Matchmaker Don came by Saturday night for barbecue and gunshots, it being the Fourth of July and this being ‘Texas, my Texas, hail o woeful state’, or however the patriotic hymn goes—I never have learned it, but I have seen it bring tears to people’s eyes.  And I’ve been afraid.  However, the holiday itself was only coincidental to our meat-searing—my nod toward patriotism being the drinking of the beer (which, ironically, was German)—because we needed to catch up on our various travels:  while I was going aground in Belize, he was bouncing around Israel for a couple of weeks with most of the usual suspects—New Testament Ray, Spaghetti Jim, Silent Col, Radio Tim, and Marlin the Merlin of our weekly pastors’ bs round table to name a few (‘course, the knights and knightesses of this particular round table look like a Monty Python scene).  I was sorry not to join them, but the mucho cost of the trip was outweighed by the fact that I get no continuing ed funds so have to foot the whole thing myself joined to the reality that I’ve never been particularly interested in visiting Israel anyway, even if it is the ‘holy land’, just as I’ve never been particularly interested in seeing Europe, a holy land of a different sort.  I’d rather go to the Galapagos.  Gimme the (naturally) fierce landscapes.

But they went to the Holy Land, and these eight or ten ELCA pastor types were shown around Israel by a—wait for it—Palestinian tour guide.  That brought some interestingly uncomfortable social dynamics, including the experience of overt rudeness because of the ethnicity of their guide.  Matchmaker saw the wall the Israelis are building around the Palestinians:  ‘It’s as hideous as the old one in Berlin.’  In the ironies of history, as hideous as the Warsaw Ghetto.  Or the one along the Rio Grande:  ‘Yikes!  Keep ‘em away!’  Or better:  keep ‘em trapped.

We sat out on the deck sweating in the simmering dusk while explosions went off around us and gun smoke settled like an L.A. smog.  We listened in silence and watched the upper structure of the deck shake in chaotic rhythm with the unbalanced high speed of the overhead fan until the darling rejoined us with the brownies.  Then Matchmaker launched into the tale of, oh, something like ‘Daffy Does Gerizim’ in honor of Daffy Duck.  And the Samaritans of Jesus’ days.  The Samaritans were kissing cousins of the Jews, having been part of the same religious family until the time of the Exile (ca 586 BCE), after which they went their separate way following (I think) an argument over ‘true Judaism’.  Their holy place was on Mount Gerizim.  Being kissing cousins, the Jews and Samaritans naturally came to despise each other.  Generally, the most we know about Samaritans is that there was one good one, thanks to Jesus.  You never hear about ‘em after that.

But apparently there are about a thousand of ‘em still around, in a little village on the hill to Mt. Gerizim.  Matchmaker and the crew thought it would be a terrific idea to go to the temple on Mt. Gerizim and, since it was the sabbath, maybe catch them at worship, so they loaded into the van, headed out across the desert, drove through the village and right up to the temple gates.  They were locked, with nobody about.  Nobody was about, that is, until they loaded back into the van and began their return trip through the village, where they were greeted by several dozen men coming up the road toward them looking angry and carrying rocks, generally not a sign of welcome.  In a terrific contemporary incarnation of Jesus’ tale, the local Samaritan rabbi/priest dismissed the men to their homes and invited the Daffies into the ‘parsonage’ courtyard where he explained Samaritan ways and invited them to return for another visit, ‘but not on the sabbath’ when it is forbidden to drive cars (among other things).  The crew wins The Daffy award for cross-cultural oblivion, stormin’ a Samaritan village on the sabbath, heads completely up their christocentric asses:  ‘Huh?  You mean there is an actual Holy Day around here?  Set apart from the rest?’

On the other hand, stoning seems a bit of an over reaction to what was at worst an unintentional insult to either them or their god, though for mobs there is no differentiation, calling for the abject apologies offered by the Daffies, followed by some appropriate response from their victims, I’m thinking something short of violence and destruction.  But there you go:  christocentrics aren’t the only ones with heads up their collective ass; so it is with samaritans and all the rest—’offend our god Us and we will kill you.’  But this time the Good Samaritan won:  his hospitality worked mercy.  ‘Please come back.  But not on the sabbath.  Meanwhile, I’ll chain the dogs ’til you’re safely out of town.’

So they beat their chastened retreat and on their way got to thinking about god and violence and asked their Palestinian tour guide—who himself should have known better than to haul them into that village on the sabbath—if he thought there would ever be peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians and he said that yes, he thought there would be noting his hope:  ‘The younger generation isn’t as religious.  Most of the violence has to do with religion.’

Makes sense to me.  Every major religion has peace as its declared core—peace with god and peace with the neighbor.  And every major religion in the world justifies their violence as the will of this peaceful god.  Makes perfectly good sense to me why people would see less religion as a sign of hope.  That’s why as a professional religionist I’m always on the defensive.  I can’t claim that my christian tradition has proven to be any different, thrilling to ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ under the banner of the prince of peace.

Texas, of course, is a Christian State:  according to the only statistic I found, 89% of us claim to be following Jesus (‘christians’).  And it shows, doesn’t it?  After all, Texas is the home of born-again Bush, and if you want to hold any political office down here you better be born again yourself, though some Catholics are acceptable.  An old friend, the truly compassionately conservative Bill got axed by the local Republican leadership to run for the newly-created state rep spot because he didn’t condemn homosexuals to hell—’an abomination in the eyes of God,’ as the guy who was chosen put it.  The chairman—until his recent firing—of our state board of education is a creationist and has been trying to get ‘intelligent design’ into the textbooks; there’s speculation our governor, Air Hair Perry will find another just like him–’gotta preserve the honor of God,’ you know.  Everybody knows we lead the country many times over in our execution of criminals, even though it costs about ten times as much to kill ‘em as it does to keep ‘em in jail forever—’gotta uphold the law of God’, you know.  And if our political life isn’t evidence enough, there are all the big-time renowned preachers, like John Hagee over in San Antonio gloating over the impending Rapture and lascivious violence wrought by the returning victorious prince of peace.  Even the less rabid sing, ‘Texas, my Texas, hail oh godly state.’

The godly state of Texas ranks 50th of all the states of the nation in how homeless children fare, according to a study by the National Center on Family Homelessness.  Some fun facts  (http://www.homelesschildrenamerica.org/state_detail.php?state=TX):
·    The report defines as homeless any child age 18 or younger living with at least one parent or caregiver in such places as emergency shelters, motels, cars, or campgrounds due to economic hardships or losing their own homes. It does not include runaways or abandoned children.
·    More than 337,105 of Texas’s children experience homelessness each year. . . Of the 2,129,000 children living in poverty in Texas, four out of every twenty-five (16% ) are homeless.
·    The child poverty level in Texas is 23%, compared to 18% nationwide.
Ages of Homeless Children:
·    Under 6 years                 141,584
·    Grades K–8 (enrolled)      164,086
·    Grades 9–12* (enrolled)     31,435
·    Total Homeless Children 337,105    (These totals do not include approximately 1,620 homeless, unaccompanied youth.)
Ethnicities of poverty:
·    46% hispanic
·    40% white
·    13% black

Economics:
·    A two-bedroom unit priced at the Fair Market Rent (FMR) falls outside of the financial reach of a full-time worker earning minimum wage in Texas.  One wage earner earning the state’s minimum wage ($6.55) would need to work 92 hours per week for 52 weeks per year to afford a two-bedroom apartment at FMR.
·    Even with two full-time minimum-wage earners, affordable housing is not attainable in most places in Texas.
·    The average wage-earner in Texas fares much better. One wage earner earning the state’s average wage for renters ($14.94/ hour) would need to work 40 hours per week for 52 weeks per year to afford a two-bedroom apartment at FMR.
·    For a typical homeless family, which consists of a single mother with two children, housing is even more difficult to attain:  the average monthly income for a single mother in Texas who receives public assistance is less than $713, or less than 50% of the Federal Poverty Level.  This family can afford to pay $214 per month in rent, leaving a deficit of $567 from the amount needed to rent a two-bedroom apartment at the state’s average FMR.
State ranking by areas:
·    Extent of child homelessness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49
·    Child well-being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44
·    Risk for child homelessness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50
·    State policy and planning . . . . . . . . . . .Inadequate
·    Overall Rank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50  (States ranked 1-50 with 1 being best and 50 worst.)
There’s more, of course, but the point is made.  I wonder how Texas comes out last, when we love our families and children so much and are christians to boot.  In any case, if a society is indeed judged by how it treats its most vulnerable members we’re in deep shit.

Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And they will say, ‘But, Lord, we thought their parents were irresponsible freeloaders too lazy to work for a living.’  But these will go away into eternal punishment, and the righteous into eternal life.”

Larry