To God, inequality matters. Yes, it does! This the prophet Amos proclaimed
as forthrightly as one can ask for, some 2,760 years ago. So God’s concern for
the poor is hardly a new thought coined just yesterday by some “bleeding-heart”
liberal theologian. For as Amos put it, so long ago:
“Thus says the LORD:
For three transgressions of Israel,
and for four, I will not revoke the punishment;
because they sell the righteous for silver,
and the needy for a pair of sandals—
they who trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth,
and push the afflicted out of the way…
“The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.
Shall not the land tremble on this account,
and everyone mourn who lives in it.…” (Amos 2:6–7a; 8:7–8a)
To God, inequality matters. But to Amaziah, the priest in charge of the
Israelite temple at Bethel, what mattered was not so much addressing the sin of
the rampant social inequality as it was preserving the status quo fostered by
his master—his master being, strangely enough for a priest, not so much God as
the king, Jeroboam II. So Amaziah raged at Amos the Troublemaker, saying: “O
seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy
there; but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and
it is a temple of the kingdom.” (Amos 7:12–13) Notice that Amaziah referred to
the sanctuary at Bethel not as "a temple of God,” but as “a temple of the
kingdom.” It was thus designated as a shrine that belonged to the state and as
such represented the interests of the aristocracy.
To God, inequality is a matter of grave injustice. But to the elite of
ancient Israel, it was not. To God, inequality is a matter that must be
rectified. But what about to us? How do we, the citizens and the religious
and political leaders of our own time and place—how do we view this matter of
inequality?
Early last month (June 3–5, 2004), a fine local progressive organization
known as Demos helped to sponsor a two-day forum at New York University entitled
“Inequality Matters.” (For information on the forum and downloadable speeches,
see www.inequality.org.) Yet
startlingly enough the thesis advanced throughout the speeches at that forum
was similar to the thesis spoken by the prophet Amos—namely, that for those
running the country inequality does not matter. More and more Americans are
buying into what the African-American theologian and ethicist Robert M.
Franklin called at the forum “the myth of normative inequality,” the myth that
God is content with the situation that power and wealth are concentrated in the
hands of the upper classes and that we therefore have no ethical imperative
from God to redistribute wealth or to change things. Somehow, in spite of the
best that Amos—and Jesus—said and did, this myth of normative inequality has
come to infect not only American secularism but also American Christianity.
Another speaker at the forum was the PBS journalist and commentator Bill
Moyers. Moyers brought to people’s attention a telling example of how
inequality seems not to matter to our political leaders. Just this May, the
House of Representatives approved new tax credits for children. “Not for poor
children, mind you. But for families earning as much as $309,000 a year—families
that already enjoy significant benefits from earlier tax cuts. The editorial
page of the Washington Post called this ‘bad social policy, bad tax
policy, and bad fiscal policy. You’d think they’d be embarrassed,’ said the
Post, ‘but they’re not.’ … Nothing seems to embarrass the political class
in Washington today. Not the fact that more children are growing up in poverty
in America than in any other industrial nation; not the fact that millions of
workers are actually making less money today in real dollars than they did
twenty years ago; not the fact that working people are putting in longer and
longer hours and still falling behind; not the fact that while we have the most
advanced medical care in the world, nearly 44 million Americans—eight out of
ten of them in working families—are uninsured and cannot get the basic health
care they need. Astonishing as it seems, no one in official Washington seems
embarrassed or outraged by the fact that the gap between rich and poor is
greater than it’s been in [well over] 50 years—the worst inequality among all
western nations.… In 1960, the gap in terms of wealth between the top 20% and
the bottom 20% was 30 fold. Four decades later it is more than 75 fold.”
Moyers cited as vivid testimony to this gap between the rich and the poor
two articles on page B8 of the March 10th New York Times. “…with a
headline that stretched across all six columns, The … Times reported
that tuition in the city’s elite private schools would hit $26,000 for the
coming school year—for kindergarten as well as high school. On the same page,
under a two-column headline, Michael Wineraub wrote about a [public] school in
nearby Mount Vernon, the first stop out of the Bronx, with a student body that
is 97 percent black. It is the poorest school in the town: nine out of ten
children qualify for free lunches; one out of 10 lives in a homeless shelter.
During black history month this past February, a sixth grader wanted to write
a report on Langston Hughes. There were no books on Langston Hughes in the
library—no books about the great poet, nor any of his poems. There is only
one book in the library on Frederick Douglass. None on Rosa Parks, Josephine
Baker, Leontyne Price, or other giants like them in the modern era. In fact,
except for a few Newberry Award books [that] the librarian bought with her own
money, the library is mostly old books—largely from the 1950s and 60s when
the school was all white.…”
Apropos of such a situation, the theologian and preacher William Sloane
Coffin once observed (see Credo [Louisville: Westminster John Knox,
2004], p. 61): “The primary problems of the planet arise not from the poor,
for whom education is the answer; [no,] they arise from the well-educated, for
whom self-interest is the problem.”
Yet the Amaziahs of this world, those false religious leaders of our time
who, unlike a Coffin or a Franklin, stand in thrall to the alien myth of
normative inequality, profiting mightily from the status quo—these Amaziahs
condemn a Baptist like Moyers and a Pentecostal like Franklin, who remind us
of the biblical truth proclaimed by Amos—and by Jesus—that to God inequality
does matter. To God, inequality is a grave injustice that must be rectified.
But let’s go back to Coffin, who goes on to say (Credo, pp. 64–65):
“That God is against the status quo is one of the hardest things to believe if
you are a Christian who happens to profit by the status quo. In fact, most of
us don’t really believe [that God is against the status quo], not in our heart
of hearts. We comfort ourselves with the thought that because our intentions
are good ([you know,] nobody gets up in the morning and says, ‘Whom can I
oppress today?’) [—yes, we think that because our intentions are good], we do
not have to examine the consequences of our actions. As a matter of fact, many
of us are even eager to respond to injustice, as long as we can do so without
having to confront the causes of it. And [that’s where we come to] the great
pitfall of charity. Handouts to needy individuals are genuine [and] necessary
responses to injustice, but they do not necessarily face the reason for the
injustice. And that is why President [Bush] and so many business leaders today
are promoting charity: it is desperately needed in an economy whose prosperity
is based on growing inequality,” yet, very conveniently, charity does not in
any way threaten the status quo of that inequality.
Coffin continues, “Had I but one wish for the churches of America I think
it would be that they come to see the difference between charity and justice.
Charity is a matter of personal attributes[, like kindness]; justice, [however,
is] a matter of public policy. Charity seeks to alleviate the effects of
injustice; [whereas] justice seeks to eliminate the causes of it. Charity in
no way affects the status quo, while justice leads inevitably to political
confrontation. Especially I would hope that Christians would see that the
compassion that moved the Good Samaritan to act charitably—that same compassion
prompted biblical prophets to confront injustice, to speak truth to power, as
did Jesus.…” (Credo, pp. 62–63)
As the Jewish thinker Blu Greenberg has observed (“Religion and Politics:
Can We Talk?” in The Living Pulpit, Vol. 5, No. 2 [April–June, 1996],
p. 17): “The message [of the prophets] was about justice and [the] dignity of
human life in the context of a workable society.…” But that message of the
prophets is not being heard or honored today. “...[T]he current mood of [our]
country has turned inward, bordering on mean-spirited and selfish. Health
care, concern for the elderly, education of children, housing, relief for the
poor, the foreigners—all of the areas … that [have] made us a… caring nation
are now at risk.”
This White House and this Congress, on whose watch more than half of the $2
trillion in tax cuts enacted in the past three years have benefited the
wealthiest 1% of our population—that administration and Congress, come this
November, are counting on the phenomenon now being called “the religion gap.”
You know, you’ve heard of “the gender gap” in voting, well it seems now
there’s also a “religion gap.”
On June 3rd, USA Today led with the headline, “Churchgoing closely
tied to voting patterns; GOP capitalizes on religion gap; Dems debate what to
do.” And the article by Susan Page went on to report that by far the
largest number of every-Sunday, rain-or-shine churchgoers voted Republican in
the 2000 presidential election. And the GOP is now making a concerted effort
to acquire various churches’ membership lists in order to “get out their
vote.”
Well, I believe we regular churchgoers have to take our Bibles much more
seriously than that. I believe we Presbyterians have to listen when Amos
tells us on behalf of God that inequality matters and that those who foster
inequality in society invite God’s punishment.
I believe we Presbyterians are being summoned by God to make sure that we
are working on the side of equality, on the side of justice for all. And Dr.
Bob Edgar, the General Secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ,
agrees with this view.
On June 30th, Edgar spoke at the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship Breakfast,
during our General Assembly in Richmond, Virginia. The Assembly had just
elected as its moderator Elder Rick Ufford-Chase, one of the leaders of the
Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, and that election inspired Edgar to offer this
“Modern Scripture Text,” which I pass on to you now as my closing thought for
this sermon:
“When Jesus saw a crowd of Presbyterians
Meeting in Richmond, Virginia,
in the year of our Lord, 2004,
Jesus … remind[ed] them to adjust their Be-atitudes.
“Blessed are the Presbyterians,
For their hearts are strangely warmed like Methodists,
When they work for JUSTICE
And when they elect peace activists as their Moderator.
“Blessed are the Presbyterians,
Who are humbled by the injustice of prison abuse in Iraq and Guantanamo
And call for a return to due process and a full investigation
Of the sinful and systemic violations of human rights.
“Blessed are the Presbyterians,
Who call for a living wage, NOT a minimum wage,
A quality public education for all children, NOT just the rich,
Access to health care for everyone, NOT just those who can afford it,
And who work with and for the poor
in every corner of this fragile planet we call earth.
“Blessed are the Presbyterians,
Who are pure in heart,
For they shall see God in the eyes of the children of
Baghdad and Boston
Palestine and Pittsburgh
Kabul and Kansas City
Sudan and San Diego
Riyadh and Richmond.
…
“…Blessed are the Presbyterians,
Who leave Richmond only after pledging with each other to:
… Be relevant on issues of civil liberties and civil rights,
Be effective as voices of hope for the voiceless,
Be supportive of all those willing to risk their lives for justice,
Be a light in the darkness of these days
By changing our personal BE-ATITUDES. Amen.”