Trampling the Poor

                I grew up in a home where we honored God and His word. I thank the Lord every day for the example my parents and grand-parents displayed. Do not for a moment think I never swerved from the path illuminated by God, His word, and my family. Those of you that know me well know the depth of my personal failure and forays into darkness. Paul claims the role of “chief of all sinners,” but I cannot point an accusing finger at anyone. That said, during my life I can safely say that I’ve read the Bible cover-to-cover multiple times. Yet, despite that God still amazes me with stringent “oh my” moments.

                Opening His word with an open heart and mind regularly convicts me of my lack. God reveals His heart and mind in scripture. Most of the time, I enjoy the comfortable familiarity of scripture. I sit down with a good close friend and enjoy a pleasant chat over a good cup of coffee. We draw closer. He shares His intimate concerns, His love for me, how He inclined His heart toward me long before my feet printed the dust of this globe. I relish those moments. They comfort me. But then I run across a passage which shines light in places I’d rather not carefully examine. Today was one of those days.

                I’m reading Amos; one of the “minor” prophets. As a modern day protestant I tend to focus on the New Testament. Our modern view of scripture and God’s relationship with man as delineated through Jesus tends to make us minimize the Old Testament. But in all those words, those lives, those moments God speaks to us. He calls to us across millennia and miles revealing His heart and His love.  Amos might have penned the passage from chapter eight for me, today in Lubbock, Texas.

⁴ Hear this, you who trample on the needy

    and bring the poor of the land to an end,

⁵ saying, “When will the new moon be over,

    that we may sell grain?

And the Sabbath,

    that we may offer wheat for sale,

that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great

    and deal deceitfully with false balances,

⁶ that we may buy the poor for silver

    and the needy for a pair of sandals

    and sell the chaff of the wheat?” Amos 8:4-6

Evidently during the life of Amos, the leadership of Israel despised the poor. They considered the poor as a source of income. Apparently during the Sabbath, a time designed to increase their trust and thankfulness for God’s great mercy, they focused instead on how they might more effectively abuse the poor. They sought to rig the economic system of the day in ways that enhanced their riches while extracting everything they could from the poor. Forgetting that the riches they enjoyed came from the gracious hand of God, they dealt deceitfully with those of lessor means. Amos goes on in his preaching to proclaim that God will sweep the rich leaders away.  Clearly those of means had come to consider the poor as being that way due to their sinful nature. If they were righteous then God would bless them. Since they were poor then obviously they had done something despicable to earn such a state. Things have not changed much in the three-thousand years or so since Amos wrote.

We despise the poor today. We make the casual assumption that they remain poor in order to enjoy the fruits of our labor. After all, a person with only a modicum of ambition and effort would surely enjoy success and not be a drag on society. Mention the poor in one of my classes and students will dutifully trot out a raft of stories about how a somewhat distant relative or friend witnessed a poor person begging who at the end of the day, hops into a very nice car and cruises off after a comfortable day of bilking the ignorant generous. Or another favorite chestnut, the poor who only accept cash, not food or other form of help. While there may be some modicum of truth in those stories; just enough to give them currency, they signify a deeper problem. We assume that poverty indicates some level of nefarious malfeasance. The poor are poor because either they are so bent as to always make the wrong, lazy, choice or they enjoy a life of poverty and sloth. We agree with Scrooge as he sings in the musical about, “…the indolent masses sitting on their indolent asses…” Not only do we despise the poor, we take actions based on that base assessment.

We regularly enact and support a variety of laws that demean and abuse the poor. We hail means testing, drug-testing, and work-fare as great solutions to the problems of the selfish lazy that plunder our national coffers. I find it oddly discomfiting that scripture does not encourage such screens for generosity. Of course someone will dutifully trot out II Thessalonians 3:10. In that passage Paul does say, “…If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.” But, if we look at that passage Paul is not speaking about the poor in general. He’s speaking about a specific group of fellow believers who were engaging in idleness. I believe it is taking that scripture far out of context when we use it to somehow limit our generosity. Interestingly enough a few verses later Paul says, “¹³ As for you, brothers, do not grow weary in doing good.” II Thessalonians 3:13. The passage, which we so often use to limit our generosity, ends with an admonition for us to continue to work despite the challenges this kind of work brings. We should not take the Pauline passage so out of context. Instead we ought to continue our benevolent work, cultivating compassion for the needy.

Amos cried out against viewing the poor with contempt. And we as Christians, followers of God, ought to echo that cry. We need to defend the poor and helpless. We need to work against attempts to limit the help our society offers those in need. It is true that they have made poor decisions life; so have we all. We ought to seek out ways to encourage them, to bind up their wounds, and extend to them the same help and love that we would desire if we encountered trouble.