and join field to field
till no space is left
and you live alone in the land."
-Isaiah 5:8
Isn't it fascinating to read this passage in a series of woes having to do with personal sins like drunkeness, lying and bribery? We'd preach the last three any given day, but it's rare to hear a sermon or even a church discussion on Isaiah 5:8 and it's implications for Western Christians.
Sometimes I feel like I'm beating a dead horse, but today I just feel like I need to ask the same questions that I've asked a million times before:
- How can we continue to bless wealth when scripture continually points out how wealth brings about peoples' (and nations) downfall, while poverty is blessed by the Lord?
- When will we recognize that God is on the side of the oppressed?
- When will we recognize who the oppressed really are?
- If God supports the weak and opposes the strong, what does that mean for us?
- Does might ever make right?
- What sort of future does God have in store for us? I mean this in a dual sense, as in, what sort of future does God desire to provide for us, and what sort of a future judgment can we look forward to, considering our actions as a people?
Sorry for the half-rant. I've been reading about Central American revolutions, the church, and American responses and I'm just a bit more frustrated than usual.
Peace,
Matt
2 comments:
It is horrible that north american churches have been so self involved that they have missed the struggles of the kingdom around the world and instead chosen to fight battles of ridiculous issues and building bigger churches. It is hard for me to know that no Christian would ever say that there will be rich and poor in heaven, or eternity, but they not only accept it here and now but by their words and deeds promote it. As new creations why would we live in and perpetuate the old order. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of hapiness is the antithesis to the gospel why have we baptized it? We tend to celebrate what we should lament and in that triumphalist philosophy we miss the true Christ, the God who so fully embraced human suffering that he lived amongst it.
I like the direction you take us in this post. I think it is difficult, however, to draw a unified view of wealth in the Bible. You're right to show that oftentimes wealth is a downfall, but there are other times in the Bible when it clearly says or implies that God blesses people with wealth. Take for example Job 42.10: "And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends; and the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before." (Of course this comes in a very challenging section of the Bible.) Or what of 1 Kings 3.11-13 when God responds to Solomon's request for wisdom: God said to him, “Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches, or for the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern what is right, I now do according to your word. Indeed I give you a wise and discerning mind; no one like you has been before you and no one like you shall arise after you. I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honor all your life; no other king shall compare with you." These texts seem to indicate that wealth can be a blessing. I would like to have a discussion as to what we are to do with those blessings, and I think that is where God would have some rather harsh things to say to us as a nation.
Certainly the American church is more guilty of emphasizing these passages than Isaiah 5.8, and I would assume that God's message to us as a nation concerning money is more likely found in the prophets than in the Writings or Torah. I break from much of the hermeneutics of the Liberation theologians when wealth is seen only as an evil. I agree with them that God is on the side of the oppressed. I agree with them that Jesus' incarnational ministry was directed mostly to the outsiders and poor. But I think Miroslav Volf is most articulate here in Exclusion and Embrace: "Why is God partial to widows and strangers? In a sense, because God is partial to everyone -- including the powerful, whom God resists in order to protect the widow and the stranger. God sees each human being concretely, the powerful no less than the powerless. God notes not only their common humanity, but also their specific histories, their particular psychological, social, and embodied selves with their specific needs. When God executes justice, God does not abstract but judges and acts in accordance with the specific character of each person."
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