(Part 5 of "The Primer on Scripture and the Budget for 2009")
Democrats must not get into the business of throwing stones, but neither should we allow Republicans to continue to portray us as moral relativists. We must approach moral conversations with humility "for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23), but we should not shy away from naming an action sinful when the Bible unambiguously declares it to be so. Nowhere is this biblical pronouncement clearer than on the issue of materialism and seeking material gain at the expense of the poor.
God’s command to his people that might have special relevance to the various Republican governors who in their attempt to position themselves to run for President in 2012 are turning down federal aid for the unemployed in their states: "If one of your countrymen becomes poor and is unable to support himself among you, help him as you would an alien or a temporary resident so he can continue to live among you...you must not lend him money at interest or sell him food at a profit" (Leviticus 25: 35-38). This is also an example of why it is always important to understand the historical context of the text...they treated aliens a lot better a few thousand years ago than we do today in this country...God would be forced to use a different example to make this point today.
Or perhaps Isaiah’s condemnation of the government leaders of his day might be more easily understood and more directly relevant to our current debates about safety nets and social service programs. It is almost as if this prophet had been reading the Republican budget amendments: "Ah, you who make iniquitous decrees, who write oppressive statutes, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of their right, that widows may be your spoil, and that you may make the orphans your prey!" (Isaiah 10:1) . . .
The debate on budget cuts, minimum wage, Medicaid, tax cuts, and most recently, unemployment insurance might benefit from the lesson Nathan tried to teach King David with the following story (2 Sam 12:1-7): "There were two men in a certain town, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb. Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the ewe lamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him." When David heard this story, he burned with anger against the rich man and said to Nathan, "As surely as the LORD lives, the man who did this deserves to die! He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity." And Nathan said...YOU are that man." Nathan was in fact using this story as a parable to indict David who, already having several wives, committed adultery with the wife of his general Uriah and then arranged to have Uriah killed in battle. I have heard folks on the Right argue that this story is about sexual purity and has no application to economic justice. But the reason Nathan could make the point about adultery was that the economic justice point was a complete given and never would have been argued! Thus, the judgment David pronounces against the rich man is still a valid example of how the wealthy should treat the poor. Note that Nathan is addressing David in his role as king; thus what he did to the "poor man" is applicable to the behavior of leaders in their public capacity, not merely their private charity...and completely accepted by David as being the case before he comes to understand this is also a deeper indictment against his sexual behavior . . .
Find the entire post here at Faithful Democrats