Pentecost VI: God and Social Injustice

The early Jewish population seem to be have been the poor cousins in the family of Canaanite peoples.  That early nomadic population developed a Law which was, although barbaric, light-years ahead of its predecessors.  Hebrews were on the margins of society and had a radically progressive view of social justice  They blazed a trail by giving all slaves a day off every week, treating refugees just like other people, and allowing the poor to glean from harvests of those better-off.  Soon, like any developing people, Jews advanced in organization.  Soon, they had a king, a capital city, a fixed temple, plus a  cosy little merger of church and state.  They had become the Establishment they once reacted against, and they managed to find all kinds of creative ways to circumvent, or otherwise play games with, the Law.

The result of this shift was the rise of prophecy, for prophets would call out social injustice and evil wherever they found it, and call people back to genuine worship.  The first prophet whose writings appear in the Bible was Amos, whom we talked about last week.  He's back with another vision of YHVH as a human, playing twenty questions.   God shows Amos a bowl of late-summer fruits in wonderful condition and then tells Amos that he has blessed his people for the last time, he's gone.

This was during the reigns of Uzziah ([Judah] and Jeroboam II[  [Israel] and Amos's words will be remembered, for soon both kingdoms fall and exile ensues.  Amos now tells us that the wealthy have committed three grave offences, which caused God to pull the plug.  First, they exploited the poor, needy, and working class.  Second, succeeding at that, the rich objectified those of whom they were taking advantage; making them economic commodities to be used, bought and sold without regard to fair compensation or human development.  Third, the next logical step was to begin to perpetuate an overclass of rich people, and so they did.  The wealth gap widened.  God bailed out.

We learn, then, that God will not sustain a society based on domination, rather than love of one's neighbour.  The worshipping community cannot be complicit or neutral in the face of systemic injustice.  Worship must lead us to work for a just society and world,  Our New Testament story, recounting the ministries of Martha and Mary, reminds us that we need worship and also need to participate in activism  --that both are important and complementary.  They must work in tandem.