Tag: social justice

Return To the Lord (Amos 4:6-13)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment

I gave you cleanness of teeth in all your cities
    and lack of bread in all your places;
yet you did not return to me,
            says the Lord.

And I also withheld the rain from you
    when there were still three months to the harvest;
I would send rain on one city
    and send no rain on another city;
one field would be rained upon,
    and the field on which it did not rain withered;
so two or three towns wandered to one town
    to drink water and were not satisfied;
yet you did not return to me,
            says the Lord.

I struck you with blight and mildew;
    I laid waste your gardens and your vineyards;
    the locust devoured your fig trees and your olive trees;
yet you did not return to me,
            says the Lord.

I sent among you a pestilence after the manner of Egypt;
    I killed your young men with the sword;
I carried away your horses;
    and I made the stench of your camp go up into your nostrils;
yet you did not return to me,
            says the Lord.

I overthrew some of you
    as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,
    and you were like a brand snatched from the fire;
yet you did not return to me,
            says the Lord.

Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel;
    because I will do this to you,
    prepare to meet your God, O Israel!

For the one who forms the mountains, creates the wind,
    reveals his thoughts to mortals,
makes the morning darkness,
    and treads on the heights of the earth—
    the Lord, the God of hosts, is his name! (New Revised Standard Version)

“Luxury often leads to forgetfulness. As for you, my beloved, if you sit at table, remember that from the table you must go to prayer. Fill your belly so moderately that you may not become too heavy to bend your knees and call upon your God.” St. John Chrysostom, On Wealth and Poverty 

Let us test and examine our ways and return to the Lord.

Lamentations 3:40, NRSV

Again and again, century after century, Israel’s God, Yahweh, sent prophets and calamities in order to shake God’s people from their wayward path.

It was expected that observance and faithfulness to God’s covenant would bring times of goodness and prosperity. Conversely, times of disobedience would elicit misfortune. It seems the people forgot that infidelity to the covenant leads to calamitous circumstances.

Through it all, Israel and Judah were unfaithful. All Yahweh ever wanted was for the people to return to their God, and enjoy all the blessings and benefits of being in a divine/human harmony. But the people weren’t having it.

Amos, throughout his prophecy, made it clear that personal transgressions, social injustice, religious infidelity, and national sins were at the heart of the trouble.

There was a tremendous wealth inequality which existed in ancient Israel. The people lost sight of the reality that everything belongs to God. Therefore, any resources they were blessed with should have been used to help the common good of all, especially the poor and needy.

It was from the prophets like Amos that the great early church preacher, St. John Chrysostom, developed his understanding of personal responsibility, church ministry, and national concern.

In sermon after sermon, Chrysostom argued and established that excessive wealth is dangerous to the soul. He continually warned his parishioners that those who accumulate exorbitant wealth are actually storing up a great retribution for themselves in the next life.

He insisted that the proper response to the extravagance of one’s possessions and money is to return to God and give liberally to others. One must understand, St. John argued, that all things belong to God. Thus, to acquire more and more is, in reality, a form of stealing from the poor.

Kindness and charity to the poor is imperative. Otherwise, a society cannot expect to realize ongoing blessing from God. Chrysostom constantly advocated for people to be generous in giving, not only to help the poor, but also to spur one’s spiritual growth and spiritual wealth. Building treasure in heaven, rather than on earth, was St. John’s basic orientation in life.

In today’s Old Testament lesson, after rehearsing seven different calamities which were meant as warnings, the eighth calamity would be to meet God face to face. We get the gist of the argument as a meeting that wouldn’t go so well for the filthy rich… that is, unless they willingly return to God and submit themselves and their stuff to the Lord of all.

Every one of us must ultimately come to grips with the fact that mercy and wrath are very real concepts that look one another in the eye. There is both hope and warning.

Will we return to the Lord, or will God effect a great visitation upon us?

Will God save us at the eleventh hour, or will the Lord bring devastation?

Either way, there is a meeting coming. Prepare to meet your God. It’s up to us how that meeting is going to shake out.

There is yet hope for those who are penitent, even and especially for those who finagled to obtain power and wealth for themselves. But if they are stubborn, they will find out what is the face opposite of mercy. This is the era of return, because it is still possible to change.

Yet even now, says the Lord,
    return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
    rend your hearts and not your clothing.
Return to the Lord your God,
    for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love,
    and relenting from punishment. (Joel 2:12-13, NRSV)

Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.

We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.

For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name. Amen. (Book of Common Prayer)

Truth Stumbles In the Public Square

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality BlogLeave a comment

In these past few months, as an American citizen, I have often wondered what God thinks about the current political situation and climate of the United States.

I must say that with a serious reading of the biblical prophets, it’s rather easy to imagine what the Divine stance likely is:

Justice is far from us,
    and deliverance does not reach us;
we wait for light, but there is only darkness;
    and for brightness, but we walk in gloom.
We grope like the blind along a wall,
    groping like those who have no eyes;
we stumble at noon as in the twilight,
    among the vigorous as though we were dead.
We all growl like bears;
    like doves we moan mournfully.
We wait for justice, but there is none;
    for salvation, but it is far from us.
For our transgressions before you are many,
    and our sins testify against us.
Our transgressions indeed are with us,
    and we know our iniquities:
transgressing and denying the Lord
    and turning away from following our God,
talking oppression and revolt,
    conceiving lying words and uttering them from the heart.
Justice is turned back,
    and deliverance stands at a distance,
for truth stumbles in the public square,
    and uprightness cannot enter.
Truth is lacking,
    and whoever turns from evil is despoiled.

The Lord saw it, and it displeased him
    that there was no justice. (Isaiah 59:9-15, NRSV)

These days, many of my prayers echo the complaint of the ancient prophet Isaiah. I too, have an expectation that God will grant justice and righteousness; and that the Lord will take pity upon us for our ignorance of what is just, right, and good.

And like the prophet Isaiah, I grieve a situation of profuse lying, political malpractice, and socio-economic illiteracy. Many, if not most, Americans and the world community alike, lacks things it needs to live a viable and joyous life. So, I mourn, like a bear growling for a long-awaited meal.

It seems to me that we are failing one another. Our collective vice, and lack of virtue, have led us on a path of injustice. We are a flawed people; we need Divine help.

Perhaps you believe I am being something of a curmudgeon, being too negative – that I’m seeing the glass darkly as only half empty. But no, I’m actually seeing the glass as completely empty, for we are a bereft people.

But just maybe this emptiness can be filled with justice and righteousness, and not shallowness and lack of education, nor gaslighting and manipulative selfishness. Just maybe we can filled to the full in truth.

Our public life together depends upon ethics of accountability.

This insipid business of people stating that they are “being transparent” is nothing but a red flag letting us know that they are doing just the opposite.

We need a new community – a fresh vision of what life can be together. And we are getting anything but that. Instead, in the U.S., we get entrenched yelping from both Republicans and Democrats. And in the face of injustice, we receive an eerie silence from those who ought to know better.

This is not simply a struggle for a political party and its policies. What is happening now transcends each party’s vision of how to live together as a people.

Historically, the Democratic party has generally believed that government ought to raise money through a fair system of taxation. The funds then are to be used to provide basic services that serve the common good of all persons, i.e. ensuring a living wage, protection through laws, maintenance of infrastructure, equal access to healthcare and education, etc.

The Republican party has approached a more individualistic vision of government, believing that each person should manage their own money to make the best use of a market economy. Then, they can create economic growth without reliance upon government regulation of business. Private philanthropy and non-profit organizations are relied upon to provide social services. Private companies are called upon to handle infrastructure needs.

In essence, at the core, Democrats have a vision of community and caring for one another, whereas Republicans have a vision of each person living prosperously under their own fig tree without the interference of others.

This is why things like tax increases and tax cuts become such visceral issues, because they get at the practical outworkings of each party’s vision of how to live together.

But the stakes are even higher than an American two-party system. There is presently leadership in the United States that is openly antagonistic, belligerent, bullying, rude, and frankly, unbiblical and unvirtuous. There is nothing that comes out of the current president’s mouth that reflects the words of Jesus; and there is nothing he does which is consistent with the ways of Jesus.

Many, if not most, “Christian” Republicans are woefully out of touch with their own Bibles; and, at the very least, are complicit in retraumatizing the already traumatized people in the nation (and the world) through supporting unjust leadership.

In the time of the prophet Isaiah, not only was there injustice (common citizens not receiving what they need to build a good life and flourish) but there was no one willing and available, no one engaged and at work to turn around an unjust system so that the government would respect basic human rights for the poor and the needy, the least and the lost in society.

So, the prophet was on the scene to announce that Yahweh, the God of Judah, has noticed. Yahweh has seen that the leadership would not accept responsibility for implementing the Law of God (namely, a set of just, right, and good laws which were to frame all of Jewish society).

Nobody cared. No one bothered to help those without a voice and without hope. And Yahweh knew it. Therefore, a sorry state existed which eventually turned into the people losing their land through an active judgment of God.

Truth matters. And when it is suppressed in the public square, God’s eyebrow is raised.

Lips that speak lies, tongues that mutter wickedness, attitudes which are dishonest, hands that work only for self, and feet which run to violence are all anti-truth practices. (Isaiah 59:3-4)

There is no way on this earth and in this life to get along without government. And because of that, government’s legitimate duty to its people is to provide necessary order, safety, peace, and ensure justice – which means making sure that all citizens have what they need to grow, thrive, and prosper.

Both survival and prosperity must have the glue of truth holding society together – which means that a nation’s government needs to have the basic fundamentals of justice in mind and at heart.

A telltale sign that leaders do not have the best interests of their own people is how they speak to and treat others outside their own nation, people in differing circumstances in different places.

“They did not want to consider their duty. They have distorted their intelligence so as to not understand what ought to be done… They have distanced themselves so far from the truth that they openly combat those who turn away from perversity and choose the good.”

Theodoret (393-457 C.E.)

I cannot think of a better way to describe our current failure of leadership in this world.

Lord, have mercy upon us.

Instead of selfishness we need self-discipline. Rather than a personal concern for earthly wealth and profit, we need to seek first the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness.

Instead of simply loving those who love us, we can  love our enemies and seek to do good. We can actively walk alongside beleaguered people who have had quite enough of belligerent bullying and bogus bellicosity in their lives.

To God belongs the ability to save, deliver, redeem, and judge. To you and I belongs the responsibility for treating our fellow humanity with justice, equity, goodness, and humility with a gentle spirit, holding one another accountable for our attitudes and actions. In short, it means living the truth.

That includes every politician and political party.

“Truth is difficult to reach and endure, but it is always the doorway to new freedom and life.”

John O’Donohue

If you yet are looking for some sort of positive outlook, some kind of hope, it is this: Our present suffering of spirit can serve to burn away any illusions (and delusions) that a politician or political process will save us.

Any disillusionment we may have becomes an opportunity to discover both old and new ways living the truth. It often takes suffering to teach us what is truly most important to us.

Our current malaise, national anxiety, and world troubles can become the means of future possibility, if we will let it. Worrisome circumstances can open to us the light of undiscovered truth about ourselves and our world.

We may stumble, yet there is always the chance to catch ourselves and not fall. So, what does God think of this present national and world situation? The prophet Isaiah insisted:

Let the wicked forsake their way
    and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
    and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:7-9, NRSV)

No matter what happens on this earth, Isaiah’s perspective insists upon the truth and reality of God’s ultimate authority. We shall not always understand divine authority, yet at its core, is full of justice and righteousness. And nothing can stop from it breaking out into the public square.

May it be so, to the glory of God.

The Need for Partnership and Participation (Malachi 3:5-12)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year CLeave a comment

“So I will come to put you on trial. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive the foreigners among you of justice, but do not fear me,” says the Lord Almighty.

“I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty.

“But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’

“Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me.

“But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’

“In tithes and offerings. You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me. Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” says the Lord Almighty. “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the Lord Almighty. (New International Version)

Return To God

God and God’s people were at odds with each other. The Lord was weary of the people’s constant complaining. They had a wrongheaded notion that God was absent, just because circumstances were not going their way.

Yet it is important to keep in mind that belief in God’s presence and God’s inherent goodness is absolutely essential to a faithful and good life.

If you think God is absent, then the best place to find God is at the outskirts or margins of a society. The Lord is there to protect the weakest persons and those who have been neglected by others.

The needy in Israel were on the outside without any power or a voice, which is why the prophet Malachi called the people to repentance – to change and amend their ways. They should return to God.

But what does a return to God look like? Since the people generally did not think they were doing anything necessarily wrong, they didn’t have a clue how to do this returning to God. They didn’t have the sense to know they were on the outs with God – which is why the prophet Malachi was speaking to them.

To the people at that time, and practicing the injustice that they were practicing, God responded that they should return by stopping their robbery of God.

Tithes and Offerings

Specifically, the people should reinstate the full mandated practice in the law of tithes and offerings.

Please understand that these tithes and offerings have nothing to do with modern capital fund campaigns for building churches or establishing new ministries. Rather, these words have a specific context that we must pay attention to.

The “tithe” in Israel was the temple tax, paid to the Levites, because this was the tribe of Levi’s only source of income. (Numbers 18:20-30)

An “offering” is a general term, referring to all the sorts of sacrifices offered at the temple as a part of Israelite worship. And once again, the Levites depended upon these offerings in order to eat and live.

Thus, tithes and offerings in Israel had a synergistic purpose of providing the people an opportunity to worship God and center their communal life around the Lord; and also providing for the Levites, so that they could make their living.

And then, the priests who attended to all the temple functions would use funds from the tithes and offerings to help the poor and indigent in the community.

So, a failure to provide tithes and offerings was an injustice, because it was neglecting to care for fellow members of society who needed help.

People could starve and die without practicing God’s law concerning tithes and offerings. And that is why it angered God so much whenever people reneged on their duty toward the temple practices.

Cooperation, Not Competition

Therefore, repentance and returning to God would happen only when the priests and the people cooperated together. Then, God’s faithfulness could be made effective and manifest itself among the entire social structure of Israel.

The entire society was built upon a divine/human cooperative. It required both human action and divine blessing working together.

None of this was a contract or a deal in which people do the right thing, and then God automatically blesses, like some divine slot machine that persons put coins into.

Instead, it is a system in which the laity work together with the clergy; and then all the people work together with God. In other words, God’s ideal is partnership and participation.

God will bring a great produce. But the people would have to do the hard work of planting and harvesting the crops. This is very far from any sort of name-it-and-claim-it theology in which a person prays for whatever they want and God will give it to them. That is not how an abundant life is produced.

Abundance comes wherever there are partners who participate with each other. If that system breaks down, then people are in a world of trouble.

So, people must take the social justice of God quite seriously – with its specific requirements about caring for one another.

Although we may not have the same particular system of Levites and a Temple, God’s heart for justice, for people’s basic needs to be met and satisfied, has never changed. That value still stands the test of time throughout all of human history.

Almighty God, who created us in your own image: Grant us grace to fearlessly contend against evil, and to make no peace with oppression. Enable us to reverently use our freedom, in the establishment and maintenance of justice in our communities and among the nations, to the glory of your holy Name. Amen.

A Reason To Hope (Ruth 2:15-23)

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Christian Spirituality Blog, Daily Bible Reading Blog, Year BLeave a comment

When she got up to glean, Boaz instructed his young men, “Let her glean even among the standing sheaves, and do not reproach her. You must also pull out some handfuls for her from the bundles and leave them for her to glean, and do not rebuke her.”

So she gleaned in the field until evening. Then she beat out what she had gleaned, and it was about an ephah of barley. She picked it up and came into the town, and her mother-in-law saw how much she had gleaned. Then she took out and gave her what was left over after she herself had been satisfied. 

Her mother-in-law said to her, “Where did you glean today? And where have you worked? Blessed be the man who took notice of you.”

So she told her mother-in-law with whom she had worked, saying, “The name of the man with whom I worked today is Boaz.” 

Then Naomi said to her daughter-in-law, “Blessed be he by the Lord, whose kindness has not forsaken the living or the dead!” Naomi also said to her, “The man is a relative of ours, one of our nearest kin.”

Then Ruth the Moabite said, “He even said to me, ‘Stay close by my young men until they have finished all my harvest.’ ” 

Naomi said to Ruth, her daughter-in-law, “It is better, my daughter, that you go out with his young women, otherwise someone might bother you in another field.” 

So she stayed close to the young women of Boaz, gleaning until the end of the barley and wheat harvests, and she lived with her mother-in-law. (New Revised Standard Version)

Ruth was both a widow and a foreigner from Moab. She and her mother-in-law Naomi had no land. Widowed foreign women were likely to be poor. They were vulnerable to abuse by being out in the fields during harvest time, trying to glean whatever leftovers they could find after the harvesters came through.

The covenant code of Israel prescribed laws concerning how to treat the poor. There was even instruction on what to do in just such a situation of the landowning harvester Boaz and the poor gleaner Ruth:

“When you reap your harvest in your field and forget a sheaf in the field, you shall not go back to get it; it shall be left for the alien, the orphan, and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all your undertakings. When you beat your olive trees, do not strip what is left; it shall be for the alien, the orphan, and the widow.

“When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do not glean what is left; it shall be for the alien, the orphan, and the widow. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I am commanding you to do this. (Deuteronomy 24:19-22, NRSV)

The law stipulated a spirit of generosity toward the poor in the land. The reason for the law is that the Israelites had been slaves in Egypt, and experienced the cruelty of abusive slavedrivers. Israel was to remember this, and ensure that no foreigners would experience what they themselves had to go through for 400 hundred years in Egypt.

Ruth gleaning, by James Tissot, c.1898

Fortunately for Ruth, Boaz was an observant Jew, concerned for the intent and spirit of God’s law. He held to the covenant law both legally and spiritually.

Boaz remembered God’s grace to Israel. He blessed Ruth, and commended her for placing herself in God’s hands.

If not for the covenant code’s opportunity for the poor to glean, Boaz would have faced a dilemma. Once he became aware Ruth and Naomi’s poverty, he surely would not have let them starve. Yet, neither would he likely have made them dependent upon himself.

It is important to preserve the dignity of people, which is why the Old Testament is filled with social and economic laws concerning the poor in Israel.

Ruth was given the chance to glean and work for the harvest. This allowed her to use the grain for making bread. Furthermore, her own labor freed herself and her mother-in-law from being dependent as beggars. All of this helped make the two of them less vulnerable to exploitation by those with little concern for God’s covenant code.

Rather than being smothered either by sheer dependency, or through being used and exploited, God’s law operated as intended, thanks to the pious concern of Boaz.

This did not go unnoticed by Naomi. She clearly saw the gracious hand of God acting through Boaz.

Regardless of who we are, whether rich or poor, old or young, we can be gracious. We can commit ourselves to working hard for one another. We can be concerned for the common good of everyone.

God’s grace turns our hearts and minds, our heads and hands, toward ensuring that all persons have what they need to grow, thrive, and flourish in this life. This is exactly what biblical justice is all about. It’s what Boaz was about.

This will include concerns about equity. A just society will involve some sort of distribution of resources. It will mean making sure that our collective values, communal priorities, and social structures uphold the inherent dignity of human life. We will protect the most vulnerable among us.

A culture attuned to grace will champion the underprivileged and not use them as political pawns to achieve personal goals. A people focused on grace will place faith in God’s presence and provision for us all.

Those with much will care for the disadvantaged, and will uphold laws that do so. Those with little will take advantage of opportunities to both receive and give, and will make their voices heard on behalf of the needy.

Since God is just toward all, so we who are created in God’s image are to also be just.

Since God is good in all that God does, we too, are to be good.

Since God is gracious, merciful, and kind to the poor, so we are to be full of grace, mercy, and kindness.

Since God is love, so we are to love, not hate.

Faith and hope are born within the heart, because there is a reason to do so. Let us all be the people who give others a reason to trust God, hope for a better tomorrow, and love, despite any unloving situations.

Soli Deo Gloria