I must confess I grew weary of hearing the Democrats and Republicans trade the same jabs over and over again in the 2011 budget debate. I may have to go on a news fast to get through the debt limit and 2012 budget debates without cracking up. It’s not that I’m inclined to believe or at least see the logic of each argument when I hear it by itself. No! It’s that even taken on their own terms, neither seems to make sense to me. I also readily confess that I have no idea what I would suggest to either party. I don’t think I have any kind of realistic grasp of dollars measured in billions and trillions. I have a hard enough time managing my own budget and debt retirement with ordinary dollars.
I have no intention of entering the partisan fray. As a pastor, that is not my job, nor am I up for it. However, my pastoral vocation does mean calling attention to God in the midst of ordinary life. With the 2011 budget debate still reverberating in the news in anticipation of the debt limit and 2012 budget debates, on Tuesday, April 12 as I was praying through the Psalms (5 a day to get through each month as I have done for over 40 years – that day 12, 42, 72, 102, 132), I was stopped short by Psalm 72. Please read the whole Psalm for yourself, but these verses gave me pause.
“(1)Give the king your justice, O God, and your righteousness to a king’s son. (2)May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice.”
“(4)May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor.”
“(12)For he delivers the needy when they call, the poor and those who have no helper. (13)He has pity on the weak and the needy, and saves the lives of the needy. (14)From oppression and violence he redeems their life; and precious is their blood in his sight.”
“(16)May there be abundance of grain in the land; may it wave on the tops of the mountains; may its fruit be like Lebanon; and may people blossom in the cities like the grass of the field.”
I certainly recognize that the ancient, theocratic kingdom of Israel is not equivalent to the contemporary secular, pluralistic democracy of the United States. While different ways of bringing justice to the poor, weak and needy may be legitimately debated, to suggest that caring for the weakest in a society is not the role of government in a biblical or Judeo-Christian worldview is disingenuous at best.
For the first three centuries of the Church’s history, Christians were on the outside of an indifferent if not hostile Roman Empire. The Mosaic Law provided and even mandated many social mechanisms for caring for the poor. Though they were not always followed, they did mean that the Jewish community often provided for poor people better than some of their pagan neighbors, even when under Roman domination in Jesus’ time. Caring for the poor was a high priority in the practical ethic of the early Church. From these roots grew the many charitable Christian endeavors that have persisted through the centuries.
Immediately after Pentecost they pooled their resources to distribute to those in need (Acts 2:44-45). When they had an internal conflict over the distribution of food, they appointed seven spiritual people to oversee it (Acts 6:1-6) When the Apostle Paul reports the results of the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) to the Galatians he writes that rather than burdening the Gentile Christians with Jewish customs, they were asked only to remember the poor, which Paul writes they were eager to do (Galatians 2:10) Also Paul’s discourse on generous giving that is often used in stewardship teaching (2 Corinthians 8-9) was occasioned by a collection for the churches in Judea who were suffering famine (Acts 11:28-30).
I understand that generosity to the poor in the New Testament was voluntary in the sense that it was not a government tax. However, the early Church clearly considered caring for the poor to be an intrinsic part of Christian discipleship. Paul uses powerful words to motivate the Corinthians to give to the poor Christians in Judea. “I do not say this as a command, but I am testing the genuineness of your love against the earnestness of others. For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.” (2 Corinthians 8:8-9)
Perhaps a healthy way for Christians to approach care for the poor in the United States in the twenty-first century would be to think the way Christians thought about the Roman Empire in the first three centuries of the Church’s history. Since we don’t expect government to make caring for the poor its job, we Christians must work together with massive, aggressive ministries to the all of the weakest of our society. But to suggest that wealthy people have a right to expand, keep and enjoy their resources without concern for those who are in need and suffering is contrary to both the social ethic of the Hebrew Scripture and the clear teaching of Jesus and the New Testament.
In all the current debates about the national deficit and debt of the United States, I have heard little if any coming to terms with what has brought us to this place. Democrats and Republicans blame each other, but I am not hearing anything that would approximate repentance. It is a spiritual axiom that renewal and transformation (conversion of life) begins with repentance that goes much deeper than being sorry we got caught or that our national values and habits have caught up with us. Perhaps a secular democracy cannot have a spiritual repentance, but I would like to hear a spiritual repentance from politicians on both sides of the political aisle, especially those who have made their Christian faith public. Perhaps that is asking for political suicide. It certainly is difficult if not impossible without a profound work of the Holy Spirit. But I would support a politician from either party who would embrace James 5:1-6 as refreshing repentance.
“Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days. Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who does not resist you.”
Psalm 72 connects just care for the poor with prosperity for the whole community. That connection is explicitly expanded in Isaiah 58:6-12. Repentance and justice for the poor is not a message of gloom but of glory and hope. I am not suggesting any kind of political agenda here but a call for a spiritual transformation among the people of God. I invite you to participate in the conversation.
“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
“Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’ If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The LORD will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in.”
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