He Was a What?

Okay. Pastor Zip can understand how some people didn't appreciate Gov. Sarah Palin's take on community organizers during her speech at the Republican National Convention last week. I have friends -- good, solid Lutheran pastors -- who have been heavily involved in such efforts and speak well of what they accomplished.

So for the moment I'll set aside my own experiences when the Gamaliel Foundation's guy in the Quad Cities tried to stir up interest in organizing here in Peoria -- where I went to a big Quad Cities Interfaith convocation and saw just how much of "the community" bothered to show up to set QCI's agenda for the coming year. That would make it easy enough to belittle Sen. Obama's experience -- though if they intend to be victorious in November Sen. McCain's people had better not forget that our junior senator came out of nowhere to defeat the mighty Clinton machine. But this is Pastor Zip's Blog, not my 21st Century Whig blog, so we'll step around the "political" side of this.

I find the following quip gaining popularity with my more, uh, progressive connections within the Church:

"Jesus was a community organizer, Pontius Pilate was a governor."

And while I like a good quip, I've also read the Gospels. So...

Just how was Jesus a "community organizer?"





(Well, there was his disciple Simon the Zealot...)