A Community Concerned for the Poor - Neh 5: 1-13

When I was in Australia, I volunteered part of the semester at a safe house for women engaged in prostitution and inner venous drug users. It was heart breaking work, especially as the women started to trust me with their stories - stories of poverty, not seeing any other options, and losing their homes and children. This is the first time I remember the issue of poverty having a face for me. In fact many faces. It changed how I relate to people and how I address such a large issue as concern for the poor.

Even as heartbreaking as the stories I heard were, nothing was as hurtful as the story we confront in today’s scripture passage. The people of Israel have returned to their land and are united once again. For a period of time during the exile there were two different parts of Israel - those who were taken into captivity in Babaloyn and those who were left behind. Upon being reunited they faced the daunting task of rebuilding the city of Jerusalem, including the temple and walls. 

Now that unity is breaking down and the people are exploiting each other. Those of means were forcing the poor to become impoverished. In fact, there were three different groups of the poor being exploited. The first group, the most destitute, were selling off their sons and daughters as indentured servants just to have food on the table - and not even enough food at that. There were simply too many people in the community now and not enough food to support them since the land had faced both a famine and lower crop production in recent years. They also had to sell their children as indentured servants just to pay the exhorbant tax. While this practice was allowed, it was still frowned upon by the community. The situation had reached such unfathomable heights that the women in the community, those who were usually silent, felt the need to address their leader, Nehemiah directly. The fact that they spoke of selling their daughters was also telling. While sometimes sons were sold in order to pay off debts, it was extremely rare for daughters to be sold. The situation was dire.

The second group in poverty were those who owned land. This group was a bit better off than the first, so they didn’t have to sell their children as slaves. But they did have to mortgage all they owned - their field, vineyards, and homes, just to have enough food to eat. Once their land was mortgaged, they would continue to work it but all of the proceeds would go to those they owed a debt, thus propelling them even further into poverty.

The third group, didn’t have to mortgage their property, but they had to borrow money in order to pay taxes on it to the King. So they made a pledge that would be collected on later. The larger the loan, the larger the pledge. Often because of the size of the loan needed, this group would end up having to mortgage their land as well.

While what was happening to the poor of the land was distressing, what enraged Nehemiah was the fact that their own kin, other Israelites, were forcing them into poverty. The enemy had been named and the enemy was within. The unity that the people had rebuilding the city had now been substituted with greed and exploitation. The law said that Israelites cannot charge interest to one another, yet here the nobles were blantly violating that law. Nehemiah had no choice but to bring charges against them in front of the entire community. He wanted everyone to hear the charges he was bringing forth and the solution he was proposing - to have the year of Jubilee now, when all debts would be forgiven in order to protect the poor and to preserve the unity of the community. The Israelites had already faced captivity and the task of rebuilding the city. They still have to worry about their neighbors who could become their enemies at any moments. They did not need to be dragging one another into poverty. 

One of the statements that I struggle the most with is “why don’t the poor just help themselves? Why can’t they just stop being poor?” This passage however bucks the popular notion that poverty is something that can easily be reminded or escaped. It also shows that people did not bring it upon themselves - it was their kin and neighbors who put them there, so it was their kin and neighbors who had to think creatively, under the guidance of Nehemiah, about how to rectify the harm they caused.

I don’t think that any of us set out to harm our brothers and sisters around the world and next door. But the reality is that sometimes our choices, especially our financial ones, do impact them. And it doesn’t need to be anything as be anything as large as the stock market crash. But we do make choices every time that we spend money that impacts someone else. For example, Kathie Lee garments, which were sold for a period of time in Wal-Mart, produced 300 million in sales each year, yet they were being manufactured by teenagers as young as 13 in Honduras working 15 hour shifts and earning 31 cents an hour. 

When we hear stories like this and many others, one response may be “well 31 cents may be a lot in their country”. We try to rationalize how our spending habits aren’t really effecting others, when we know in our heart of hearts that children should not be treated that way and this is not a living wage in any country. 

Usually their are layers of insulation that separate the rich from the poor. My life changed when I came face to face with my sisters who were in poverty at the safe house. The lives of the community in Nehemiah were also changed when the nobles stopped thinking about gaining more and protecting their families alone, but worked to protect the community, which included their families. God did not return the people to the land only to have them die of starvation. Their would be enough food and resources if only the community came together to share. Of course, this is easier said then done, just as it is easier to talk about what tragedies we have slipped into by how we spend our money instead of how to fix them. 

But as the church we have the hard task on diving into these difficult questions about how to imagine a new way of sharing our resources that protect the poor, not exploit them, knowingly or unknowingly. Each and every Sunday we pray the Lord’s prayer together, asking for “our” daily bread, not “my” daily bread or “my families” daily bread. Ours - the community. The world. This passage in Nehemiah invites us to imagine new answers to old questions. To think about how our decisions impact other people. To tell us that there is a different and better way to live where the community comes first, not security for the individual. 

Brothers and sisters, now is our time to have the same care and compassion that Nehemiah had. What I find interesting about this passage of scripture is that Nehemiah had become so isolated that he didn’t know how bad the problems were. But when he came face to face with the women before him, his fellow Israelites, he had to remedy the problem that he was unknowingly a part of. Now is our time to work on behalf of those we see every day that are struggling with poverty. Now is our time to get to know their stories and have our hearts transformed. Now is our time to seek and pray for daily bread for all, not just ourselves. Now is the time to show God’s concern for the poor through our actions of love that reflect God’s abundance. Amen.