[Dialogue] A Fable

[jim rippey]

Thanks, Dick Kroeger, for sharing your frustrating encounter with your state
senator and for passing on "A Fable" which makes your point so well.

Also, like you, this story came to me at a time when I really needed it.  It
seems to me that the current national push to encourage faith based social
efforts is similarly suspect.  It is, at least in part, a way of diverting
attention from the greed and selfishness that makes a virtue of tax cuts
while slashing programs that help the needy.

I look to Dialogue for this kind of nourishment and it seems to me there has
been less of it recently.

Thank again

Jim Rippey in today's grey skies of Bellevue, NE.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <KroegerD at aol.com>
To: <MICAH6-8 at topica.com>
Cc: <Dialogue at wedgeblade.net>
Sent: Tuesday, March 08, 2005 7:14 PM
Subject: [Dialogue] A Fable


> After a recent meeting with my state senator, who admonished me and the
church for lobbying her rather than taking care of the issues we were
discussing housing, health care, minimum wage, child care; I began to see
where there are those of good will that believe that it is the task of the
church to nurture members in the hopes that that nuture will equip and
inspire them to "feed my sheep"; and that the local congregation has no
place in influencing public policy.
>
> The story that follows really helps me to reaffirm my believe that the
church, without a social justice position is not the Church of Jesus christ.
What do you think?
>
> -- 
> Dick Kroeger
>
>
> Once there was a farming town that could be reached by a narrow road with
a bad curve in it.  There were frequent accidents on the road, especially at
the curve, and the preacher would preach to the people of the town to make
sure that they were Good Samaritans.   And so they were, as they would pick
the people up on the road,  for this was a religious work.  Then one day
someone suggested they buy an ambulance to get the accident victims to the
town hospital more quickly.  They preacher preached and the people gave, for
this was a religious work.   Then one day a councilman suggested that the
town authorize building a wider road and taking out the dangerous curve.
Now it happened that the mayor had a farm market right at the curve on the
road and he was against taking out the curve.  Someone asked the preacher to
say a word to the mayor and the congregation next Sunday about it.   But the
preacher and most of the people figured they had better stay out of
politics; so next Sunday the preacher preached the Good Samaritan Gospel and
encouraged the people to continue their fine work of picking up accident
victims -- which they did.
>
> It is credited to Francis X  Meehan  From "Ministry in the Church:  A
Structural Concern for Justice,"  Review for Religious, Jan. 1978.
>
> and thanks to Gail Anderson for delivering this story to me at a time when
I really needed it.
>
>


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