Who's your Tax-Collector?

Any first-grade Sunday-schooler knows that tax collectors were despised by their fellow Jews in the Gospels. My question: which occupation today is spit upon by God's covenant people?

Within my circles, several come to mind. First is that minister-of-cool, the youth pastor! Next is probably that dumbed-down servant of the state, the public school teacher. But third is of most interest to me, because it's about me, in third place is the US military.

I remember at Vision Forum's Uniting Church and Home Conference, I sat by a lady who was quite repulsed to be sharing table space with a "soldier". Her main objection seemed to be that the US military is controlled by the UN. Another objection I hear is that we're oath-breakers. Since we take an oath to support the Constitution, and the Constitution says that only Congress can declare war, and since Congress hasn't declared war for any conflict in recent history, then the US military has broken their oath and is engaged in unauthorized combat.

I guess my only response is to look at John the Baptist. When a Roman guard asked him what should he do, John didn't say "get out, for it's wrong to obey an imperialist head of state". Surprisingly, his harshest words weren't for the military or the tax collectors, but for those sons of Satan, the religiously self-righteous.