Isaiah and Economic Justice 2: The Blood of the Poor

Isaiah 1:12-18

When you come to appear before me,

....who asked this from your hand?

Trample my courts no more;

....bringing offerings is futile;

....incense is an abomination to me.

New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation—

....I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity.

Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates;

....they have become a burden to me,

....I am weary of bearing them.

When you stretch out your hands,

....I will hide my eyes from you;

even though you make many prayers,

....I will not listen;

....your hands are full of blood.

Wash yourselves;

....make yourselves clean;

remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes;

....cease to do evil,

....learn to do good;

seek justice,

....rescue the oppressed,

defend the orphan,

....plead for the widow.

Come now, let us argue it out,

....says the Lord:

though your sins are like scarlet,

....they shall be like snow;

though they are red like crimson,

....they shall become like wool.

Isaiah 1 functions literarily as an introduction and a preview. It provides insight into the complaint that the Lord has against Israel. Unlike the Former Prophets’ focus on temple loyalty, this oracle challenges the whole practice of temple worship. Temple worship is pointless and useless in the eyes of God if it is not accompanied with a life worthy of God.

Much of the language is general, speaking about sin and evildoings, yet there are a few specific indications of what these sins consist in. The first example comes in describing their posture of prayer, with hands stretched out to God. God will not look upon them or listen to their prayers because their “hands are full of blood.” Whose blood does is on their hands? Where have they found to drench their hands in blood? It is the blood of the poor.

The powerful and wealthy who frequent the temple with displays of public piety are the ones who are oppressing the poor. They come to the temple convinced that their prosperity comes from God’s favor. They are so mixed up about who God is that they want “the day of the Lord” to come quickly (see 5:18-19). They are sure that whatever God is about to reveal will be for their benefit. They completely misunderstand what it is to be the people of God.

How can we be sure it is these people and this evil that Isaiah is addressing? A few lines further the oracle gets specific again. After telling the audience of this oracle to wash and cease to do evil, a list of actions makes the message very clear. “Seek justice. Rescue the oppressed. Defend the orphan. Plead for the widow.” This first chapter draws attention to the evil that is making God detest temple worship. The people with bloody hands are unjust. They are oppressing their sisters and brothers, or benefiting from oppression and standing by while the weak and marginalized go hungry, are beaten, lose their homes and possessions, fall sick, and die. In a well-recognized trope, the orphan and widow are held up as the “poster children” of the vulnerable among Israel. Isaiah is confronting the violent system of economic oppression.

A few lines from a contemporary prophetic text by Bruce Cockburn, “Call It Democracy,” may help to elucidate what is at stake in this passage.

Padded with power, here they come—

International loan sharks backed by the guns

Of market-hungry military profiteers,

Whose word is a swamp, and whose brow is smeared

With the blood of the poor;

Who rob life of its quality;

Who render rage a necessity

By turning countries into labour camps,

Modern slavers in drag as champions of freedom.

Open Hearts Mean Open Hands, Part 2

This is the text of a sermon continued from the previous post.

Deuteronomy 15:1-11
Acts 4:31-35

But this is not the kind of economic system intended for the world that God loves. Deuteronomy 15 has a different idea of how to deal with hard times. The Bible teaches us another way of thinking about borrowing and lending. God has a bailout plan called the Sabbath year and the Jubilee. There is a time for bailing out people who have bad debts, but it is not just for the benefit of insurance companies, banks and brokerage firms. No, it is especially for making sure that people who fall on hard times don’t have to stay there forever. Verse 1 says, “Every seventh year you shall grant a remission of debts.” You shall grant a remission of debts. You must not let debts pile up year after year, decade after decade, generation after generation, until a large mass of people and their descendents can never escape them. When things get out of hand, there has to be a collective setting things back aright.

The deeper purpose of this economic practice is stated in verse 4, which says, “There will be no one in need among you.” There will be no one in need among you. It is not a prediction that needs and difficulties will not arise. It’s not saying that God will magically put money in your bank account whenever you want it. It is a statement about maintaining a society of care for one another. If Israel would follow these economic practices, they could keep from creating a class of perpetual poverty, of permanent debtors, of unending wage slavery.

Verses 7 through 11 expand on the way that Israel could be a people who have no need among them. They must not be “hardhearted or tightfisted” toward their neighbors. Instead, they should open their hands with generosity, not grudgingly thinking about the year of remission and not getting paid back. Verse 11 recognizes that misfortunes, mistakes, bad decisions, poor judgment, health setbacks, loss of a loved one and provider, business closings, weather disasters, and many other reasons may push some people into poverty. It says, “There will never cease to be some in need on the earth.” Hard times may come. Poverty may break out. Then Deuteronomy follows this observation with a command about how to live every day: “Open your hand to your poor and needy neighbor.” Open your hand. Don’t close it up. Don’t harden your heart. Don’t become cold and indifferent. Open your hand. Open it. Open it, and keep it open.

Maybe some of you recognized that Jesus quoted from this passage when some people were complaining about the cost of a jar of ointment which a woman had used to anoint his feet. They claimed it was a waste of money. They postured that such extravagance should instead be directed toward helping the poor.

You probably also have heard people use Jesus’ words to teach the opposite of what Deuteronomy is saying. We have to realize that sometimes elements of our culture which do not conform to the gospel have become so powerful in shaping our thinking that we do not read the Bible very well. The heritage of white supremacist interpretations of the Bible led many who called themselves Christians to believe that God wants people of certain skin color to rule over people of another skin color. In a similar fashion, people often quote Jesus’ words from John 12, “The poor are always with you” to give a reason why it is useless to help the poor. They act like Jesus is saying that we can’t really do anything to solve poverty, so we should just quit trying.

But that is the opposite of what Jesus was saying. He was quoting from Deuteronomy 15:11 in order to remind the people in the room that acting upset about this woman’s gift to Jesus was hypocritical when they were tightfisted toward the poor every day. These were the same kind of people who declared their possessions Corban, or devoted to God, so that their poor aging parents would not be able to make a claim on their wealth. They were the ones who tithed their mint and cumin but ignored the weightier matters of the law concerning justice and mercy. So when they hear Jesus quoting Deuteronomy 15:11, they knew the rest of the verse condemned them for not opening their hands to the poor and needy who came their way.

An economic system which exploits and uses the average worker so that a wealthy elite can become richer and richer has turned away from the ways of God. Economic systems are not strictly rational and unhindered free markets. Economic systems do not operate independently of power, and lots of money translates into lots of power. If a society is to be beneficent, just, and prosperous, it must be organized in ways to see that all of its members can have a share in the good, a share of justice and a share of prosperity. But far too often, people and institutions with great wealth use their power to benefit only themselves and to the detriment of the poor and the worker.

There are many forms that economic inequity and injustice can take. Many examples of inequity in the economy are addressed in the Bible. One which was often addressed is called usury. U-S-U-R-Y, usury. Usury describes the practice of charging inordinate interest on loans. The Bible generally looks down on the practice of charging interest, but it does not seem to ban it absolutely. However, it is very clear in saying that charging interest on people who are in economic distress is wrong. By biblical standards, usury is one of the worst forms of sin, often listed along with lying, bribery, dishonoring parents, robbery, adultery, rape, and murder.

But nowadays we live in a different economic system, and charging interest has become a standard way of doing business. We don’t like high interest rates, but we are used to seeing them. We accept it as the way business works. Of course, it is the way that people who have plenty of money can use their money’s power to gain even more money. I accept and agree that there are reasonable ways of loaning with interest which do not go against the biblical view of economic justice, but there are also many common practices which blatantly offend God’s justice.

Part of the problem is that we have been trained to think in a modern way that is different from the Bible’s teaching. We don’t usually think of interest as potentially falling into the same category with rape and murder. Most of us keep trying to get more credit so we can borrow more and get more stuff. Certainly all of us need to learn how to be careful and responsible in the way that we borrow money and go into debt. Many of our bad choices have put us in the mess we are in. But let’s not be turned away from the heart of this problem. The issue at hand is usury. While there are appropriate ways to borrow and loan money with interest, there are also many inappropriate, wrong, even downright evil ways of doing so, called usury.

We all need to learn a little history to understand the present. Until the late 1970s, there was a federal usury law in the U. S. which set a limit on interest rates that banks could charge. That law was repealed during a time of high inflation when the economy was in turmoil. While it may have helped get business through one set of problems, it gave rise to a whole new set of problems. Those problems have been steeping and stewing for thirty years. Those of us who have been trying to make a living since that time have seen how interest rates have gotten higher and higher, payday loans have taken a foothold with astronomical rates, and banks have offered credit with teaser rates only to jack interest rates up again and again with little or no warning.

Consumer credit has become such a growth industry because the banks are taking a subscription on our future income. Just like you subscribe to a magazine and it keeps coming for a year or several years, they are subscribing to a piece of your paycheck. They adjust their lending practices to try to make sure that you keep having to pay them for years and years, even if you didn’t borrow very much. Low monthly payments mean plenty of interest is paid and very little of the principal. Their business plan is to keep your monthly payments coming indefinitely, almost infinitely. I know what I’m talking about, because Visa has had a long-time subscription to my paycheck. But an economy based on predatory practices is not sustainable. The overextended, high-risk, no tomorrow credit economy has reached the limits of its irrationality and recklessness. A reckoning has come.

Continued into final section in next post . . .