Twisted Scripture
By Albert B. Kelly
In the past few days, I’ve had some time to contemplate some
of the remarks made by the clergy in the days leading up to the inauguration
week before last. One small thing that caught my attention was the discussion
about walls, specifically the use of scripture to justify walls- in this case
the words of Nehemiah.
One particular member of the clergy, Robert Jeffers, shared
his view that because God instructed Nehemiah to build a wall around Jerusalem
to protect its citizens from enemy attack, it was proof that God is not against
the building of walls.
I guess the intended take-away here is that in some way our
new president might be like a modern day Nehemiah and as such, his plan to
build a wall along our southern border should be viewed as a blessed thing-perhaps
even ordained by the Almighty Himself.
Whatever you might think about Mr. Jeffers or even walls for
that matter, it’s curious and always revealing to see how people use scripture
to justify or support whatever (or whoever) it is they’re for.
I say that because when it comes to walls, Mr. Jeffers could
just as easily have found himself in the Old Testament book of Joshua and if he
had, rather than talk about building walls, he would have seen Joshua tearing
them down. Alas it was not to be.
But if we’re inclined to use scripture as some sort of
scaffolding to lend heft to a policy, it helps to look at everything because
just beyond this discussion of walls, you find some interesting things about strangers
and foreigners and the poor.
There are the words from Leviticus to consider; “when a
stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. The
stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you and you
shall love him as yourself…”
The same theme can be found in Deuteronomy, “you shall not
pervert the justice due an alien or an orphan, nor take a widow's garment in
pledge”.
My take away here is that we should be on the side of
treating people with compassion and kindness and decency. The scripture is full
of examples that emphasize kind and compassionate treatment of vulnerable
people.
I thought much the same when I bumped into the concept of
“gleaning”. Back in the day, gleaning was intended as a way to provide for the
poor and needy.
The basic idea was that those who owned land or farms and
grew crops were to leave what fell to the ground so that the poor and the
foreigner would be able to gather it (glean) and sustain themselves.
These same landowners were also instructed to leave a margin
around their land unharvested for the same reason; so that the poor or the
stranger among them would have a means to survive.
Gleaning was antiquities’ version of a safety net; the
affirmative instructions were to the landowners to do specific things and it
preserved a measure of dignity because those in need didn’t have to ask, they
only had to show up and glean.
In scripture (Leviticus), when it came to helping those on
the bottom, you can also find concepts like the “Year of Jubilee”. After 49 years (7 cycles of sabbatical years),
the 50th year was a year of Jubilee and all families that had become
poor and had mortgaged their land would have debts cancelled and they could get
their land back.
This was put in place in part to prevent one subset of
people in society from accumulating undue wealth at the expense of others and
in the case of antiquity this meant acquiring land- the primary vehicle of
wealth back in the day.
Over the long haul, this cancelling of debts and returning
of assets prevented multiple generations from being banished into poverty,
which is what creates a permanent underclass.
But these days, in the context of 2017, such ideas are
considered blasphemy, even sinful in light of our new secular gospel of
bootstraps and free markets- go figure.
Nehemiah got his wall constructed in 52 days- the Old
Testament’s version of shovel-ready. Given what passes for bureaucracy these
days, who knows what will become of the proposed wall along our southern
border.
Mr. Jeffers and his use of scripture notwithstanding; let it
be justice and compassion for the stranger and the poor among us…and for
ourselves.