Patricia Tull’s Horizons Bible Study
Let Justice Roll Down: God’s call to care for neighbors and all creation
Lesson 7: Economic climate change — Deuteronomy 15:1-18
A group of us helped with a summer camp at an inner-city church in Richmond, Virginia. The staff and the children were Black. In the evening, the White volunteers attended lectures on poverty where I learned that many of the children had never been out of their neighborhood. Everyone the children knew was poor, so they found it difficult to imagine a different way of life. Their schools, underfunded and staffed by some teachers who no other school wanted, sat in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty that bankers, real estate agents and government officials intentionally created to ensure Black people remained in poverty. For so many of the children, their neighborhoods were dead ends.
“You always have the poor with you,” says the Gospel of Matthew (26:11) — a Scripture text usually quoted out of context to justify neglecting those people who have experienced more than their fair share of raw deals. If we read all of Deuteronomy 15, however, we find an altogether different meaning.
According to scholar Patrick Miller, in his book Deuteronomy: Interpretation, this passage from Chapter 15 continues the Sabbath commandment. In Deuteronomy 5:6, 12-15, God identifies God’s self as the one who brought the people out of slavery. God is a freeing God. To keep the Sabbath means that everyone – enslaved and free, even the animals – must rest. The Sabbath is a day to break the cycle of bondage so that everyone can have a time of restoration and dignity.
That God wants all people restored to dignity and worth undergirds the commandment to release people from debt found in verses 1-2 of chapter 15: “Every seventh year you shall grant a remission of debts. And this is the manner of the remission: every creditor shall remit the claim that is held against a neighbor, not exacting it, because the Lord’s remission has been proclaimed.” People worked off their debt as bond servants, like being a slave. God wants to break the cycle of debt and commands that the person who is freed from debt be given enough sheep, grain and wine to rebuild their lives. Further, God’s intention is that no one be in need within the community and, if there is need, that people give liberally (v. 4).
However, illness, job reductions, bad crops and political conflicts still happen, and people will still struggle. Deuteronomy 15:11 acknowledges this: “Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.’” The mission statement of God’s people is “Be Open-Hearted and Open-Handed.” Rationalizing why those in need deserve what they get, or saying that poor people are a drain on public resources, is sinful behavior. We are not to be mean, hard-hearted or tight-fisted; we are to be generous.
I knew a woman, Ann, who was the “Christmas mother” for the Salvation Army one year. Christmas mothers raise money through personal contacts, fundraising events and ringing bells outside stores. When ringing her bell, Ann was surprised and saddened that friends avoided her and would not look her in the eye. Generosity of spirit did not seem to be motivating those friends.
About whom are we hard-hearted? Some in our culture consider migrants to be subhumans who are ready to steal or sell drugs. However, a September 2024 report from the National Institute of Justice said that undocumented immigrants in Texas “are arrested at less than half the rate of native-born U.S. citizens for violent and drug crimes and a quarter the rate of native-born citizens for property crimes.” An estimated 50% of migrants who work in agriculture are here illegally, yet our crops are largely picked by migrant workers, both those here legally and those without documentation. We need migrants for essential jobs because laborers are in short supply.
Deuteronomy 15 deals with a fundamental biblical concept: God wants people to be freed from debt and restored to community and the fullness of life. When we examine our charitable giving, do we fund organizations that deal with the root causes of poverty and help people to help themselves? Have we examined our own attitudes to see if we are open-hearted and open-handed?
