Attacking Health Care, Medicare, Social Security: Class Warfare Waged by the Wealthy

Dean Baker reiterates two of his key ideas in this critique of a recent article full of poor analysis of the economy, published in a major newspaper.  First, the high cost of health care is the major cause of the deficit and a major contributor to economic problems for most Americans.  Second, the political struggle over who gets the most financial benefits from government economic policies is not a philosophical debate--it is a political war waged by lobbyists trying to allow a very small group of citizens to keep more of their wealth at the cost of the rest of us.  It is not philosophical.  It is class warfare waged by the wealthy.

It is also worth noting that, at least in the U.S. case, the projected long-term budget problem is due to our broken health care system. If our per person health care costs were comparable to those in any other country then we would be looking at long-term budget surpluses, not deficits.

While the health care industry is incredibly powerful in the United States, making cost reductions difficult, it is in principle possible to open the sector to trade, which would allow people in the United States to take advantage of the more efficient health care systems in other countries. Unfortunately the NYT and most other major media are such hardcore protectionists when it comes to the health care industry, they do not allow the topic of freer trade in health care to even be discussed.

Finally, this piece tell us that at its core this debate is about philosophy:

“Everywhere, though, the debate is about much more than just partisan advantage or the next election. It is a philosophical debate.”

The only evidence for this assertion is a quote from Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell. There is nothing obvious philosophical about this debate. The issue is whether we are going to cut benefits like Social Security and Medicare that the overwhelming majority of the working population depends upon now or expects to in the future. The protection of these programs is supported by large majorities of every demographic and ideological group. Even large majorities of self-identified conservatives and Tea Party supporters are opposed to cuts in these programs in poll after poll.

Of course paying for the programs will require some amount of additional tax revenue (presumably mostly from upper income taxpayers) and also restructuring of the health care system in ways that will hurt the incomes of insurers, drug companies, medical instrument manufacturers, and doctors. These powerful interest groups will fight the effort to reduce their incomes in any way they can.

Since they are a small minority of the population it is understandable that they would want to confuse matters by turning this into a debate over philosophy. However there is nothing obviously philosophical about whether we should pay more than necessary for prescription drugs and medical equipment so that some people can get very rich.

Theology and Economy Update

For those of you who check in here now and then, you probably know that in 2009 a group of theological professors in North Carolina and South Carolina distributed a working paper, "Theological Reflection on the Economy."  It was an early step in a series of actions and campaigns through which faith communities have organized around economic justice in the current economic crisis.  Since that time, I have occasionally communicated with the group of professors about active campaigns, particularly the "10% Is Enough" work on usury pertaining to credit cards and other consumer interest.  This week, I sent a note to update them on the range of actions and campaigns in which North Carolina United Power has continued to organize in the past year and a half.  Here is an excerpt of the note I sent them.

Hey, folks,

A year and a half ago I was sending you lots of emails as we started work on a major organizing campaign dealing with economic justice issues.  As theological scholars and servants of the church, we recognize our responsibilities to follow Jesus in the task of serving the poor, offering ministry of relief, building ecclesial structures to reshape economic life in our neighborhoods, and seeking justice in the face of economic powers.  Thus, the theological reflection leading to the "Theological Reflection on the Economy" of 2009 was an exercise of our vocation which helped to provide grounding for faith-based people's movements which have gone many directions.  The document has been studied in churches, in minister's conferences, in seminary classes, and far beyond North and South Carolina. 

The paths of discipleship continue to open before us even now.  Let me highlight some of the work linked to our efforts of 2009.

1.  The "10% Is Enough" campaign in the Eastern US, London, and Berlin, has continued to bear fruit.  We did not convince banks to voluntarily cap credit card interest rates, nor did with convince Congress to cap consumer interest rates.  But we have built relationships with bank executives which are paying off in continued access and influence.  Moreover, leaders of the "10% Is Enough" campaign have met with Dr. Elizabeth Warren to help shape the Consumer Financial Protection Agency.  Caps on interest rates continue to be a lively topic, in part because of the strong work of MetroIAF, of which we have been a part.

2.  The "6% Is Enough" campaign to protect military families from predatory credit practices and foreclosure has been an overwhelming success.  This is a NC United Power campaign, and we have worked with Wachovia/Wells Fargo and Bank of America.  B of A held ongoing conversations with us for over a year.  Last summer they agreed to everything we were asking for, extending benefits beyond the legal requirements for nine months of protection from rising interest rates.  For several months, they were reluctant to admit publicly that they had changed their policies in response to negotiations with NCUP.  This month, in a surprise turn, CEO Brian Moynihan publicly thanked NCUP and Gerald Taylor for our work in this crucial area.  Our fellow signatory, Dan Rhodes, was present to meet personally with Moynihan, the first time he has met personally with members of our organization.

3.   The effort to bring justice to the foreclosure crisis has taken off in recent months, in part because of the attention that NC Attorney General Roy Cooper has given to foreclosure fraud as President of the National Association of Attorneys General.  For this work, NCUP (also going by the name IAF-SouthEast) has made partnership with People Improving Communities through Organizing (PICO), National People's Action (NPA-US), Alliance for a Just Society, and the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), all faith-based community organizing groups, stretching our organizing from the west coast to the east coast, from the Rocky Mountains to the midwest to the south.  We have met with key leaders, including Iowa AG Tom Miller and NC AG Roy Cooper, all the while keeping our efforts alive with Bank of America.  One summary of our proposals, "The Homeowner's Bottom Line," has gained significant interest, and most of its proposals remain on the table in the nationwide AG's investigation and potential settlement with the major banks to improve the foreclosure process.

4.  In conversation with a major funding organization (no funding yet) for theological education research, I have piloted a course at Shaw University Divinity School, "Pastoral Readiness for Economic Crises."  We covered financial literacy and financial freedom for pastors as well as a form of Christian formation for churches and their communities.  We looked at a wide range of theological sources on money, possessions, economics, and consumption from the earliest churches down to our times.  We looked at tools for churches to evaluate their relationships with banks that may or may not be serving poor communities.  We looked at models of community development, such as the Christian Community Development Association model of ecclesial politics of neighbor love.  Finally, we looked at faith-based community organizing.  With this trial run under our belt, I am hoping to work with some of you as partners in developing a proposal for adapting this sort of clergy training to other seminaries and to continuing education programs for current pastors.

5.  The predatory practices of payday lenders and car-title lenders will not die without a fight.  From Texas to North Carolina, from Mississippi to New Hampshire, strong lobbying efforts to open the door to astronomical interest rates on small dollar loans are alive and well in the state legislatures.  I've testified before legislative committees in Texas, mentioning you all and our work.  Just this past week, a bill was introduced in the NC legislature to reopen the door to usurious rates.  When there is the chance of ripping people off legally, there will always be people trying to do it.  Contact your legislator right away to stop the progress of HB 810.  South Carolina, having passed important reforms in 2009, seems not to have any pending legislation at this time.

On two matters I am seeking your response to moving forward with this work. 

First, . . . we are considering a clergy witness [at an upcoming event], with particular attention to dealing justly in the foreclosure crisis. 

The text of Micah 2:1-11 is directly relevant to this matter (not to ignore Isaiah 5:8-17).  The injustice of Samaria and Judah included coveting and seizing houses, ruining people financially (v2).  The powerful put people out of their homes (v9).  All the while they continue to practice the trappings of faith.  Predictably, they demand that anyone who might preach judgment against their greed should stop saying that stuff (v6).  The prophet says they only want a preacher who says, "Go on and get drunk.  Live it up!" (v11), while they "rise up against my people as an enemy" (v8). 

We hope we might gather 100 clergy and seminarians to speak a word of witness about the injustices of foreclosing on people whose financial security was destroyed by the greed, risks, and fraud of bankers, brokers, and insurers. . . . Details of when and where to meet will be forthcoming, depending on whether we believe we can gather an appropriate-sized group for witness.

Second, I will be trying to convene a meeting of some of you professors in late May.  If you would be interested in meeting for three or four hours to evaluate the course I put together and to brainstorm about expanding clergy training for economic life, let me know. . . .

For more information, see

News coverage of recent NCUP action:  here and here

Foreclosure Justice:  Homeowner's Bottom Line 

Broad Campaign for Financial Reforms:  Showdown in America

Against Usury:  10% Is Enough 

Military Families:  6% Is Enough 

Periodic updates on "earth as it is in heaven"

Madder as the Day Went On!

Last night, I fell asleep looking at a news story about the bombshell budget proposal whose poster boy is Rep. Ryan, R-Wisconsin.  Then I woke up this morning thinking about it, so I finished reading the article.  Then, as the day went on, I kept reading and kept getting more upset.

As has been the case with the Party of NO for the past few years, Social Security, Medicare, and the social safety net have been held up as bankrupting the country.  There is no doubt that the cost of health care is at the heart of what is destroying the people of the US and the economy.  But Medicare and Medicaid are not the cause.  Medicare and Medicaid are expensive because the health care industry is operating with out-of-control greed, and the health care industry lobbyists are running the government.

Pres. Obama and his advisers offered ideas about reform, but before reform could get started the pharmaceutical industry, the insurance industry, the hospital industry, and on and on had derailed real reform.  What we got was, I think, a step in the right direction.  But it did not do what was needed to slow the growth of health care costs.  Its opponents also have no interest in slowing the growth of health care costs.  They only want to make American safe for health care profits.  So if health care is going to cost more and more, they want to make sure that taxpayers are not paying for the poor and elderly to get some.  That might require the wealthy to pay their fare share of taxes, and the sinister dementia of current right-wing politics is that the wealthy deserve all that they have gotten, and the rest of us deserve to do without.

As you can tell, I have been getting madder as the day has gone on.  I have tormented my facebook friends with post after post, which of course they have been free to ignore.  So I decided I would collect them all into one blog post for those who want to think through this with me.

around 11 am

Thank you, government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations. Don't forget, corporations are people, too. In fact, they are special people who get a better deal than the rest of us lowly human people. Mr. Obama, Mr. Ryan, stop posturing and FIX THIS!

10 of the Biggest Corporate Tax Cheats in America

f you or I were running a small business and we kept one set of books showing how much money we were making and a second set for the IRS that painted a picture of an enterprise on the brink of bankruptcy, we'd end up behind bars.

But that's standard operating procedure for corporate America.

around 3 pm

Let's see: spinach, hamburger meat, peanut butter, chicken, tomatoes, and besides food there's lead paint on toys, radioactive compounds in toys. All in all, doesn't Ryan's budget make sense when it fires all the inspectors? Mr. Obama and Mr. Ryan--tell the truth, serve the people, do what is right, FIX THIS.

Congress: Support funding for FDA food safety

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Consumers Union, the nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports, urged Congress to support funding for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)s food safety functions in advance of a House hearing on the FDA budget.

around 3:30 pm

I gave some effort but should have tried harder at my kids' high schools. Let's hear it for this Atlanta group's recruitment for non-violence.

American Friends Service Committee/Atlanta: SCAP Brings Non-Military Options to Stephenson High

Stephenson High school invited Student Career Alternatives Program to their first spring career fair, which took place today. This marked our second visit to the Stone Mountain high school. One striking thing that we again noticed today that the student body is over 99% African American, which seems to further confirm the fact that Atlanta Metro school have become resegregated over the past 20 years.

We were all impressed with the counseling staffs dedication to the students and their post high school careers. So many high school counselors cave into parents request to hold career fairs after school instead of during school. The fairs that take place during school hours are so much more accessible to students.

We had hundreds of students come talk to us through the course of the fair. Students explored ways to serve their country, travel the world, find adventure, get money for college, develop artistic skills, and other job skills training without out having to join the military.

around 3:30 pm

Recruiting for nonviolence

Before You Enlist! (2011 revision)

Straight talk from soldiers, veterans and their family members tells what is missing from the sales pitches presented by recruiters and the military's marketing efforts. Produced by Telequest, Inc with support from AFSC. See http://youth4peace.org/ for more info.

around 4 pm

Here is the Congressional Budget Office's analysis of the Bill to Massively Increase Senior Adult Medical Bankruptcy presented by Rep. Ryan.

Representative Ryan Proposes Medicare Plan Under Which Seniors Would Pay Most of Their Income for Health Care

That is what headlines would look like if the United States had an independent press. After all, this is one of the main take aways of the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO) analysis of the plan proposed by Representative Paul Ryan, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee.

still around 4 pm

The budget debate is between those who would reign in the mountains of money going to pharmaceutical corporations, physicians, for-profit and "non-profit" hospitals, and private insurance companies, and those who would keep letting them rob the rest of us to pay bonuses to their top executives.  Mr. Ryan and Mr. Obama, tell the truth, stop the "giant sucking sound" of money going from the people to the corporations.

The New York Times Thinks That Congress is Full of Philosophers | Beat the Press

The New York Times apparently missed the elections last fall. This is the only possible explanation for its assertion that the budget debate in Congress "is likely to spur an ideological showdown over the size of government and the role of entitlement programs like Medicaid and Medicare."

The people serving in Congress got their jobs because they are effective politicians. This means that they have the ability to appeal to powerful interest groups; there is no requirement that they have any background in, or adherence to, any political philosophy.

The debates over competing plans for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are most obviously about the distribution of income between the wealthy and the less wealthy.

a little later, around 4 pm 

Look at the third graphic line from the bottom: this is the projected percentage of health care cost turned back upon the retiree on fixed income in Ryan's plan.  Of course, if most of the seniors go bankrupt, then we can put them on Medicaid instead--oops, that will be gone, too.  Sorry, Mom and Dad, but we're better off if you die.  Ryan says this will save the taxpayers $400 billion over 10 years, which may or may not be accurate.  Ten years of war in Afghanistan has cost $400 billion, and eight years in Iraq has cost $800 million.  This year $119 billion is budgeted for Afghanistan alone.  Ron Paul, where are you when we need you?  Cut the cost of these wars and bring the troops home.  That way we can keep medical care available for seniors.  Cutting the cost of medical care is essential, but this is not the way to do it.

around 7:20 pm

Calculating the costs of killing--Cadillac Death Machines and Yugo Safety Nets

MLK, Jr., speaking about the war in Vietnam in 1967:  "You may not know it my friend, but it is estimated that we spend $500,000 dollars to kill each enemy soldier, while we spend only $53.00 dollars for each person classified as poor.  And, most of that $53.00 dollars goes to salaries for people who are not poor."

Available data on enemies killed per year in the past three years is sketchy, ranging from under 2000 (Army data in mid 2009) in a year to about 4000 (Wikileaks) to 5225 (Afghan government).  At a cost of over $100 billion a year that would mean somewhere between $20 million and $50 million dollars to kill each enemy soldier.  Grisly.  Sickening.  Expensive.

Who is benefiting from such an outsized cost for the blood and guts of war?  Not the taxpayers.  Not the soldiers.  Not the seniors on Medicare or the malaria sufferers of Africa.

So there you have it.  Mad.  Sick and tired.  The world is not the church.   Too often, the church is not the church.  The phrase "hell in a handbasket" comes to mind.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.  Where there is despair, let me sow hope.  Where there is darkness, let me sow light.  Where there is sadness, let me sow joy.

Taking the Showdown to the Texas Senate

One of the efforts for economic justice of which I have been a part in recent months goes by the name Showdown in America.  On February 22, the showdown made its way to a committee hearing in the Capitol of Texas.  An overflow crowd packed into the Committee on Business and Commerce of the Texas Senate, lining up to give public comment on legislation designed to eliminate a loophole in the Texas credit laws which has allowed payday lenders and car title lenders to avoid regulation and charge "fees" and interest rates amounting to APRs of 300%, 395%, 529%, 740%.  It is almost a reverse limbo dance: "How high can you go?  It's the payday lending rock."

Things got pretty hot when the CEO of a national payday lending business testified, and in the process was unwilling to go beyond the party line:  if Texas applies any new controls or interest caps on the "short-term, small principle" lending business, we will all go out of business.  The senators finally had their fill of this vague, undocumented scare tactic.  They demanded that credible documentation and good faith negotiation had better come fast from this industry if they want to have a say in how this legislation turns out.  It was a sight to see.

After a break for the Senate to do some business, the committee reconvened in the afternoon.  Suddenly, more forthcoming witnesses discussed a path toward mutual interest in regulating these businesses.  Forced to admit that their businesses are profitable in many states where regulations are much more strict, industry representatives offered to dialogue further on the kinds of regulation that would allow them to stay in business.

A friend of Shaw University and a well-known leader among Baptists had opportunity to speak in the morning about the effects of predatory lending where their church ministers, Rev. Freddy Haynes of Friendship West Baptist Church in Dallas.  He said, "Instead of throwing them a lifeline, we're throwing them shackles."  Rev. Chad Chaddick, pastor of Northeast Baptist Church in San Antonio told of predatory lending affecting his church's ministries.  Bishop Joe Vasquez of the Catholic Diocese of Austin, addressed both the tradition of Catholic social teaching and the ways that it had become clear that the diocese's funds were indirectly subsidizing profits of payday lenders when desperate borrowers came seeking charity from the churches.  Suzii Paynter of the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission laid out extensive information on the way the business operates, then made an impassioned plea to the senators that they owed as much concern and compassion toward families harmed by predatory lenders as they seemed willing to show toward business owners trying to make a buck.

I hit a few key points that have been recurring themes of my public work on usury in the past year.  Below see my remarks and a video of my testimony that was broadcast live on the Texas legislative television coverage.

Remarks presented to the Texas State Senate

Committee on Business and Commerce

February 22, 2011

Rev. Dr. Mikael Broadway, Associate Professor of Theology and Ethics, Shaw University Divinity School, resident of Bell County, TX, http://mbway.blogspot.com

My name is Dr. Mike Broadway, and I am a Baptist minister and theological professor living in Salado.  I am representing myself as a citizen. 

For the past year and a half I have been working with a wide range of church people, including pastors and seminary professors, to address economic injustices which have become increasingly acute in the wake of the mortgage security debacle and the burst housing bubble.

Along with other leaders, I have met with the top credit and mortgage executives of Bank of America and Wells Fargo/Wachovia to address usury and  justice issues.  I have also joined leaders from around the nation to meet with Attorney General Tom Miller of Iowa to articulate our concerns for justice pertaining to a national investigation of foreclosure fraud perpetrated by major national and regional banks, of which he is the lead investigator.  Only last week we sent a letter to all the state attorneys general, including Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, to outline a path toward economic justice in housing.

I give you this background because I want to emphasize that the struggle against usurious lending is not only a Texas struggle, but a nationwide struggle.  In many states, legislators like you have worked diligently with citizen leaders to try to clean up the predatory lending practices that continue to spring up in our cities, towns, and neighborhoods. 

All of you can agree with me that lenders and borrowers need to operate in a system built on fairness.  That is what the millennia of historical usury laws has been about.  Under this assumption, for four thousand years financial institutions have been able to succeed and flourish under the careful regulation of interest rates to protect people from usury.  Yet for some reason we now find ourselves, because of laws made in 1979, 1980, and 1987, operating with few legal protections from usury.  Perhaps contemporary humans have overestimated our maturity in failing to listen to the wisdom of four millennia, which recommends strong usury laws.

Of course, there have always been people who believe they should be able to charge as much as they want to lend money.  In saner times, we knew what to call them:  loan sharks.  Nowadays, they pass as respectable business operators.  When a legislature musters enough moral courage to try to prevent the worst forms of usury, these predators search the fine print and locate every loophole in the letter of the law.  Exploiting these loopholes, they find new and creative ways to abuse borrowers and scoff at the spirit of the law.  The latest way is to pretend that interest is not interest by calling it a fee.  The current abuse of payday lending and car title lending is an egregious example of this bald-faced lie.

If I borrow money from you, and you charge me for borrowing that money, then that is interest.  The ancient text of Deuteronomy makes it very clear that usury is usury, whether you collect a fee up front, you charge it along the way, or you claim it at the end.  The heart of the legal tradition’s bias against usury is that it is wrong to victimize the poor and weaker members of the community by creating lending practices which prey upon their weakness. 

Payday lenders may claim that closing this loophole will make it impossible to do business.  It will make it impossible to do business the way they do it.  But from my observations around the country, let me say that it will not make it impossible to operate a fair lending business among people of low and moderate income.  Numerous workable business models exist, from non-profits like Grace Period of Pittsburgh, PA, to microlending banks, to community banks and credit unions.  These businesses can make fair, non-usurious loans to fill the need of people who patronize payday lenders.

One of the shameful practices of the recent past in our nation was known as sharecropping.  Theoretically, it was a way for people to apply their labor to improve themselves and benefit the landowner, whose land they farmed, at the same time.  In reality, it was often a trap to keep people in debt to the landowner, living as debt slaves, perpetually indebted.  The biblical tradition opposing usury has at its core the assumption that no society can be just if it creates and maintains a permanent debtor class.  There must be a way out of debt.  Payday lending as we have it now is debt sharecropping . . . debt sharecropping.  Its business plan is perpetual indebtedness of its borrowers.  Please close this loophole and help our state take another step toward economic justice in consumer credit.

Narrating the Story of Consumer Debt in the US

An interesting narration of the story of how consumers in the US came to be so heavily in debt appeared recently in the group blog Credit Slips. Kevin Leicht points out that real wages peaked in 1976. Since that time, the economy based on mass consumption has shifted its funding from good wages to open credit. As workers faced the exportation of industry, the decline of wages, and the shift from paying workers to paying executives, the economy depending on consumption had to find a way to keep its engine turning. Credit cards and borrowing were the replacement of a decent wage. Of course, this system ultimately took on the same characteristics of feeding on the very people on whom it depends.

This unsustainable economy has become a smash and grab system that will keep producing bubbles from irrational exuberance. The inevitable crashes will repeat as long as the idiotic assumption remains that a just economy is one in which the few are free to bleed the many until a "market correction" solves the problem. A better economy cannot come without some form of consumer protection which places guardrails and lane markers on the economic highway. Otherwise the behemoths will continue to "take their half in the middle" and push everyone else in the ditch.

God's Will . . . Set Forth in Christ

This sermon was originally delivered on January 3, 2010, at Mt. Level Missionary Baptist Church.

God’s Will . . . Set Forth in Christ

Jeremiah 31:7-14

Ephesians 1:3-14

The letter to the Ephesians contains numerous passages beloved by the church. The first chapter from which we read today is one of those places where the richness of the gospel speaks with great power. It plumbs the depths of theology and presses toward the limits of our abilities to understand the mysteries of God’s goodness and love.

Some of the themes of these opening verses include the eternal existence and supreme exaltation of Christ, election and adoption of the children of God, the abundant and powerful grace of God, Jesus’ redeeming sacrifice, forgiveness, and the wisdom of God. And that is just the first eight verses. My, my! It staggers the mind to think of the immeasurable greatness of God’s grace to us. It’s glorious grace, yes glorious. The glory of God is known in the grace of God. Grace is the crowning glory of God revealed in Jesus Christ. It is glorious beyond measure. The riches of God’s grace cannot be measured. They cannot be valued. “Marvelous grace, infinite grace, grace that will pardon and cleanse . . . that is greater than all our sin.” Praise be unto the God of grace.

But I want to focus today on a few lines from Jeremiah [verses 11-14] and the second part of our passage from Ephesians [starting with the end of verse 8]. We’ll start with Ephesians, then look back to Jeremiah to see the visually rich description from Jeremiah’s day of what Ephesians has called the “mystery of God’s will . . . set forth in Christ.” Thus, we want to consider today God’s will set forth in Christ. Turn to your neighbor and say, “God’s will . . . set forth in Christ.”

When we talk about God’s will, it is good to take a moment to question what is going on in our lives and the world. There is a kind of false comfort we can get by assuming that whatever is going on around us and in our personal lives must be God’s will. This false comfort is very different from the true comfort we have in God when we seek to find what the Holy Spirit is doing and would have us do in whatever circumstance we may find ourselves. That true comfort comes in seeking God. It comes in the striving that discernment requires. It is very different from the false comfort that says whatever happened must be God’s will.

A few friends of mine, some of whom are former students of Dr. Turner, published a book a few years ago called God Is Not . . . . I use this book with my beginning theology students in order to point out that many things that are going on in the name of Christian faith are not a true understanding of the God of the Bible. They are more of an accommodation to the powers that be. My point is that everything that is happening is not the will of God.

I think I have a habit of saying this in many of my sermons, so it may sound familiar to you. But the reason I always seem to come back to this point is that in order to know the will of God we also need to be able to recognize what is not the will of God. Everything that President Bush did was not the will of God. Everything that President Obama is doing may not be the will of God. Every preacher that is on TV or the radio is not doing the will of God. Every big and booming church may not be in the will of God. Every small and struggling church may not be in the will of God. Everyone with a job is not doing the will of God. Everyone without a job may not be in the will of God.

If we are to know the will of God, we must know where to look for it. Every up and down of the economy is not the will of God. To press a specific point, I need to say that economic injustice—whatever form it takes, whatever economic system it occurs in, whatever country or government oversees it—is officially not the will of God. God does not will economic injustice.

The ways that the economic system went wrong in recent decades, the ways that the powerful and devious preyed on the weak and trusting, were not the will of God. If someone cheated you, or if you cheated someone, that was not the will of God. When a few people took all the profits, no matter whom they hurt in the process, they were going against the will of God. God is a God of justice who stands up to those who would oppress others. The prophet Isaiah spoke boldly to those who had grown wealthy at the expense of the poor in chapter 3:13-15.

The Lord rises to argue his case;

he stands to judge the peoples.

The Lord enters into judgment

with the elders and princes of his people:

“It is you who have devoured the vineyard;

the spoil of the poor is in your houses.

What do you mean by crushing my people,

by grinding the face of the poor?” says the Lord God of hosts.

I am returning again to the topic of the economy today, even though you have heard me preach on this subject recently. I return to it because we remain mired in the struggles brought on by greed, short-sightedness, possessiveness, carelessly wishful thinking, outrageous risks, disregard of the hard-working common folk, playing with other people’s money, living the high life, wasting precious resources while many remain sick and hungry, preying on the desperate, and a multitude of other sins. Many of us have had to stand before God in the past months to ask for help and forgiveness because of the ways that we have managed our economic resources. At other times, we have had to cry out to God because of the ways that other people’s actions and decisions have harmed our ability to make a living and pay our bills. People who follow Jesus and people who want nothing to do with Jesus have had to face up to the need to change their ways and do a better job managing their finances. This is real to us, and it is not going away easily.

I also return to the economy because God has placed it on our hearts here at Mt. Level. God ‘s Spirit has told you and me to dwell on this matter and speak the truth to one another and to the powerful. God’s Spirit is speaking through this people of God concerning how God would have us move forward in times like these.

Since the economic crisis continues to affect and shape us all, then it would seem that we ought to be seeking to know the will of God for this time and place. What is the mystery of God’s will set forth in Christ for our economic situations? Our first judgment from this text is that it does not give us specific information about mortgages, televisions and cable bills, phone service, food on a budget, new or used cars, credit cards, savings, overdraft fees, and such things. Those particular issues we are dealing with are not mentioned directly. But just because the letter to the Ephesians does not use the word “mortgage” or “overdraft fee,” does not mean that we should conclude that this text is irrelevant for our economic lives.

It would be a mistake to treat this text in Ephesians as if it were merely about invisible, immaterial, metaphysical matters. That would be to spiritualize Christ and ignore the incarnation of God into the everyday existence of humanity. The gospel text for today is from John 1. The Word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood.

Certainly there is a metaphysical aspect of this passage from Ephesians. It uses the word “mystery” as well. But this does not mean that the message here is only some sort of lofty abstraction, nor that it must remain unknown to us. In fact, it explicitly says that God has made known to us this mystery. God’s will which would seem to be too complicated to figure out if we had to do so in our own power has been made known in Jesus. Another way to say that is that the mystery of God’s will is made known to us as Jesus. The first meaning of the will of God is Jesus. God’s grace, goodness, love, mercy, justice, power, wisdom, faithfulness, provision, purpose, everything which God is and is doing has been revealed to us in Jesus Christ.

It is the will of God that we be joined together in Christ. On communion Sunday, we are proclaiming and practicing that act of joining together. God’s will is that we would find that our purpose and meaning is known in Christ whose sacrifice and life we remember today. His ways must become our ways. His faith must be our faith. His love must be our love for one another. This might seem to great a task for us to accomplish, and that is true if we think we are to do it in our own power. But Ephesians tells us that God has done this work, gathering up all things in Christ, all things in heaven and on earth. Jesus Christ delivers to us our true inheritance, what God has intended for our lives to be from eternity. It is our destiny to live according to God’s will and purpose, as Jesus did.

When we have put our trust in Christ, and when we have set our hope on Christ, then we are joined with him in the redemption of our lives together. The messed-up, cockamamy way of living that people tried to figure out on our own can be laid aside and a new way of living can be taken up. As Ephesians says, we are marked with the seal of the Holy Spirit.

A mark is something to be seen. We mark things so we can identify them quickly. A mark may tell us what something is, what category it belongs in, whose it is, or what it is for. The mark of the Holy Spirit shows us to belong to God, to have the purpose of living the will of God. Now we might say that a mark put on something can get covered up with other stuff. Or a mark might get smeared. I’m not trying to say that the Holy Spirit’s seal is not effective. I’m only making a kind of allegorical, or figurative comment about how well we display the glory of God. Maybe we have put on a jacket and obscured the mark the Spirit has placed on us. A mark should be seen. If it can’t be seen, how does anyone know that it is there?

Ephesians says that we have the pledge of our inheritance. We don’t have the whole thing yet, but we do already have the mark. We are on our way to getting this inheritance. So we may not always do such a good job of letting this mark show the world God’s will. God is still working on us, but we are already set apart, marked, and categorized as being God’s own people. We now await the completion of God’s redemption, already assured by the work of Jesus Christ.

Now it might be possible to read this passage and think that it has little or nothing to do with our economic lives. But as I said earlier, that would be a mistake. The Bible is full of guidance and teaching about material possessions and money. It makes clear in very specific ways how we are to share what we have because God’s blessings come to us in order that we might bless others. So anytime we are talking about the will of God, we have to realize that God is all up in our financial affairs. God’s will doesn’t bypass our pocketbooks and bank accounts. God’s will doesn’t skip over our cars and furniture and computers. God’s will does not ignore our tithes and offering and sharing with our neighbors.

Ephesians says that all things are gathered up in Christ. That means we have to look to Christ to see how to arrange our finances and organize our economic living. Our earning and spending, our work and leisure, our owning and giving, should show the mark of the Holy Spirit. People ought to be able to recognize that we are dealing with our money and possessions in the way that Jesus showed and taught us. There is a personal and churchwide responsibility here to let God be glorified and praised for the way we handle our finances. Where is our hope? Is it in a pension fund? Is it in a big house or a prestigious car? Our hope must be set on Christ. Our redemption will not come from buying low and selling high. Our redemption comes from Christ’s work to make us God’s own people. When we are in economic harmony as God’s people, we are being redeemed.

Yes, this text pushes it farther than just me getting myself right. If the institutions and structures of economic life in the United States are not conformed to the calling that all is to be gathered up in Christ, that is no excuse for churches to set aside economic justice and say it is impossible. If no one else is paying a living wage, churches ought to be paying a living wage. If people do not have access to health care, God’s people ought to be making a way for access to health care. If banks and other financial institutions are creating conditions for perpetual indebtedness or debt sharecropping, churches ought to be sponsoring credit unions and other ways of financial sharing so that no one is in need. If the economists try to convince us that that we can trust an unseen hand to take care of everyone even if the wealthy and powerful are left to look out only for themselves, church people ought to be making their open hands visible as a witness to the ways of Jesus.

Just to add a little more confirmation to this interpretation of Ephesians, we should briefly take a look at Jeremiah 31. It is a text about redemption as well. It is about God’s gracious regathering of the people to be God’s children, God’s flock, a holy nation. In verse 12 Jeremiah gets specific about the goodness of the Lord: God’s goodness and grace is about grain, wine, oil, flocks and herds. It is like a watered garden. It is about plenty to eat for the priests and the people. It is about joy together, with dancing, making merry, joy, comfort, and gladness.

Jeremiah says “my people shall be satisfied with my bounty.” God will provide for the people, and the value of the material possessions is in the value of their shared lives. Young women dancing, old and young men having a good time—this is what is possible when we do not fixate our attention on acquiring and amassing wealth, hoarding possessions, collecting toy after toy, entertaining ourselves rather than enjoying one another. God’s purpose for economic life is that we might be joyful together. This can only be true in an economic system built on justice, mercy, and humility. Economic justice means that no one oppresses others or benefits from the suffering of others. Economic mercy means that we look out for one another and recognize that we all need a hand now and then. Economic humility means that we don’t think of ourselves in terms of our wealth as better than others because we know that whatever we have is given that we might bless others.

What is the will of God for us in this economic crisis? It is that we look out for one another, make a way when the world says no way, and join the struggle for economic justice. It is to set our hope in Christ, to believe the gospel that our redemption is by God’s grace and cannot be earned or bought for ourselves. It is to be marked by the Holy Spirit to show the world that we have been united in Christ to live a new and loving way as the people of God.

Today is the day for all of us to follow the will of God. For some of you, it may be that you have never believed the gospel, set your hope in Christ, or been united to Christ. If you are ready today to take a step down the path of following Jesus, then take up your destiny. God’s will is that we all be united in Christ and that our lives will offer praise to his glory. Come today to follow Jesus.

For some of you it may be that you have been wearing a jacket or sweatshirt to cover up the mark of the Holy Spirit on your life. You have repositioned your hope in your money or possessions rather than in the shared life of joyful love and care for one another. If you have let the anxiety or seduction of finances overwhelm your walk in Christ, then today is the day to renew your commitment to the will of God.

Perhaps you are not united to a church. It is a false gospel that says you can just be a loner Christian. Jesus calls us together to be God’s people. It’s right there in Ephesians 1:14. If the Holy Spirit is urging you to unite with this congregation, come today and enter into covenant with us to do the will of God.

God’s will has been set forth in Christ. Jesus Christ is the embodied image of the will of God. May we all be one with Christ, as the Holy Trinity is one in mutual love.

Deficits and Politics

For those of you who are as irritated as I am by the smoke screens about deficits that are used to hinder economic reforms, Dean Baker named the problem again this week. Are "tax and spend" liberals in Congress causing deficits? Of course, Congress is causing deficits, but not in the ways that their critics claim.

Take the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The completely unnecessary war in Iraq has helped to build a trillion dollars into the deficit. Congress gave in and colluded with the Bush administration and the Project for the New American Century agenda to waste this money in the name of empire.

How about the housing bubble? Laissez-faire economic philosophies said that the banks, the mortgage industry, the credit default swap system, and all the "new economy" would be self-correcting and self-policing, leading to continued prosperity. I guess maybe they were deluded by their own self-serving greed. There goes another trillion dollars to the deficit thanks to the "talent" running the finance industry.

Baker gets it right, but thanks to bad reporting most people can only see the smoke screen.

Keeping the Heat On

Sometimes when organizing, a few small actions can be useful to let people know that our efforts are not going to die out and just go away. Today I was part of one of those kinds of small actions as part of the 10% Is Enough campaign. The two banks that we are focusing on most in North Carolina are Bank of America and Wachovia/Wells Fargo.

In meetings with Wachovia executives so far, we have made our case and carried on some helpful conversations. However, they remain fairly intent on ignoring the primary issue we are bringing to them: usury. We are insisting that there comes a point when interest rates are too high and therefore predatory. There is a form of lending practice that becomes debt-sharecropping, dragging people into a permanent debtor status.

I sent the following report to the folks in Durham who are working on economic issues as part of Durham CAN.

Hey, folks,

Today members of the Economy Action Team handed out information about the 10% Is Enough campaign along the sidewalks outside the Wachovia Bank branch at the corner of Ninth Street and Main Street.

Because of the cold weather, not many people were out walking. Most of the information was handed to people leaving the bank parking lot when they would roll down their windows to briefly talk with us. There were a few longer conversations with people walking down the sidewalk. Dan Rhodes and Denise Rowson even managed to get some people to fill out the petition cards and give them back to turn in. Jennifer Suggs did a great job of getting people to stop and converse with her.

We can discuss the details and evaluate the action at a later time. For now, we are glad to have given out information to probably a hundred or more people in a way that brought attention to our ongoing efforts to hold banks accountable to their communities.

Watch for news concerning a meeting with the City Manager concerning stimulus funds. In January we will support the Clergy Caucus and Strategy Team in next steps to build momentum in the 10% Is Enough Campaign. Kohar and I attended a strategy and planning meeting in Baltimore earlier this week, and our progress with the large banks shows we have their attention. Our next moves will have to make them see that we are not merely a minor annoyance, a passing fad, or a clanging cymbal.