I got this making stuff for you

I heard a story about some followers of Jesus recently who attended a rally against overseas sweatshops.

They had not invited the typical rally speakers—lawyers, activists, and academics.

Instead, they brought the kids themselves from the sweatshops to speak.

The people listened as a child from Indonesia pointed to the giant scar on his face.

“I got this scar when my master lashed me for not working hard enough. When it began to bleed, he did not want me to stop working or to ruin the cloth in front of me, so he took a lighter and burned it shut.

I got this making stuff for you.”

The people were suddenly consumed by the overwhelming reality of the suffering body of Christ.

Jesus now bore not just the marks from the nails and scars from the thorns but a gnash down his face, for when we have done it to the ‘least of these,’ we have done it to Christ himself.

They wondered, ‘How could we possibly follow Jesus and buy anything from that master?’

The statistics had a face. Poverty became personal. And that messes with you.

Notices that they didn't say they were 'consumed by overwhelming guilt.'

They were consumed by the reality of the suffering body of Christ. HE bears their scars. HE suffers with the sweatshop workers. HE bears the sin that we've all participated in, in one way or another.

Not guilt, just reality.

Early Christians in the Roman empire faced many similar issues that we do when it comes to economically supporting a global empire that works in a way that we don’t agree with.

It wasn’t easy to resist the empire of Rome and all its dazzle, luxuries to spend money on, and entire economic system that did not reflect the nature of Jesus.

Well, I read a book that dives into some of the things John was saying in the book of Revelation. I'm not going to go into a Bible study or even quote verses . . .its Revelations, who knows. And I don't have them memorized. One thing he brings up is that perhaps John was basically calling them out of dependence, infatuation, and support of that empire and that system.

The question he was posing to them is one I think is worth posing to us today.

Do we think there is no other way except the "filthy rotten system" we have today?

Is it possible we can’t see the destructiveness of our economy not because we don’t know it’s terrible but because deep down we feel that it’s necessary and that therefore it’s hopeless to criticize it?”

I'll end with this quote:

"Jesus is ready to set us free from the heavy yoke of an oppressive way of life.

Plenty of wealthy Christians are suffocating from the weight of the American dream, heavily burdened by the lifeless toil and consumption we embrace.

This is the yoke from which we are being set free!

And as we are liberated from the yoke of global capitalism, our sisters and brothers in Guatemala, Liberia, Iraq, and Sri Lanka will also be liberated.

Our family overseas, who are making our clothes, growing our food, pumping our oil, and assembling our electronics—they too need to be liberated from the empire’s yoke of slavery.

Their liberation is tangled up with our own.

The new yoke isn’t easy. (it’s a cross for heaven’s sake)

But we carry it together, and it is good and leads us to rest, especially for the weariest traveler."