another MAGA crime: taking the name of the Lord in vain

“…The heart of the sons of men
is full of evil,
and madness is in their heart 
while they live…”
(Ecclesiastes 9.3)
 
Wherewith shall I come before the LORD,
and bow myself before the high God?
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good;
and what doth the LORD require of thee,
but to do justly, and to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with thy God?
 (Micah 6.6, 8)
​

homily series on just society and our mad state of rebellion
“healing our brokenness inadequately”
part 13
​taking the name of the lord in vain: “accept my savior, jesus christ
while I kill you”(Exodus 20.7)

“They heal my people’s brokenness inadequately, asserting:
‘It’s Okey! It’s Okey!’
But nothing is Okey!”
(Jeremiah 6.14, author’s translation).
​

  introduction to the series

Judicial inequality and injustice. Economic inequality and injustice. Rampant greed and fraud on the part of wealthy individuals and essential institutions. Bribery and corruption of government officials. Inordinate influence of the wealthy on laws and public policy. Unjust laws and policies favoring the powerful and influential while disadvantaging the less powerful and influential. The infliction of the vulnerable with hunger, homelessness, sickness, and anxiety. Self-righteous justification of the mad state of rebellion. Stubborn refusal to acknowledge these and a host of other societal ills.
 
No, I am not only talking about America of 2025. I am also talking about late 6th and early 5th century B.C. Judah. These, and many other evils undermined the temporal, moral, and spiritual health of the nation. All the signs were there. The nation was on the verge of collapse. It was in desperate need of truth, however sour it might be to the national palate. But the nation’s shepherds fed the populace an empty diet of propagandistic myths of nationalism. Many of Israel’s prophets joined the fray. Israel’s watchmen, Jeremiah charged,
 
“Heal my people’s brokenness inadequately, asserting:
  ‘It’s Okey! It’s Okey!’”
    “But nothing,” Jeremiah replies, “is Okey!”
 
Does this, too, sound familiar? Strike close to home? It should. Too often, today’s religious leaders—whether they go by the name, “prophet,” “priest,” or “pastor”— seem to lack both discernment and courage. They seem utterly blind to and mute about sin and evil, unless, of course, it involves some form of real or imagined sexual deviance. If they do speak out, it is often with muted, vague, delicate, and generalized voices and statements. These shepherds seem not up to the challenging task of bold and clear truth telling of the sort that our society so desperately needs. Now is not the time for delicacy and caution.
 
This homily is the thirteenth in an ongoing series entitled, “Healing Our Brokenness Inadequately,” based on Jeremiah 6.14. In this series, we explore specific examples of individual and societal sins about which political and religious leaders all too often remain willfully blind or, if sighted, stubbornly mute… and therefore complicit. Tragically, sometimes their complicity is even active and enthusiastic. With these examples in mind, we will often call upon the classic Hebrew prophets as well as other ancient and not so ancient prophets to speak as if from the dust. We read these discerning writings in light of the societal ills and injustices that abound in our modern world. Sometimes we even imagine and take a stab at replicating what a Hebrew prophet might have to say if he were to come to us from the past.
 
In this homily, we consider a recent and particularly egregious example of hypocrisy--one of the few sins that Jesus specifically singled out--in which America’s GOP/ MAGA take the name of the Lord in vain to implicate Him in their wicked cannibalism of their more vulnerable fellow citizens.
 
 
  taking the name of the Lord in vain, cannibalism, and hypocrisy

Call me crazy, but stripping necessary and life-saving health care from millions of innocent victims (e.g., the US House’s latest and largest redistribution of wealth bill in its history), then mocking those who express concern with this thievery by flippantly declaring that “we are all going to die” (e.g., Joni Ernst), then insinuating that those who dare believe that health care can offer a longer life are fearful and faithless people and so should get to know one’s Savior, Jesus Christ (also e.g. Joni Ernst), and then telling those that have no health care as a result of the wickedness of their leaders that it is their own fault (e.g., Speaker Johnson)… all this seems to me to be 1) a textbook case of cannibalizing one’s fellow human beings,  2) a textbook definition of taking the Lord’s name in vain, 3) the height of  hypocrisy, and 4) indicative of America’s political right as epitomized by the GOP and MAGA.
 
Any prophet worth their salt would proclaim loud and long against such hypocritical cruelty and blasphemy. Micah did not hesitate to use the language of cannibalism in criticizing his nation’s ruling elite and the unjust laws they passed to oppress the vulnerable.
 
“I am warning: Yaʿaqōb’s elite must listen right now,
  along with Yiśrāʾēl’s governing officials:
    ‘Isn’t it incumbent on You to determine what is just--
the ones who hate what is beneficial and love what is harmful;
  the ones who strip their skin right off them,
    and their flesh from off their bones;
the ones who have eaten my people’s flesh,
  stripped their skin right off them,
    snapped their bones,
chopped them into little pieces to fit in a pot,
  as meat in a caldron.’”
 
Though we find it horrifying, we might forgive the starving for turning to human flesh for survival. But, through their past theft, these GOP and MAGA cannibals have all that the heart can desire. Their greed is unbounded and the lust of their black hearts is insatiable.
 
As if this were not blasphemous enough, they take the name of God in vain, implicating God in their thieving schemes. They do this by recommending that their sacrificial victims turn to God for salvation (e.g., Joni Ernst) as their oppressors place them on the altar to roast and become humanburgers on the bakery buns of the wealthy.
 
Any prophet worth their salt would proclaim loud and long against such taking of the Lord’s name in vain. It was none other than God, Himself, who commanded,
 
“Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.”
 
Any prophet worth their salt would proclaim, as Jesus himself did, loud and long against the blasphemous hypocrisy of the GOP and MAGA.
 
“Woe unto you also [who] lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.”
 
“Woe unto you… hypocrites! For ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.”
 

  conclusion,  imprecation, and benediction

“Do you rulers truly decree what is just?
Do you govern your citizenry with equity?”
 
Nay, they do not.
 
The childishly named “Big Beautify Bill” is the largest redistribution of wealth from the middle and lower class to the most filthy rich in America’s history. Among its innumerable grotesqueries is the stripping away of health care from millions of vulnerable Americans. When legitimately concerned citizens express their outrage at politicians willingness to shorten their lives, they are cynically reminded that “we are all going to die.” When the oppressed confess that they are aware of their mortality, but that their short lives should not be needlessly shortened even more in order to further enrich that already filthy rich, they are told that maybe they should stop fearing death and find Jesus.
 
All of this is disgusting beyond words. But the taking of the name of God in vain by these hypocrites is beyond the pale. To invite someone to Jesus while you schemed to kill them is surely sin at the “son of perdition” level. I for one will follow Joni’s advice so far as to call upon Jesus. But I’ll be calling upon him to damn her and those like-minded with her to hell a hundred times over. It will sound something like this:
 
Do not hold Joni or her brothers and sisters in wickedness guiltless, O Lord.
Convict them of crimes against Deity and against humanity.
Sentence them to roast on the altar of hell’s brimstone.
 
“Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?” 
 
“Rise up, ʾElōhîm. Argue Your case.
Give thought to Your constant defamation by the contemptible.”
 
“May they be like a slug that oozes away as it crawls along.
Like a woman’s miscarried fetus, let them not see the light of day.
May they be like a thornbush that, before it grows thorns
and matures, a blazing heat blasts it.”
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!