The books of Amos and Hosea are set in the same general time period, the eighth century B.C.E., and both prophets preached in the Northern Kingdom of Israel (in contrast to Micah and Isaiah, who prophesied about the same time in the Southern Kingdom of Judah). Both had messages of judgment for the inhabitants of the land. One significant difference between the two, however, was that Amos was a native of Judah, but Hosea--alone among the so-called "writing prophets"--was a native of Israel. Amos preached his message of judgment against Israel powerfully and effectively, so much so that he captured the attention of King Jeroboam, who apparently banished him from the city of Bethel. Hosea, by contrast, shows a tremendous empathy for the people, because they are his people. It pains him to preach a message of woe, and he does all he can to include words of hope. In today's reading, the prophet describes God's guidance of the people from bondage in Israel to the promised land, the exodus experience. God calls Israel "my son": "Out of Egypt I called my son" (this passage is given a very different meaning in Matthew!). The son had wandered from the ways of God, pursuing false gods, and now the nation was doomed to go into exile. But that's not the end of the story. Hosea cannot believe that the message of judgment is God's final word, so he portrays God's struggle, which was also his own: "How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel?" It's much easier to condemn people to destruction when we don't identify with them. That's why our political leaders--and sometimes our religious leaders as well--demonize their enemies. Iraq, Iran, and North Korea are the "Axis of Evil," a term meant to conjure up images of Hitler and Mussolini. Those who engage in sabotage and armed opposition to the U.S. occupation of Iraq or Afghanistan are "terrorists," a term that seems to mean hate-filled, sub-human purveyors of destruction and opponents of all that is good and holy. Such labels make it easy to preach judgment with a feeling of glee, rather than with a heavy heart. For my money, Hosea is the type of prophet that Christians should emulate, one who preaches the message that God has given but at the same time feels compassion even for those to whom he is proclaiming judgment. Are we following in the steps of Hosea? Ask yourself this question: When you hear of the violent deaths of political extremists who are your country's adversaries, are you elated, or do you have a bad feeling in the pit of your stomach? May God make us all more like Hosea.
Concerned that the U.S. Border Patrol isn't doing enough to protect the country from the dangers posed by illegal aliens crossing from Mexico into Arizona, a group calling itself Civil Homeland Defense recruits civilians to monitor the border, detain suspected illegals, and alert the authorities about people trying to enter the U.S. illegally. The rationale behind prohibiting people from crossing the border is this: "We were born here, and they were born there, so they're not entitled to come here to live." This may be brilliant reasoning, but it flies in the face of sentiment expressed by the psalmist in Psalm 107. In verses 4-9, the psalm describes people who wandered about in the desert, hungry and thirsty. God hears their cry and leads them to an inhabited town where there is safety. There is nothing in the psalm about deporting them to Moab (see you later Ruth!) or Edom or Egypt. In fact, if all the "furriners" had been kept back at the borders, the Canaanites would still have possessed the land. It's not coincidental that many of our supposedly Christian forebears referred to the native inhabitants of North America as Canaanites, using the story of Joshua as an excuse for genocide and large-scale displacement. There is more to the story than that, but I find it extremely ironic that people whose ancestors--back just four generations or so--entered en masse into a land that belonged to others can now oppose the relative trickle of people crossing the border from Mexico. Even more important than the historical irony is the biblical mandate to care for the poor, to feed the hungry, and to shelter the refugee (remember, Ruth was an economic refugee). It is our duty as people of faith to remember that the financial blessings we have are not ours by right but by divine mercy, and it is our obligation to share our blessings of food, drink, shelter, and liberty with all others who seek it.
The point is, ladies and gentleman, greed is good. Greed works, greed is right. (Gordon Gekko, character played by Michael Douglas in the film Wall Street)
Greed is all right, by the way. I want you to know that. I think greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself. (Ivan Boesky, stock speculator)The Western Church has always spoken out forcefully against fornication, impurity, passion, and evil desire, four of the five sins mentioned in Colossians 3:5. However, it has not always raised its voice nearly as strongly against the fifth sin, greed. It is not unusual today to find churches offering instruction on financial planning or wealth management alongside Bible study classes. Some ministers are notable for their conspicuous consumption, as are many parishioners. On the flip side, many outspoken Christians, such as Tony Campolo and Ron Sider (among others), regularly rail against the greed that is prevalent among Western Christians. The Roman Catholic Church in recent decades has issued several strong statements condemning the socioeconomic inequalities that result from unbridled greed (e.g., the papal encyclicals Mater et Magistra and Populorum Progressio). Perhaps the strongest collective voice condemning greed over the past thirty-five years has been the liberation theologians, people like Gustavo Gutiérrez, Leonardo Boff, and José Míguez Bonino. Some fundamentalists condemn people like these for being "liberal," apparently viewing them as a direct threat to their accumulation of wealth. Greed was wrong in the first century, and it is still wrong today. Support for this statement is found in one of the stories about Jesus found in the gospels. On one occasion Jesus was asked to teach a course on wealth management. His instruction was this: "Sell all you have, give it to the poor, and come follow me." If you are greedy and you still feel good about yourself, you're not following Jesus.
One of the centerpieces of President Bush's "tax reforms" was the repeal of the inheritance tax (a.k.a. the estate tax). Prior to Bush's signing of the legislation on 7 June 2001, people inheriting large estates paid between 37% and 55% in taxes on the amount over $675,000. After 1 January 2002, the amount exempted rose to $1 million, and the top tax rate on the remainder was reduced to 50%. The exempted amount continues to rise and the tax rate continues to fall through 2010, when the inheritance tax is eliminated completely. Although the law as passed has a sunset provision, which stipulates that the law will revert to its pre-2002 version in 2011 (this is an attempt to mute huge projected budget deficits after that point), efforts are already underway to make the elimination of the estate tax permanent. While this change in legislation, particularly if made permanent, provides an obvious boon to the ultra-rich, it is hard to see why the 98+% of people whose heirs wouldn't even pay taxes under the old system would support such a tax rollback for the rich. Part of the answer is in the marketing scheme developed by the ultra-rich, which refers to the inheritance tax as a "death tax." Another part of the answer is that many middle class people hope that someday either they or children will also be rich, so they hope that the law will someday be a benefit to them as well. In reality, of course, support for this law and other attempts to let the rich escape their moral obligations to society are based on one word: greed. It should be pointed out that many rich people oppose the elimination of the inheritance tax. William Gates, Sr., the Microsoft founder's father, has spoken out forcefully against the repeal, as have other wealthy individuals such as Warren Buffet, George Soros, and Ben Cohen. In today's gospel reading, Jesus warns his followers, "Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." The obsession with making money and hanging on to money is nothing new, as Jesus' parable illustrates. Planning for the future is reasonable, but putting one's faith in possessions rather than in God is a mistake. Depression, recession, inflation, deflation, revolution, corporate mismanagement, and embezzlement can all destroy a person's financial holdings, but nothing can break God's hold on those who are faithful.