Isaiah and Economic Justice 3: Oppression and Idolatry

Isaiah 2:7-9, 18, 20-21

Their land is filled with silver and gold,

....and there is no end to their treasures;

their land is filled with horses,

....and there is no end to their chariots.

Their land is filled with idols;

....they bow down to the work of their hands,

....to what their own fingers have made.

And so people are humbled,

....and everyone is brought low—

....do not forgive them!

The haughtiness of people shall be humbled,

....and the pride of everyone shall be brought low;

and the Lord alone will be exalted on that day.

On that day people will throw away

....to the moles and to the bats

their idols of silver and their idols of gold,

....which they made for themselves to worship,

to enter the caverns of the rocks

....and the clefts in the crags,

from the terror of the Lord,

....and from the glory of his majesty,

....when he rises to terrify the earth.

Isaiah 2 links together the sins of idolatry and economic oppression. A major theme of prophetic literature is the distinction between the Lord and the gods of the nations. The people of Israel are called to be a sign of God’s purpose for humanity throughout the world. They are blessed so that through them, all nations will be blessed. At the heart of such blessing is to know that the Lord is a good and just God. Therefore, the prophets often write that God will act “for the sake of my name.” “Name” is not strictly an arbitrary label applied to an object here. It is more like the idiomatic English use in the phrase “my good name.” God has a reputation to uphold, and if God’s people display to the world a society built on social oppression and violence, then it seems that the Lord is just one more prejudiced tribal deity looking to help out some cronies.

One aspect, then, of idolatry is the devotion to gods who one hopes to manipulate for personal favor or gain. The idolatry of Israel involved worshiping gods who might deliver protection from a worker’s uprising or a competitor’s advantage. Such gods might offer an exchange or a deal—in return for worship and obedience, a bumper crop to be sold for unjust gain. These gods might offer to increase the landholdings of their devotees, giving tacit blessing to driving the poor from their lands through sharecropping and usurious practices. The Lord is not willing to be known as the god of this kind of people. The Lord will not be tossed in with the gods of oppressors. The Lord will not be manipulated.

Another aspect of idolatry is its link with self-centeredness and pride. One criticism of the idols in this oracle is that they are themselves the creations of human hands. People are bowing down to worship products of their own making. What they are worshiping is not a god in any traditional sense. They are, as Adam and Eve, longing to become gods themselves and usurp the place of the Lord. Having plenty of gold or silver allows them to commission and purpose beautiful sculptures of deities. It is a reminder of the way that the people at Mt. Sinai brought their wealth to Aaron to shape for them a god of their own making.

This oracle cites their haughtiness and pride as the seed of their downfall. They rationalize their self-idolatry on the basis of their treasures and military might. They believe that their appearance of wealth and power means that they are in charge of their own destinies. But soon, these illusions, so perfectly visible in the mansions and idols of silver and gold, will become useless. Instead, they will flee to the caves and cliffs, finding their delusions of deity have become worthless.

Those who believe their ill-gotten gain is salvation have much to learn about the Lord, who is just, holy, and good.

Again, a few lines from Bruce Cockburn, “Call It Democracy,” offer a contrapuntal melodic line.

Sinister cynical instrument

Who makes the gun into a sacrament—

The only response to the deification

Of tyranny by so-called "developed" nations'

Idolatry of ideology.

North, South, East, West—

Kill the best and buy the rest.

It's just spend a buck to make a buck.

You don't really give a flying f---

About the people in misery.

IMF (dirty MF)

Takes away everything it can get,

Always making certain that there's one thing left:

Keep them on the hook with insupportable debt.

A Confession and a Tribute

Last Monday a wonderful event occurred. Everly, my wife, successfully defended her dissertation after many years of hard work. My excitement in the days leading to Monday brought back memories of 1993 when I was approaching my own dissertation defense. The general anxiety, the inability to keep focus on some tasks, the specific worries about whether important details were incorrect or forgotten—as I observed these behaviors in her I remembered them in my own history.

One part of her story is very different from mine. While Everly held high-responsibility executive jobs during the entire seven years of her doctoral work, I spent most of my seven years with the opportunity to focus as a full-time student, with only a couple of stints in part-time jobs. Making it possible for me to be a full-time student, Everly was giving me the luxury of uncluttered time and thought to work on my courses and research. The joyous opportunity to spend with my young children as the primary caregiver was also part of the deal, and that all three were under the age of seven when I completed the dissertation provides some of the explanation why I spent seven years doing doctoral work.

On the other hand, Everly worked full time, did her motherly duties, and managed essential household chores at the same time as she took night courses, wrote papers, conducted a major research study, and eventually wrote a dissertation. Frankly, she got a whole lot less support from me than I got from her during the process of completing a doctoral degree.

I’m not trying to beat myself up. I just want to think about the incongruity between my ideal of what kind of husband I would be and my actual practice of husbanding. When Everly made her entry into doctoral studies, she did not make any sustained proposal about becoming a full-time student. If she seriously entertained that option, I was either oblivious, or she did not consider it viable. As a teacher at a small private college, I have never had the larger paycheck in the family. As an executive leader in education, Everly has been the primary breadwinner. She has borne that responsibility with courage and honor, and I appreciate the opportunities our family has had because of how hard she has worked. Moreover, the work that she was doing was the actual context of her research. There were advantages of continuing in her professional appointments, to be weighed against the advantages of full attention to research and study.

Still, I find myself wondering if I should have made a persuasive case for her to consider letting me bear the financial load and take on some education loans so that she could focus on school. I wonder whether something about the gender politics deeply embedded in our generation left that door mostly closed to us. Or maybe when the time came, I just did not listen to the calling to carry my part of the load. So I confess my disappointment in myself for not working harder to make sure she could have taken that path. At this point in the story, those words are pretty empty.

The other confession is that I did not find it in my character to bear more of the load of managing essential household tasks while she carried the weight of an executive job and doctoral studies. I’m not as great a self-motivator as I would hope to be. I am easily distracted, and sometimes plain lazy. I wonder how old I will have to be before I display mature self-discipline.

Looking at her achievement in the midst of so many demands draws out great admiration and pride. I don’t mean the bad kind of pride, the vice that comes before a fall and names one of the seven deadly sins. I mean the kind of pride that takes note of something good, worthy, honorable, and admirable that is close to home, that does not see achievements as small things, that recognizes the effort and sacrifice that go into accomplishing something good, that sees a good thing for what it is. Her research is deeply rooted in a life of work to make schools better and to make the lives of students better through them. And it is making a difference, step by step, although there is an occasional step back along with the steps forward.

It is something like what I have often thought, sometimes written, and regularly taught concerning the church. Churches struggle to be what they are called to be, and in limited, often temporary ways they may give us a glimpse of the Reign of God, the embodiment of the love of God in human communities. They do so in particular ways, sometimes fostering reconciliation, other times overcoming loneliness and alienation, occasionally promoting well-being and justice through housing, nutrition, education, jobs, recovery from addiction or imprisonment, and many other ways.

Everly’s work has in sometimes dramatic and sometimes incremental ways opened cracks and chasms in the walls that shut off opportunities to learn and flourish. Students, teachers, and whole schools have seen the fruit of her labor. It is divine work, which honors and blesses the image of God in humanity’s children.