It’s Sunday morning and it is school holidays, So the son and I are doing something we like, which is trying to find new parts of the country we have not visited. So yesterday we went to Tapanui. On the way, we went through Lawrence, which is an old gold town and quite prosperous.
Tapanui is not that prosperous. The first tell was that there was a sign outside the school lauding its sports team winning a regional conference. The son, who goes to a very sporting school, knows that his one does not have that sign up: they make national finals every year and everyone in Otago knows that.
The second sign was the run-down nature of the town. But the biggest sign was that teenagers were walking everywhere, with downcast eyes and bleak faces, just like the adults. We did see some beautiful scenery, on the journey. We saw some wonderful buildings and met a 70 year old woman who was running a coffee shop by herself, in Lawrence. But in Tapanui we found a tractor exhibition and despair.
1This is what the Lord GOD showed me-a basket of summer fruit. 2He said, “Amos, what do you see?” And I said, “A basket of summer fruit.” Then the LORD said to me, The end has come upon my people Israel; I will never again pass them by. 3The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day,” says the Lord GOD; “the dead bodies shall be many, cast out in every place. Be silent!” 4Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, 5saying, “When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain; and the sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah small and the shekel great, and practice deceit with false balances, 6buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and selling the sweepings of the wheat.”
7The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob: Surely I will never forget any of their deeds. 8Shall not the land tremble on this account, and everyone mourn who lives in it, and all of it rise like the Nile, and be tossed about and sink again, like the Nile of Egypt?
9On that day, says the Lord GOD, I will make the sun go down at noon, and darken the earth in broad daylight. 10I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; I will bring sackcloth on all loins, and baldness on every head; I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and the end of it like a bitter day.
11The time is surely coming, says the Lord GOD, when I will send a famine on the land; not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD. 12They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the LORD, but they shall not find it.
38Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 39She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. 40But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” 41But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; 42there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.
I’m left this morning wondering about these passages. The Amos passage is preceise: the temple was sacked and the epath was taken: the ability of the high priest to cast lots and therefore enquire of God was lost. If you compare this with part of yesterday’s reading.
I Samuel 22:14-23
4Then Ahimelech answered the king, “Who among all your servants is so faithful as David? He is the king’s son-in-law, and is quick to do your bidding, and is honored in your house. 15Is today the first time that I have inquired of God for him? By no means! Do not let the king impute anything to his servant or to any member of my father’s house; for your servant has known nothing of all this, much or little.” 16The king said, “You shall surely die, Ahimelech, you and all your father’s house.” 17The king said to the guard who stood around him, “Turn and kill the priests of the LORD, because their hand also is with David; they knew that he fled, and did not disclose it to me.” But the servants of the king would not raise their hand to attack the priests of the LORD. 18Then the king said to Doeg, “You, Doeg, turn and attack the priests.” Doeg the Edomite turned and attacked the priests; on that day he killed eighty-five who wore the linen ephod. 19Nob, the city of the priests, he put to the sword; men and women, children and infants, oxen, donkeys, and sheep, he put to the sword.20But one of the sons of Ahimelech son of Ahitub, named Abiathar, escaped and fled after David. 21Abiathar told David that Saul had killed the priests of the LORD. 22David said to Abiathar, “I knew on that day, when Doeg the Edomite was there, that he would surely tell Saul. I am responsible for the lives of all your father’s house. 23Stay with me, and do not be afraid; for the one who seeks my life seeks your life; you will be safe with me.”
David routinely went to the priest and sought guidance from God. AFter the Babylonian captivity, the urim and thumin (the lots) were lost and the prophets were silent.
And Amos said this was because there was oppression of the poor. Oppression that the left has institutionalized certain groups as poor and tells them they are oppressed so that they can speak for them. Having failing schools and bankrupt cities is a useful thing, not a bug, for all are equal.
And this brings us th Martha. I like Martha. But she is in the Kitchen and that is unfair so ALL women have to be in the kitchen serving with her. And Jesus says that no, Mary chose the better part. He did not say that what she was doing was wrong. Nor did he damn her.
Instead he teased her. He called her worry, and he called her wish that everything was the same. Now, here we have to be careful, because when we talk of richness and poverty, above an absolute poor level (where you skip meals to feed the kids, or the kids also skip meals) it’s relative. (The poor in NZ, Australia and the rest of the West do not have a problem with finding calories. They have a problem in finding nutrition to go with their calories).
But the idea that we will all have the same results is challenged by both Jesus (who corrected Martha, who I think wanted to share the joys of the kitchen and missing out with her sister) and implied in Amos, where the duty of the rich to provide charity and justice to the poor is implied, for Israel is damned as they are not doing this.
Which brings me to the other conversation on the way home. The welfare system does two things. The first is that it leads people to think that they have a right to an income, regardless of what they do. And this has consequences.
Anyone who teaches blacks soon learns that they have a completely different view of government from whites. Once I decided to fill 25 minutes by having students write about one thing the government should do to improve America. I gave this question to three classes totaling about 100 students, approximately 80 of whom were black. My few white students came back with generally “conservative” ideas. “We need to cut off people who don’t work,” was the most common suggestion. Nearly every black gave a variation on the theme of “We need more government services.”
My students had only the vaguest notion of who pays for government services. For them, it was like a magical piggy bank that never goes empty. One black girl was exhorting the class on the need for more social services and I kept trying to explain that people, real live people, are taxed for the money to pay for those services. “Yeah, it come from whites,” she finally said. “They stingy anyway.”
“Many black people make over $50,000 dollars a year and you would also be taking away from your own people,” I said.
She had an answer to that: “Dey half breed.” The class agreed. I let the subject drop.
Many black girls are perfectly happy to be welfare queens. On career day, one girl explained to the class that she was going to have lots of children and get fat checks from the government. No one in the class seemed to have any objection to this career choice.
[I frequently link to Traditional Christianity. I’m fully aware that most of the editors there lack the “thermonuclear skin” (so pale that you glow in the dark) that is part of my English and Irish heritage. I’m also aware that they home school their children or use private schools so their children are not influenced by this. As they should].
If you have a state system of charity, it stops being charity and starts being an entitlement. The rich resent paying 30 — 50% of their income in taxes. You get memes about welfare queens, and a lack of personal engagement with the poor. And the poor lose shame. For if they stop being part of the underclass, they will lose their income. The hard working woman and man is accounted as a fool.
And if this happens, then a society has not only institutionalized oppression but it is rotting from the inside out. It is fragile, and it will fall. For when injustice flourishes, God will turn his head away from that nation, and our prayers for blessing, wisdom and security will be for naught. And down that road there are now many cities and towns, from Detroit to Tapanui.
