Justice and Ecology

SERMON 4. PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIANITY

JUSTICE AND ECOLOGY. Does it matter?

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood” writes Robert Frost in his poem “The Road not Taken”. Pondering over which path to take, he eventually opts for the one less travelled, “…and that has made all the difference”.

Just because a person does not take the Progressive road does not necessarily mean that they do not care about justice and ecology. With the Progressive way however, the intent is overtly stated, such as in points 7 and 8 of the manifesto the Centre for Progressive Christianity:

7. “We are Christians who form ourselves into communities dedicated to equipping one another for the work we feel called to do; striving for peace and justice among all people, protecting and restoring the integrity of all God’s creation and bringing hope to those Jesus called the least of his brothers and sisters.

8. We are Christians who recognise that being followers of Jesus is costly, and entails selfless love, conscientious resistance to evil and renunciation of privilege”.

The goal of these addresses is to give fellow faith travellers a sight of what the path of Progressive Christianity might look like, ‘beyond the bend’ as it were. I am convinced that the way of Progressive Christianity is both true to the life and teaching of Jesus, and also a necessary and important corrective to the self-centredness of our era. The conviction that “Our God is a God of justice; our God is a God of peace” has a pervasive influence on how we interpret Christ’s call to follow him.

I have a few diagnostic questions which might help to decide where one stands and whether the Progressive path is worth further exploration.

1. The first is, “Does it matter that Jesus was a Jew, standing in the tradition of the Law and the Prophets?”

If the Law of God as understood by Jesus matters, then we have to take seriously the imperative to love God, and everyone else. I don’t mean the literal acceptance of everything written in the first five books of the Bible; such as stoning of adulterers. I mean the interpretation of that law as applied by Jesus when he finds a self-righteous crowd about to stone such a woman to death. Apart from anything else, where is the justice in punishing only one of the two guilty parties? “I do not condemn you- go and sin no more” is a case study on applying the law with love.

If the Prophets matter- if Jesus truly stands in succession to Elijah who appears on the Mount of Transfiguration, as well as Micah, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Amos- then the way in which he proclaims good news for the poor cannot be spiritualised but requires advocacy and social change. Is Jeremiah’s impassioned cry for ‘balm in Gilead’ really just to cure my sin-sick soul, or is it as he said, ‘for the hurt of my poor people’.

2. Does Jesus’ life and teaching matter? Does it make any difference, or is it enough that we simply trust in the saving work of his death and resurrection? Is his call to follow simply an instruction to the church and the individual Christian to tell others how to get saved by ‘believing in Jesus’ or does the path of obedience require compassionate identification with all who suffer at the margins of society or in the deep agony of their losses?

3. Are we as human beings simply comprised of two parts, a body and a soul, the first of which is relatively unimportant because when we die it is the soul that flies to God; or are we a complex interaction of body, mind, emotions and spirit, all of which benefit from the transforming influence and energy of God’s Spirit?

To sum it up, is it all about ‘me’ or is it about ‘us’? Was Jesus just joking when he said that the first will be last and the last, first- or did he really mean us to take him seriously?

If it is more about ‘us’ than about ‘me’; if the law of love matters, if the prophetic tradition received and promoted by Jesus matters, if the life and teaching of Jesus matter; if it matters that the Christian life is about the transformation of the individual and the community; then there is an imperative to embrace the way of justice, and its near relative, ecology. By justice I mean more than personal morality. I mean more than keeping myself pure and holy (i.e. separate) as the Jews did under their purity code. Christ’s justice takes us beyond holiness to compassion, and that makes all the difference in the world!

That justice matters is clear from a stream of biblical witness that flows especially strongly in the Gospel of Luke, for example in today’s story of “The Rich Man and Lazarus”. While Progressive biblical scholars are divided as to the literal authenticity of the story, the message is consistent with Jesus’ other teachings about raising the lowly and lowering the high and mighty. If all that the church takes from this story is that the poor can look forward to happier days when they die it has surely missed the point, especially when read in the wider context of Jesus’ teaching. It is likewise not enough to conclude that those who have much should share with those who have but a little. Greed and generosity can have eternal consequences, and restoring of the balance has to do also with systemic change; usually a step too far for both church and state. As Dom Helder Camara said “When I give bread to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist”. Gospel justice requires that we address both the inequity and the things that cause it. The stream continues in the 1 Timothy chapter 6 which highlights the central challenge to the Christian of living with wealth in the midst of need. It matters what you do with it!

That justice matters hit me hard as a young Christian who was initially drawn down the road that proclaimed the preeminence of personal spirituality and individual piety. I found myself being forced again and again to back up and take another look at the Jesus of compassion by the stark examples of injustice that I saw around me. One that is deeply personal has only recently reemerged from that special part of my sub-conscious that exists for those memories that are too painful to regularly reflect on. It happened when I was 16; on a wet Friday evening in Durban. An African man was riding home from work on his motorbike when he was hit by a car at a busy intersection near our home. I had been sent by my father to the corner shop to buy his cigarettes. There I came across the man, lying on the pavement in the rain, his bag of potatoes scattered everywhere, and his shinbone protruding from his left leg. There was little I or a lady who stopped to help could do but try and make him more comfortable by cradling his head and waiting for the ‘black’ ambulance to arrive. A doctor on his way home from the city stopped and administered a morphine injection before he went on his way home. Eventually the ambulance arrived and the injured man was placed on a stretcher. As he lay there the White officer, in walking around him, bumped his left foot. When the man let out a cry of pain the officer said “Don’t be such a crybaby”! That would never ever have been said if the patient had been a White person. I went home drenched with rain and fury, distraught and without the cigarettes!

In those crucial formative years I saw in those who opted for a Christianity of personal piety and literal separation (apartheid is a purity code) a denial of the real hurt of the people: and a willingness to become wealthy from the exclusivity of their chosen way. I could not see for the life of me how any of this could be maintained with integrity in the face of all that Jesus stood for. And that has made all the difference!

When I first came to Australia the sense of lack of tension was palpable. Nothing seemed to matter all that much in the land of “she’ll be right”. It made me wonder whether there were any real social issues for Christians to be concerned about. What I have discovered is a myriad of issues, none of the overriding scale of Apartheid, but together, at least as much of a challenge for the compassion of concerned people. Over time these have become more and not less.

These issues are now being highlighted by the recently formed Centre for Ethical studies, a Christian think-tank for Progressive justice. This eminent group has identified a list of key concerns for Australians, which it intends to put before aspiring politicians before the General Election. (For Christians of the Progressive way there is no barrier to such involvement in the political process; in fact we feel compelled to participate). They identify three broad areas of concern: Our duty to our neighbours in Australia, our duty to our overseas neighbours and our duty to God’s creation. I have placed the full text of their paper in the library, but here is the essence if it:

Our duty to our neighbours matters, and in Australia starts with poverty-reduction. While we acknowledge that our poor are generally better off than in many places, 22% of households live on less than $400 per week. The life expectancy of these poor is 10 years less than the rest of us. 800 000 children live in homes that have never earned an income, and 1 in 6 young people will never have a job. The nation pays a huge social price for this.

Indigenous people are as we know in an even more parlous state, with a life expectancy of 17 years less than the average Australian. The poverty and abuse in Indigenous communities is a scandal.

The issue of housing affordability sees 230 000 households in Australia on the waiting list for public housing, and we are well aware of issues like mortgage stress and the growing unaffordability of housing for first home buyers.

Controversy rages over issues in health, education, welfare reforms and middle-class welfare. Horror stories now emerging from the emergency departments of our hospitals belie the wealth of the nation. From an equality and fair go point of view it is of concern to note that the top 20% of Australians have increased their share of the GNP from 53% in 1967 to 63% in 1998; and rising. While we still have a long way to go to reach the USA level of the top 1% owning 43% of the wealth, some find it most disconcerting that we still seem to keep looking in that direction for our values and our inspiration!

What would the prophets make of this? Is it about me or about us?

Our neighbourliness in the world matters, and can be measured by the proportion of GDP that we contribute to try and stem the annual death rate of 6000 000 children a year from hunger, thirst and preventable diseases. We give 0.3%, compared to the international benchmark of 0.7. This is the equivalent of a person earning $400 per week and giving 33…cents! Journalists are still debating how generous we are as a nation. Charity may well begin at home, but what a tragedy if in our lack of generosity of spirit we ensure that it ends there as well!

Our contribution to the cause of refugees and peacemaking is hotly debated in the public arena and it is for each to make their own judgment.

Finally, to ecology. Does our physical environment mater, or is it just a container, packaging to be used, abused and discarded? Do future generations matter? There are some good reasons for Christians to choose a path that includes environmental concern as a justice as well as a spiritual issue.

Firstly, we do so because it is God’s creation, and God is revealed to us in and through its beauty and its bounty. It is a way that we come to know God; what Matthew Fox calls the ‘Via Positiva’ pathway to God.

Secondly, all creation has value in itself, and every living thing must be valued. While we do not value the lives of animals as equal to those of humans, is it of no consequence that two dogs trained to sniff out roadside bombs have been killed recently while working in Afghanistan? The victims of war include living things beyond human beings, not to mention the degradation of the natural environment.

Thirdly, we live by the bounty of creation, and as we care for it we care for ourselves and one another.

Finally, and related to this, it is almost always the poor who suffer first and most from ecological disasters. Just ask the New Orleans survivors of Cyclone Katrina! ABC news recently reported Police Commissioner Mick Keelty warning of the security implications of flood tides of Chinese refugees fleeing environmental disaster.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon was saying that our generation will be defined by the way we respond to and deal with the challenge of Climate Change. Our Federal Government is now showing an increased commitment to renewable energy. Surely, we can do that, even if the NSW government keeps its head firmly in the overburden as it approves new coalmines at Anvil Hill and Moolarben.

The task is huge, but tackling it matters. The narrow and less travelled road is nevertheless an authentic Christian way, and we take it not because success is assured but because Christ calls us to it. As the late Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was gunned down at the altar of his church because he opposed those who oppressed the poor, said: “We accomplish in our lifetimes only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete…but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for God’s grace to enter…We are prophets of a future not our own”

Like the prophet Jeremiah we must have the faith to make ethical investments even when the tide of the share market is running in the opposite direction. For as James Russell Lowell wrote, and as we used to sing:

Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong;

Though her potion be the scaffold and upon the throne be wrong

Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,

God still stands within the shadow keeping watch above his own.

And that has the potential to make all the difference

In fact, the choosing of the less travelled road is a challenge for all of us, whatever path we are now on. The person who is travelling the path of personal piety with integrity will sooner or later be confronted by the compassionate Christ to include the way of justice in their itinerary. Like mild-mannered and moderate Oscar Romero, the Buddhist monks of Burma seemed unlikely activists; however their compassion for the starving children of Rangoon has brought them onto the streets in a costly act of discipleship. On the other hand those already on the social justice trail need to be confronted with the urgency of reconnecting to deeper spiritual energy that comes in the quiet and personal spaces. God’s justice and Christ’s compassion is accomplished “not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit” says the Lord. It seems that whichever path we first choose, be it personal piety or justice, the moment comes when the two paths cross, and we are invited to either keep going on our chosen way, or take the third way, the way that integrates the other two. When we find this way we will have found wholeness and a deep maturity which is beyond competing theologies. Then, we will truly be following Christ- going forward together in faith on the way that truly matters.

Brian Brown