Stephen
Terry, Director
Noble Prince of Peace
Commentary
for the January 30, 2021 Sabbath School Lesson
"Woe to those who make unjust laws,
to those who issue oppressive decrees,
to
deprive the poor of their rights
and withhold justice from the oppressed of my
people,
making
widows their prey
and robbing the fatherless.
What
will you do on the day of reckoning,
when disaster comes from afar?
To
whom will you run for help?
Where will you leave your riches?"
Isaiah
10:1-3 NIV
Over two and a half millennia
ago, during Isaiah's time, the people were often ruled over by despotic kings,
who were surrounded by sycophantic nobles intent on enriching themselves at the
expense of the people. Like cannibals, they would also prey upon one another
probing for weaknesses that would allow them to assume the power and wealth of
their victim.[i]
If they could prevail upon the king to make a law that would enhance those
possibilities, they would do so. To encourage the king in their favor,[ii]
they would make him a silent partner in their crime by directing a portion of
the gain to him. When the poor complained about the oppression and theft, they
were referred to as not deserving what little they had and were despised for their
lack of initiative.
Like magicians, the rich
would get the poor to look the other way, claiming that the biggest threat was
not the rich, but other enemies who wanted to take what little they still had.
Foreigners living among them would take their menial jobs from them and would further
threaten to increase the number of property crimes and assaults. They were the
real enemy and not the rich who kept these threats at bay. Didn't the rich
deserve their wealth for providing such a valuable service? And besides, living
in such a blessed country, even the poor could become rich one day. If they
survive. If they don't end up in prison or dead.
Justice was not equal.
The poor and the foreigner were far more likely to be ruled against than the
rich. The rich were often the ones who hauled them into court in the first
place.[iii]
This likely made the neighborhoods of the poor into violent crime zones.
Desperate to obtain what little they could, they could not obtain it from the
rich, hidden behind their walls and guards, so they would seek violently for
what they could from any one among them that had slightly more than they did.
The rich knew and understood this, so they would rarely go to those neighborhoods,
and when they did, they would take plenty of protection. Should anyone question
why they had so much and the poor so little, their guards were capable of
reminding them that good citizens don't ask such questions. Ironically, those
guards could either be recruits from the poorer neighborhoods or even
foreigners made loyal by a small salary that supported them and their families.
This also gave them the unrealistic hope that because the rich favored them in
this way, they might also become wealthy and be welcomed into the society of
the wealthy. Of course, the rich, being who they are, pay no more than the
minimum necessary to keep them in their employ and certainly not enough to
become wealthy or be welcomed into their society.
How do I know all this? I
know it because in over two thousand five hundred years, human nature has
changed little. Today, those same dreams that encourage the hope of becoming
rich are nourished in the poor. However, the overwhelming majority, who are
born into poor families and attend public schools that inculcate them with the
idea that they can one day be among the wealthy rulers of the land, find that
upon graduation they are quickly diverted into debt, the first purchase perhaps
being a car to be able to get to work so they can make the payments for the
car. So a life of constant service to pay off debt begins. The car, advanced
education, credit cards, and eventually a home, all are means to ensure a form
of indentured servitude lasting a life time for most. The greater portion of
one's earnings, often from a despised job, goes to pay the rich even more than
they already have as the poor service this debt. At some point, called a "mid-life
crisis," some realize that they were sold a bill of goods and that what
they were taught in those public schools in no way prepared them for a
prosperous future, only for a politely menial one. And so, with that
realization dawning, some will buy a new car, go on a longed for trip, or begin
an affair, all in an attempt to find the happiness that somehow missed them. Once
they have that out of their system, they settle down to a life of resigned
cynicism. They have discovered it is too late to do much to correct things, and
those in the next generation cannot be warned because they still have not
reached the realization of mid-life. When they do, it will be too late for them
also.
So what is the solution
to this never-ending treadmill run by the rich to the detriment of the poor?
Isaiah and other prophets of the Old Testament and Jesus in the New Testament
have been trying to tell us for thousands of years. Notwithstanding all the
preachers of the prosperity gospel, the answer is not wealth or the desire to
obtain it. These individuals want us to keep worshipping those golden idols for
their own enrichment. They are no better than the rest of the rich who drain from
us what little we have and keep us working for their gain and not ours, despite
the promises that it will make us wealthy, too. Using religion for that purpose
makes it even more reprehensible than the delusions of financial hope offered
up by gambling casinos, delusions that keep people coming and paying, while
that ghostlike hope evaporates in their hands. Unlike those casinos the ability
to defer that hope into the afterlife makes it difficult to ever call these
prosperity preachers to account.
Mainline institutional religion is not exempt from challenge in this regard.
Many a magnificent church has been built by the offerings of those, who,
themselves, live in comparative hovels. To what end? To glorify God? A faithful
and loving heart is the only glory God cares for. No human structure can add to
that. Jesus and the Apostles did not require expensive buildings to gather for
worship. They often used the open fields and people's homes, especially after opposition
arose from those running the temple. When his disciples tried to point out how
the temple in Jerusalem glorified God, Jesus' response was to tell them that it
would soon be destroyed.[iv]
If the wealth that has poured into the churches had been used instead to bless
our neighbors, family and friends, there might be a thousand following Jesus
today where there is only one. The hundreds of thousands each church has spent
for audio-visual systems, HVAC systems, grand pianos, magnificent organs, comfortable
pews, and soaring architecture with hardwood embellishments, things which neither
Jesus nor his disciples had or needed, is all money wasted to make people believe
that God is glorious because of the building, and by attribution that the
denomination building such edifices is somehow blessed by God. It all rings rather
hollow.
Meanwhile, modern
Christians are as guilty as the secular rich for their oppression of the poor.
The meager poor funds of most churches are far outweighed many times over by
the money they spend on their own need to support a voracious infrastructure
and a mostly indolent cleric class. Any secular business that produced the
anemic results in terms of accretions to membership from outside the
denomination that are produced by the clergy of most denominations would have
long since shut its doors. But I do not blame them alone for this for the
clergy are faced with spending much of their time navigating the political
intrigues of the local church, where the lust for power and control is just as
strong as it is outside the church. Families strive to create denominational
dynasties, erroneously believing they are doing God's will. While some may have
followed a pastoral calling, believing in the simple need to reach the world
for Christ, they are soon enlightened to the need to subjugate that desire to
the simple need to survive politically. Few pastors have never been reminded of
who pays their salary and why it is necessary to placate those individuals
politically.
This may paint a pretty
grim picture of society and the church. But this is the picture Isaiah painted
in his day as well. King Manasseh was so upset by it, he had Isaiah sawn in
two. When Jeremiah pointed out similar problems, he was cast into a dungeon and
left to die. When Zechariah spoke up, he was killed in the very precincts of
the temple. Of course, we all know what happened to Jesus for his temerity. But
the reason these all were so opposed was because they promised a better way
that did not involve enslavement to the rich and powerful or the continual pursuit
of a golden carrot dangled before our noses. We have the promised hope made
possible by Jesus Christ. He died to bring it to us. All the gold in the world
can never equal that price or that promise. He offers a chance to get off that
treadmill, but will we take it?