Companions of thieves

I started this post last week as I was reading the first chapters of Isaiah, a prophetic book with plenty to say about wealth, poverty, injustice and oppression. 

On Tuesday, I read Isaiah 1:23:

"Your rulers are rebels,
companions of thieves.
They all love bribes 
and chase after gifts. 
They do not defend the cause of the fatherless;
the widow's case does not come before them." 

Just a day later, the US Supreme Court confirmed the current relevance of that and other passages in Isaiah. By a 6-3 decision, the US high court concluded that an after-the-fact gift in exchange for favors, contracts or other benefits is totally legal. In effect, as a Guardian headline announced, "The US supreme court just basically legalized bribery."

Justice Clarence Thomas, who once attended the same church as our family, passing the peace with us on Sunday mornings, has captured international attention for the magnitude of gifts he's accepted from billionaire benefactors across the past three decades: vacations at luxury resorts, flights on personal jets and private helicopters, VIP passes to sporting events, tuition for his grandnephew, raised as his son, at expensive private boarding schools. 

Justice Thomas is not alone in accepting generous gifts or in failing to report those gifts. In May, ProPublica won a Pulitzer Prize for a series called Friends of the Court, detailed reports on gifts. Judiciary watchdog Fix the Court followed early this month with a detailed report, dating back decades, listing "freebies worth millions of dollars" including memberships to clubs, extravagant vacations, flights and balances on loans. 

While accepting gifts, the court has also been undermining anticorruption laws, with the decision this week just the latest in a series. Two lawyers with CREW: Citizens for Responsibilty and Ethics in Washington, wrote earlier this year:

In a series of cases decided over the past 37 years, the Supreme Court has systematically gutted the country’s public corruption laws.

The Court’s rulings have helped promote a radical vision of a government filled with powerful people, who are seemingly unaccountable despite taking unlimited gifts, loans, and other benefits from individuals who seek access and influence. It has helped foster a culture of corruption and impunity in the halls of power.

On Thursday I read Isaiah 3:

People will oppress each other—
    man against man, neighbor against neighbor.
The young will rise up against the old,
    the nobody against the honored. (v 5)

This verse really caught my attention: 

"What do you mean by crushing my people
    and grinding the faces of the poor?”
declares the Lord, the Lord Almighty. (v 15)

A Supreme Court decision announced the next day made that text literal. The case involved an ordinance passed in Grants Pass, a small Oregon city, prohibiting sleeping or camping in public areas: “any place where bedding, sleeping bag, or other material used for bedding purposes, or any stove or fire is placed, established, or maintained for the purpose of maintaining a temporary place to live, whether or not such place incorporates the use of any tent, lean-to, shack, or any other structure, or any vehicle or part thereof.” 

The high court decision in support of the Grants Pass ordinance reversed a 2018 case, Martin v. Boise, that found that involuntarily homeless people can't be punished for sleeping outside when they have nowhere else to go.

Homelessness is at a record high. So is income inequality. Causes of both are complicated, but just leadership, as defined throughout scripture, involves policies and practices that provide for the hungry, the homeless, those on the edge, no matter how they got there. 

I made it this far on Sunday morning, but could imagine voices of friends saying "Carol, why does this matter? We can't vote out Supreme Court justices. We can't change their opinions. There's nothing we can do to limit their cozy relationships with the rich and powerful. What in the world is your point here?"

Then yesterday, Monday, July 1, the court shared another decision that's echoing across the globe. 

Isaiah shares words from the Lord, prophetic pronouncements against the leaders of Judah: 

Woe to those who call evil good

    and good evil,

who put darkness for light

    and light for darkness,

who put bitter for sweet

    and sweet for bitter.

Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes

    and clever in their own sight...

who acquit the guilty for a bribe,

    but deny justice to the innocent. (5:20-21)

There are times when it's okay to turn off the news, tune out politics, pretend it doesn't matter. 

There are times when it's fine to nod and go along with what others say without doing the work of weighing the costs and praying for insight and understanding. 

Isaiah was speaking to the people of Israel, not America, in the 8th century BC, not 2024. 

But it's interesting to note who he was speaking to. While some of his messages were directed to kings and rulers, more often he addressed "a sinful nation, a people whose guilt is great."

Israel was not a democracy. Its people didn't choose their rulers. 

We don't choose our Supreme Court justices. 

But we do choose who we listen to, who we honor, who we ignore.

When the wealthy and powerful demand access and influence, the poor suffer. That has been true since the days of Isaiah. The causes of widows and orphans (the most powerless and marginalized) have no chance to be heard when justice is sold to the highest bidder. 

And now, as then, there is grave danger when rulers are rebels, companions to wealthy thieves.

Now, as then, the proper response is lament, grief, prayer. And willingness to speak out on behalf of those in distress a corrupt culture leaves behind.