Break Every Yoke
6 February 2011
Fifth Sunday After Epiphany Year A
Isaiah 58:1-9a, (9b-12); Psalm 112:1-9, (10); 1 Corinthians 2:1-12, (13-16); Matthew 5:13-20
Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am. If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail. Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in. Isaiah 58:6-12
A few weeks back, a major U.S. media political commentator challenged his listeners to stand up and be counted for what he called the right way. He said that the term “social justice” had become a code word on the left for what this commentator called “socialism,” something he considered to be very bad indeed. He said that if his listeners heard “social justice” being preached in Church, they were to stand up, walk out, and find another Church.
Those of us who read the Bible seriously were appalled, regardless of any merits the commentator’s analysis of how to best alleviate poverty may or may not have had. The reason is that “social justice” is a major theme of both the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Testament. In fact, it is one of the defining themes in both sets of books. If Christian ministers are not preaching social justice, they are not preaching the Bible.
The fact is, if you are talking just in terms of number of verses where issues are discussed and mentioned, the Bible is much more concerned with how we establish fairness and decency in our laws and in our economy, and how we treat the oppressed, the excluded, and the poor, than it is about most other things, including our family arrangements or our sexual morality.
The fact is, if you are talking just in terms of number of verses where issues are discussed and mentioned, the Bible is much more concerned with how we establish fairness and decency in our laws and in our economy, and how we treat the oppressed, the excluded, and the poor, than it is about most other things, including our family arrangements or our sexual morality.
In the Hebrew Scripture, God’s people is in many ways defined by their experience of social and economic exclusion or oppression. Deuteronomy preserves an early fragment of Hebrew liturgy that sums up the national experience in these terms
My father was a wandering Aramean, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation, powerful and numerous. But the Egyptians mistreated us and made us suffer, subjecting us to harsh labor. Then we cried out to Yahweh, the God of our ancestors, and Yahweh heard our voice and saw our misery, toil and oppression. So Yahweh brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror and with signs and wonders. He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey (Deut. 26:5-9).
Again and again, the prophets call the people to turn back from their own oppression of others, reminding them, “You too were slaves in Egypt.”
Again and again, they say we must take particular care of the wretched of the earth, the poor, orphans, widows. Providing a fair playing field and then ignoring those who do not succeed is not enough. We must see the poor, note their needs, and take care of them.
An underlying idea is that fair is fair, and we must treat others as we would want to be treated. Yahweh, the God of the Israelites, is God of rich and poor alike, and is particularly concerned with the poor because the poor need him most. There are right and wrong ways of behaving, standards of common decency. We must not exploit or take advantage of the weak, ignore them or turn a hard heart to their pleas, nor degrade or violate their human dignity by forcing them to do things against their consciences. The holiness of Yahweh requires his demands on his people in this regard:
Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt. Do not take advantage of the widow or the fatherless ... If you take your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge, return it by sunset, because that cloak is the only covering your neighbor has. What else can they sleep in? When they cry out to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate. (Exodus 22:21-27)
Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt. (Exodus 23:9)
For three sins of Israel,
even for four, I will not relent.
They sell the innocent for silver,
and the needy for a pair of sandals.
They trample on the heads of the poor
as on the dust of the ground
and deny justice to the oppressed.
Father and son use the same girl
and so profane my holy name.
(Amos 2:6-7)
Do not deprive the foreigner or the fatherless of justice, or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and Yahweh your God redeemed you from there. That is why I command you to do this. When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, so that Yahweh your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. When you beat the olives from your trees, do not go over the branches a second time. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow. When you harvest the grapes in your vineyard, do not go over the vines again. Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt. That is why I command you to do this. (Deut. 24:17-22)
One of the great differences between Yahweh and the gods of the nations surrounding Israel is summed up in his care for the poor. The Philistine god Baal is a god who cares for the rich and the powerful. Yahweh cares for the disposessed and poor. The Philistine goddess Astarte cares for the sexually voluptuous and the fertile. Yahweh makes the infertile woman a mother of children. The Assyrian emperor-god Ashur is a god who cares for the militarily powerful and cruel. Yahweh defends the defenseless. Every local divinity takes care of his own. Yahweh defends the alien who sojourns in a strange land.
In contrast to the gods that personify wealth, power, and fertility, Yahweh is the God over all the earth, of rich and poor alike, who takes the part of the weak and defenseless, and can turns things upside down:
I know that Yahweh will maintain the cause of the afflicted, and justice for the poor. (Ps. 140:12).
[God] defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. (Deut. 10:18; see also Isa. 25:4; Psalm 10:14; Isa. 41:17).
Because God is compassionate he demands that we be compassionate too:
If there is a poor man among you, one of your brothers, in any of the towns of the land which Yahweh your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand to your poor brother; but you shall freely open your hand to him, and generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks. (Deut. 15:7)
When you have finished paying the complete tithe of your increase in the third year, the year of tithing, then you shall give it to the Levite, to the stranger, to the orphan and the widow, that they may eat in your towns, and be satisfied. (Deut. 26:12)
Now when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field, neither shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest. Nor shall you glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the needy and for the stranger. I am Yahweh your God. (Lev. 19:19-20)
Do justice and righteousness, and deliver the one who has been robbed from the power of his oppressor. Also do not mistreat or do violence to the stranger, the orphan, or the widow; and do not shed innocent blood in this place. (Jer. 22:3)
The fact is, Jesus and John the Baptist in the Gospels teach this, as do St. Paul and St. James. The doctrine is found on nearly every page of the Bible, in all the areas of the Church’s reading of Scripture: Torah, Prophets, Psalms, Epistles, and Gospel.
The message is simple, but insistent: help those in need. Give them material support and take their cause. It's not at all hard to understand; it's just hard to do. We must do it as individuals. And the government does have a role as well:
[You kings,] open your mouth for those unable to speak, for the rights of all the unfortunate. Open your mouth, judge righteously, and defend the rights of the afflicted and needy”. (Prov. 31:8-10)
I know of no church that stresses serving the poor as much as the Bible itself does. So the demand for people to walk out of churches when the matter is occasionally preached rings a little hollow on my ears.
All these texts are unequivocal. There are no excuses or exceptions. None of them tell us to help the poor only if they are hard working, moral, or have legal residence status. They don’t say help the poor “when you feel you can,” “when you feel guilty about it,” or “once of twice a year.”
In the unfortunate politics of identity so common in our age, people often are urged to vote their conscience, make the moral choice in voting. “How would Jesus vote?” is the question posed by those who think Jesus would vote for them. But based on the evidence in the Bible, if you wanted to be a Biblical one-issue voter, you'd do well to make that one issue serving the poor.
I am not saying here that one party has a monopoly on justice and programs that respond to this Biblical call. None of these passages is clear in terms of saying what way of helping the poor is the most effective, the most appropriate, with the broadest good. Those are questions for social scientists and politicians to work on. But in order to be in keeping with even the most basic requirements of Biblical justice, it is clear that we all, regardless of our political preferences, must work to help the poor and alleviate poverty and oppression.
It is not enough just to give help to soothe our consciences. We are also called to “plead the cause” of the poor, i.e., defend their interests and advocate their cause. When others are silent, do you speak up for the poor in your work place, your school, your church, your community, and your political party?
The poor are real people. The oppressed are real people. It is sometimes too easy to filter them out of our vision. If they are a different color from us, speak a different language, have different morals, we can perhaps say they are not deserving of our attention or our help. But would you like to go before the Almighty and explain how you did not help someone in need because they were different from you? Isn’t that the very point of God’s love of the poor? He wants us to help them because they are different from us. He wants us to help them because they are undeserving. God gives the blessings of rain and sunshine on both the righteous and the unrighteous, says Jesus, and we should be as perfect in that as he is (Matt. 5:43-48).
Are you unwilling to help someone, or have the rulers help someone, because that person is an “illegal alien?” Can you imagine having to explain such thinking and feeling to God? The very phrase suggests that an entire class of human beings is “illegal” and thus not worhy of compassion.
To such thinking, the Bible tells us, “Care for the foreigner in your midst, because you too were once foreigners.”
To such thinking, the Bible tells us, “Care for the foreigner in your midst, because you too were once foreigners.”
Helping others in need merely because they are in need is a central demand of our faith. It is just that simple.
The prophet Ezekiel says that the sin that brought God’s condemnation on the Cities of the Plain (Sodom and Gomorrah) was ignoring the needs of the poor, to the point of abusing them, in the midst of abundance:
Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food, and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy. Thus they were haughty and committed abominations before Me. Therefore I removed them when I saw it. (Ezek. 16:49-51)
Social Justice is a biblical doctrine, and anyone who wishes to truly preach the Bible must be willing to preach social justice. Anyone who truly wants their faith and actions to be grounded in the Bible will make it a major part of their efforts.
Loose the bonds of injustice, undo the thongs of the yoke, let the oppressed go free, break every yoke. Share your bread with the hungry, share your house with the homeless. When you see someone with inadequate clothing, cover them. Help the poor and oppressed, and take up their cause.
Loose the bonds of injustice, undo the thongs of the yoke, let the oppressed go free, break every yoke. Share your bread with the hungry, share your house with the homeless. When you see someone with inadequate clothing, cover them. Help the poor and oppressed, and take up their cause.
In the name of Christ, Amen.
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