Several people asked what brought me out that day. It seems obvious to me but perhaps bears repeating.
The God I follow has a habit of overturning structures of power we set up in this world. I see the thread through scripture from freeing slaves at the Exodus to confronting injustice in a prophetic voice and on into the New Testament. Mary praises God for “[filling] the hungry with good things, and [sending] the rich away empty.” (Luke 1:53 NRSV)
The way Jesus himself lived made a lot of people uncomfortable. He spent time with sinners of all stripes, threw moneychangers out of the temple and refused to resort to violence to save his own life. He also taught that the last will be first and the first will be last.
With this firm grounding in faith, I have been doing a lot of praying during this recession. Through my ministry, I know many people who are unemployed and underemployed, who sleep on the street or who struggle at the end of every month. While we work to feed the increasing numbers of hungry in the Capital Region, I have watched as economic inequality has increased rather than decreased.
Jesus always had a way of picking out that one person who was excluded. He gravitated to them with compassion, bringing them out from the margins into plain view.
I occupied Wall Street and will occupy Albany in order to bring the excluded into plain view. This movement highlights the fact that economic inequality has led to power inequality. Everything I know about who God is compels me to stand on the side of the least, the last and the lost.
I am by no means unique in my Christian progressive actions. In this movement and in history, there is a rich tradition of standing beside the poor because Jesus said so.
And that’s my reason too - the reason I live in hope for the dawning of a new day.