{"id":584,"date":"2012-09-16T11:00:27","date_gmt":"2012-09-16T16:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=584"},"modified":"2019-11-26T12:42:42","modified_gmt":"2019-11-26T17:42:42","slug":"biblical-justice-a-common-wealth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2012\/09\/16\/biblical-justice-a-common-wealth\/","title":{"rendered":"Biblical Justice: A Common Wealth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark 8: 27-9:1<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to hear the full service.<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to hear the sermon only.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

A question of being:\u00a0 \u2018What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?\u2019 (Mk. 8:36) We will interpret this same passage again next week, then from a more theological and now from a more ethical perspective.<\/p>\n

In the northeast, summer is the season for being.\u00a0\u00a0 For us of snow and ice, of cold and wind, of dark and deep, with winter around the bend, summer is the time when we bask in the sun, and in the light and in the warmth of life.\u00a0\u00a0 Summer opens up chances for communion with nature, with friends, with spirit, with family, with soul.\u00a0 Summer brings a moment for meditation.<\/p>\n

On the dock, after a swim, this August, nine of us, four generations together, sat together.\u00a0 The prospects for the autumn did creep our way, including some serious issues of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.\u00a0 There are reasons why we tend to avoid art, politics and religion, in close company and conversation.\u00a0 As in most families, ours, in extension, sports a variety of viewpoints, perspectives, and philosophies.\u00a0\u00a0 How the following interchange arose, I am not sure.\u00a0 The immediate context has disappeared from memory.\u00a0\u00a0 But I did find myself saying, \u2018Well, if it is the Bible we are talking about, there is no more central theme in the whole Scripture than the theme of economic justice.\u00a0 Biblical teaching is never very far from social justice\u2019.<\/p>\n

A mother in a law voice piped up:\u00a0 \u201cprove it\u201d (or something to that effect).\u00a0 Don\u2019t you love family gatherings?<\/p>\n

\u201cWell\u201d, I replied, \u201cwe could read through 2 Corinthians chapters 8 and 9.\u00a0 There, among other things stewardship related, the Apostle prays that \u2018those who have much might not have too much, and those who have little might not have too little\u2019\u201d.\u00a0 Whew.\u00a0 That got me off the cliff, but only briefly.\u00a0 Two nights later, the aforementioned relative, over pizza, plunked down a paper and pen.\u00a0 \u201c2 Corinthians was good.\u00a0 But I need more.\u00a0 Write.\u201d\u00a0 So, over pizza, while others savored, I wrote out a midterm exam essay outline on economic and social justice in the Bible. (Parenthetical humorous (?) sidebar: One pizza guest was a Syracuse University 1940\u2019s alumnus, who remembered that once SU teams were the Saltine Warriors, and then the Orange, and now the \u2018Cuse\u2019.\u00a0 Which, as he said, \u2018as an elderly alumnus, makes me an \u2018ex-cuse\u2019\u201d.)\u00a0 Other happy moments also came and went, but I could not indulge, for I had no ex-cuse:\u00a0 I had an exam to write.\u00a0 I finished, and handed in my blue book, as dessert was served. \u201cThank you\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

Behind every great man is a surprised mother in law.\u00a0 And behind this supremely faithful mother in law is a lastingly grateful son in law.<\/em><\/p>\n

Some days later, summer as we said providing ampler space for actual thought, I thought that she might not be the only person, coming toward this autumn, who had such a question.\u00a0 Let us assume a love of Scripture, and a deep reverence for the authority of Scripture, in some fashion.\u00a0\u00a0 Your preacher has asserted that there is no more pervasive, prevalent, powerful, potent and repeated biblical theme, Genesis to Revelation, than that of justice.\u00a0 When we pray, when we spend, when we give, when we choose, if we are hominae unius libri, people of one book, the Bible, we should then be hearing and heeding such teaching, should we not?\u00a0 But is it true?\u00a0 Does the Bible enjoin human, economic justice?\u00a0 Is Paul\u2019s epigram, \u2018those who have much not too much, those who have little, not too little\u2019, typical of and central to the Bible?<\/p>\n

Your mind might revert to newscasts and newsprint, and let us confess it, sermons too, in which people who are ostensibly very biblical argue otherwise:\u00a0 the poor you have always with you, let him who will not work not eat, consider the lilies of the field, be subject to the governing authorities\u2026and so on. If the Bible is so pronouncedly in favor of justice, economic justice, the protection of the poor the maimed the halt and the lame, why, you might question, are so many biblical people happily content with 20 million unemployed?\u00a0 Why then are so many biblical people comfortable with lack of health care for poor children? \u00a0Why are so many lovers of the Bible at ease with underperforming urban education?\u00a0 Why are so many who with John Wesley would like to be \u2018people of one book\u2019 (the Bible) at home with neglect of the elderly, willing to accept surging inequality of wealth and income, with 1% of the population holding 20% of the income, with defunding and defanging the inherited protections of the common good, the common wealth?\u00a0\u00a0 If the Bible preaches a common wealth, why is affirmation of a common wealth so uncommon among supposedly biblical people? \u00a0If this is such a biblical nation, why have we so little comprehension of the Bible? Have we grown deaf to Mark 8?<\/p>\n

I had a dear friend, a home builder, a great person and person of faith, who had only an 8th grade education, who once took me aside and said, quietly, \u2018I am glad some of these people read the Bible, but I think some of these people who read the Bible read it wrong.\u2019\u00a0 You say you respect the Bible?\u00a0 I do too.\u00a0 Then let us try to read it right with regard to justice.<\/p>\n

1. Let us read together the books of the Law, with which the Bible begins.\u00a0 As anyone who has attended a Seder meal will know and remember, these books are redundantly attentive to the needs of the poor.\u00a0 The general theme is this:\u00a0 \u201cRemember the widow and the orphan.\u00a0 Leave your fields to be gleaned by the poor.\u00a0 Welcome the stranger and foreigner.\u00a0 FOR YOU ONCE WERE SLAVES IN EGYPT.\u201d<\/p>\n

Exodus 23:9: \u201cYou shall not oppress a stranger; you know the heart of a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt\u2026.For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield; but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat.\u201d\u00a0 The Hebrew Scripture, our Older Testament, was largely composed in the dark days of a later slavery, the bondage of Babylon.\u00a0 In that moment of memory, the community of faith recalled keenly their earliest history of God\u2019s love and power, the God who brought them up out of the land of slavery to the land of milk and honey.\u00a0\u00a0 We know what it means to be poor, to be oppressed, to be outcast, to be downtrodden.\u00a0 Once we were ourselves.\u00a0 THEREFORE, there will be justice in our land for the poor.\u00a0 You and you all may need to search your extended family histories and memories for what happened to your people in the Great Depression.\u00a0\u00a0 We learned something, or were reminded of something, then, as were the Israelites dragged again in chains to Babylon.<\/p>\n

2. Let us read together the books of the Prophets, the very heart of the Old Testament.\u00a0 In all of religious literature, in all human history, there is nothing quite as sobering, as piercingly and stingingly direct, with regard to justice, as these 16 voices, four the louder and twelve the lesser.\u00a0\u00a0 Malachi teaches tithing.\u00a0 Isaiah affirms holiness.\u00a0 Hosea preaches love.\u00a0 Micah shouts, \u2018do justice, love mercy, walk humbly\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 Together the prophets consistently rail against human greed, human selfishness, human covetousness, human apathy.\u00a0 The harvest here for our theme is so plentiful it is difficult to select an exemplar, there are so many.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Amos will do best. In the eighth century BCE, a shepherd boy from Tekoa went down to the gates of the big city, Jerusalem, and cried out against it.\u00a0 He pilloried the shallow religion of his day.\u00a0 He assaulted the reliance, the na\u00efve overreliance of his government on weapons of war, he bitterly chastised the amoral, post moral practices of human sexuality of his day.\u00a0 But he saved his real anger for justice.\u00a0\u00a0 The Bible trumpets justice, economic justice, justice for the poor, and for all!\u00a0 If all we had were the poetry of that shepherd boy from Tekoa, Amos would be sufficient:<\/p>\n

\u201cI will not revoke the punishment, because they sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes\u2014they that trample the head of the poor into the dust of the earth, and turn aside the way of the afflicted\u201d (Amos 2:6-7).\u00a0 \u201cHear this you cows of Bashan\u2026who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to their husbands, \u2018bring that we may drink\u2019, the Lord God has sworn by his holiness that behold the days are coming upon you, when they will take you away with hooks, even the last of you with fishhooks\u201d (Amos 4:1-3).\u00a0 \u201cI hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies\u2026Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen.\u00a0 But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness as an ever flowing stream\u201d (Amos 5: 21-24).\u00a0\u00a0 Remember Martin Luther King reciting these verses, down in the sweltering little jail house of Birmingham Alabama.<\/p>\n

3. Let us read together the books of Wisdom.\u00a0 Love is for the wise, and justice is the skeleton of love.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the just are in authority, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan\u2026The just man knows the rights of the poor; a wicked man does not understand such knowledge\u2026If a King judges the poor with equity his throne will be established forever\u201d (Proverbs 29 passim.)<\/p>\n

\u2018Because the poor are despoiled, because the needy groan, I will now arise\u2019, says the Lord; \u201cI will place him in the safety for which he longs\u2019 (Psalm 11: 5).\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cYou would confound the plans of the poor, but the Lord is his refuge\u2019 (Psalm 14:6).<\/p>\n

In an odd way, the most sobering judgment about justice is offered by Ecclesiastes, who speaks least directly to the theme.\u00a0 But his philosophy is clear.\u00a0 I look at all the toil of the sons of men, and I see\u2014vanity.\u00a0 That for which you strive will not last, that for which you suffer will not endure.\u00a0 \u201cWhat has a man for all the toil and strain with which he toils beneath the sun?\u00a0 For all his days are full of pain, and his work is a vexation; even in the night his mind does not rest\u2019 (Ecc 2;23).\u00a0 As an Indian proverb puts it:\u00a0 \u2018In his lifetime the goose lords it over the mushroom.\u00a0\u00a0 But in the end, they are both served up on the same platter\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 I have officiated at 800 funerals or memorials. \u00a0Each a reminder:\u00a0 Justice lasts, not acquisition.<\/p>\n

4. Let us read together the familiar passages of the Gospels.<\/p>\n

4a. Matthew: \u00a0Give to him who begs from you and do not refuse him\u2026Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you\u2026Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes, nor thieves break in and steal.\u00a0 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also\u2026No one can serve two masters\u2026You cannot serve God and mammon\u2026Not every one who says to me \u2018Lord, Lord\u2019 shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven\u2026Sell what you have, and give to the poor, and come and follow me\u2026Do you begrudge my generosity?\u00a0 The last shall be first, and the first last\u2026You shall love your neighbor as yourself\u2026Woe to you\u2026You tithe mint and cumin and ill, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law\u2014justice and mercy and faith\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

4b.Luke: He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree, he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away\u2026The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor\u2026Blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of God\u2026What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?…Sell your possessions and give alms; provide yourselves with purses that do not grow old\u2026When you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind\u2026You will be repaid at the resurrection of the just\u2026Said Zacchaeus, \u2018behold Lord the half of my goods I give to the poor\u2019\u2026They contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

4c. My old superintendent, Bill Swales, stood in the basement of a little church in Ithaca, NY, as our congregation struggled with the budget.\u00a0\u00a0 He commended the debate by saying, \u201cJesus spoke more about money than about anything else\u201d.\u00a0 You think not?\u00a0 Think on the parables.\u00a0 Sowing and reaping.\u00a0 A poor man left in a Jericho ditch.\u00a0 A lost and precious coin.\u00a0 A son gone to the pigs, if not the dogs.\u00a0 A wiley dishonest steward.\u00a0 Workers and vineyards and paystubs.\u00a0 Someone whose debt is forgiven not forgiving others.\u00a0 Talents used and wasted.\u00a0 A rich man with many possessions.\u00a0\u00a0 For reasons earthly and heavenly Jesus preached against abuse of riches, against the injury of the poor, against the love of money for its own sake, against the accumulation of needless treasure.<\/p>\n

5. Let us read together the warning of the apocalypse: And I heard a great voice from the throne saying, behold the dwelling of God is with me\u2026he will wipe away every tear from their eyes (Rev. 21:1ff)<\/em><\/p>\n

6. And the admonition of the epistles:\u00a0 One who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen (1 John 4:9)<\/em>.\u00a0 And, as we began, so we end, with the advice and teaching of the Apostle to the Gentiles in 2 Corinthians 8: \u00a0Hear the Gospel:\u00a0 \u201cHe who gathered much had nothing over, and he who gathered little had no lack\u201d (2 Cor 8:15).\u00a0 And an invitation:\u00a0 those listening may respond (what surprises you?\u00a0 What question do you raise?\u00a0 What observation do you make?) to this week\u2019s sermon or in anticipation of next week\u2019s by email to rahill@ub.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mark Twain was a realist.\u00a0 He pointed to the \u2018serene confidence a Christian feels in four aces.\u2019. He quipped, \u2018nothing so needs reforming as other people\u2019s habits\u2019. \u00a0He advised:\u00a0 \u2018put all your eggs in one basket\u2014and WATCH THAT BASKET\u2019. And: \u2018a classic is a book which people praise but do not read\u2019. But he also said: \u2018it is not the things in the Bible I do not understand that bother me, it is the things I do understand that bother me\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 We understand this: \u00a0\u201cthere is no more central theme in the whole Scripture than the theme of economic justice.\u00a0 Biblical teaching is never very far from social justice\u201d (Robert Allan Hill, Bradley Brook NY, August 2012).\u00a0 Let him who has not much not have too much, and him who has little not have too little.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

~The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill,<\/em><\/p>\n

Dean of Marsh Chapel<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mark 8: 27-9:1 Click here to hear the full service. Click here to hear the sermon only. A question of being:\u00a0 \u2018What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?\u2019 (Mk. 8:36) We will interpret this same passage again next week, then from a more theological and now from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2509,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584\/revisions\/2509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}