"How the faithful city has become a whore!  ...Your silver has become dross, your wine is mixed with water.  Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves.  Everyone loves a bribe and runs after gifts.  They do not defend the orphan, and the widow's cause does not come before them.  Therefore says the Sovereign, the Lord of hosts:  ...I will turn my hand against you; I will smelt away your dross as with lye and remove all your alloy."  (Isaiah 1:21f)

As more and more articles analyze what went wrong with the American financial system, it seems that the blame is ubiquitous.  At every level there has been greed, mismanagement, foolishness, and perfidy.  The wise and skilled used their knowledge for corrupt gain.  Those who were charged with oversight for the common good turned away their gaze.  The free enterprise system that we believed would produce self-regulated prosperity failed.  United Methodist pastor Adam Hamilton notes that “at least five of the deadly sins came into play:  gluttony, greed, sloth, envy, and ultimately pride all came before the fall.  These led to absurd economic practices that bordered on the criminal.”  (quoted in Sojourners, December, 2008)

This is familiar territory for anyone who reads the prophets of the Hebrew scriptures.  This year during the opening week of Advent, those of us who follow the Episcopal Church’s Daily Office Lectionary from the Book of Common Prayer are reading from the first four chapters of Isaiah.  This fifth century BCE prophet addresses greed, dishonesty, corruption, the love of luxury, the idolatry of silver and gold, and indifference to the plight of the poor with poetic words that sound downright contemporary.  "For you shall be ashamed of the oaks in which you delighted; and you shall blush for the gardens that you have chosen.  For you shall be like an oak whose leaf withers, and like a garden without water.  The strong shall become like tinder, and their work like a spark; they and their work shall burn together, with no one to quench them." (1:29-31)

Twenty-four centuries later we watch the withering oaks:  Bear Stearns, WaMu, Lehman, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, AIG, Wachovia, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citibank, Countrywide, IndyMac, GM, Ford, and Chrysler.  "The haughtiness of people shall be humbled, and the pride of everyone shall be brought low."  (2:17)

It is the consistent Biblical message that we sow what we reap.  When we act with pride and greed and fail to walk in God’s says, disaster awaits.

Isaiah offered a process for reform and restoration for his generation.

It starts with leadership that is honest and competent.  "I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning.  Afterward you shall be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city.  Zion shall be redeemed by justice, and those in her who repent, by righteousness." (1:26) 

The prophet demands justice and compassion, especially toward the poor and weak:  “…cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow.” (1:16bf)

Finally, Isaiah imagines a time when people “shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”  (2:4)

Honesty, justice, compassion and non-violence.  That’s the Biblical answer to economic disaster.  We’ve spent the first decade of this century deregulating honesty, empowering the greedy, ignoring the poor, and reacting with violence.  Any of the prophets could have told us what we were sowing.  Disaster.  Repentance is in order.  Repentance means to turn away from what hasn’t worked, and go in the opposite direction.  The old ways of pride haven’t worked.  Why not try honesty, justice, compassion and peace?