Jeremiah, Diogenes and Ed Loring

Jeremiah 5: 1 – 9b

Jeremiah 1 describes the prophet’s call. He is obedient but reluctant. Jeremiah 2 announces judgement on the nation of Judah whose flagship capital is Jerusalem. Jeremiah 3 offers rescue for the city and nation already condemned. Jeremiah 4 pictures the destruction of Jerusalem and the prophet agonizing over what he sees coming.

Jeremiah 5:1-9b employs the language of the courtroom. Jerusalem and the nation of Judah have been indicted and found guilty. The sentence has been served. How and why has this happened? Some Bible translations insert headings at the beginning and inside chapters. One New International Version (NIV) publication at the beginning of Jeremiah 5 reads, “Not One Is Upright.” Verse one of Chapter 5 sends Jeremiah scurrying through the streets of Jerusalem looking for one upright person, one who tells the truth and one who does the right thing. The image of an old man, the prophet, with his beard flying and his robe flowing brings a smile. This image brings to my mind two great men, one from long ago, the other from today. The long-ago man is the Greek philosopher, Diogenes. The today one is the Presbyterian cleric, Eduard Loring.

Picture this. Diogenes, lantern in hand, slips inside the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce looking for one honest person. Ed Loring is searching too. He’s downtown at Central Atlanta Progress. Clutching his Bible he looks for one person who tells the truth. Neither the philosopher nor the clergy finds one. Together, the two tip-toe through City Hall security. High and low they look. In City Hall they find only federal agents looking through files. Leaving this third Atlanta monolith, Ed Loring asks his Greek friend if he found one honest person. Diogenes reports the truth, “No, how about you?” The Presbyterian reports the truth, “Hell, no!”

An early definition of “upright” is “vertical.” And “vertical” takes us to plumb line. The Prophet Amos uses the image plumb line to show how far Israel has wandered from her calling, her raison d’etre. The well-fed “kine” of Bashan (Amos 4:1) refers to the women who order their husbands to bring drinks at cocktail hour. Amos knows the cows of Bashan are the best fed and most carefully groomed in the land. Amos is not joking and he’s not making fun. He is exposing the spoiled and arrogant people of the apostate northern kingdom, Israel, whose demise came in 722 b. c. e., 136 years earlier than the fall of Jerusalem. These women are party with those who “sell the righteous for silver and the poor for a pair of sandals.” (Amos 8:11)

The plumb line tells all. In construction, failure to adhere to
its instruction causes the structure to collapse. In covenant, failure to adhere to its instruction causes spiritual collapse. Both Samaria, the capital of northern Israel, and Jerusalem, the capital of southern Judah, collapsed under the weight of their social injustices.

Chapter 5 focuses on Jerusalem’s moral depravity, the charges leveled against her and her unrelenting wanderings. She faces a lawsuit. The searchlight of Yahweh’s scrutiny comes in the form of a court trial, a lawsuit. Jeremiah, strange enough, speaks as a defense attorney in the first six verses. William A. Holladay (Jeremiah, Vol. I, Fortress, 1986) shows Yahweh and Jeremiah talking to each other. Verses 1 and 2 show Yahweh instructing Jeremiah to scour the streets of downtown in order to find one person who acts justly and seeks honesty. At this point Yahweh is saying that this search is taking place so that “I can pardon you. I will forgive this city.”

Holliday sees the first nine verses as a dialogue between Yahweh and Jeremiah. In verses 1 and 2 Yahweh orders the search that could pardon Jerusalem. In verses 3 through 6 Jeremiah tells the results of the search. Verses 7 through 9 record Yahweh’s response.

Note: Whether leadership in Atlanta or California or America believes that the prophets of the Hebrew Bible spoke God’s Word is immaterial. What is pertinent is that quality of life is a universal right for everyone, mandated by God. Universal rejection of the mandate lessons its urgency not a scintilla.

Jim Beaty

Jeremiah 22:16

February 7, 2019

 

 

How Can Atlanta Leadership Be So Callous?

How Can Leadership Remain Callous to This Suffering?

Only second-hand do I know the atrocities committed against the poor in most American cities during recent years. Not so, Atlanta. I have seen firsthand human beings reduced to chattel. At least seventeen persons, all stamped with the badge of “homeless,” died outdoors in freezing temperatures during January and February of 2018. Sixty-one homeless persons have died outside in Atlanta this past year. Thirty-one of those people who died on the streets died from hypothermia, alone. My eyes have seen people huddled in doorways and under bridges, attempting to protect themselves from the death-dealing cold with thin blankets and pieces of cardboard. I am a reliable but hopeless witness. How can leadership remain callous to this suffering? Where is the outcry?

From our front-porch swing I view our Georgia’s gold dome, not a mile away. City Hall borders the capitol, only steps away. Around another corner slouches the mammoth Fulton County complex. These three governing giants exist to serve all the people. Attending the wounds of broken people, theoretically, is one of their raisons d’etre. Driving three different routes from our house to any one of those government complexes exposes pockets of homeless people, languishing. Since the closing of the Peachtree-Pine Shelter late in 2017, women and children are spotted constantly in these nests of misery. One weekday picture of misery includes a dozen men huddled on the porch steps of a church located directly across from the state capitol. On Saturday mornings the steps are clear; that’s hose-off day. On Sunday mornings the steps are clear; that’s worship day. How can leadership remain callous to such suffering?

For three decades of moral draught, defenders of Atlanta City Hall’s hardness have claimed that the City champions the cause of the poor. Defenders of Atlanta’s callousness cite money spent through United Way and other such mockeries like Bloomberg’s millions that did little more than pay the salaries of a few divas, handpicked by then Mayor Kasim Reed. The well-funded Continuum of Care and their well-paid leaders blame the city for the failure to open emergency replacement beds, now that there is no more 24/7 permanent emergency overflow facility. Viable havens like Marion Simpson’s Young Adult Guidance Center have been squeezed into oblivion by the principalities and powers. How can leadership remain callous to such suffering?

And as services are strangled, suffering intensifies. After the deaths by freezing in early 2018, the City rushed to help. It created WARMING CENTERS. These places open only when the temperature drops below 40 degrees. Those already freezing knock on doors that often remained closed until 6:00 p.m. at the earliest. Imagine a mother with two children shivering in 44-degree temperatures being told to come back when the mercury drops to 40 degrees. Jeremiah 4:22b describes the leadership of Jerusalem that mirrors perfectly Atlanta’s leadership, “. . . they are wise at doing ill.” How can leadership remain callous to such suffering?

Every sin recorded against the oppressed in sixth century Jerusalem has been matched or exceeded in twenty-first century Atlanta. Judah’s forsaking Yahweh and her treatment of the oppressed carried the entire nation into Babylonian Captivity in 586 b. c. e. Jerusalem fell to ashes because she eschewed the teachings of the Torah. No judgment inflicted upon Jerusalem will be handed down to Atlanta. She has never been and never will be bound in any way to Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Her only god is avarice, and she serves it well. Atlanta will never be carried off into captivity. She may rot from the inside out, corruption building upon corruption. But before that happens she will go on prospering and building and thriving among her other decadent sisters of our land. How can leadership remain callous to such suffering?

No exposure of Atlanta’s brutality against the poor can be accurately assessed without a close scrutiny of the City’s decades-long attack on the facility known as The Center at Peachtree-Pine, operated by The Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, Inc. This conspiracy, initiated years earlier by Emory Healthcare, became public when the Task Force went to court to have the water turned back on and opened the can of worms that became a years-long court fight to protect the largest emergency facility in the Southeast.

The defendants in this lawsuit were the City of Atlanta, Central Atlanta Progress, Atlanta Downtown Improvement District (ADID), and Premium Funding Solutions, Inc. These four defendants were sued in the Superior Court of Fulton County. The City of Atlanta, quickly was granted sovereign immunity. Emory University was sued separately in the Superior Court of Dekalb County. Legal representation proved nonexistent as not one Emory University defendant was ever deposed. How can leadership remain callous to such suffering?
The shenanigans among lawyers and mediators at the eleventh hour assured that the plaintiffs became the defendants. The defendants, facing trial, dictated every detail of what became known as a forced “settlement.” Good ole boy legal representation, party to this fix, warrants scrutiny. How can leadership remain callous to such suffering?

The so-called “settlement” proved to be a mockery of justice, but the injustice against the thousands of Atlantans experiencing homelessness pales into insignificance when compared to the stealing of the only place of refuge for thousands of homeless men, women and children. Along with losing their last hope for shelter, they have been forced to live “rough,” exposed to cold, rain and the dangers of the streets. A woman living on the street with two children emailed, asking desperately for help. She reported having called or contacted every resource she could find. She was directed to “the Gateway” who put her on a waiting list. She is number 601. How can leadership remain callous to such suffering?

The die is cast. Atlanta has crossed The Rubicon. The city’s boot remains firmly planted on the necks of oppressed people. State, county and city governments, like the great sea-lions in Robinson Jeffers’ poem, “Purse-Sein,” watch, sigh and affirm the carnage. Any hint of abating the oppression is quashed immediately by the greater power of greed. How can leadership remain callous to such suffering?

Atlanta basks this week in the lap of the 2019 Super Bowl. The economic boon to the city is astronomical. It’s good for the great ones to heap riches on their piles of gold. The blatant removal of homeless people was announced by Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who told the press that the City would be clearing out the homeless encampments but went on to say that this “has nothing to do with the Super Bowl.”

According to local weather predictions, there will be brutal cold Tuesday and Wednesday with temperatures as low as 22 degrees. Will the City and the Continuum be opening additional shelters, and will they remain open 24/7? It is often colder in the early morning, when formerly those folks have been turned out of the “warming centers.” How can leadership remain callous to such suffering? Where is the outcry?

Unquestioned proof of this decades-long conspiracy surfaced with the recent purchase of the Peachtree-Pine building by Emory from Central Atlanta Progress for $6.2 million. Both parties were defendants in the lawsuits. Who will tell the real story? Where is the outcry against the power structure in Atlanta? Who will “house” the thousands of unhoused people in this Super Bowl city? The jails? Where can people exist with no place to go?

Jim Beaty
Jer. 22:16
January 29, 2019