Stephen
Terry, Director
The
Cry of the Prophets
Commentary
for the August 3, 2019 Sabbath School Lesson
"For I know how
many are your offenses and how great your sins. There are those who oppress the
innocent and take bribes and deprive the poor of justice in the courts. Therefore
the prudent keep quiet in such times, for the times are evil." Amos 5:12-13, NIV
Oppression, corruption, and injustice are nothing new.
The prophet Amos wrote the above words around 2,500 years ago. Some like to believe
things have actually improved over the interim. In some ways they have. Infant
mortality is certainly much improved, and we have cures for diseases now that
were death sentences back then. Science has made it possible to improve life
quality by several degrees of magnitude. Perhaps, by rights, we should now be
enjoying a Utopian paradise thanks to the scientific enhancements permeating
our culture. Unfortunately, those enhancements have contributed to the
advancement of evil as well. Killing has become more proficient. We are now
able to slay millions in a moment thanks to nuclear physics. We can unleash
chemical agents that will sweep over an area killing men, women and children
indiscriminately without regards to their combat status and without ever having
to come face to face with them in their death throes. We can even devastate the
global economy in a matter of minutes as those with great wealth seek to
accumulate even more at the expense of the global banking system where many
smaller fish have secured the relative dribs and drabs of their life savings.
We are also able to allow towns, cities, and entire countries to be swept by
famine and pestilence with indifference as long as it is somewhere other than
where we live or is something suffered by a race or religion we deem inferior
to our own. We may even claim the disasters to be judgments of God for their
ignorance and sinfulness, all the while overlooking our own. We support
rapacious leaders who use their own enrichment as the standard for what is
right or wrong. They implicitly defy God to do something to check their course
while acting to remove every possibility of justice for lesser mortals from the
public arena. But we are little better. We even suffer our own to be maimed or
killed by mass violence if attempts at preventing it would infringe on our own
"rights."
The courts have even corrupted justice to the extent
that it does not apply equally to those who come from "bad" families,
often defined as racial or cultural minorities in practice. The racial spectrum
of our prisons cries loudly of the injustice of such a prejudicial legal
system. Those deemed to have come from "good" families who are most
often white and well-to-do tend to receive much more leniency before the
judicial bench.
Sadly, the churches have also been co-opted and
corrupted by the system to such an extent that they often challenge the poor
and needy with a demand that they be "worthy" of assistance, with the
very fact that they need help being considered almost unsurmountable prima facie evidence that they are probably
not worthy and are likely drug addicts or cheats. As a result, the churches,
unwilling to help such unworthy individuals, relegate much of the care of the
poor and needy to the state while hypocritically denying the right of the state
to tax their "worthy" church members to support the cost of that
shifted burden. They insist that charity should be free will and not coerced by
the taxman. In practice, they are saying do not tax us and leave us alone to ignore
the poor except for a sandwich or a cup of soup once a week or once a month
when it is convenient. They also claim that they can do so more efficiently
than the government. For example, while some are munching on whole-grain high
fiber breads at home, cheap white bread almost devoid of nutrients is deemed a
cost effective way to feed the poor. Food that we would feel is too inferior to
purchase from the grocer to feed our own families is felt to be high living for
the homeless and poor. Some might even feel that the appeal of a better diet
will provide incentive for the poor to try to better themselves and become more
"worthy" of a better diet.
I have barely scratched the surface of the self-righteous
oppression that arises from the hearts of people towards one another. God has
continuously tried through his prophets to check such pervasive injustice.
While a few in each generation have listened and effected change in their
lives, most do not. Too many look at the injustice and feel that if they
relented even slightly on taking care of themselves first, they would soon be
the ones destitute and in need. This may be because they see the evil and feel
God is indifferent or impotent to stem the tide so they must care for themselves
first. However, this may be based on two premises that are questionable. The
first is that this life is all there is, so there is a need to grasp all one
can to make this life as close to paradise as possible. The fundamental flaw
here has become more apparent over time to me as I have aged. This life we have
here, even if we live a normal lifespan, is terribly short. The time to enjoy the
wealth and possessions we accumulate is brief and unless we manage to maintain
our health and vigor, it is filled with discomfort that blights the enjoyment
of those things. Unfortunately, we have so polluted and poisoned the earth,
including the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat that
illness and disability seems to stalk us all no matter how careful we are with
diet and exercise.
The second premise is that God does not exist. Even the
churches are compromised with a social activism that seeks to demonstrate
spirituality with no real divine involvement. This has the benefit of making
some feel good about the religious "club" they belong to without
actually having to submit their wills to anything beyond themselves. It also
allows them to set standards for whom they will and will not help. People who
are not "worthy," especially enemies of the denomination or the local
church, are not to be helped under any circumstance. While this may be
difficult to find biblical foundation for, it is well supported by the perverse
logic of social services operating in the Christless vacuum of a secular world
view.
While the prophets have railed against such injustice committed
by God's people, many may feel they have safely consigned such prophets to the irrelevant
dust bin of the Old Testament. Calling ourselves New Testament Christians
living under grace rather than obedience, we no longer have to listen to all of
that "do this" and "do that or else" talk of the old days.
Some religions, like the Seventh-day Adventists, have allowed the prophetic
calling to be valid into the 19th and 20th centuries
through the ministry of Ellen White. But she was strongly resisted during her
lifetime and once she passed, her writings could be interpreted in ways that
would make her less confrontational and more accommodating even to a church
going astray. Strangely, the church defines her ministry and its own validity as
keeping the commandments of God and having the witness about Jesus through the spirit
which inspires the prophets.[i] But in claiming this, they
deny any manifestation of prophetic ministry after Ellen White's lifetime. Thereby,
they are effectively silencing that prophetic spirit as a matter of denominational
policy. Even though God continued to strive with Israel right up until the very
moment their nation was destroyed by the Babylonians, implying that God continued
to plead with them without let up, they cannot see God doing the same today. In
many ways, they have become as secular as the other churches decrying the
voices of the prophets who would point them to the words and acts of Jesus.
They often claim that those voices have a political agenda, rather than humbly
seeing them as a call to repentance and the revival of justice and compassion
for others. Perhaps this is not surprising, for too many churches, including
even our own, have at times sold their birthright for a mess of pottage,
fearing they will not survive some challenge if they don't. Those inspired by
the Holy Spirit to point out such failings may be accused of being cynical and
bitter toward the church or even the nation by those who would dismiss the
accusations of wrong doing. But those accusations are minor compared to what
prophets often encounter for daring to challenge the direction of God's people.
Jeremiah, who carried his prophetic ministry to the Babylonian destruction of
Jerusalem and beyond was several times called a traitor who deserved to die.[ii]
We may not be the first, but those who were are not
alone in standing in line with their hands out to the secular authorities,
ironically claiming a worthiness to feed at the public trough that they would
deny other access to. They are too often willing to risk compromise of our prophetic
voice crying out against the injustices in the world to obtain favor from the
corrupt and dissolute that we might obtain a few shekels to help out a faltering
budget. Should we feel guilty for doing so, we can always direct some of the
handouts to purchase a metaphorical Potter's Field to at least bury the poor we
have neglected. We are perhaps blinded by our own personal and denominational success
so that we cannot see where we have stumbled. We have created a vast parochial
school system and many medical institutions where we raise our children to
pursue a career that will place them beyond having to worry about finances and
the necessities of life, often working within the very denominational system
that reared them. Where once this meant humble missionary wages, that situation
has been slowly changing to allow our own professionals a measure of equality
with the world, excusing this as necessary to retain qualified workers. This is
perhaps a euphemism for retaining workers who are no longer motivated by
missionary zeal. As a result, our churches become social clubs of elitism and
indifference. Should the poor and needy deign to seek baptism because a
traveling evangelist has shown them the light of the Bible and the Holy Spirit
awakens a response in their hearts, they too often soon leave again. Why is
this?
Perhaps it is because those in the church have achieved
sufficient social status that they are unable to avoid excluding those deemed
less worthy from their cliques where status is determined by wealth and the
number of years (or generations) they can claim in the church. Even new members
who are wealthy can have a hard time penetrating this wall of indifference as
they may be looked upon in much the same manner as the Boston Brahmins looked
upon "new money" upstarts. As Christians, we have a very difficult
time including those whom we deem unworthy in the warmth of our fellowship.
Without that acceptance, one can be legally a church member without ever being
visited by another church member for years or even decades. As our lesson
pointed out, we may not be willing to see it, but our sins may be as scarlet as
those of Sodom for our failure to heed the voices of those who, inspired by the
Holy Spirit, point out the failings of the church and God's people, and then compound
their error by continuing to denigrate the poor, failing to champion their
cause before their oppressors.
