We Cry Justice

Reading the Bible with the Poor People's Campaign

Liz Theoharis

• Publisher: Broadleaf Books
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781506473642
• eBook ISBN: 9781506473659
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible proclaims justice and abundance for the poor. Yet these powerful passages about poverty are frequently overlooked and misinterpreted.

Enter the Poor People's Campaign, a movement against racism, poverty, ecological devastation, militarism, and religious nationalism. In We Cry Justice, Liz Theoharis, co-chair of the campaign, is joined by pastors, community organizers, scholars, low-wage workers, lay leaders, and people in poverty to interpret sacred stories about the poor seeking healing, equity, and freedom. In a world roiled by poverty and injustice, Scripture still speaks.

Organized into fifty-two chapters, each focusing on a key Scripture passage, We Cry Justice offers comfort and challenge from the many stories of the poor taking action together. Read anew the story of the exodus that frees people from debt and slavery, the prophets who denounce the rich and ruling classes, the stories of Jesus's healing and parables about fair wages, and the early church's sharing of goods. Reflection questions and a short prayer at the end of each chapter offer the opportunity to use the book devotionally through a year.

The Bible cries for justice, and we do too. It's time to act on God's persistent call to repair the breach and fight poverty, not the poor.

Part I

Jubilee

1

Is Ending Poverty Possible?

Liz Theoharis

You Only Get What You’re Organized to Take.

—slogan of the National Union of the Homeless

Read: Matthew 26:1–16

“The poor you will always have with you” is what Jim Wallis of Sojourners calls the most famous Bible verse on poverty. Matthew 26:11 takes place in the context of a meal with Jesus’s disciples, during which a woman comes and pours an alabaster jar of ointment on his head. This anointing scene happens in the town of Bethany, whose name means “House of the Poor” in Hebrew. It occurs directly after Jesus has turned over the tables and challenged the religious and political authorities for impoverishing people, and right before Judas betrays Jesus by turning him over, for thirty pieces of silver, to be crucified.

With this action, the woman anoints Jesus. He becomes Christ—the Greek word for “the anointed one”—in this scene. He is deemed Messiah: a ruler or prophet set apart by God to usher in a reign of justice. She prepares him for his burial. But the disciples don’t understand the significance of this anointing, nor of Jesus’s impending execution at the hands of the state.

The disciples criticize the woman for wasting (apoleia, the Greek word for “destroying”) the ointment. Instead of breaking the jar and using it all, they say, the nard could have been sold for a year’s salary and the money given to the poor. This idea—of earning lots of money and giving the proceeds to the poor—encapsulates how we often try to address poverty. Many Christians do charity work by buying and selling and then donating to the poor, but they never question how poverty was created in the first place.

When Jesus says, “The poor you will always have with you,” he is quoting Deuteronomy 15, which says that there will be no poor person among you if you follow God’s commandments. Those commands include forgiving debts, releasing the enslaved, paying people fairly, and lending money even when you won’t get paid back. Deuteronomy 15:11, then, is essential. This verse claims that because people will not follow God’s commandments, the poor will never cease to be in the land.

Nowhere in this passage, nor in the entire Bible, does God condone poverty. Jesus is reminding us that God hates poverty and has commanded us to end it by forgiving debts, raising wages, outlawing slavery, and restructuring society around the needs of the poor and pointed out Jesus and the prophets teachings on justice rather than bandaids. He is reminding the disciples that charity will not end poverty but instead will keep it with us always. Jesus is reminding his followers that he will be killed for bringing God’s reign here on earth and that it is their responsibility to continue the quest for justice.

And, truly, poor people are continuing that quest. In June 2019, during a hearing of the budget committee of the House of Representatives, leaders of the Poor People’s Campaign came to present what we’ve called the Poor People’s Moral Budget. It’s a study showing that the United States does have the money to end poverty, hunger, homelessness, and more; it’s just that we do not have the political will to do so.

The walls of that House committee room rang with empty words that twisted what the Bible says about the poor. One representative remarked that he had never found any place in the Bible “where Jesus tells Caesar to care for the poor.” Another suggested that Christian charity, not government-sponsored programs, is the key to alleviating poverty.

In response, members of our racially and geographically diverse group pointed out how interesting it was that the first representative—a self-proclaimed follower of Jesus—identified himself with Caesar. We detailed many of the passages of Scripture that urge us to organize society around the needs of the poor.

We did not end poverty in America that day. But one of our leaders, Aaron Scott, noted the power of what really happened. “We staged a full-on narrative takeover,” Scott commented. “What I saw made it very clear that we have what it takes to force this government to atone for its sins” and really address poverty.

Reflect

What message do you hear about poverty from faith leaders and government authorities? What are the people of God called to do in the face of poverty from this passage? How are people responding to poverty today? What issues are of particular concern to you?

Read

Deuteronomy 15:1–4. This is the passage Jesus cites when he is anointed as Christ in this story. This Scripture speaks to us about the role of laws and policies, rather than solely individual actions, in eradicating poverty.

Pray

God of justice and life, we lift up to you 140 million of your people who are being abandoned in the midst of abundance. Grant us the wisdom, courage, and love to do your will: to organize society around the needs of the poor. May we strive to make earth as it is in heaven. Amen.

2

What We Wish For

Solita Alexander Riley

I wish I could live

Like I’m longin’ to live

—Billy Taylor, “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free”

Read: Deuteronomy 15, 2 Corinthians 6

We all carry so many wishes in our hearts. Some we utter aloud, and other wishes live on silently within us. One of my wishes is that we could all live free, joyful, and full lives. Yet so many of us who are poor are on the brink of despair. One reason? Debt.

There is nothing like debt to undermine the strength of a society. Debt easily becomes insurmountable, impossible to pay off. People crushed under the burden of medical, educational, and other kinds of debt. How many are not whole as a result? How many are healed but not restored, better skilled but not secure?

Put simply, God’s economy does not include debt and poverty. Instead, it introduces practices to prevent it. This is where Deuteronomy 15 and 2 Corinthians 6 suggest hope. These passages offer the impetus to break down what stands between us and true freedom. God has a different reality in mind and calls us to work toward a society in which full life is possible.

Of the many laws set out in Deuteronomy, I wish we would take seriously the law described in chapter 15: the ritual practice of debt cancellation. In such times, an individual worked off what they owed to someone through enslavement or was forced into jail. Under these conditions, people could not fully participate in society. For this reason, in many societies of the ancient Near East, debts were canceled when a new leader took office so that the leader’s reign would not face challenge and insurrection from a populace under duress. This also secured the health of the society by ensuring that all could fully participate in society.

Debt was deadly then, and it still is. How I wish debt cancellation were the law in our land! At the very least, we could apply the spirit of that law. As we see in Deuteronomy 15, there is first the call for individual practices that make sure all needs are met. These verses instruct people to freely lend to those in need so there will be no poor among them.

Charity and generosity have their place, but when people don’t practice perfect charity and generosity, structural redress is necessary. So Deuteronomy 15 calls for structural practices as well. There need to be laws ensuring that people don’t fall into deeper and deeper debt. Deuteronomy’s plan makes a routine by which everyone is restored as debts are canceled.

Oh, how I wish we would be less confused about God’s economy. Somehow we end up with laws that attach Work requirement to the need for food, clothing, housing, and medical care for yourself and your children. You don’t have what you need because you are lazy, the false narrative tells us. Structurally, our society has chosen the absurdity of poverty and the deadliness of debt. Thankfully, projects of survival—such as yesterday’s Black Panther health care clinics, today’s food programs, and other operations—stand in to circulate resources. Still, more is needed.

Many of us wish for laws that guarantee jobs with living wages. We wish existing laws about affordable housing worked. We wish for health care for all. We wish to see the end of the school-to-prison pipeline and to see fully funded, equitable education instead. We wish for a tax structure that would make the wealthy and big businesses contribute their fair share of resources. We wish for money to come out of the military budget, out from our militarized police forces, and into our communities. We wish to live! All these wishes can become reality as we demand them.

We are told in 2 Corinthians 6 that now is the time. It is time to partner with God and with each other to create the world as God intends. It will not be easy, Paul tells us. We will endure much: riots, imprisonments, sleepless nights, hunger. If you are engaged in struggle, undoubtedly you have experienced some of these things.

You may be characterized as poor, but you are incredibly powerful, because what you are doing is building God’s kingdom on earth! You are working with others and God to realize God’s economy and to establish the principles of heaven right here and now.

Reflect

You are powerful. What thoughts and feelings come up when you hear that truth? In what powerful ways are you addressing needs in your community? Are the laws and policies doing the same? How is God calling you to demand a fuller life for yourself and others?

Read

Acts 2:42–47. The early Jesus community reminds us of the power of coming together to support the needs of our community.

Pray

Loving God, thank you for setting forward a principle by which all needs are met. You suggest laws to create an economy in which everyone thrives. Tend to us when we encounter structural harm and policy violence. Help us lift our voices, our arms, and our feet to create and demand the structures we all wish for. Amen.

3

Jesus Was a Poor Man

Jessica C. Williams

Don’t laugh, folks: Jesus was a poor man.

—phrase written on a canvas covering on the Mule Train of the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign

Read: Matthew 25:31–46

Jesus’s last teaching to his disciples in the book of Matthew, often known as the parable of the last judgment or the story of the sheep and goats, is quoted by countless ministries that offer charity to “the least of these.” Many say that it means we need to help those who are without food, shelter, and clothing.

But what if we take seriously the proclamation of the Mule Train organizers—that “Jesus was a poor man”? Does that change how we understand the passage about the sheep and the goats?

In the time and place in which Jesus ministered, most people lived under the subjugation of the Roman Empire and were considered expendable. Elite rulers extracted wealth from all the lands they conquered, pushing people to hunger, homelessness, and the brink of starvation—and sometimes over the edge into slavery and death. The Bible tells us that Jesus had no place to lay his head (Luke 9:58), which is another way to say he was homeless. Jesus was trained in carpentry—a form of manual labor akin to low-wage work today—and he relied on the hospitality of friends, many of whom were also poor, to share meals and lodging with him. Jesus, the disciples, and those to whom they ministered were poor, subjected, and oppressed. They were the expendables.

When the wagon riders in the Mule Train said “Jesus was a poor man,” they were right. As part of the Poor People’s Campaign in 1968, they carried that message from Marks, Mississippi, across the South, and up to Washington, DC, where they joined a six-week encampment on the National Mall called Resurrection City. The Mule Train’s wagons were covered in canvas, on which the travelers wrote phrases to explain their mission: bringing attention to poverty in the United States and demanding systemic changes. They sought, as Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “to lift the load of poverty.”

“Jesus was a poor man” is a theological statement. It is more than saying “Jesus cares about the poor,”—how Matthew 25:31–46 is often interpreted. In Matthew 25, what is usually translated as “the least of these” is the Greek word elachistoi, which literally means “the smallest or most insignificant ones”: in other words, the expendables. Jesus’s identity as on...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Part I. Jubilee
• Part II. Struggle and Lament
• Part III. The Days of Liberation
• Part IV. Learn as We Lead
• Part V. The Advent of Revolution
• Part VI. The Birth of a Movement
• Acknowledgments
• Contributors