capitalism's cage full of birds

“…The heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live…”
(Ecclesiastes 9.3)
 
Wherewith shall I come before the LORD,
and bow myself before the high God?
He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good;
and what doth the LORD require of thee,
but to do justly, and to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with thy God?
​(Micah 6.6, 8)

capitolism's cage full of birds
​a meditation on ​jeremiah 5.26-29

26For there can be found among my people ungodly individuals.
   They keep watch, like bird catchers watching a trap.
      They place traps, they capture human beings.
27Just as a bird cage is full of birds,
   their houses are filled with deceit.
      This is how they have become powerful and wealthy.
28They have grown fat and plump,
   having gone beyond, even, the wicked words they speak.
They will not hear a legal case--
   such as that of an orphan— and yet they enjoy success.
      Nor will they bring the cases of the impoverished to trial.
29Should I not level a charge against these?--
   an oracle of YHWH--
      Should I not take vengeance on a nation such as this? (author’s translation)

Some words seem more “pregnant” with meaning than others. In scripture, words like “redemption” or “justice,” or “wicked,” or “righteousness,” or “temple,” or “miracle” grab all the headlines. We spend time analyzing and defining them. There are other words we hardly notice, as if they were but supporting actors. But sometimes these supporting actors can take on a starring role.
 
In this reading, the word, “therefore” (“for this reason,” “as a result”), my “this is how,” should be given a leading role. It carries a powerful punch, and contains one of the punch lines of the passage. The “wicked” or “ungodly” we are informed, are loaded. Their wealth allows them to eat well—so well that, unlike most of humanity for most of human history, they take on added weight. As they grow portly, their skin stretches to cover the additional area causing it to take on a certain “shine.” The “therefore” reminds us how they achieved their wealth and the comfort and even extravagance it provided. Their “good fortune” comes through deceit and corruption practiced against the vulnerable—orphans and the impoverished in this case.
 
As is so often the case in the Old Testament, the wealthy are portrayed here as predators who think of and act toward their prey as if they were something less than human. As a bird catcher captures birds with a trap, the tool the wealthy uses to fill their houses with vanities is deceit and fraud. But, with his imagery of a cage full of birds, Jeremiah reminds us that the materialistic gains the wealthy acquire through fraud are as trifling as their fraud is wicked. For, what, really, is more trivial than a cage full of birds? The wealthy inflict great harm on humans for the frivolous pleasure of the echo of chirps.
 
The false mythology of American style capitalism would have us believe that wealth comes to the virtuous—the more wealth, the more virtue. That virtue may take many forms, but one of its most common virtues, so the myth goes, is hard work. The fact is, in this world, as Cain discovered at the earlies stages of human existence, wealth is most often accumulated through violence against others. Capitalism’s false doctrine cannot silence or undo this Biblical truth, emphasized and illustrated over and over again in the sacred text.
 
“Therefore,” in today’s text, is, therefore, the bearer of a time-honored Biblical truth that has been under assault throughout its long career. Those who profess belief in and claim to honor the Bible must resists the siren song of capitalism’s myth of innocence and inevitability. They must not only resist its lies individually but must agitate in such a way as to make society uncertain of capitalism’s false pretentions of virtue.
 
Even so, come, Lord Jesus!