Societal Justice
Nehemiah 5:1-13
Now the men and their wives raised a great outcry against their Jewish brothers. Some were saying, “We and our sons and daughters are numerous; in order for us to eat and stay alive, we must get grain.” Others were saying, “We are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards and our homes to get grain during the famine.” Still others were saying, “We have had to borrow money to pay the king’s tax on our fields and vineyards. Although we are of the same flesh and blood as our countrymen and though our sons are as good as theirs, yet we have to subject our sons and daughters to slavery. Some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but we are powerless, because our fields and our vineyards belong to others.” When I heard their outcry and these charges, I was very angry. I pondered them in my mind and then accused the nobles and officials. I told them, “You are exacting usury from your own countrymen!” So I called together a large meeting to deal with them and said: “As far as possible, we have bought back our Jewish brothers who were sold to the Gentiles. Now you are selling your brothers, only for them to be sold back to us!” They kept quiet, because they could find nothing to say. So I continued, “What you are doing is not right. Shouldn’t you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our Gentile enemies? I and my brothers and my men are also lending the people money and grain. But let the exacting of usury stop! Give back to them immediately their fields, vineyards, olive groves and houses, and also the usury you are charging them—the hundredth part of the money, grain, new wine and oil.” “We will give it back,” they said. “And we will not demand anything more from them. We will do as you say.” Then I summoned the priests and made the nobles and officials take an oath to do what they had promised. I also shook out the folds of my robe and said, “In this way may God shake out of his house and possessions every man who does not keep this promise. So may such a man be shaken out and emptied!” At this the whole assembly said, “Amen,” and praised the Lord. And the people did as they had promised.
The Heidelberg Catechism tells us that the eighth commandment, “You shall not steal” is about much more than simply refraining from taking another person's property. Read with me Q&A 111. I will read the question, and I ask if you would join me in reading the answer.
Q: What does God require of you in this commandment?
A: That I do whatever I can for my neighbour's good,
that I treat others as I would like them to treat me,
and that I work faithfully so that I may share with those in need.
So, caring for other people, and sharing with those in need is part of the commandment, "You shall not steal."
Clyde Tilley wrote the following poem entitled A Prayer for Daily Bread.
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I said a prayer for daily bread
God blessed me with a feast instead
Now there is food for many days.
Why worry in the least of ways?
But then I thought about my prayer;
I'd said: “Our daily bread.”
Was this food meant for other days
or other mouths instead?
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On this weekend of thanksgiving we realise that we have been blessed with so much while others lack food, water, and decent shelter. Perhaps the abundance God has given us is not meant for us. Perhaps God has given it to us so that we have the opportunity to bless others. Not sharing what we have, is stealing, says the eighth commandment.
In the passage that we read from Nehemiah, the Israelites were stealing from their brothers and sisters. It turns out that the nobles and officials were taking advantage of the precarious situation and extorting the people for huge personal profits. Some were starving because they could not get any grain to eat, others had to hand over their fields, vineyards, and homes, the things God had given them as an inheritance in the promised land, so as to get a little bit of food. Still others were having to sell their own children into slavery so that they could pay the king's tax.
When Nehemiah hears all these accusations, he is livid. He is angry with the officials and with the nobles. Perhaps these are the very same nobles of Tekoa who would not put their back to the work whom we heard about last week in chapter 3. Maybe all the extra time they had watching the wall being built gave them the opportunity to come up with new ways to defraud the people. The things they were doing were expressly against the laws of God. The following requirements are set out in Leviticus 25
“'If one of your countrymen becomes poor and sells some of his property, his nearest relative is to come and redeem what his countryman has sold. ...
If one of your countrymen becomes poor and is unable to support himself among you, help him as you would an alien or a temporary resident, so he can continue to live among you. Do not take interest of any kind from him, but fear your God, so that your countryman may continue to live among you. You must not lend him money at interest or sell him food at a profit. I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.
“If one of your countrymen becomes poor among you and sells himself to you, do not make him work as a slave. He is to be treated as a hired worker or a temporary resident among you; he is to work for you until the Year of Jubilee. Then he and his children are to be released, and he will go back to his own clan and to the property of his forefathers. Because the Israelites are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt, they must not be sold as slaves. Do not rule over them ruthlessly, but fear your God.'” (Lev 25:25, 35-43)
Obviously, the nobles and officials were not acting in accordance with these requirements. When Nehemiah finds out about it, he is so angry he calls a meeting. In the midst of all the work, in the middle of the banging and hammering, Nehemiah calls a Congregational Meeting. He publicly accuses the nobles and officials of wrong doing, and they simply stand there; mouths gaping, fear in their eyes. The Israelites came back from exile, not simply to rebuild the city, but to rebuild the community. To rebuild what they had lost through their sin and disobedience to God. They wanted to rebuild the perfect community that God had promised them. Instead, the old demons of greed and avarice rear their ugly heads, and the rich and powerful begin to steal the blessings intended for others.
Christians are always trying to rebuild a community. We are trying to rebuild what was lost when Adam and Eve sinned against God. We are trying to rebuild the communion they had with each other and with God. This is impossible for us to do on our own. As it says in Heidelberg Catechism Q&A 5; we have a natural tendency to hate God and our neighbour. When we do not share what God has given to us, we steal from his people. St Basil the Great, Bishop of Caesarea in the third century wrote;
“When someone steals a man's clothes we call him a thief. Should we not give the same name to one who could clothe the naked and does not? The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry man; the coat hanging unused in your closet belongs to the woman who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the man who has no shoes; the money which you hoard up belongs to the poor.” (St. Basil the Great, Bishop of Caesarea)
Lest we think that there are none in our community who are in need, listen carefully to the following reading representing various sisters in the faith.
Dramatic Reading (Read by two women from the congregation)
We are Here
by Chad Vandervalk (Based on the monologue I Just Want You to Know I'm Here by Katie Cook; the editor for Seeds of Hope publications Sacred Seasons and Hunger News & Hope, as well as Baptist Peacemaker, the journal/newspaper of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America.)
You don’t know us, but we are children of God, so I guess that makes us your sisters.
We live in Zimbabwe, where, because of several years of drought and political unrest, there are no roads, and there is nothing left of what you call the infrastructure, so we all go without food regularly.
We live in the rubble of Baghdad, hiding from those who fight, hoping the humanitarian workers can make it through to me and my children with food and clean water.
We spend our days in an Afghan refugee camp, making shawls to sell to people like you, hoping that someday my family can have a home again.
We live in the wreck of the Haitian capitol city, where a person who eats every day is considered to be rich.
We work as prostitutes on the streets of Vancouver, hoping to earn enough money to feed our children and so that they can break out of the crushing weight of poverty.
We sleep under bridges and in the alleyways of Hamilton, trying to stay warm through the cold winter nights, praying that we will get a decent meal this week.
We also live much closer than that—we are those people that you rarely notice, right here in Strathroy. We work full-time at the Burger King on Victoria St. We can almost make ends meet with our salary, but not quite. We're okay unless one of the kids gets sick or the old car breaks down. Because we work, our family lost some of the medical benefits we received before, and now we have to leave our children at home without supervision. But we're determined to make it somehow.
We're in the prime of our lives, some of the first women to make it into an administrative job at a large factory. We were making good money—even putting some away. But the economy has been bad, and the company started laying people off. We are some of the ones who got a pink slip. We’ve been looking for a job, but, meanwhile, our resources are dwindling fast.
We are elderly women, trying to survive on our Social Insurance benefits. We worked hard all our lives, thinking that we would have enough to make ends meet. We hate having to go to a government agency to ask for help, but it’s really difficult to get all the medications we need, pay rent, and then have money left over for food. You might not believe it to look at us, but there are some months when we have to choose between our medicine and groceries.
We don’t want to make you feel bad; we just want you to know that we're here. We're here in spite of hard work, in spite of trying to be careful with resources. We want you to promise that you won’t forget us, that you’ll try to help make things better for people like us. That’s all I ask—that you try. Until all of us—ALL of us—have food to eat, clothes to wear, and a place to sleep.
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Do not think you cannot do anything about these needs? Do you have blocks of free time that you could use to volunteer? Do you have extra cash that you normally spend at Tim Horton's, or on Cable TV, or on Tobacco or Alcohol, that you could donate to a good cause, such as the ministry of this church? Could you sign up for the bowl-a-thon in support of the Upper Deck youth ministry? Do you have the time to go as a chaperone to one of the service projects that the Youth Group will be doing this coming year? Do you have some extra food at home that you could bring for the food drive?
Jesus spent most of his ministry among the poor and the outcasts, this we know. Why then, when we profess to follow Christ, do we not do the same? Shane Claibourne, author of The Irresistible Revolution writes of a survey he conducted in college.
“I asked participants who claimed to be 'strong followers of Jesus' whether Jesus spent time with the poor. Nearly 80 percent said yes. ...I asked the same group of strong followers whether they spent time with the poor, and less than 2 percent said they did. I learned a powerful lesson: We can admire and worship Jesus without doing what he did. We can applaud what he preached and stood for without caring about the same things. We can adore his cross without taking up ours.” (Shane Claibourne, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 2006; pp113)
Can we truly follow Jesus, without walking where he walked? Can we admire and worship him without doing what he did? Care we adore his cross, without taking up our own?
The Israelites followed Nehemiah, and did what he did. They dedicated themselves to God's vision of a just society, a single body united in belief and purpose, a people who care for one another, a people who looked after the poor and helpless, a people that treated one another like family. They were not just building a wall, they were building a community. A community that cared for one another. A community that did not live according to the rules of the day. A community which loaned without expectation of repayment. A community which joined in the work of God. Ps 146 says that;
“[God] upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The Lord sets prisoners free, the Lord gives sight to the blind, the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down, the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.” (Ps 146:7-9)
Jesus came down to earth to do the will of his father. He came to build a new community. Not one based on power and privilege, but based on service. Not one based on greed and self-indulgence, but on generosity and compassion. Building this community is not easy. Christ does not give us an easy task. The free gift of salvation comes with a call to walk in his shoes, his shoes which travelled the lonely road and slept under the stars. His shoes which were stained with sweat, blood, and tears. His shoes which bore the cross and the weight of our sin. In building with God's people we are confronting the powers of evil and the kingdom of Satan. In all our work for the kingdom of God we challenge the darkness of the world with the light of God and the good news of Jesus Christ. A good news which promises not only eternal life in the future, but true life today. Life which is fulfilling. Life which is hopeful. Life which is filled with the reality of God.
Shane Claibourne tells of a time when he was helping treat the lepers near Calcutta, India.
“I began carefully dressing the man's wound. He stared at me with such intensity that it felt like he was looking into my soul. Every once in a while he would slowly close his eyes. When I was finished, he said to me that sacred word I had come to love: “Namaste.” [which means, “I honour the Holy One who lives in you.” p. 80] I smiled with tears in my eyes and whispered, “Jesus.” He saw Jesus in me. And I saw Jesus in him.” (Shane Claibourne, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 2006; p. 83)
When we work with and for the poor we come face to face with Christ. What we do for the least of these our brothers or sisters, we do for him. This is the exciting thing. God is asking us to join in his work. God is giving us the opportunity to be his instruments of mercy in this world. He is calling us to bless others with what he has given us.
Listen again to the poem from Clyde Tilley
I said a prayer for daily bread
God blessed me with a feast instead
Now there is food for many days.
Why worry in the least of ways?
But then I thought about my prayer;
I'd said: “Our daily bread.”
Was this food meant for other days
or other mouths instead?
Was this food meant for other days
or other mouths instead?
Amen