"And the Word was made flesh and dwelt [literally: "pitched His tent"] among us, full of grace and truth." —John 1
Not long after the tiny, struggling church I was serving closed and sold its building to a developer who wanted to “convert it” into condos (don’t you love that expression?), this happened:
Occupy Boston, October 2011
Now, let me say upfront that I am NOT a natural-born activist. I’m a nerd, is what I am. I’ve spent my whole life trying to get my assignments done and stay out of trouble like a good kid. But when Occupy hit the news, I was electrified. Who were these people who were mad at the same things I was?
I had been waiting two years for the church to say something, do something about the financial meltdown. I was SO ANGRY—at the greed, and the recklessness, but most of all about the brutal exploitation of the poor and vulnerable, so very angry, just beside myself. Where was the public outcry? With so many suffering, why had even my beloved UCC remained silent?
Now thousands of people were camping out in the financial districts of America, braving the cold October nights to demand economic justice. The first time I visited the Boston encampment, I remember actually feeling a twinge of jealousy, the kind you get when that book you’ve been meaning to write gets published by someone else.
It was like a part of the gospel had escaped and gone out into the world on its own.
Little did I know...
This post isn’t about the effectiveness of the Occupy movement as a movement. That’s a topic for another blog. I just want to tell you what I saw at Occupy Boston during the three month-encampment, from a Christian standpoint.
I saw a giant food tent, staffed by volunteers, putting out hundreds of meals a day for anyone who wanted them—activists, allies, homeless people, whoever showed up.
I saw a medical tent where volunteer medics treated people for free, as best they could, and a clothing tent where you could go get yourself a coat, or donate one.
I saw a swarm of passionate, indignant, resolutely secular, mostly nonviolent activists laboring to forge a community of compassion, mutuality, and respect in the midst of the mud and tarps and protest signs—trying to LIVE the world they insisted was possible, right in the midst of the world as it is now. It was protest and it was love, all rolled up together. They wanted to show the world another way by the power of example.
Isn’t that what the church is supposed to be about?
Except Occupy was doing it out in the open, at huge personal sacrifice, in the heart of the financial district. Directly in front of the Federal Reserve. Which meant the world was actually forced to look and think about their message.
It was chastening watching people who hated religion, especially MY religion, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, tending to the sick, and ministering to people in prison. In fact, being willing to GO to prison for their convictions.
Ministering to human beings because they were human, without asking anything in return.
In some ways Occupy Boston was so much like church it was almost eery. It had preaching and praxis, committees for everything and systems for mutual aid. Most startling of all to me, it had self-giving love. It just didn’t have God, or Jesus.
Or did it?
It isn't a rhetorical question. I'm honestly wondering what you think. What IS church? Who does it belong to, and how do we recognize it? What "camp" is Jesus in?
Note: I should state for the record that people of faith did get involved in the Occupy movement early on, and have made many important contributions. My experience of Occupy, though, was as a mainly secular movement with some faith participation.