Stephen
Terry, Director
Rebirth of Planet Earth
Commentary
for the March 27, 2021 Sabbath School Lesson
"Multitudes,
multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the
valley of decision."
Joel 3:14, NIV
It seems today that we
are faced with atrocities on every hand. The military junta in Myanmar, daily
murdering citizens who demand a return to democracy; political assassinations
in Russia and the imprisoning of political rivals; genocide of Uyghurs in China;
sex trafficking of women and children across the globe; the dehumanization of
people based on race, all of these and many other evils have people's hearts in
fear, and voices cry out for justice that never seems to come. The Bible purports
to offer answers. But even the religious leaders seem to be impervious to the
idea of justice. Many seem to be only using the position for personal prestige,
power, and wealth. Instead of advocating for the poor and downtrodden, they
promote the wealthy abusers, claiming their wealth is a sign of God's favor.
The people, feeling
oppressed by taxation at every turn, are urged to not only empty the pockets
for the wealthy through this abusive system of draining the poor to pay for
public services while exempting the wealthy, but they are also pushed to add to
that even more money in the form of tithes and offerings to enrich the
religious leaders and those who appoint them. I have personally spoken with
aged widows on small pensions worried about whether to buy the medicines they
need or to pay a faithful tithe so God will allow them salvation. God, who has
all the wealth he would ever need, would not need to make such a demand on the
helpless. The church which should be helping such struggling souls is instead
taking what little they have with the promise of an ephemeral blessing to come.
Those in charge of the temple have literally turned it into a "den of thieves."
And in so doing, they bless, rather than confront, those secular rulers who do the
same. Little wonder then that Karl Marx felt that religion was simply a ruse to
keep the masses placated with hopes of eternal reward while being robbed of all
they had in this life. Does this mean there is no eternal reward? No. It only
means the idea has been subverted to serve an immoral purpose by the very ones
who are least entitled to such a reward.
Even though the Bible
speaks against usury, many store lines of credit now demand almost 30% interest
for using the unsecured credit lines on their cards. Such a charge is ludicrous
in an economy where savings accounts are paying only a penny or two on the
dollar in interest. The stores justify the high interest by a high rate of loan
defaults. However, a high rate of default would seem to naturally follow from
such usury. Even the interest rate on student loans is way out of line
considering the rate of savings returns and the underlying government guarantees
that promise loan security for the lenders.
But that is still not
enough. Having bled the poor to abject poverty, the wealthy also turn on the
middle class, convincing them that the extremely poor are the enemy coming
after their hard-earned wages and savings. While the wealthy are destroying the
pillars of middle-class society. One of those pillars, defined benefit pension
plans, used to provide financial security in retirement. Instead, they have
been replaced by security-based investment accounts, projecting outlandish sums
by retirement based on bull market growth. This is like when Jimmy Carter was
president and inflation was in double digits, even banks and savings and loans
produced charts that showed how everyone would be a millionaire in ten to
twenty years, based on those return rates, to lure depositors. Of course, those
rates did not hold and the only thing that happened was an influx of money into
those savings institutions that they were able to loan out at a much higher rate
of interest than the depositors could hope to realize. The banks got richer,
and the depositors were left wondering what happened. The same thing happened
with the raiding of defined benefit pension plans as a surging stock market
promised glittering mountains of gold by retirement. In reality, the stock
market is a rambling roller coaster of boom and bust with no guarantee of what
will be there for retirement. Many, looking forward to retirement, found that
precisely when they hoped to retire, the market dropped as the economy went into
recession, condemning them to continue working more years until the market hopefully
rose again.
Another pillar of the
middle class was the various labor unions. While, like any other man-made
organization, they were susceptible to corruption by the unscrupulous, they
also negotiated for labor conditions that did not bleed every possible ounce of
life and energy from the workers. They made a shortened work week possible with
reasonable hours of work each day, including mealtimes and breaks. They
negotiated for those defined benefit pension plans so when the workers reached
the limit of years of useful employment, they were not tossed aside as a
useless husk but could expect dignity and value in their remaining years.
However, since the 1980s, between union busting efforts on the part of the federal
government and so-called "right-to-work" laws passed in several states, the
unions lost, and have yet to regain, the influence they once had. As a result,
general poverty has increase along with a growing population of the homeless,
challenging the numbers during the Dust Bowl years of the early twentieth
century. The federal government, controlled by the wealthy, continues to push
more and more into poverty and homelessness. The federal minimum wage has
remained stagnant at $7.25 per hour for the last decade while rent has doubled
during the same period. This is a sure recipe for civil unrest which has indeed
grown during the same period. Like the time of Christ's earthly ministry, the
people are lost without a shepherd to lead them, scrambling from wolves on
every hand. They do not know where to turn for even those who are supposed to
be their spiritual guides are little more than fleece enrobed carnivores
themselves. Because of this and other sins, many have turned from the churches
and the "sheep" are like a flock scattered over the hills.
While they have been
left to the mercy of predators, God is aware of the prevailing injustice. The
prophet Habakkuk thought he might be overlooking the evil and asked God about
it, and received the answer, "Look at the nations and watch, and be utterly amazed.
For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if
you were told." (Habakkuk 1:5) God revealed to him that he would use the
Babylonians to punish the greedy oppressors of the people. In a modern sense,
it would be like telling Americans that God would use the Russians or the
Chinese to punish them for the evil they were doing. With the evil the Russians
and the Chinese are guilty of, we might ask how can God justify that? Habakkuk
responded the same way, but God assured him that he was not above using the
evil to punish evil. In the end, Habakkuk realized God is in charge, and he
could only stand in silent trust in God's justice and compassion for those who
strive to live for him even when faced with a tidal wave of immorality, injustice,
and violence.
As Isaiah has assured
us all quarter, God does not leave his people without hope. He promises a
future without the evil injustice that our present holds. Those greedy souls
who will not rest until they own every bauble of value will find no place in
that future. They would not be happy there for everything considered valuable
here would be common there. They could not monopolize or control access to necessities
like some have in this life. For example, while water was provided by God in
Creation so we could drink freely, some have managed to convince us that we
must buy it in little plastic bottles that are eventually discarded to ruin the
environment. Meanwhile, they become wealthier than ever as they sell those
bottles to us.
They have convinced us
to give up perfectly serviceable automobiles, trading them to buy those with
the latest accessories, even though doing so means we will never be out of
debt. Fashions constantly change so that we never get the opportunity to wear
out our clothes, and closets are full of perfectly wearable clothing that we
are likely still paying the 30% interest on from buying them with a store
charge card. They are simply out of style, so they sit in the darkness hoping
for the odd retro party so they can briefly see the light of day. But these things
are like glittering cages. They do not bring happiness to most. Instead, they
harness us to the money lenders in a lifelong slavery to fill their pockets, not
ours, with silver, gold, and platinum.
God offers us a choice
though. We do not need to live on that treadmill of economic slavery. We can
choose to forego the golden carrots constantly dangled in front of our eyes by
the ever-present media. We can instead look for the future offered by God and described
by Isaiah. We can choose to reject those shepherds who feed off the flock and
instead take Christ as our good shepherd. We can be sure of his care for us for
what would one who created everything[i] gain from abusing the sheep?
It is a simple, but profound, choice. We can remain in the valley of decision
until others make our life choices for us, or we can turn from the tinsel to
the real and invite Jesus to shape our lives into something positive for both
this life and the next. There is no safer harbor in the swirling sea of chaos
that surrounds us. Only he can supply the still waters that will float us
safely home.