(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Sunday Worship on Sep 6, 2015)
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Discrimination in Ancient Israel
Since the beginning of time, we humans have made sense of our world by dividing it up. By observing differences. This berry tastes good. This other one gives me a stomach ache. This animal is friendly. This other one bites.
It’s only natural that this tendency to observe differences has affected how we relate to one another. We observe differences among people. We can then group them as we did with the berries and the animals. These people are reliable. Those people are aggressive. And that group of people over there? They’re just lazy.
The ancient Israelites observed differences and grouped people just like we do today, just like we always have. For them, the great divide was between the rich and the poor. The traditional wisdom of their day more or less taught that the world operated according to a law of reciprocity. If you did good, good things would happen to you: riches, honor, long life (Prov 3:13, 16). If you did bad, bad things would happen. In other words, the poor just got what was coming to them. We see this way of thinking in the book of Job. When Job loses everything, his friends state matter-of-factly that his newfound poverty and suffering means he must have done something wrong.
It’s no surprise that this way of thinking encouraged hostility toward the poor. They had it coming anyway, right? If the words of the prophet Amos are any indication, it was common practice in ancient Israel for the rich to treat the poor with disregard, as though they didn’t matter (e.g., 2:8; 4:1; 5:11-12).
Our text today, though, offers a subtle challenge to this discrimination against the poor. First it rejects money as the standard by which a life should be measured. Then it offers its own standard of measurement. “The Lord,” it says, “is the maker of [everyone, rich and poor]” (22:2). Which is a way of reminding people that everyone is made in the image of God and blessed by God (Gen 1:27-28). So in the end—or rather, in the very beginning—there is no difference between the rich and the poor. Both are made in God’s image. Both are blessed. Both matter.
So far, so good, right? We’re on board here with the wise teacher of Proverbs. God made everyone. Everyone deserves that dignity.
But let’s not rest easy just yet: the funny thing about fighting discrimination is that it often becomes a sort of discrimination itself. Think about our world. If someone discriminates on the basis of race, we call that person a racist. So there’s a clear divide: you have racists and you have non-racists. All you have to do is address the racists: punish them, re-educate them, lock them up if you have to.
Our text today is well aware of this sort of reverse discrimination, I think. It knows that at the very same moment we say, “All people carry the image of God,” we may also be vilifying a person for being a racist or a bigot or an extremist. And so our text paints a more complicated picture of things. It says that discrimination comes not from certain people but from certain words and actions. It paints the picture of farming. It says that if seeds of injustice are sown, then quite naturally these seeds will grow into trouble and sorrow. In other words, if you want to get to the root of the problem, then you have to stop fixating on one person or one group of people and pay attention instead to the seeds. The seeds are the root of the problem. Any farmer can throw down the seeds of injustice. One farmer just as easily as the next.
Bryan Stevenson, a black American lawyer who’s been in the practice for thirty years, has observed how these seeds can be unintentionally sown. Here’s one particularly memorable story he tells:
Let’s stay in the courtroom a moment longer. Because according to the last two verses of today’s text, that’s where we may find God. Our text sets the scene: the poor and afflicted are standing at the gate, which in ancient Israel was the equivalent of the courtroom. It’s where all the key decisions of a community went down. So here we are, sitting at the gate, which is to say, at the courtroom. And all of a sudden, God makes God’s entrance.
Now the theme of judgment is no stranger to the Bible. But it usually features God as the judge. Here in our text, when God enters, I imagine that there’s an audible gasp among the audience. Heads turn. People gawk. Because God does sit in the judge’s seat. God sits at the defense counsel’s table.
Our text is absolutely clear about this change of roles. Even in its English translation, you can hear the juridical echoes: “[T]he Lord pleads their case.” God is the advocate of the poor. Which doesn’t mean that God says they’re any more innocent than the rich, that they’re any better, but simply that God takes their side. And perhaps it’s simply because God takes the side of any person who is discriminated against. God speaks up for any person who because of institutional and cultural biases does not have a voice of his or her own. In ancient Israel, where the experience of the poor would suggest that their lives did not matter, God stood up and argued that their lives mattered just as much as anyone else.
And is it really any surprise? That in the end, God here is not the judge but the advocate who sits beside and suffers with and speaks for whoever is discriminated against? Isn’t this also exactly what God does through the life of Christ? Jesus was “born in poverty, and his family belonged to the lowest [level] of ancient society. When he announced his ministry he said it was directed to bringing good news to the poor.”[2] And he identified himself directly with the “least of these,” those whose lives the world said didn’t matter.
Make no mistake. All lives matter to God. But in Proverbs and in the life of Jesus, God specifically takes the side of the poor and says, “Poor lives matter.” And God does this precisely to address a world that by and large said poor lives don’t matter.
The idea of God as defense attorney instead of judge is radical enough on its own. It should leave us restless enough as it is. But if we allow it stir about in our hearts long enough, it may disturb us even more deeply. For if God is the defense attorney…then who is the judge?
There is a sense in which, in the end, it comes down to us. God calls. We answer. God invites. We respond. God pleads. We give the verdict.
And today just as in ancient Israel, God is pleading. Not long ago I witnessed a scene we probably have all witnessed: a presumably overworked, underprivileged parent snapping mercilessly at a child in the grocery store. And I felt an inexplicably deep ache—not just for the child but for the parent, too. I felt an ache that was much deeper than my self-interest and my own personal concerns. An ache that wondered what unfair and complicated life circumstances had denied these two their dignity and divine blessing, told them they didn’t matter, and brought them to that one miserable moment. An ache that simply wished things were different. Perhaps you’ve felt something similar before too. That ache, that mysterious pain that stretches our heart—that, I believe, is not simply our own heart aching. That is the cry of God, the great defense attorney. A cry that may be as simple as, “Why?” Which is a question that no spoken response could ever satisfy.
Even today, God is pleading for justice. How will the jury respond?
I don’t know what the verdict will be. The jury’s still out. I do know that God is an unconditionally faithful advocate, and our hearts will always be restless so long as we live in a world where some people’s experience tells them they don’t matter. I do know that God will continue to live with the oppressed and suffering, and will continue to speak up for them, perhaps in socially organized movements, perhaps in the strange aches that invade and stretch our hearts. And I do know that the verdict God calls for is one not simply of words but of deeds. Not simply of good wishes, but of good seeds.
At the bond hearing for the man who brought hate and death into that church in Charleston, the victims’ relatives had the chance to speak directly to him. And when they did, more than one of them planted the impossible seed: they forgave him.[3] They somehow were able to look beneath the enormity of evil that this man had done and to see a glimmer of the divine image, of that original divine blessing. God had made this man.
And several days later at a eulogy for one of the victims, a relative said that his grandmother “was a victim of hate, but she can be a symbol of love.”[4] In other words, hers was a life that was taken by hate, but hers is a seed that will yield the fruit of love.
God is pleading for justice. And the jury’s still out. It really is undecided. But if it follows the lead of Emanuel Church and plants seeds of love—especially for others, especially for those whose experience tells them they don’t matter—then I have a feeling God may yet win the case.
[1] http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2015/08/14/april-24-2015-americas-incarcerated/25852/. Visited on Sept 1, 2015.
[2] John D. Caputo, What Would Jesus Deconstruct: The Good News of Postmodernism for the Church (Church and Postmodern Culture; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), 83.
[3] http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/06/19/i-forgive-you-relatives-of-charleston-church-victims-address-dylann-roof/. Visited Sept 1, 2015.
[4] http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/25/us/charleston-church-shooting-main/index.html. Visited Sept 1, 2015.
It’s no surprise that this way of thinking encouraged hostility toward the poor. They had it coming anyway, right? If the words of the prophet Amos are any indication, it was common practice in ancient Israel for the rich to treat the poor with disregard, as though they didn’t matter (e.g., 2:8; 4:1; 5:11-12).
Our text today, though, offers a subtle challenge to this discrimination against the poor. First it rejects money as the standard by which a life should be measured. Then it offers its own standard of measurement. “The Lord,” it says, “is the maker of [everyone, rich and poor]” (22:2). Which is a way of reminding people that everyone is made in the image of God and blessed by God (Gen 1:27-28). So in the end—or rather, in the very beginning—there is no difference between the rich and the poor. Both are made in God’s image. Both are blessed. Both matter.
Seeds of Discrimination
So far, so good, right? We’re on board here with the wise teacher of Proverbs. God made everyone. Everyone deserves that dignity.
But let’s not rest easy just yet: the funny thing about fighting discrimination is that it often becomes a sort of discrimination itself. Think about our world. If someone discriminates on the basis of race, we call that person a racist. So there’s a clear divide: you have racists and you have non-racists. All you have to do is address the racists: punish them, re-educate them, lock them up if you have to.
Our text today is well aware of this sort of reverse discrimination, I think. It knows that at the very same moment we say, “All people carry the image of God,” we may also be vilifying a person for being a racist or a bigot or an extremist. And so our text paints a more complicated picture of things. It says that discrimination comes not from certain people but from certain words and actions. It paints the picture of farming. It says that if seeds of injustice are sown, then quite naturally these seeds will grow into trouble and sorrow. In other words, if you want to get to the root of the problem, then you have to stop fixating on one person or one group of people and pay attention instead to the seeds. The seeds are the root of the problem. Any farmer can throw down the seeds of injustice. One farmer just as easily as the next.
Bryan Stevenson, a black American lawyer who’s been in the practice for thirty years, has observed how these seeds can be unintentionally sown. Here’s one particularly memorable story he tells:
I was in a courtroom…getting ready for a hearing one day, and I had my suit on and my shirt and tie…sitting there at the counsel table, and the judge walked in and…said, “Hey, hey, hey, hey. You get out of here. I don’t want any defendants sitting in my courtroom without their lawyers. You go back out there in the hallway and wait until your lawyer gets here.” And I stood up, and I said, “Oh, I’m sorry, your honor. I didn’t introduce myself. My name is Bryan Stevenson. I am the lawyer.” And the judge started laughing, and the prosecutor started laughing. I made myself laugh because I didn’t want to disadvantage my client. … But afterward I was thinking to myself, what is it about that judge that he sees a middle-aged black man in a suit and a tie at defense counsel’s table, and it doesn’t occur to him that that’s the lawyer? Do I think that that judge is going to treat minority defendants differently? I do. Do I think that’s going to manifest itself in disparities based on race? I do. And that’s not somebody who is consciously bigoted; that’s not somebody who is proudly racist.[1]We don’t have to be a racist or a bigot to throw down seeds that will take root and grow into a prickly pasture of discrimination. And that’s why racism or any way of stereotyping and discriminating against others is so infective. It is ultimately sustained and transferred not through people—not through racists—but through words and deeds that foster the fear of others and discrimination against them. The problems of our world cannot simply be attributed to unjust people. The judge in our story, for one, was no racist or bigot, and yet if his court verdicts reflect the offhand judgment that he made upon seeing the black lawyer at the defense table, then he may subtly be sustaining an unbalanced and hurtful worldview that promotes a fear of others, that discriminates against the already discriminated.
In the Courtroom: God Is Pleading
Let’s stay in the courtroom a moment longer. Because according to the last two verses of today’s text, that’s where we may find God. Our text sets the scene: the poor and afflicted are standing at the gate, which in ancient Israel was the equivalent of the courtroom. It’s where all the key decisions of a community went down. So here we are, sitting at the gate, which is to say, at the courtroom. And all of a sudden, God makes God’s entrance.
Now the theme of judgment is no stranger to the Bible. But it usually features God as the judge. Here in our text, when God enters, I imagine that there’s an audible gasp among the audience. Heads turn. People gawk. Because God does sit in the judge’s seat. God sits at the defense counsel’s table.
Our text is absolutely clear about this change of roles. Even in its English translation, you can hear the juridical echoes: “[T]he Lord pleads their case.” God is the advocate of the poor. Which doesn’t mean that God says they’re any more innocent than the rich, that they’re any better, but simply that God takes their side. And perhaps it’s simply because God takes the side of any person who is discriminated against. God speaks up for any person who because of institutional and cultural biases does not have a voice of his or her own. In ancient Israel, where the experience of the poor would suggest that their lives did not matter, God stood up and argued that their lives mattered just as much as anyone else.
And is it really any surprise? That in the end, God here is not the judge but the advocate who sits beside and suffers with and speaks for whoever is discriminated against? Isn’t this also exactly what God does through the life of Christ? Jesus was “born in poverty, and his family belonged to the lowest [level] of ancient society. When he announced his ministry he said it was directed to bringing good news to the poor.”[2] And he identified himself directly with the “least of these,” those whose lives the world said didn’t matter.
Make no mistake. All lives matter to God. But in Proverbs and in the life of Jesus, God specifically takes the side of the poor and says, “Poor lives matter.” And God does this precisely to address a world that by and large said poor lives don’t matter.
If God Is the Defense, Then Who Is the Judge?
The idea of God as defense attorney instead of judge is radical enough on its own. It should leave us restless enough as it is. But if we allow it stir about in our hearts long enough, it may disturb us even more deeply. For if God is the defense attorney…then who is the judge?
There is a sense in which, in the end, it comes down to us. God calls. We answer. God invites. We respond. God pleads. We give the verdict.
And today just as in ancient Israel, God is pleading. Not long ago I witnessed a scene we probably have all witnessed: a presumably overworked, underprivileged parent snapping mercilessly at a child in the grocery store. And I felt an inexplicably deep ache—not just for the child but for the parent, too. I felt an ache that was much deeper than my self-interest and my own personal concerns. An ache that wondered what unfair and complicated life circumstances had denied these two their dignity and divine blessing, told them they didn’t matter, and brought them to that one miserable moment. An ache that simply wished things were different. Perhaps you’ve felt something similar before too. That ache, that mysterious pain that stretches our heart—that, I believe, is not simply our own heart aching. That is the cry of God, the great defense attorney. A cry that may be as simple as, “Why?” Which is a question that no spoken response could ever satisfy.
Even today, God is pleading for justice. How will the jury respond?
The Jury’s Still Out
I don’t know what the verdict will be. The jury’s still out. I do know that God is an unconditionally faithful advocate, and our hearts will always be restless so long as we live in a world where some people’s experience tells them they don’t matter. I do know that God will continue to live with the oppressed and suffering, and will continue to speak up for them, perhaps in socially organized movements, perhaps in the strange aches that invade and stretch our hearts. And I do know that the verdict God calls for is one not simply of words but of deeds. Not simply of good wishes, but of good seeds.
At the bond hearing for the man who brought hate and death into that church in Charleston, the victims’ relatives had the chance to speak directly to him. And when they did, more than one of them planted the impossible seed: they forgave him.[3] They somehow were able to look beneath the enormity of evil that this man had done and to see a glimmer of the divine image, of that original divine blessing. God had made this man.
And several days later at a eulogy for one of the victims, a relative said that his grandmother “was a victim of hate, but she can be a symbol of love.”[4] In other words, hers was a life that was taken by hate, but hers is a seed that will yield the fruit of love.
God is pleading for justice. And the jury’s still out. It really is undecided. But if it follows the lead of Emanuel Church and plants seeds of love—especially for others, especially for those whose experience tells them they don’t matter—then I have a feeling God may yet win the case.
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[1] http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2015/08/14/april-24-2015-americas-incarcerated/25852/. Visited on Sept 1, 2015.
[2] John D. Caputo, What Would Jesus Deconstruct: The Good News of Postmodernism for the Church (Church and Postmodern Culture; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), 83.
[3] http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/06/19/i-forgive-you-relatives-of-charleston-church-victims-address-dylann-roof/. Visited Sept 1, 2015.
[4] http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/25/us/charleston-church-shooting-main/index.html. Visited Sept 1, 2015.
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