The Prophet's Dream (Isaiah 65: 17-25)

What do you think of when you think of the biblical prophets?

The prophets were men and women who saw the way the world was, and they saw the way the world could be. And they saw the difference between the way the world was and the way the world could be – the gap between what was possible and what actually was – and that is what led them to speak, write, and engage in their symbolic, prophetic acts.

Martin Luther King, Jr., was a prophet. He saw what America was capable of, the ideal America that was possible; and he also was well-acquainted with the America that failed to live up to that ideal.

The biblical prophets lived in times of oppression, injustice, and economic inequality. In the midst of this, they described their vision of a better world.

This was their dream. Or, more precisely, it was God’s dream transmitted through them.

Each prophet had their own dream, and yet the dreams are one.

Amos’s dream was that justice would roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Micah’s dream was that the world would be characterized by justice, kindness, and intimacy with God.

Isaiah’s dream included the rough places being made plain, and the crooked places being made straight; every valley exalted and every mountain be brought low.

A new heaven and a new earth; a world in which there is no more sadness, no more weeping, no more lives cut short before their time. All people, living in their own homes; working their own vineyards and enjoying the results of their labor. The wealth they create through their labor will not be taken from them. They will not be driven out of their homeland. They will not be taken into slavery. They will not be oppressed.

And there will be peace.

The wolf and the lamb shall feed together. The predator and the prey. The powerful and the weak. The mighty mountain and the deep valley will be leveled out, so that one is not higher than the other. One will not look down on the other.

It’s an ancient dream; a dream that God has shown to generation after generation.

Martin Luther King, Jr. saw the dream. He saw it in Moses’s description of a promised land. He saw it in the writings of Amos, Micah, and Isaiah. He saw it in Jesus and his description of the kingdom of God.  What Jesus called the kingdom, MLK called the “beloved community.” It’s the world as it should be.

We recognize Martin Luther King as a prophet for racial justice. His dream stated “that our nation will be transformed “into an oasis of freedom and justice…” and “that children will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. was also a prophet for economic justice. He said once, “the inseparable twin of racial injustice is economic injustice.”

The beloved community, the kingdom of God, does not exist when one race oppresses another race; nor does it exist when the rich oppress the poor. The kingdom is not present when the wolves on Wall Street ignore the needs of the lambs on Main Street.  The dream is but a fantasy as long as there is a mountain of wealth in one place, and an empty valley of poverty someplace else.

This, too, is part of what the prophets talked about.

The prophet Hosea (for example) talks about a trader. Not Trader Sam or Trader Joe, but “a trader in whose hands are false balances, and who loves to oppress.” This trader says, “Ah, I am rich, I have gained wealth for myself; in all of my gain no offense has been found in me that would be sin.” [11:7-9]

But then God judges and condemns the trader.

In every society, there are rich people and there are poor people. In some periods of history, the rich are much richer than the poor people, while at other times, the disparity between the rich and the poor isn’t as great.

In the times when there is a great disparity between the rich and the poor, the poor end up being oppressed, forgotten, left behind.

In the times when there is a great disparity between the rich and the poor, eventually one of several things happens: either the poor people revolt, or the economy collapses because it is unable to sustain itself.

And sometimes, an enemy attacks and invades, because the enemy recognizes that an unstable, top-heavy economy weakens the government’s ability to defend itself.

In these times of great disparity, when the rich are much richer and the poor are much poorer… that’s when God called prophets, to speak to the people. Isaiah, Micah, Amos, Hosea, and all the rest.

When the economy was more stable and sustainable, when the poor as well as the rich were able to benefit from economic growth… there were no prophets.  God didn’t call prophets to pronounce judgments on the nations when the gap between the wealthy and the poor was small.  Only when the gap grew, did God call the prophets, and call the nations to judgment.

In our own American history, there have been periods of great inequality, and periods in which the gap was not quite so large.

In the 1920s, the gap between the haves and the have-nots was huge. It was the era of Great Gatsby, the roaring 20s. Things were going great, for those at the top, but little attention was paid to those at the bottom.

An economy like that is unsustainable. It is top-heavy, and in 1929, it all came crashing down.

So, policies and programs were implemented for a fairer, more sustainable economy. Regulations were put in place to ensure that the economy wouldn’t run away for those at the top, leaving those at the bottom behind.

But as the decades passed, and as corporations became more and more powerful, those regulations were eased. Wealth again began to concentrate at the top. And just like in the 1920s, there was a housing boom, the advent of new financial instruments and forms of lending, Ponzi schemes, an increase in the general population's investment in the stock market, and problematic monetary policy.

And at the end of 2007, the economy came crashing down once again.

That was seven years ago. According to economists, the economy has recovered. The stock market is up, although low oil prices seem to be slowing that down a bit.

But has the economy recovered for everyone?

The gap between the rich and the poor is still almost as large as it was in 2007.  Wealth is still concentrated at the top. The current recovery isn’t benefitting everyone. And therefore we continue to live with an economy that is unjust, an economy that fails to move us toward the dream of the prophets.

In the prophet’s dream, the ruling class elite no longer own the vast majority of the world’s wealth. In the prophet’s dream, the poor will no longer work only to have the riches of their labor benefit the wealthy.

In the prophet’s dream, the poor will share in the wealth they help create. All people will be able to live in their own homes. We know that in our own time, home ownership is becoming increasingly difficult. Recent studies say that to afford a home in Los Angeles County, you need a salary of $97,000. Any less than that, and home ownership is out of reach.

The median household income in the county is $56,000.

In the prophet’s dream, people will be able to work their own vineyards and enjoy the results of their labor. The mountains that stand in their way will be made low, and the deep valleys in which they find themselves will be exalted.

Last week, in one of its very first acts, the new House of Representatives voted to make it easier to cut social security benefits… which means that seniors who have labored all their lives and contributed to this country’s great wealth might now find it harder to share in the wealth they helped create.

Before social security, half of all seniors lived in poverty. Since social security, only about nine or ten percent of seniors have lived in poverty. Clearly, cutting social security benefits does not bring us closer to making the prophet’s dream a reality.

Pope Francis has spoken on this issue of how wealth is shared in today’s economy. He said “While the income of a minority is increasing exponentially, that of the majority is crumbling. This imbalance results from ideologies which uphold the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation, and thus deny the right of control to states, which are themselves charged with providing for the common good.”

Many years ago, Theodore Roosevelt recognized this when, in his “Square Deal” speech, he said, “The death-knell of the republic had rung as soon as the active power became lodged in the hands of those who sought, not to do justice to all citizens, rich and poor alike, but to stand for one special class and for its interests as opposed to the interests of others.”

The prophet’s dream has not been fulfilled, but the dream is still alive. It was proclaimed boldly by Jesus, who said he was anointed by the Spirit to bring good news to the poor.  In Jesus, God identified with the poor of the world, by choosing to be born to a mother and father who couldn’t even find a suitable shelter, in a small town of ordinary people living under the shadow of the mighty Roman Empire.

The prophet’s dream is still alive. Martin Luther King, Jr., brought it back to the nation’s attention, and even though many of his supporters cautioned against it, he made the connection between racial injustice, economic injustice, and the injustice of war.

The prophet’s dream is still alive. It is not fully realized, but it is alive in all those who hold the dream in their hearts, and who take action to bring it to fruition.  As Martin Luther King, Jr., said, it is a long journey. The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

The dream will be realized.

The dream will be realized whenever people join hands together – black and white, Jew and Christian and Muslim, rich and poor – and stand for a more just society, a world in which all people experience freedom, a world of joy, of people living in their own houses, sharing in the wealth they helped create, the wolf and the lamb together.

The dream is still alive, and it’s up to us, to allow God’s Spirit to work through us to bring good news to the poor, to bring the mountains down and lift the valleys up.

The dream is still alive.