The Old Testament
God's heart for the poor and the marginalized permeates the pages of the Old Testament. In the Old Testament we see God's plan to fix a world broken by sin unfold, and one of the primary ways we see this plan in evidence is through the way He cares for the poor and calls his people to care for the poor. We see it in the way He protects Cain even after he has murdered his brother Able. We see it in how He calls this nomadic tribesman, Abraham, and promises to make him a mighty nation that will bless all the nations of the earth. We see it in the way He cares for Abraham’s slave, Hagar, and the child, Ishmael, that she bore him after Abraham left them for dead in the desert. We see it in how He takes a spoiled child like Joseph and refines his character through horrible circumstances until he is made steward over all Egypt. We see it in His protection of Joseph’s brothers and their families even though they had meant him harm. We see it in how He hears the cries of Abraham’s enslaved descendants in Egypt. We see it in how He rescues an enslaved baby boy condemned to death by a fearful pharaoh. We see it in how this baby boy is found by a princess of Egypt in his basket of reeds where they have hidden him. We see it in how this baby boy grows up as a prince of Egypt. We see it in God’s calling him to deliver His people from slavery in spite of the fact that he has been so beaten down by the world that he can’t even speak without stammering. We see it in the way He frees a community of slaves and turns them into a nation of priests. We see it in His patience with the nation of Israel’s habitual sinning and running to idols. This list could go on and on. The Old Testament is filled with stories about God’s love for the marginalized; the least, the last, the lost, and the lonely, and about how he expects his people to care for them.
Read what He says through the prophet Isaiah:
Shout out, do not hold back!
Lift up your voice like a trumpet!
Announce to my people their rebellion,
to the house of Jacob their sins.
ISA 58:2 Yet day after day they seek me
and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness
and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgments,
they delight to draw near to God.
ISA 58:3 "Why do we fast, but you do not see?
Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?"
The Lord is coming to the nation of Israel with a word of judgment. He tells Isaiah to announce boldly to the nation that He is not pleased. Yes, from the outside they look religious. They put on a good show, but there is a reason He is not responding to their fasts. There is a reason He is not noticing them.
God’s words to the nation of Israel through the prophets always seem to hit me right between the eyes. He could speak these same words to the church, at least the church in the United States. Why, oh church, do I not seem to respond to your call? You make million dollar cathedrals dedicated to me, and put my name on t-shirts and in your popular music. You send your children to private schools that cost thousands of dollars a year that are run out of these same churches. You support entire industries based on the selling of books, videos, music, and movies that tell you how to better please me, but I’m not pleased. I’m not pleased with this.
Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day,
and oppress all your workers.
ISA 58:4 Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
and to strike with a wicked fist.
Such fasting as you do today
will not make your voice heard on high.
ISA 58:5 Is such the fast that I choose,
a day to humble oneself?
Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush,
and to lie in sackcloth and ashes?
Will you call this a fast,
a day acceptable to the LORD?
ISA 58:6 Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
ISA 58:7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover them,
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
God tells us exactly what he wants from us. He wants us to bring the light of His compassionate kingdom to the forgotten of society. The fast the God chooses for his people (a fast is the act of denying oneself to draw close to God) is that we do the work of the Kingdom by championing the cause of the marginalized; the cause of the least, last, lost, and lonely. God wants our acts of self denial to be acts that care for those who have been beaten down by the broken condition of the world. When we do this we are anticipating the day when poverty, loneliness, and abandonment will be undone.
I’m going to call some things out here, and I’m not doing it to be mean, but I feel that God has called me to speak with a prophetic voice on this issue, and I feel we (The Vineyard) have the right to be that prophetic voice because we’ve chosen to walk a different path. Every day I pass by a church that has a huge private school attached to it. This church and school is literally a quarter of a mile from the school our church meets in. They are just finishing up a multi-million dollar expansion to their sports and recreation fields; fields that could rival a college campus. Just a quarter of a mile down the road the three minority, public schools we meet in are playing on ball fields that are so desperately in need of renovation that it is just sad. Last fall the coach of the baseball team from this high school was literally begging the community to invest ten grand in the ball field so it would be playable. It floods every year. These kids can’t play home games because the condition of their field is so poor. Not only that (I know this is going to sound unbelievable but it’s true), these kids are wearing uniforms that were new in 1968! I wish our church had the financial resources some of these churches have because I would have written the check on the spot. Do we profane the name of our God when just a quarter of a mile down the road the wealthy, who can afford to invest the thousands of dollars a year, have college level ball fields, provided for them in the name of Jesus, when the poor are left behind? Is this where God wants His resources spent? Is this the fast God chooses for us?
Just a stone’s throw from our schools that were built in the late 1950’s, that have roofs that are leaking, where the air conditioning units don’t work properly, with more problems to their physical campuses than you could shake a stick at, goes up a multi- multi-million dollar church campus. This facility is built for the glory of God and hey, they are doing it debt-free. I promise you, people are being asked to take on financial fasts to see this thing built, but is this the fast that God wants when the least, the last, the lost, and the lonely who are literally sitting a stone’s throw from them are going severely without? Are these the acts of self denial that God is calling His people to? Are we seriously to believe that God wants us to invest millions and millions of dollars simply on ourselves? I don’t think so.
Now let me say, I think all of this happens through the best intentions. The leaders of these churches are good people who dearly love Jesus. They desperately want to see people come to know the Lord and live their lives for Him. My critique is in the American way of doing church. We have defined success in such terms that it takes mammoth facilities and budgets to be thought of as being relevant. This leads to a trap of catering to one particular group of people, the type of people who have the kind of resources that can fund this type of programming. I don’t think God has called us to compete with theme parks. I don’t think we are in the entertainment business. I think God has called us to partner with Him in seeing heaven touch earth.
I’m telling you right now, Chattanooga, arguably the most Christian city in the world, will not experience all that God has for it, until we, the churches, repent of this waste and turn our hearts to the true work of the Kingdom. It should be an affront to us that our school system is the worst performing in our state. Seriously, as Christians we should be embarrassed by what is happening to our city, because the presence of so many Jesus following people should be changing the very fabric of our society.
ISA 58:8 Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up quickly;
your vindicator shall go before you,
the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
ISA 58:9 Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer;
you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.
If you remove the yoke from among you,
the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil,
ISA 58:10 if you offer your food to the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.
ISA 58:11 The LORD will guide you continually,
and satisfy your needs in parched places,
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters never fail.
This is but one of literally hundreds of passages where God talks about his heart for the poor. The prophets are all looking forward to the Day of the Lord, when the great reversal of fortunes takes place. When the tears of the marginalized; the least, the last, the lost, and the lonely, will be wiped away once and for all. Those who thought of themselves as having been forgotten will realize that they were always very close to the heart of God.
The Old Testament teaches us that God loves the poor and He expects His people to love them too!
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