certain I know what I'm talking about, read those parables, read the prophets for that matter.  Even in the prophets where Israel was being condemned God had a message to the individual that was faithful. He was going to save them.  Read about the times when God would warn someone of imminent destruction for some nation or city and that person would attempt to negotiate with God.  Always it would come down to saving the one, sparing the one.

Jesus Christ came to save Zacchaeus and He did.  The city of Jericho where Zacchaeus lived on the other hand, we don't know how many were saved that day, just that one individual was.

As long as the perversion of the gospel that is social justice continues to infect Christianity I cannot seem to say this enough.  Social justice must go.  The individual today climbs a tree to see who Jesus is and instead of seeing Jesus in us, the individual gets knocked to the ground and condemned for his greed.

On judgement day will some of us need to answer why we failed to help "the least of these" and then say that we "thought some were getting what they deserved, that it was social justice."?  I speak so that they can repent before it comes to that.