-->
Last
week we talked about how more than 2,000 verses of Scripture speak of God’s
love and concern for the poor. Drawing
a parallel to the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution, I argued that
this large body of Scripture forms the basis of “God’s Equal Protection Clause (EPC).” I proposed that God’s EPC might be summed up in this way:
All
persons born in the world are made in My image, and subject to the jurisdiction
of Heaven… No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the
privileges or immunities of immigrants and the poor who are made in My image;
nor shall any state deprive them of life, liberty, or property, without
consideration of My rigorous ethical standards; nor shall they deny any immigrant or poor person the equal protection
of the laws. Those who violate My
Equal Protection Clause will be subject to divine judgment.
Our goal in the next several weeks is to
explore some of the key scriptural texts which make up the biblical EPC.
As expressed by my reiteration of the Equal
Protection Clause, Scripture teaches that oppression of immigrants and the poor
is offensive to God. At the same
time, the Bible is also clear that such injustice is the defining reality of a
humanity which has chosen to turn its back on God. As King Solomon states in the famous book of
Ecclesiastes (5:8-11):
8
If you see the poor oppressed in a district, and justice and rights denied, do
not be surprised at such things; for one official is eyed by a higher one, and
over them both are others higher still.
9 The increase from the land is taken
by all; the king himself profits from the fields.
10 Whoever loves
money never has money enough;
whoever loves wealth is never satisfied
with his income.
This too is meaningless.
11 As goods
increase,
so do those who consume them.
And
what benefit are they to the owner
except
to feast his eyes on them?
In a broken and sinful world, we all fail
to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. As a consequence, we also fail to love
our neighbors as ourselves.
Because we fail to love our neighbors as God intended, human greed and
selfishness rule, and the poor are often oppressed and mistreated. Thankfully, the Bible is also very
clear that God loves the poor and defends their cause.
As we’ve previously discussed, more than
2,000 verses of Scripture speak about God’s love and concern for the poor,
immigrants, and the dispossessed of society. This topic is the second most common topic in the “Old
Testament” second only to that of idolatry. (This is because every time people in the Old Testament fell
into the worship of anyone or anything other than God, they began to oppress
immigrants and the poor.)
In the “New Testament,” the topic of the
poor and money is found in 1 out of every 10 verses of the “Gospels” (the first
four books of the New Testament—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—which are
basically biographies of Jesus).
In Luke, it’s actually 1 in 7 verses. Jesus speaks much more about his love and concern for the
poor and the devastating consequences of greed than he ever does about heaven
and hell (and he does talk about those topics, too).
In fact, the Bible is written from the
perspective of an oppressed people group.
The Old Testament was written by former slaves (the Israelites) who came
to know God by being delivered from slavery and oppression in Egypt. The New Testament was written by “triple
minorities” who experienced an intersectionality of three layers of oppression.
Not only did they inherit the history of deliverance from slavery in Egypt,
they were oppressed and colonized by the Romans and persecuted by the religious
leaders of their own ethnicity. An
accurate understanding of the Bible must take this important historical context
into account.
Here is just a small sampling of what the Bible
has to say about God’s love and concern for justice and the poor (it would take
many volumes to present and interpret the thousands of verses from the Bible which
speak of God’s love and concern for immigrants and the poor):
In Isaiah 1:17, the prophet Isaiah declares
emphatically, “seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for
the widow”(Isaiah 1:17). Later on
in the book of Isaiah, the Lord Himself says, “Is not this the kind of fast I
have chosen: to loose the chains
of injustice, and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free, and
break every yoke? Is it not to
share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when
you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and
blood?” Isaiah 58:6-7. In words similar to those of Isaiah,
the prophet Amos cries, “But let justice run down like water, and righteousness
like a mighty stream.” Amos 5:24
I love Psalm 140:12 which states
unequivocally that God fights for the oppressed and upholds their “causa” (cause):
“I know that the LORD secures justice for
the poor
and upholds the cause of the needy.”
In proclamation of his public ministry,
Christ declared, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me
to preach the good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of
sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s
favor.” Luke 4:18. As Rich Stearns, President of World Vision says about this
passage:
“In
the first century, the allusion to prisoners and the oppressed would have
certainly meant those living under the occupation of Rome but also, in a
broader sense, anyone who had been the victim of injustice, whether political,
social, or economic. The proclamation of “the year of the Lord’s favor” was a
clear reference to the Old Testament year of Jubilee, when slaves were set
free, debts were forgiven, and all land was returned to its original
owners. The year of Jubilee was
God’s way of protecting against the rich getting too rich and the poor getting
too poor.” (Stearns, The Hole in Our Gospel, 22)
Can
you see where I’m heading? This
doesn’t sound like blame the poor for being poor, or the political mantra of “trickle
down” economics and “equal opportunity not equal economic results.”
It sounds a lot like “trickle up” justice.
This
is also not some radical communist saying this, either. It is the Bible and the president of
one of the most important evangelical Christian organizations on planet
earth.
In
Solidarity,
Robert
If
you’d like to join the Revolution, please like us on Facebook! https://www.facebook.com/JesusForRevolutionaries
Please
follow me on Twitter, too:
@ProfeChaoRomero
No comments:
Post a Comment