Occupy the Church Pt. 2- Famous Amos (Redistributor of Chocolate Chip Cookies)

This post is going to try to get a little more scholarly. I’d cite all of my sources like a good little college grad but 1. I still haven’t received my Bible College Diploma so I am by no means obligated to be scholarly. 2. You can find all the same info presented clearly on Wikipedia so if you really want sources you should just scroll down on the Amos Wikipedia page and start clicking around. Lastly, just read the book of Amos for yourself, pray about it and if you disagree with me then write a comment cause that’s the reason this blog exists.

Disclaimer done.

So here it is.

Occupy the Church Pt. 2- Famous Amos

Where we last left off I had just made some very sweeping statements about the church at large and our failure to get involved with these struggles that are being voiced by the Occupy Wall Street Movement. I’m aware that there are likely many churches who are continuing to contribute to the overall well being of our youth and are finding themselves very successful, for those few churches you can pat yourselves on the back.

Good job.

But is it the duty of the church to redistribute wealth?

Before we go forward it’s best to define what I’m talking about. When I say “redistribution of wealth” I mean taking money from those who have more and giving it to those who have less to create a more balanced national economy. To some extent this is the moral behind the Robin Hood story, stealing from the rich to give to the poor. Robin Hood remains one of the first anti-heroes because of this morally ambiguous act and I think that story is a good jumping off point.

oh, no one was thinking of the Russel Crowe movie? Just the cartoon fox?
My bad.

Now I just wrote about 4 pages trying to go into every single little detail about our cultural presuppositions that surround Robin Hood and redistribution of wealth, but I figured if you wanted that sort of stuff you wouldn’t be reading a youth pastor’s blog, so here’s a summary.

We’re all idiots and are making big sweeping claims that are inappropriate (see what I did there with my big sweeping claim). Not all redistribution of wealth is right, and not all of it is wrong. There are circumstances when you think it is appropriate that happen every day (like when I give to somebody in need) and there are times that are inappropriate (like when a mugger takes from me what he needs). Some muggers have a good excuse and others don’t, some times the people you give charity to really need it and sometimes they just want to buy booze. The morality of your decisions are determined more so by your own personal motivation than they are by their outcome or the outcome perceived by others. So let’s lift back our blanket statements for a moment and try to see what our motivation should be biblically.

Is redistribution of wealth, as in taxing the rich to give incentives and services to the poor, a God honoring thing?

Amos was one of the first prophets chronologically speaking. He kind of defined how the rest of the Minor Prophets did things. Amos is basically, as many of the prophets are, a rebuke of Israel and essentially telling them “oh man, you guys are gonna get it.” I love the language because of how elegantly it sounds when the prophets basically say “God’s gonna kick your ass.” But Amos outlines the reasons for Israel’s destruction as “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.” (Amos 2:6-7).  There seems to be some very clear financial inequality in Israel. That’s actually the first thing he says to them. That’s the most grievous offense.

It’s gets better.

Just a reminder that this post is not actually about cookies.

For those of you who think “well Israel was a theocracy and they were the chosen people so they had a different set of rules.” (Amos 3:2 certainly suggests that) There are three things that I've really been thinking about. 1. What about the language in Revelation? I think a lot of that language applies to Rome and we see God does not hold back destruction for them. Historically the fall of Rome was filled with terrible atrocities that seem to be a lot like some of these Old Testament prophecies. Even if you don’t think that Revelation is talking about Rome directly and you just take it to me the destruction of the world upon the second coming then how do you explain that sort of judgment for the world? 2. In Christ is there any difference between the expectations of Israelites and the expectations of Gentiles (Galatians 3:28 seems to say that there isn't). Lastly we look at the beginning of Amos and the first thing he writes is that God is going to pour out wrath on Israel’s neighbors, you know, not the chosen people, not theocracies.

I think a lot of modern theologians have moved away from the idea that God will punish a nation so that they can adopt a theology of personal relationship over communal relationship (that's a post in itself), but we can’t forget what God said in Amos, “when disaster comes to a city has not the LORD caused it?”  (it’s a hypothetical question, and the answer is yes, yes He did). When we look at the struggles we're facing here with the economy we have to note that God has caused this, or at least allowed this. I'm sure these brings to mind a lot of different natural disasters, especially those felt recently, and I want to make sure to note that I'm not trying to say that God punished New Orleans or Japan but to really explore these topics in detail would require more time. So if you don't mind, and you can forgive me glossing over this, let's go back to Amos and Occupy Wall Street.

The craziest part to me was when it starts to get into that disaster and the LORD says, “There will be wailing in all the streets and cries of anguish in every public square. The farmers will be summoned to weep and the mourners to wail. There will be wailing in all the vineyards, for I will pass through your midst.”

And a double dose of wailing for those UC Davis suckers.

How does that not bring to mind the OWS movement? How does that not bring to mind the Tea Party Movement? How does that not bring to mind the general feeling that a lot of us have where we just want to cry out “injustice”? I hear talk about how unorganized people are in these protests and my first thought is “they are crying out in anguish, they aren’t trying to write out a declaration of displeasure to pass along to the congress. They feel cheated and they feel as though nothing works for them but yelling out.”

So here’s where I’m left.

It seems clear to me that inequality of wealth is not God’s idea of a good society. Through out Amos it is clearly frowned upon. Through out the Gospels it seems that Christ is opposed to it. So why aren’t we? Why aren’t we disgusted by it?

I talked last post about how I am removed from the situation and so it took me a while to even realize that this thing was serious. I certainly wrote it off when the Tea Partiers were voicing their frustrations and I began to write it off again with the OWSers (if you don’t like the comparison we’ll have to get into that in another post). So when I’m reading through Amos the sixth chapter really hits me. It’s titled “Woe to the Complacent” and it’s got this part “You drink wine by the bowlful and use the finest lotions, but you do not grieve over the ruin of Joseph. Therefore you will be among the first to go into exile; your feasting and lounging will end.” He talks about these cities that sit above the struggles, that look on and do nothing, feel nothing and he says to them that they will be the first to go into exile. We are meant to be disgusted by these things, to hear these struggles and have our hearts break and we are so desensitized by our pleasures that hearing that people are out of jobs barely phases us.

Now here’s the biggest wall I face when I’m talking to others about this stuff. They can agree entirely about it and still say it’s not the churches place to get involved with the government. We are not meant to require the government to take from the rich and give to the poor.

That seems like that’s all Amos did.

He went to the king and said (basically) “You’ll be ruined if this doesn’t change” he even goes on to say his wife will be a prostitute in the streets, that’s after going into great detail about his demise.

Amos was encouraging the King to do something to stop this unrighteousness.

Now we have to think of our political system like a monarchy, but the monarch is the constitution. We live under the rule of the monarch. The job of the politician is to work within the confines of the constitution to provide the best possible outcome for their constituency and when we talk about Christians in politics we are talking about trying to be under God and the constitution at the same time. We are talking about serving two masters. You cannot serve Christ wholly and also work under the constitution.

The constitution, as strong as it may be, is not the word of God. It is a broken and fallible document. To offer equal rights for all people means that you have to offer rights to the unrighteous and punishing them for things that God deems unworthy is simply unlawful. You can say “God Bless America” all you want but ultimately the constitution protects behavior that stands against God, luckily blessings fall on the righteous and the unrighteous or else America would be boned.

We’re okay with this because it also protects our behavior. It allows us the freedom to speak openly about our faith and it doesn’t wrong Christ by doing wrong in the name of Christ, which seems far more offense than doing wrong in the name of America. We look at nations that were led by religion and all we see are crusades.

So Amos telling the king what’s up leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but that doesn’t mean he is wrong. We have a duty, as people who take in the word of God daily through prayer and bible reading, to repeat those words to our nation’s leaders because when our nation is unrighteous than our nation will be punished. I sound like one of those megaphone preachers but I think that’s partially cause I’m talking mostly Old Testament, so bear with me.  These things are clear in scripture, there are complications surrounding their application to America but to dismiss the fact that Amos was a political figure as well as a religious figure, or to dismiss the fact that God pours out judgment on unrighteous nation’s, not just in the end times but today, seems like an ignorant view in the face of these scriptures.

Now I think there is a separate argument going on under the surface about whether it's appropriate for the government to enforce taxes on the top 1% to benefit the other 99%, and often times this includes language like "taking my hard earned money". I know there will be people who have already written off this post as overly liberal so let me say, I can completely sympathize with a republican point of view. I think that it even makes sense to some extent. If you feel like the government is being unrighteous than why would you want to give your money to it? Shouldn't you keep the money so you can make more righteous choices with it? Whether or not you think you should keep your money I do believe it's the job of the government to control taxes and I do believe Christian's should pay taxes (because of that whole "give Caesar what is Caesar's" thing that Jesus said). So the question becomes: is it more righteous to leave the taxes the way they are so as not to impose on the rights of the rich or to increase taxes on the rich to balance the distribution of wealth? I think Amos suggests the second but I'm not saying you have to agree with that, but if you're disagreeing because you don't trust the government than your response should be the same. You should be disgusted with the government, but you should actively participate in changing the government then, because "Woe to the Complacent".

Good job reading this far! Here's a picture!

So I’ve been ranting, and for that I apologize and I’m going to try to wrap things up. Here are my conclusions:

1. Redistribution of wealth is a biblical concept presented in the book of Amos as well as many of Christ’s teachings.

2. We do have an obligation as Christians to participate in the political system.

3. There is destruction awaiting this nation if we do not actively move toward balancing the national income levels.

Lastly. A church that is following Christ should be disgusted at the way our nation allows dishonesty, and the oppression of the poor, to continue. Christian people should be unified in being disgusted with our nation taking more from the poor to give tax breaks to the rich or bail out plans to banks. Really we should be disgusted at how much we rely on banks in the first place.

If we are disgusted than we should participate in changing the system.

All of this reminds me of a discussion I had with my friends and a quote from C.S. Lewis. We were talking about government and how our nation is not established to make the most righteous decision in the eyes of the LORD but rather in the eyes of the constitution, and this C.S. Lewis quote came up, “Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.” Politics without values, though intended to protect the rights of the people, seems rather to protect clever devils. If we ignore this and allow it to continue, whether you side with the Liberals or the Conservatives, you have contributed to the failure of this nation to pursue the righteous that Christ calls it to.

Next week we’re getting into relative poverty/riches and whether or not it’s even appropriate for people in America to complain when there are starving kids in Africa. Hopefully the post will be shorter but no guarantees. Thanks for reading guys.