what DOES the Lord require of you?
Jesus at Occupy Wall Street: ‘I feel like I’ve been here before’
On a very related note, Tuesday's lecture in my Hebrew Bible class was on the eighth-century prophets: Amos, Hosea, (first) Isaiah, and Micah. For a little background: we're talking the 8th century BCE here, during which time the Assyrians conquered the very wealthy and well-off northern kingdom of Israel, and marched south to the southern kingdom of Judah to lay siege to Jerusalem, though Jerusalem did not fall. Amos and Hosea were both working in the northern kingdom prior to its fall; Isaiah and Micah were in the south afterward, warning the people in Judah to be careful lest the same thing happen to them.
Excepting Isaiah (who was an advisor to kings and deeply involved in palace/Temple life), these prophets had a major theme: having lots of prosperity might make you smug, but an economically unjust society is both unsustainable and unrighteous, and if you don't do what is right, God's going to stand back and let all your goodness disappear.
Now, Amos was a rich man, and Hosea and Micah probably weren't that poor either, all things considered; of these three, Micah was the only one who was actually trying to speak up on behalf of the poor (sort of a Biblical Jed Clampett, greatest of the hillbillies). None of them were premodern socialists, and you probably couldn't have gotten a single one of them to advocate for a completely level economic playing field. Instead, what all three of them were worried about was the gap: the rich had gotten too rich and greedy and comfortable, and had assumed that their good fortune directly corresponded to how much God loved them. The wealthy, these prophets charged, had accumulated too much, had done so unjustly and on the backs of the poor, and now assumed that with their great wealth, they could make great and showy offerings to God that would make God like them best.
In response to which comes what is probably my favourite chunk of scripture in the Hebrew Bible, Micah 6:6-8 (NRSV):
6 ‘With what shall I come before the Lord,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings,
with calves a year old?
7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with tens of thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?’
8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
As I gave this lecture-slash-sermon -- because really, my best lectures are where I preach some knowledge -- I could hear the noise of the Occupy Philly protests outside the window, just a block away, all the street prophets. Wouldn't it be lovely if those people who hide behind their Bibles would actually open them once in a while?
On a very related note, Tuesday's lecture in my Hebrew Bible class was on the eighth-century prophets: Amos, Hosea, (first) Isaiah, and Micah. For a little background: we're talking the 8th century BCE here, during which time the Assyrians conquered the very wealthy and well-off northern kingdom of Israel, and marched south to the southern kingdom of Judah to lay siege to Jerusalem, though Jerusalem did not fall. Amos and Hosea were both working in the northern kingdom prior to its fall; Isaiah and Micah were in the south afterward, warning the people in Judah to be careful lest the same thing happen to them.
Excepting Isaiah (who was an advisor to kings and deeply involved in palace/Temple life), these prophets had a major theme: having lots of prosperity might make you smug, but an economically unjust society is both unsustainable and unrighteous, and if you don't do what is right, God's going to stand back and let all your goodness disappear.
Now, Amos was a rich man, and Hosea and Micah probably weren't that poor either, all things considered; of these three, Micah was the only one who was actually trying to speak up on behalf of the poor (sort of a Biblical Jed Clampett, greatest of the hillbillies). None of them were premodern socialists, and you probably couldn't have gotten a single one of them to advocate for a completely level economic playing field. Instead, what all three of them were worried about was the gap: the rich had gotten too rich and greedy and comfortable, and had assumed that their good fortune directly corresponded to how much God loved them. The wealthy, these prophets charged, had accumulated too much, had done so unjustly and on the backs of the poor, and now assumed that with their great wealth, they could make great and showy offerings to God that would make God like them best.
In response to which comes what is probably my favourite chunk of scripture in the Hebrew Bible, Micah 6:6-8 (NRSV):
6 ‘With what shall I come before the Lord,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings,
with calves a year old?
7 Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with tens of thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?’
8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
As I gave this lecture-slash-sermon -- because really, my best lectures are where I preach some knowledge -- I could hear the noise of the Occupy Philly protests outside the window, just a block away, all the street prophets. Wouldn't it be lovely if those people who hide behind their Bibles would actually open them once in a while?