The governor Nehemiah and the infamous tax collector Zacchaeus both understood that faith must be accompanied by action. 

Nehemiah, Governor of Judah, had tremendous compassion for the Hebrew people who had returned to Jerusalem from Babylonian captivity.  They were a crushed people, spiritually starved.  Nehemiah not only rebuilt the walls of the city of Jerusalem but he led the Hebrew people to a spiritual awakening, and defended and protected the powerless. 

He understood that God cares especially for the poor and marginalized, and after learning that powerless Jews were forced to borrow money on their fields and vineyards in order to pay the King’s tax he was outraged.  He stopped his work on the city walls to bring charges against the nobles and the officials, saying simply, “The thing that you are doing is not good” (Nehemiah 5:9). “Let us stop this taking of interest,” (5:10), and he persuaded them to restore all that they had exacted from their fellow people.  

Zacchaeus, a chief tax collector, was a rich man whose faith we know little about except that he had enough of it to climb a sycamore tree to get a look at Jesus, and that after having dinner with Jesus he said, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much,” (Luke 19:8).  
 
Both of these men realized, through their faith, a deep understanding of economic justice.  They demonstrated their love for God and for their fellow human beings by not allowing people in higher positions of power to take advantage of the poor. 
 
The work of the faith community to protect and advocate for the poor and marginalized continues today.  Payday lending preys upon financially vulnerable people directly and it indirectly undermines the church’s work, outreach, and contributions to poor and low-income people.  While we work to improve the lives of the less fortunate through our direct giving or through our partnerships with service organizations, predatory lenders are waiting on the sidelines to strip them of any opportunity to turn their lives around.