Series: “Jesus’ Message: You Are A Participant In the Dream”
“Just Say No To Economic Injustice”
1 Samuel 15:34-16:13
Mark 4:26-34
The good news of Jesus is that no one should be oppressed by economic injustice.
What does economic injustice look like? According to author Anshu Siripurapu writing for the Council on Foreign Relations,
Income and wealth inequality is higher in the United States than in almost any other developed country, and it is rising. There are large wealth and income gaps across racial groups, which many experts attribute to the country’s legacy of slavery and racist economic policies. Proposals to reduce inequality include a more progressive income tax, a higher minimum wage, and expanded educational opportunities.[1]
Consider the following examples of economic injustice as found in Matthew Desmond’s new book Poverty by America:
1. Wages rose slowly for the poorest Americans
Since 1979, the bottom 90% of income earners in the U.S. experienced annual earnings gains of only 24%, Desmond writes, while the wages of the top 1% of earners more than doubled. His findings are based on data from a number of sources, including the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Pew Research Center.
Looking at inflation-adjusted earnings, ordinary workers have seen their pay tick up just 0.3% a year for several decades, Desmond writes. “Astonishingly, the real wages for many Americans today are roughly what they were 40 years ago.”
2. More government aid for the financially comfortable
In 2020, the federal government spent $53 billion on direct housing assistance for the needy. That same year, it shelled out over $193 billion on homeowner subsidies such as the home mortgage interest deduction. Desmond analyzed tax data from a number of sources, including the Office of Management and Budget.
“Most families who enjoy those subsidies have six-figure incomes and are white,” Desmond writes. “Poor families lucky enough to live in government-owned apartments often have to deal with mold and even lead paint, while rich families are claiming the mortgage interest deduction on first and second homes.”
3. 1 in 18 live in ‘deep poverty’
In his book, Desmond, analyzing data from the U.S. Census Bureau and other sources, reports that 1 in 18 people in the U.S. live in what’s considered “deep poverty,” or what he calls “a subterranean level of scarcity.”
In 2020, this category included people who make less than $6,380 a year, or families of four living on less than $13,100. In 2020, almost 18 million people in America lived in these conditions, including some 5 million children.
Desmond writes, “There is growing evidence that America harbors a hard bottom layer of deprivation, a kind of extreme poverty once thought to exist only in faraway places of bare feet and swollen bellies.”
4. Racial wealth gap is as large as in the ’60s
Looking at the work of other authors and Federal Reserve data, Desmond found that the racial wealth gap is as wide today as it was more than five decades ago.
In 2019, the median white household had a net worth of $188,200, compared with $24,100 for the median Black household.
Again Desmond notes, “Our legacy of systematically denying Black people access to the nation’s land and riches has been passed from generation to generation.”
5. Overdraft fees mostly paid by the poor
In 2019, the largest U.S. banks charged Americans $11.68 billion in overdraft fees.
Just 9% of those account holders paid the lion’s share, 84%, of those charges — customers who carried an average balance of less than $350.[2]
Economic injustice is complicated and a divisive subject to engage. However, as followers of Jesus we must engage it for the sake of God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven. What guidance can we receive from 1 Samuel 15:34-16:13 and
Mark 4:26-34 regarding economic injustice?
1 Samuel 15:34-16:13
- Saul was appointed by Samuel.
- Saul increasingly became more deranged and incompetent. His leadership was filled with bad decisions, bad luck, and predictable fate.
- Saul had difficulty admitting his sin. He was insecure, fearful, jealous, controlling, and greedy.
- Saul was obsessed with establishing his greatness. He exploited the people by forbidding them to eat, rest, or tend to their own needs until the victory in war was certain. Saul did not serve the people. He expected the people to serve him.
- David, the youngest son of Jesse, not Jesse’s oldest son Eliab, was selected as king. It was David’s heart that impressed God, not his appearance.
- God intervenes and restores. “Out with the old” and “in with the new.”
Mark 4:26-34
- Why does Jesus teach in parables? To keep us in the process of engaging the work of planting seeds of good news and hope and listening well to those around us. The goal is not the solution, but the process of engagement.
- Spiritual understanding requires revisiting the Biblical text and the text in people’s lives time and time again.
- Spiritual understanding requires avoiding the simplistic and delving into the depth of the questions.
- Spiritual understanding avoids legalism as a response.
- Spiritual understanding fosters growth. It does not create it.
- Spiritual understanding leads to the conclusion of seeing the kingdom of God as a community of fellowship and connection as opposed to the empire of Nero.[3]
With the anointing of David as king, God ushers in a new era of restoration and renewal for the people of God and humanity. Spiritual understanding leads to a way of being rooted in love and justice. Recall these paragraphs in Martin Luther King’s speech, “I Have a Dream”:
…I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal.”
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice…
In the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus spreads seeds of good news and hope through your words and deeds. Be patient. Use your ears and eyes. Do not wring your hands. Participate with God in discerning diligence and experience the unexpected and continual unfolding commonwealth-growing givens.[4] Participate in fulfilling the dream. Amen.
This sermon was preached on the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, 16 June 2024
by the Rev. Dr. Steven M. Marsh at Grace Presbyterian Church
in the Great Room and Sanctuary in Wichita, Kansas.
Copyright © 2024
Steven M. Marsh
All rights reserved.
[1]On the Council on Foreign Relations website cfr.org dated April 20, 2022.
[2]Matthew Desmond, Poverty, By America (New York: Crown Publishing Group, 2023).
[3]In the three paragraphs of textual analysis above, I have benefited from the thinking of Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, J. Scott Hudgins, Eunjoo Mary Kim, Scot McKnight, Dan R. Dick, William Greenway, and David J. Schlafer in Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery, Cynthia L. Rigby and Carolyn J. Sharp, editors, Connections, Year B, Volume 3 (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2020), 72-75, 75-77, 78-80, 81-83, 83-84, 85-87 and 87-88.
[4]Adapted from William Greenway in Joel B. Green, Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery, Cynthia L. Rigby and Carolyn J. Sharp, editors, Connections, Year B, Volume 3, 87.
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