The Idolatrous Economic Excuse For Tolerating Injustice
Take care not to store up possessions on earth that can be spoiled by worms, eaten by moths, or stolen by thieves. Instead, give away your possessions to the ones in need, and then you will be storing up great possession in the spirit-world above, where nothing can be lost or stolen. For where you store your valued possessions is where your heart will be.... No one can be loyal to two rival chiefs. You will have to choose between them. You will either hate one chief and love the other, or honor one and resent the other. You cannot be loyal to the Great provider and to possessions at the same time
Matthew (Gift from Creator tells the good story) 6:21, 24 First Nations Version
Spiritual warfare is resistance to empire, to the political and economic manifestations of Babylon in our own time and place
--Richard Beck in Reviving Old Scratch
Earlier today, I was listening to the news and there was a report of a Senator describing his opposition to bill that reduced drug costs, expanded healthcare access, support childcare for working families, and combats climate change by calling the plan "fiscal insanity", while supporting increased tax breaks for the wealthy and international corporations. As I listened, I thought about how often the economic burden was used to support inactivity towards injustice and disadvantage, and the suffering that it brings.
I remember in 2005, when hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the debate in congress was not how to best help or restore, but do we want to spend money and is it "worth it". Day after day, we saw the suffering of people and the effects of lives lost, homes ruined, and shattered lives, but somehow, we could justify withholding help based upon whether we determined that their suffering was valuable enough to redeem.
Millions of lives have amassed at the United States southern border, fleeing inhumane conditions of poverty, brutality, and climate devastation. Most recently, nearly thirteen thousand immigrants of primarily Haitian decent, crossed the Rio Grande at a town called Del Rio in Texas. Many of the immigrants were on a decade long journey after the 2010 earthquake, that began in Brazil and has been slowly working its way northward. The initial reaction was not compassion or even processing for asylum, but feeling that the immigrants would "overwhelm the area" and they were removed in-mass to Haiti without an opportunity to apply for asylum based upon a concern of covid-19 risk. Interestingly, most of Haitian immigrants in Del Rio had not been in Haiti since before the pandemic, so returning them to Haiti who has some of the highest covid-19 rates and lowest immunization rates in the western hemisphere, actually increases their risk to Covid when you return them. The first concern was not our health but the economic cost if we were compassionate.
This is not new. Jesus told his followers that they were to be generous with their wealth and that their direction of their generosity revealed what they truly honor and worship. Jesus urged his followers to give up their possessions for those in need and that caused spiritual treasures as that is what is most valued by God.
Rev. Dr. William Barber II, leader of the poor people campaign states "In the American struggle for justice and freedom, moral dissent has always seemed impractical when it began." (The Third Reconstruction, 2016). Slavery, with its incomparable cruelty and dehumanization, was held on to in the United States due to economic concerns. This is why former slave owners were literally given reparations for "lost property" at the conclusion of the civil war. Their economic viability was more important than the economic viability of millions of slaves who were promised 40 acres and a mule and never received any of it.
Jesus warned that we have to choose in every era whether we honor our wealth and wellbeing over providing justice and righteousness (both are relational terms for restoring people to right relationships with God and one another) to those made in the image of God. He knew that it was a spiritual issue to intentionally reflect the God of righteousness and justice when it is more natural to promote the god of selfishness and greed.
Jesus describes the true mark of his followers as their willingness to love their neighbors sacrificially (John 13:34-35). If you identify as a follower of Jesus, do you serve God (of righteousness and justice) or your wealth, safety, or power. Jesus never recommended recklessness, but he saw generosity as foundational for his followers. In the first century church, one of its leaders said this:
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
I John 3:16-19 NIV
Comments