Choosing How We Shall Live - Advocating! Speak up!
by Pastor Suzy Todd
September 14, 2025
SCRIPTURE:
Proverbs 22:1-2, 8-9, 22-23
Based on the series “Uncommon Wisdom” by UMC Discipleship Ministries
Economic Justice according to United Methodist Social Principles
“Our commitment to achieving economic justice is rooted in the covenantal understanding that God’s creation is meant to be shared by all humans and sentient beings. Just as the oikos or household served as the heart of the economy in ancient times, our belief in the inclusive nature of God’s global household motivates our pursuit of just, equitable, and sustainable economies.”
The UMC 2025-2028 Social Principles, The Economic Community, Economic Justice.
United Methodist Social Principles: Why they’re important
The Social Principles is a book that explains the stance of the UMC on issues in the contemporary world. It is the result of prayerful land thoughtful efforts of the General Conference. The General Conference is a representative body of the worldwide United Methodists that meets every 4 years to serve as the legislative branch of the church. They are the only official voice of the denomination.
Welcome
I am Pastor Suzy Todd. This is week two in our series, Uncommon Wisdom. Last week we drew from The Song of Songs. Today we’re going to venture into Proberbs.
Have you ever tried to read the book of Proverbs? It’s not a story. It’s a collection of. . .well. . . proverbs. Pithy little sayings - many that would fit nicely on a wall plaque.
Scripture Lesson:
The book of Proverbs opens with this (Proverbs 1:1-6 NRSV(UE)):
The proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel:
For learning about wisdom and instruction, for understanding words of insight, for gaining instruction in wise dealing, righteousness, justice, and equity; to teach shrewdness to the simple, knowledge and prudence to the young - let the wise, too, hear and gain in learning and the discerning acquire skill, to understand a proverb and a figure, the words of the wise and their riddles.
Though the book credits its authorship to Solomon, the scholars say that it had many writers over the span of hundreds of years beginning about 1000 years BCE.
Proverbs is a book of benchmarks or reflections, helping us find a faithful way in a morally ambiguous world. Not all of them are worthy advice based on the knowledge and experience we have today, but many still hold up.
Lets leap ahead to chapter 22
A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold. The rich and the poor have this in common: the LORD is the maker of them all.
A strong ethical framework and reputation is more important than being rich.
Oh boy! That is not what the world seems to tell us.
We see plenty of people in the public sphere, willing to sell their souls and power and money. As a culture, we revere them - even vote for them! Politicians will do and say anything to get donations to their campaigns and votes in their ballot boxes. They bend over backwards for billonaires and trade votes for influence on committees and to enrich their stock portfolios.
The church is not immune to this love of power and money. We refuse to speak up when bad theology becomes the public face of Christianity.
The cross is so suffocatingly wrapped in the flag that there are bumper stickers sold that say: God, Guns and Country.
More than half a million young LGBTQ+ people are still dealing with the traumatic fallout of conversion therapy conducted under the guise of Christianity.
Over 65 millon copies of The Left Behind series were sold. It’s a non-biblical story of the apocalyptic end of the world written to scare people into believing in God.
Science denial became synonymous with belief in the Bible.
All of this while we stayed quiet.
Our cowardice was in hopes of keeping the pews full. It failed.
Our cowardice was in hopes of maintaining our influence over the culture. It failed.
We pursued power and money at the cost of our good name.
The only thing our silence succeeded at was giving us a reputation as un-Christlike. . . and by association, marring Jesus’ name and reputation in the eyes of the world.
This proverb reminds us we are all created by God, in the image of God. Rich or poor - our value comes from this origin story. All the silver and gold in the world cannot add to our value; but acting honorably brings honor to God.
Proverbs 22:8-9 reads:
Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity, and the rod of anger will fail. Those who are generous are blessed, for they share their bread with the poor.
I don’t know about you, but I think it would be great if there was some sort of immediacy to this. You know what I mean? As soon as an injustice is done - calamity ensues on the perpetrator! And as soon as generosity occurs, a blessing is dropped into the life of the giver. I think that type of instant feedback on our behavior would be very helpful to making the world a better place.
I mean, not when I’m the perpetrator of an injustice. . . but when someone else is.
Most of us have witnessed folks get away with some bad stuff and it never seems to catch up with them. We’ve also seen folks who are good and kind and an absolute blessing, who don’t seem to be able to catch a break.
If the writer of this proverb is as astute as one would hope, then they too noted the world does not operate with immediacy to keep the scales of fairness in balance.
Perhaps, in reference to verses 1 and 2, the writer is observing a calamity or a blessing occurs on the soul, the name and the reputation by virtue of an act.
Those who sow injustice, have their reputation ruined by their behavior. They lose the trust and respect of those around them. Sowing injustice also skews the way we perceive the world.
When we perpetrate injustice in the world, it frames the way we perceive others.
First, it dehumanizes the people we persecute, so it ruins our ability to be in real and meaningful relationship with the image of God within them.
Second, when we perpetrate injustice, we rationalize it by believing other people are trying to do the same to us. We start to see others, not as siblings in the Kin-dom of God, but as competitors or predators in life.
The damage to human relationships that occurs when we sow injustice is a calamity.
Conversely, those who are generous are blessed, not because it will come back 10-fold like some televangelist will tell you about sending money for their new plane. Rather, generous people are blessed by the act of sharing. Sharing blesses our soul, our name and our reputation. Sharing gives us great gratitude.
When we freely give a protion of our possessions, we realize how fortunate we are to have them.
When we see the world with gratitude for all that we have, we find joy and happiness in life.
Generosity breeds gratitude. Gratitude breeds happiness. That’s a blessing.
Though folks evoke God’s name while cutting programs to the under-resourced, the testimony of the Bible is that God always sides with people who are dependent on others’ generosity and empathy.
Do not rob the poor because they are poor or crush the afflicted at the gate, for the LORD pleads their cause and despoils of life those who despoil them.
Big sigh of relief - we’re all better human beings than that. None of us are robbing the poor or rushing the gate to crush the afflicted. Whew. . . God’s not likely to despoil our lives.
Albert Einstein, Photo by Orren Jack Turner, Copyrighted 1947, copyright not renewed. Public Domain.
“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it” ~Albert Einstein
We are not perpetrators of injustice, looking to exploit the poor. Most of us don’t have the resources to do that anyways. We know who the bad actors are. . . They are not us.
If we are lucky, we are not the victims either. At least, not yet.
The most recent Supreme Court decision allowing ICE to racially profile is not likely to pick up too many of us.
The occupation of US cities by the military is not likely to come to Dearborn. At least not yet.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, © 2025, AldrianMimi, Creative Common License CC BY-SA 4.0
“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act” ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer
We are mainstream! Perpetrators always start by victimizing folks who are already outsiders for some reason or another: a sexual minority, a religious minority, immigrants without documentation, people so poor that survival consumes their time and energy.
Perpetrators’ success is dependent on the majority choosing to be bystanders. We see or hear about the abuse, violence, discrimination or bullying that is happening. We’re a little suspicious the victim deserves it. We’re a little relieved they’re not coming after us. We are busy, so we ignore it for the sake of not disrupting our own lives.
Just like Jesus. . .
When he went to the temple and saw all the money changers taking advantage of the poor people by selling them unnecessary sacrifices. No, Jesus didn’t ignore them. . . he flipped their tables over.
Well, there was that time when he saw a crowd around the adulterer, surely if anyone deserves a little humiliation it was her. No. Jesus didn’t ignore that either - he sent away her persecutors and set her free.
How about that time when he was rushing to heal Jairus’ daughter and pressing through the crowd, a bleeding woman touched the hem of his robe. Now, in Jesus’ day, touching a bleeding woman would have made him ritually unclean until the evening. How was he supposed to go and heal Jairus’ daughter while unclean? Jesus didn’t ignore the woman. . . nor the daughter.
Jesus defends and advocates for people victimized by the powerful. A church modeled on Jesus’ life advocates for justice.
Martin Luther King, Jr., 1964. Public Domain
Martin Luther King Jr. said:
“. . . if the church will free itself from the shackles of a deadening status quo, and, recovering its great historic mission, will speak and act fearlessly and insistently in terms of justice and peace, it will enkindle the imagination of mankind and fire the souls of men, imbuing them with a glowing and ardent love for truth, justice, and peace.” ~Martin Luther King Jr.
The church needs to reclaim its voice. We need to claim our spiritual authority and be the conscience of a society that has lost its way.
The United Methodist Social Principles say this:
“We declare that all individuals, no matter their circumstances or social standing, are entitled to basic human rights and freedoms. These rights are grounded in God’s gracious act in creation (Gen. 1:27), and they are revealed fully in Jesus’s incarnation of divine love. As a church, we will work to protect these rights are freedoms within the church and to reform the structures of society to ensure that every human being can thrive.
Reforming the structures of society is a big project. But our inability to do everthing is not an excuse to do nothing. Doing the next right thing brings honor to our name and to Jesus’ name. It moves the world closer to the image of God’s Kin-dom.
Ruby Bridges on School Steps. Photography taken by uncredited DOJ photographer. Copyright Public Domain.
What can we, Dearborn First UMC do?
Created in the image of the Creator, we are creators. We are a community filled with creative people who have a heart for justice. We have musicians, dancers, jewelry makers, knitters, fabric artists, photographers, graphic designers, painters, writers, cooks and more. We can use that creative energy to impact the world.
In 2018, I saw an exhibit of Norman Rockwell paintings that revealed a side of Rockwell I had never known before. He capitalized on his reputation as a beloved artist to hold up a mirror to the American people. His works shows the idealized image of the US and the truth about how it falls tragically short.
One memorable painting shows Ruby Bridges, flanked by US Marshals entering her elementary school in 1960 as the first black student in an all-white school.
Another painting depicts the murder in Mississippi of activists who were registering black voters. Painful and powerful.
Music is another powerful form of protest. Pete Seeger’s songs still define the 1960s anti-war movement. Punk rock of the 1980s was vehemently anti-fascist. And today, I’m really enjoying the music of Jesse Welles and others who speak to the injustices in our world.
Art taps into people’s empathy. It circumvents egotistic defensiveness. It impacts perspectives gradually and profoundly.
I would like to host an artistic Evening of Protest.
We would need a team to help plan, recruit, coordinate and host it with me. Its exact form is to be determined, but it would include lots of people expressing protest thru art.
Paintings
Songs
Protest signs
Poems
Prose
Short films
If you are interested in helping get this off the gound, please email me at Pastor@DearbornFirstUMC.org.
We’ll set up a time to meet that works for all involved.
We will not be bystanders to injustice.
It may be only one small step toward repairing some of the damage done to the reputation of the Christian church, but it’s a step that might ignite the imaginations of people and give them a love for truth, justice, and peace.
I hope you will all come, contibute and invite your friends.
Amen
“We oppose all laws and policies that attempt to criminalize, dehumanize or punish displaced individuals and families based on their status as migrants, immigrants or refugees. Additionally, we decry attempts to detain displaced people and hold them in inhumane and unsanitary conditions. We challenge policies that call for the separation of families, especially parents and minor children, and we oppose the existence of for-profit detention centers for such purposes.”
(UMC 2025-2028 Social Principles, The Political Community, Basic Rights and Freedoms, Migrants, Immigrants and Refugees.)
Pastoral Prayer and Prayers of the People
Please pray with me:
Loving God, in every generation you call forth prophets to proclaim your wod.
We give you thanks that you are still speaking even today.
We confess that we are so convinced we are right, we often miss the Good News.
Forgive us God.
Restore us with humility and awaken us anew
God of justice, peace and righteousness,
Breathe your breath,
your energy,
your enlivening,
your imagination on us.
Bring your healing spirit to those in hospitals and sick beds; to those seeking answers to medical questions: we pray for Doug M, Jim H, and Chris B
Give strength to those who grieve, for the family of Todd P.
Give perseverance to those living with chronic conditions, pain, or terminal diagnoses. Give them eyes to see the joy that exists even in these times.
Bless the caregivers and care receivers: Larry and Rita, Kate and James, Phil and Denise.
Bless this congregation as it boldly steps out to do your work in the world next week. As the church leaves the building, let it be a witness to the world that the true church, your church is in the world, not merley in the pews.
Wake us up - Open our eyes - Unplug our ears
that we might dream
that we might follow the ways of your extraordinary kin-dom.
Amen.
“We reject the use of war as an instrument of foreign policy and insist that every peaceful and diplomatic means of resolution be exhausted before the start of armed conflicts.”
(UMC 2025-2028 Social Principles, The Political Community, Government Responsibilities, War and Military Service)
