In The Lord of the Rings, after the two young hobbits, Merry
and Pippin, are captured by the orcs, Legolas, Gimli, and Aragorn pursue
them, following the trail left by their captors, for days, across many
miles. After many days of relentless pursuit, they finally catch up to
the band of orcs, only to find that Merry and Pippin have somehow
managed to get away. Eventually they are all reunited. Hosea describes
a God who similarly pursues God's children, sometimes successfully and
sometimes not. In the case of Israel, Hosea says, God has pursued them,
but Israel has opted to follow the Baals and the idols, gods who
promised great things but were unable to deliver. The same situation
prevails today. People who call themselves by God's name pursue wealth,
fame, power, prestige, or pleasure rather than following God. It's not
that following God necessarily leads away from wealth, fame, and the
rest, but the pursuit of God is its own reward, with no guarantee of
other compensation. The pursuit of God for God's sake is hard to
reconcile with the lifestyle promoted by our culture. If you're not
rich, don't look fabulous, don't know the right people, or aren't on the
path to material success, the general public often considers you a
failure. By that logic, Jesus, Paul, and many of the other early
Christians were abject failures. Except, of course, that they weren't.
Christians today would do well to emulate many of these early Christians
rather than the idols erected by our culture. Jesus taught that those
who wanted to be his followers should think of others before themselves,
expect a life of hardship, give what they had to the poor, seek first
the justice of God. Our culture teaches us to be committed to our
country above all else, then to seek what's best for ourselves--the
complete opposite of the teaching of Jesus. The bad news is that the
vast majority of people in today's world are pursuing the idols of
wealth, fame, accomplishment, and pleasure. The good news is that,
despite our actions, God continues to pursue us with a love that will
not let us go.
Psalm 107:1-9, 43 (first published 1 August 2004)
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.
[2010 update: In light of the new Arizona law allowing racial profiling in the targeting of undocumented residents, this commentary from 2004 continues to speak.]
Colossians 3:1-11 (first published 1 August 2004)
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.
Luke 12:13-21 (first published 1 August 2004)
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.
[2010 update: The inheritance tax has disappeared this year, so George Steinbrenner's heirs, for example, have to pay no taxes on their inheritance. Will Congress block the reversion of the 2002 tax code, at least for the wealthiest of U.S. citizens? Stay tuned.]