Archive for the ‘Social justice’ Category

Praise or sarcasm – the widow’s mite

November 9, 2024

Pentecost 25 – 2024

Mark 12:38-44

Marian Free

In the name of God who consistently demands that we care for the alien, the widow and the orphan. Amen.

Recently I had cause to meet someone for lunch in Beenleigh.  Just prior to the shopping centre I made a wrong turn. We found ourselves in what had been a park. Well, it was still a. park, but now every square inch was covered with tents and tarpaulins. People who for whatever reason had nowhere to live had made homes of a sort in this relatively out of the way place. 

I cannot imagine what it must be like to be a parent who has to put their children to bed without a proper meal, to send them to school  without the right school books or who has to tell their children that their home is no longer their home and that they will be living in a tent or in a car or in someone’s garage until they can find another home to rent. The current cost of living crisis and the shortage of accommodation means that more and more people are finding themselves in these sorts of situations – tossing up between paying the power bill and buying nutritious food, having to rely on food banks and the kindness of others, and constantly having to say “no” to one’s children.

In Jesus’ time there was no welfare. The poor were totally reliant on the kindness of others. Women were entirely dependent on their families – their fathers and then their husbands and then their sons.  Widows who did not have sons were particularly vulnerable. The Temple offerings were meant in part to support the widow and the orphan, but Jesus’ attack on the scribes suggests that this was not a current practice.

Our use of scripture is fascinating. Despite the fact that this morning’s gospel begins with Jesus’ attack on the scribes (scribes who ‘devour widow’s houses’). Most preachers (myself included) have tended to use the widow’s actions as an example of sacrificial giving. Many a stewardship sermon has urged congregation members to give until it hurts, using the widow’s willingness to give her last coins as a model for the giving approved by Jesus.

At first glance, Jesus does appear to commend the widow for giving everything (in contrast to the rich whose large gifts represented only a small proportion of their total wealth).  “For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.” But is this really the point that Jesus is making? Can we really imagine Jesus – the same Jesus who raised the son of the widow of Nain and so saved her from destitution – taking delight in the actions of a widow that will leave her nothing to live on? Could Jesus, raised on the Old Testament insistence that the Israelites care for the widow and the orphan, simply commend the woman from a distance and allow her to return home to die (if indeed she has a home to go to)?

The usual interpretation, tempting as it is to all clergy who would like to encourage parishioners to be more generous, denies the widow of her personhood. She becomes an object lesson rather than a flesh and blood individual. No attention is paid to her life, how long she has been widowed, whether or not her husband had left her with something or nothing, whether or not she ever had sons, where her father and brothers might be, or how she has survived until now. No thought is given to her current state of destitution – her two small coins would only have been able to purchase enough flour to make one or two biscuits. No one asks whether she is giving away the coins, not as a sign of generosity, but as evidence of her complete despair – her willingness to give up and die.

Interpreting the widow’s act as a sacrificial also fails to take into account the immediate and the wider context of the story. Given Jesus’ prior comments about the scribes – who not only do everything they can to draw attention to themselves, but who also use their status and their education to impoverish widows – (charging for legal assistance, taking advantage of a widow’s hospitality, taking money on the promise of a prayer)[1] – it is more likely that Jesus is here continuing his critique of the scribes. You can almost hear his voice dripping with sarcasm – rather than commending the widow, he is condemning the scribes – she is giving all she had to live on. The scribes, whose task it was to interpret the law, appear to have forgotten the law’s instruction to care for the widows. While they give only what they can afford, they treat the widow as if she doesn’t exist.

Rather than be an example of sacrificial giving, the widow serves to expose the self-serving, self-obsessed scribes who think only of the attention that they receive if they wear their long robes and make long prayers. 

The wider context of these verses supports this interpretation. It commences with Jesus’ Cleansing of the Temple (11:15-19) and concludes with Jesus’ prediction of the destruction of the Temple (13:1-2). Throughout the section the focus is on the corruption of the Temple worship and on the failure of the leaders of the church.  

In this broader context the widow becomes an illustration of just how far from God’s ideal the church has fallen. That a widow, who has nothing left to live on should feel that she has to continue support the Temple (instead of it supporting her) indicates that the system has become so corrupt that it cannot sink any lower. 

This gives us pause for thought. What does Jesus see when he looks at our society, our care (or lack of care) for the poor, the vulnerable, the homeless? Had Jesus been in the car with me in Beenleigh, would he have commented: “Look how simply they live.” meaning, “how well you and your kind are living”?

What does Jesus see and how is he calling us to respond to the present economic crisis?

[1] Chelsey Harmon points out that the scribes were guilty of taking advantage of widows: 

  • though it was forbidden, many took payment from widows for providing legal assistance;
  • while serving as lawyers, some cheated on the wills or mismanaged the widows’ estates;
  • some scribes were known to take advantage of, and freeload upon, the hospitality offered to them by widows;
  • certain scribes were in the habit of taking payment and promising to make intercessory prayer for widows (i.e., making it a business transaction);
  • and if a widow could not pay, there were known cases where scribes literally took the widow’s home as payment for services rendered,
  • offering to invest their money, then robbing them of it. https://cepreaching.org/commentary/2021-11-01/mark-1238-44-3/

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No wriggle room – Supporting systemic injustice

September 24, 2022

Pentecost 16 – 2022

Luke 16:19-31

Marian Free

In the name of God who gives some of us more than we deserve or desire.  Amen.

 I am not an economist, but it is clear to me that the world economy has vastly changed over the course of my lifetime. Small, local businesses have been overtaken by huge multi-national companies which, by all accounts, care more about the profit margin than they do about those workers who produce the profits. They are more interested in the return that they can give to their shareholders and the enormous salaries that they can offer their executives than about the workers upon whom they depend for their income.

While huge (even obscene) bonuses are given to those at the top of the corporate ladder, and healthy dividends are given to shareholders, those who generate the income rarely see any benefits from their contribution to the revenue. Global corporations are sometimes so profit-driven that their employees endure terrible (often dangerous) conditions in order that their company might reap the reward and that others might wear cheap clothing and their need for on-line shopping might be satisfied.

Today, few executives – even if they do live in the same country as their employees – would not know them by name, let alone know anything about their families or living conditions. We are far removed from the days of small businesses in which the boss knew those who worked for him (her) and who, when times were good, would share the results with those upon whom the business relied, and who, when labour was in short supply, would offer higher wages to attract staff.

While many of us may lament the current situation of globalisation and the emphasis on profit over care (for the labourer, the environment, or indeed anything beyond the desire to increase the corporation’s income), we find ourselves complicit in a system in which the majority support the lifestyle of a few. We are happy to pay less for consumer goods produced by vulnerable, underpaid people in third world countries and to indirectly support global corporations who meet our need for convenient on-line shopping. Many of us, particularly those of us who are now retired, are dependent on our investments (personal or through superannuation funds) for an income and are therefore reluctant to act in such a way that would result in a lower standard of living for ourselves.

So, if ever there was a parable that hit you straight between the eyes it would be the one retold in this morning’s gospel – the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Nowhere else does Jesus speak so directly about the afterlife or about the consequences of our lifestyle in the present. As we listen/read to the description of the place in which the rich man and Lazarus find themselves, we are filled with a level of dis-ease. We feel ourselves condemned along with the rich man, and realise that if, like the rich man we find ourselves on the wrong side of the chasm, there is no escape, no way to cross to the other side and no means to get any relief from our suffering.

Our discomfort can mean that our immediate reaction to the parable is to distance ourselves, to look for a way out. We reassure ourselves that we are not like the rich man. For starters, we are nowhere near as rich, and we are generous with what we have – donating to charities that support the poor and homeless and paying our taxes so that the government can make social welfare payments and build housing. We comfort ourselves with the knowledge that the image of Hades presented here is unique and does not match other images of the afterlife. (Of course, we expect to be judged, but to be honest most of us are confident that God’s mercy will see us spend eternity in a place of peace and light, where our every need is met and in which we need not even think about there being an alternate destiny (let alone have such a place within our field of vision)).

What is striking, and what causes the best of us to squirm, is the implication in the parable that our eternal fate depends not on whether we are “good” or “bad” in conventional terms but on our relative wealth. Jesus is deliberately sparse on detail. Indeed, we know nothing about the two men except that one is fabulously rich and the other so desperately poor that he would settle for crumbs that fall from the table. It is our imagination that makes the rich man callous and thoughtless, but his crime seems to be only that he is fabulously rich. As far as we know, he may well have been law-abiding and generous – paying the Temple tax, supporting widows and orphans, and insisting that anyone who came to his door be fed and clothed. Likewise, there is no evidence that Lazarus is “good”. The parable leaves open the possibility that he is not, that he brought his poverty on himself – through loose living, being caught out stealing, or by over-imbibing in alcohol.

Our imaginations see the rich man going in and out of his gate and ignoring Lazarus’ suffering, but again there is nothing in the parable to suggest that the rich man even notices Lazarus. (Equally, there is nothing to suggest that he doesn’t see and doesn’t offer some relief – however small.) Whatever the rich man does or doesn’t do or see in regard to Lazarus, what is clear is that he does nothing to address the situation that allows him to be so rich and Lazarus so poor.

According to the parable, what matters is that the rich man had received good things during his life and Lazarus had received evil things (16:25). In Hades the situation is reversed and just as there was a chasm between the two in life, so there is in death. It was not their behaviour (good or bad) in life that determined their fate but their collusion (or not) in the systemic inequities that resulted in some people living in relative comfort while others existed in dire poverty. The situation is possibly exacerbated by the rich man’s inability to recognise that his lifestyle (not to mention his apathy, greed and selfishness) contributed to and reinforced the differences between himself and Lazarus.

In the end, the parable suggests, there is no wriggle room.  We might have worked hard for what we have, lived a good and righteous life and have been generous with this world’s goods, but if, at the end of the day we have failed to recognise that the system has benefitted us and disadvantaged others, and, if we have done nothing to rectify that state of affairs, we will be found wanting.

The solution begins by seeing – seeing the poor at our gate, identifying the ways in which we support a system which puts (and keeps) them there and doing what we can to build a more just and equitable world.

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A radical realignment of the world

January 22, 2022

Epiphany 3 – 2022
Luke 4:14-21
Marian Free

In the name of God who asks that we do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God. Amen.

I grew up within sight of the University of Queensland, not far from the main road that ran between the University and the city. My father was an academic, so I was very aware of the student activism of the 1960’s and 1970’s – especially around the issues of conscription and apartheid. The protest marches passed by the end of our street. My father signed a petition objecting to the suggestion that the then Premier allow the military on to the University grounds. Students who were members of our Parish shared their experiences with us (and worried about whether their landlady would terminate their lease if she saw their images on the evening news. It was a time of activism and of engagement with political issues both at home and abroad and though I was not old enough to be involved, I was very aware of what was going on in the world around me.

In the conservative State of Queensland, public opinion was divided. The protesters were labelled as firebrands, troublemakers and radicals and legislation was introduced that forbade marches and public gatherings. Indeed, the then Premier declared a month-long state of emergency in reaction to the unrest.

A popular refrain at the time was that sport and politics had no relationship to each other. Those who supported the 1971 Springbok tour could not understand that by welcoming an all-white football team to this nation we were in fact condoning (indeed supporting) the policies of a government that excluded the majority of its citizens from playing rugby at a national level and whose policy of apartheid was oppressive and unjust.

When the church makes its voice heard on social issues such as climate change or the current policies on refugees we are told that the church should keep out of politics and that religion and politics should not mix. Churches/Christians that take this position to heart risk finding themselves in the company of the majority of churches in Germany who by choosing to remain silent allowed Hitter to send six million Jews to their deaths believing that the church had no place in politics or public affairs.

Such an attitude or way of thinking that is not supported by our scriptures as our gospel today reminds us.

From the time of Leviticus, through to the arrival in the promised land, to the urging of the prophets, the themes of caring for the widows, the orphans and the aliens in the land have been pronounced loudly and clearly in the Hebrew Scriptures. In the gospels, Jesus’ harshest words were addressed to the priests and Pharisees who neglected their responsibilities to the poor and disenfranchised and to those who put a narrow interpretation of the law above compassion and generosity. Jesus told the comfortable, the do-gooders and the self-satisfied that prostitutes, tax-collectors and sinners would enter heaven before them.

Of all the gospel writers it is Luke who is most concerned with the theme of social justice. Mary’s song (based on the song of Hannah) blatantly claims that in choosing her to bear God’s son, God has ‘has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.’ God’s programme, as announced by Mary, is quite clearly one that will address the inequities and injustices of the world. According to her, God is not just concerned with piety and goodness, but with radically addressing the structures that favour some people over others.

As we have heard today, Jesus’ first and only recorded sermon does not speak of morality or obedience or even of faith. Jesus doesn’t call the people to repentance or even to prayer or spirituality (even those these are evident in his life). His mission as he understands it is one of setting the world to rights. Quoting Isaiah Jesus reads: ‘the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.” Then, controversially, he proclaims that these words have come to fruition in his life and ministry.

If our faith is a matter of pious sentimentality or if we are under the illusion that access to the kingdom has to do with keeping the Ten Commandments and doing good works, we will be unsettled, if not outright offended by Jesus’ words. For most of us, a radical realignment of society through the redistribution of power, status, and wealth would impact negatively on our comfortable lifestyles and a rearrangement of the way in which the world is ordered would necessitate a fundamental change in our attitudes and values. (Imagine, for example, if the prisoners really were set free.)

Christians are not called to uphold the status quo, to behave in ways that do not rock the boat, to accept the decisions of their governments without demur or to observe the thoughtlessness, unkindness or cruelty that enshrine such things without challenging the people and institutions that encourage such behaviour and who enshrine it in law. Jesus calls us to challenge and to confront the structures and systems that hold people captive, and which diminish or destroy their capacity to live lives that are rich and meaningful.

We are not truly free until everyone is free. So long as some live in poverty, the lives of us all are impoverished. If we do not critique the nature of the society in which we live, we are guilty of condoning and supporting its inequities.

What does it truly mean to follow Christ, and what changes do we need to make in our own lives in order to be part of a process that builds and more just and equitable world?

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To act or not to act

January 23, 2016

Epiphany 3 -2-16

Luke 4:14-21

Marian Free

In the name of God who challenges us to build a world without poverty, injustice or oppression. Amen.

The Clergy Summer School usually has two guest speakers. This year our guests were a Professor of Physics from the University of Queensland – Ross McKenzie and an American who is passionate about the pastoral uses of social media, Joshua Case. I’ll share more about social media another time, but this morning I wanted to tell you something about the Parish from which Joshua comes – The Church of the Holy Innocents in Atlanta, Georgia.  From what I can gather, the parish is not too different from our own. It is Anglican and is situated in a middle-to-high income suburb. There are at least two differences between ourselves and Holy Innocents. One is that on a Sunday five hundred people regularly attend services.  Another is the social justice focus of that Parish.

As I understand it, Joshua was employed to assist the congregation discover how they could live into their name – Holy Innocents. This exploration led to a realisation that if their church were to honour the children slaughtered by Herod, they would need to identify and to side with the vulnerable in their own time and place. A number of initiatives have emerged from this starting point. For example, every year the church seeks and obtains the names of all children in the state who have been violently killed over the course of the year. The names of the children are recorded and once a year the church holds a twenty-four hour vigil during which the names of all the children are read aloud.

Children are not the only vulnerable members of society.  In Atlanta, as elsewhere, homeless people have created a tent city on vacant land. The local fire department has made it their mission to support the homeless with food and other necessities. Last week (when the temperatures were still between -1 and 10 degrees C) the local authorities moved in and bulldozed a section of the camp.  That same week, the Federal authorities shipped a number of Latinos – some who had arrived through the appropriate channels and some who had not – to a detention centre in another state. Most of the children detained attended the school associated with the Parish.

The Parish’s relationship with the members of the Fire Department and with the children attending the school means that these actions directly affect them and their mission. They must work out how to respond, knowing that taking a stand may well make them unpopular with others in the city, the state and even the nation.

In today’s gospel, Luke depicts Jesus reading from the book of Isaiah. The language is uncompromising: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” From Exodus to Malachi, the Old Testament records God’s preference for the poor and the marginalised and details God’s anger: “against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the alien, and do not fear the LORD of hosts” (Mal 3:5). “Cursed be anyone who deprives the alien, the orphan, and the widow of justice” (Deut 27:19).

Even though the Bible is very clear about God’s expectations, many of us find social activists to be uncomfortable people and we tend to want to distance ourselves from those who challenge the status quo. There are a number of possible reasons for our disquiet – the words and actions of social activists can and often do bring them into conflict with the government and the law and we don’t want to be seen as law-breakers. Activists are uncomfortable people because their willingness to act and take risks can lead to our feeling that we are lacking in courage or determination or, worse, that we have no compassion or understanding for the situations in which some people find themselves.

Those who challenge the status quo are often made to pay for daring to name things as they see them, for standing for and with the oppressed. Michael Lapsley a New Zealander and a Franciscan received a letter bomb that robbed him of both hands and an eye because he dared to speak out against apartheid. Oscar Romero, an El Salvadorian bishop was shot at the altar for taking a stand behalf of the poor. Peter Greste an Australian journalist and his colleagues were arrested and jailed in appalling conditions for reporting the truth as they observed it in Egypt.

We should not be surprised at the crowds’ reaction to Jesus. Jesus’ claim that the words of scripture had been fulfilled in himself was not the source of their anger. Rather it was his interpretation of the words of Isaiah (at least this is N.T. Wright’s suggestion).  With the passage of time, these words and other OT texts had lost some of their sting. As a people who had been in exile or under foreign domination for the better part of 500 years the Jews had come to believe that the words of Isaiah spoke to their situation – they saw themselves as the poor, the oppressed and the imprisoned.  They believed that when God’s anointed came, he would to set them free. They had lost sight of their responsibility for the vulnerable among them.

In his words and in his actions, Jesus demonstrated his compassion for the outsider – the poor and the dispossessed. By claiming that the words of Isaiah were fulfilled in himself, Jesus was calling the people to return to their biblical roots, to revive a concern for the widow and the fatherless, the hired worker, the alien and the poor.  This made him an uncomfortable figure, someone whom they didn’t want to have around. In the first century, Jesus is interpreting words that were written some five hundred years previously. In the twenty first century, it is our task to make sense of the words for our own time and place.

What do we make of Jesus’ words? Do they make us anxious, uncomfortable or uncertain?  Are we tempted to push the uncomfortable Jesus away from us (over a convenient cliff)? Or do these words challenge us to consider how we should respond. Do they encourage us to ask: Whose are the voices that are not heard in our day? Who are the people who are longing to be set free?  Where are the marginalised and the oppressed?

What is our role as Christians in the world today? Are we meant to keep our hands clean and our heads down or does God demand that we take an interest in and demonstrate a concern for what is going on around us? Do we leave issues like domestic violence, homelessness and refugees to the secular world, or do we take a stand and, with Jesus, initiate God’s kingdom here on earth?

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