Oppression: a history

The other day, I was reading the opening chapter of the Old Testament book of Exodus. I've read it before, but as so often happens, something jumped out at me that previously never had. Of course I knew the story was about slavery and deliverance. But the way the story is told is a real study of the roots and development of oppression.
It sets the scene by telling us about a people group (the Israelites, the family of Jacob) who had migrated from famine-stricken Canaan to prudent Egypt (who had stored grain during the boom years for the bust years). Incidentally, the brains behind that Egyptian plan had been Jacob's son Joseph, who'd been sold to an Egyptian as a slave, and had been fast-tracked to Grand Vizier.  But now, in a different generation, all the original cast have gone, and the Israelites have been fruitful and multiplied in Egypt. So the new Pharaoh decides that they are too numerous, and something needs to be done about them. The story goes that,

"He said to his people, ‘Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.’" (Exodus 1:9-10)

There are a lot of hauntingly familiar notes to this. I wonder whether Pharaoh said this stuff to his people at a rally? Whipping them into a frenzy, stirring up a wave of anti-Israelite feeling with his racist rhetoric? What really struck me about this speech, though, was the way he so expertly de-humanises the Israelites. He is afraid of them becoming too powerful, but doesn't respect them as being able to overthrow Egypt themselves. They might join Egypt's enemies, he says. And there's classic 'them' and 'us' language as well. The Israelites are 'them,' they are different, inferior, other. Egypt has problems, and these problems are laid by Pharaoh at the door of the Israelites, the others among them. In this story, the Israelites are a people group that has arisen, or arrived, and has never (been) integrated into society. At least, that's Pharaoh's angle on it.
How often do we see this stuff? How common has this pattern been in human history? A 'dominant' people group vilifies an 'easy target', and then builds systems to oppress them. I can think of some examples, like Africans, Jews, indigenous peoples (in the Americas and the Atipodes), homosexuals, those with disabilities, women, religious minorities, the poorest in most societies. So often such groups have been scapegoated for political or economic crises not of their making. In many cases, people have been de-humanised, ghettoised, even experimented upon (it's well-known that the Nazis conducted experiments in the concentration camps; I've also heard that black people were treated similarly in Victorian times). Slavery is built upon the notion that the other, the slave, is not fully human, not equal to their masters. Ethnic cleansing is another deadly fruit of this kind of thinking.
Today, I see elites, politically and even more so economically, building systems and sructures that protect their own privilege by the organised oppression of the many.
Another observation on this stuff is that it's often classed as 'phobia' of some kind or another, such as 'xenophobia', or 'homophobia', or 'Islamophobia'.  This has a connotation of hatred (of the other, the homosexual, or Islam, in the examples I've mentioned).  But that hatred is born of fear.  Phobia means fear.  If someone has a phobia of spiders, they don't start a campaign against them.  They usually run screaming.  However, phobias can be overcome.  And often, they are overcome by learning, by experience and understanding, by replacing ignorance with education.  A friend of mine recently told me how she was scared of dogs when she was little.  Then the family got a dog.  She wasn't scared anymore, and now she has a dog which is helping my kids deal with their uncertainty around canines.
In the New Testament letter called 1 John, the writer, an experienced member of the early Christian community, briefly talks about fear.  Writing in Greek, he or she uses the word phobos, meaning fear, the root of phobia.  But the emphasis isn't on fear, it's on the antidote:

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. 21 The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also." (1 John 4:18-21)

Love casts out fear.  If we have love, which comes from God, perfect love from an experience of the loving God, we can't hate others.  The more we are full of love, the less room there is for fear and hate.  I guess the Exodus image and idea works in many dimensions.  It's not just the slaves who are set free by the end of slavery.  It's the 'masters' too.  It's not just the hated and oppressed who are released; it's the haters and the oppressors.  Set free by love.  Set free to love.
Then we can recognise that, despite our differences (and we are all different), there is no them and us.  There's just us.

Postscript: Tradition - it's in our blood

Tradition

 In The Salvation Army, the word tradition is often bandied about.  I have, at times, been accused of being an un-traditional Salvationist, largely, I understand, on the basis of my not especially liking brass bands.  I suspect other superficial aspects of Salvation Army worship and culture may have been included here also.  But I have to say, some of my favourite Christian songs are what might be termed good, old-fashioned Army anthems, like “Storm the forts of darkness,” and “On we march”, and almost anything penned by Generals Orsborn or Gowans.

 Anyway, I bring all this up because I believe that what many Salvationists think of as our traditions are not as traditional as they think.  Our traditions, our heritage, going way back to our origins, have more to do with attitudes, character, outlook.  The “charisms of the Founders” are more traditional than bands and songsters and uniforms.

 And in this respect, I believe I am a dyed-in-the-wool traditionalist.  I believe our finest traditions have to do with our constituents.  Our movement was for the little people, with the little people, and by the little people.  I want to issue a challenge here, that we retain, or perhaps recover, that central element of our heritage.  You could say that it is our DNA.

Bloodline

 And DNA, bloodlines, heritage, are so important in the overall biblical narrative.  Salvation history revolves around one particular lineage.  Jesus of Nazareth, the gospel writers are keen to point out, is descended from King David.  In this way, he fulfils the role as the Messianic Son of David.  In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is acknowledged as the Son of David on a number of occasions.  Let’s take a brief survey:

• By “the crowds” in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday (Matthew 21:9).  The term “the crowds” may be an equivalent to the Am Ha-aretz, the ‘people of the land’, treated with contempt in Jewish writings such as the Talmud and the Mishnah.  Their biggest fault appears to be a lack of attention to ritual cleanliness.  If “the crowds” does refer to such people, these would be very much outcast, the little people.

• By the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15:22.  We’ve already discussed her story, but to recap, she was a foreigner, outside the people of Israel, and by rights, less familiar with the title and its significance.

• By children, again on Palm Sunday, in the temple (Matthew 21:15).  This angered the chief priests and scribes, but Jesus simply directed them to Psalm 8:2, that well-known verse, “Out of the mouths of babes…”

• By blind men, more than once (Matthew 9:27; 20:30-31).  These men could not see, but they recognised Jesus’ heritage better than most.  Need I say more?

 Quite a surprising bunch of people.  The uneducated, the alien, the disabled.  These were the ones who saw Jesus as the Son of David.  Rarely is the title used of Jesus by anyone else.  But for these people, the Messiah would be the Son of David.  It seems to me that this was how they understood the Messiah.  Not only was David Israel’s greatest king, and the man after God’s own heart.  A vital link between David and Jesus is seen in his relationship with the little people.  In 1 Samuel 22:1-2, we read of David, fleeing King Saul, and taking up residence at the cave of Adullam.  And here, the distressed, the debtors and the discontented came to him in their hundreds, “and he became captain over them.”  This was David’s army.  These were his people.

 Later, when David had finally taken the throne, he also embraced Mephibosheth, the disabled son of Jonathan.  2 Samuel chapter 9, which reports that story, ends by telling us that Mephibosheth “always ate at the king’s table…”  David sent for the man, and had table fellowship with him from that time forward.

 The distressed, the debtors, the discontented, the disabled. These were David’s people.  A man after God’s own heart, true enough.

Heritage

 And so, similar groups of people call out to Jesus, “have mercy on us, Son of David!”  They recognise the family resemblance in him.  They see that his heritage, from David, is compassion toward the marginalised.  So Jesus’ solidarity with the little people is not a new thing.  It was his heritage, a family tradition.  He was simply reviving that tradition.

 As Salvationists, our solidarity with the little people is likewise our heritage.  Once again, The Salvation Army was raised up by God to be not only for the little people or even with the little people, but by the little people.  It was inclusive, because other places were not.  We all sat at the table together.  Let it be so now, and always.

Chapter 13 - Sit down

Sit down

 I am quite partial to James.  I don’t mean the New Testament book (well, that too), I mean the Manchester band.  They were carried along on the wave of the Madchester music scene, and it was in 1991 that they had probably their biggest and most famous hit, Sit down, on its re-release.  This song features the chorus, 

Oh, sit down, oh, sit down, oh, sit down,

Sit down next to me.

Sit down, down, down, down, down

In sympathy.

 It’s kind of an invitation to anyone who feels a bit like they do, to sit down with them.  That’s literally what the chorus means, actually.  Sympathy is ‘fellow-feeling’, shared experience or understanding or commitment.  Think of derivatives of that word: sympathetic, when someone is understanding of another’s situation; sympathiser, someone who supports another’s position or cause.

 A similar word to sympathy is ‘solidarity’.  This word is perhaps most associated with the Trade Union movement, thanks in part at least to Ralph Chaplin’s 1915 lyric Solidarity Forever, which became an anthem of the Industrial Workers of the World.  Trade Unions are a good example of solidarity.  A group of people in similar positions stands together for their rights, or against exploitation.  Solidarity, like sympathy, is about sitting or standing together, often for or against something.  It is based on the acceptance that, ‘we’re all in the same boat’, and that we must unite against injustice of some kind.

 I would like to propose that solidarity is the way forward.  Solidarity with the little people.  This, perhaps above all else, is what Jesus modelled.  Let’s ignore for a moment the miracles and words of Jesus (not something I usually recommend!), and look simply at with whom he sat.

 Jesus was criticised for socialising with tax collectors, prostitutes and ‘sinners’.  His audiences were often ‘the crowds’, which may carry a similar sense to the term ‘people of the land,’ who came in the last couple of centuries of Second Temple Judaism to be viewed (by the educated and the religious elite) as simple, ignorant peasants, not fully capable of understanding or performing God’s law.  Yet, it may have been such people whom Jesus made sit down, to share a meal-for-one that kept giving.  Jesus had one of history’s biggest picnics with the little people.  And this was quite significant.  Table fellowship was an important social indicator.  People were defined, in many ways, by whom they shared the table with.

 Jesus regularly ate with poor people, uneducated people, morally dubious people, socially outcast people…

Taking seats

 Of course, Jesus didn’t just eat with the lower classes.  He was also, at least occasionally, the dinner guest of Pharisees and scribes.  And on one such occasion (reported in Luke 14), Jesus watched with interest as the guests took their places at the table.  It seems they were trying to sit in the most ‘important’ seats possible.  Jesus then tells a parable about a wedding banquet.

 If you’ve ever planned a wedding meal, the table plan is one of the most fraught elements of the entire wedding.  Who sits with whom?  And is this table near enough to the top for so-and-so, but they can’t sit higher than that person… It’s a minefield.  It’s funny how where people sit on social occasions becomes such a big deal.

 And so Jesus tells the guests at this dinner that they shouldn’t seek the place of honour at a wedding banquet, in case someone “more distinguished than you” has been invited, and the host has to ask you to give them your seat, leaving you to take the walk of shame to the bottom.  Instead, Jesus says, take the lowest place at the start, then the host might say, “Friend, move up higher”.  The point Jesus is making is that, “all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted” (Luke 14:11).

 This last line is used a lot by Jesus in the gospels.  The idea of some sort of reversal, a social re-ordering (some might say revolution), seems important, and not just in the gospels, but in the prophetic tradition too.  Actually, maybe in the whole Judeo-Christian tradition.  The prophet Zephaniah (3:11-13) speaks of God removing the “proudly exultant ones”, and arrogance, from his holy mountain, and leaving in their place, “a people humble and lowly”.  Look at Psalm 146, particularly verses 7-9, and while you’re there, Psalm 147:6.  David’s song of thanksgiving in 2 Samuel 22, recapitulated in Psalm 18, features the line: “You deliver a humble people,” (2 Samuel 22:28; Psalm 18:27), continuing, “…but your eyes are upon the haughty to bring them down” (2 Samuel 22:28), or, “you bring down the haughty eyes” (Psalm 18:27). Hannah’s prayer, in 1 Samuel chapter 2 has a lot of echoes in Psalm 113, especially 1 Samuel 2:8 and Psalm 113:7-8.  The former of those texts says this:

​He raises up the poor from the dust; ​​​​​he lifts the needy from the ash heap,

​To make them sit with princes​​​​​​ and inherit a seat of honour…

 That’s exactly what Jesus is talking about with the host of the wedding banquet.  So Jesus is not coming out with some new-fangled idea.  In fact, his parable here (Luke 14:8-11) is really a midrash on Proverbs 25:6-7, which say:

​Do not put yourself forward in the king’s presence

or stand in the place of the great;

for it is better to be told, ‘Come up here’,​​​ than to be put lower in the presence​​​​ of a noble.

 (Proverbs, especially chapter 25, provides a lot of material for Jesus, as it goes.)

 After this midrashic parable, Jesus then turns to his host and says that when giving a dinner, he should not invite friends or family or well-off neighbours, because they might invite him in return, and he would be repaid.  Instead, he should invite “the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind”, and thus he will be blessed, because these people can’t repay him, and he will receive his reward “at the resurrection of the righteous” (Luke 14:12-14).

 In the first place, this sounds a bit ungrateful from Jesus.  But apart from that, Jesus takes us toward the kind of ‘social inclusion’ that characterises God’s kingdom, where meals are shared between all kinds of people, from all social classes, all abilities, all ages, all genders, all races, and so on.  And not just meals.  Life.

 Jesus invites us all to look outside of our families, and our social groups, and to move in wider circles, to include others, especially the little people.

Provision = Division?

 But before we take this just to mean we should run a feeding programme, open a foodbank, or such like (all commendable and, sadly, useful initiatives in places, sometimes), let’s step back and remember that Jesus was only reported to have fed people once or twice.  But he ate with people a lot more.  Jesus spent much of his time sitting down with people.  Sharing with them, often over a meal.  Investing in them.  Listening to them.  Talking to them.  And this is, in general, a better approach than simply feeding people, for a few reasons.

 Firstly, feeding (or meeting specific needs through service provision) can keep a division between we who provide and they who receive.  The benefactor and the beneficiary remain where they are.  In fact, this can replace one form of dependency with another, or worse, can replace one form of oppression with another.  When our interactions with the little people keep us superior to them, and them inferior to us, we perpetuate the social stratification that God opposes (as we have seen above).

 Secondly, and related to this, is the danger that social action can, in practice, hinder social justice.  An example of this is the tendency for politicians (local or central) to attend the opening of foodbanks.  This betrays a tacit agreement between all parties that it’s ok to have foodbanks, because they meet the need of hungry people – often made hungry because of government policy.  Thus, the temptation is for well-meaning people to focus resources on feeding people, rather than diverting some of these resources toward campaigning for social justice, by challenging the systems which create the need for foodbanks in the first place, and calling politicians to account.

 However, there is a third strand to this cord.  Alongside social action and social justice is social inclusion.  In simple terms, these three roughly equate to doing something to people; doing something for people; and doing something with people.  Sometimes all of these approaches are needed.  But the most important, in terms of God’s mission in the world, the most Christlike, of the three, is the last.  It is only through including people, on equal terms, that we fully live out the gospel.

 This is solidarity.  Getting alongside people, the little people.  Listening to them.  Learning from them.  Not simply saying, “Let me help”, but “Let’s share life together…”

Don’t do something, just sit there

 An example from my own experience may help to demonstrate this.  When circumstances forced the closure of a soup kitchen, a predecessor of mine decided to redirect the donations of short-date food to the local hostel, run by a housing association.  This opened a door for him to become a sort of chaplain to the hostel, dropping in every two weeks or so.  Shortly after I succeeded him, circumstances forced a re-think of the food drop to the hostel.  The responsibility for this was passed to a couple of other churches in town (the donations eventually dried up).  However, I continued the chaplaincy, and in fact this became more fruitful, as (apart from some milk and cake left over from another activity), I was taking nothing with me.  I was no longer someone who was going there to do something to the men and women who found themselves there (ie. feed them); I was there primarily, solely even, as someone who just wanted to listen, to talk, to learn from them, to share with them.  They made me tea, not the other way round.  And some people – staff and service users alike – were drawn a little closer to God, and felt more valued.

… But for the grace of God…

 As noted above, the concept of social inclusion (for want of a better term) is Christlike.  The apostle Paul quoted what is thought to be an early Christian hymn, in writing to the Philippian church that their attitude should be the same as Jesus Christ,

who, though he was in the form of God,

   ​​did not regard equality with God

   ​​​as something to be exploited,

but emptied himself,

   ​​taking the form of a slave,

   ​​​being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form,

   he humbled himself

   ​​and became obedient to the point of death—

   ​​​even death on a cross.

 Jesus crossed the largest social divide in the universe.  Although he was God, he didn’t let it go to his head.  He was prepared to lay it all on the line – status, reputation, safety, his own life – and live with us and like us.

 If Jesus could do it, why can’t we?  I mean, Jesus literally had it all to lose.  He really was someone.  He really did have a reputation to protect.  He really was above us.

 There’s a saying that really winds me up: ‘There but for the grace of God go I’.  We use it to mean, ‘that poor person I see before me could just as easily be me, except that (for some unknown reason) God’s grace has spared me from their fate’.  But why would God’s grace choose me over them?  In fact, is it not the case that God’s grace is at least as much in evidence in the life of that other, as in mine?  That person lives with his or her condition – of poverty, of pain, of illness – even in very dignified ways.  And I simply condescend, patronise: ‘There but for the grace of God, go I…’  Maybe we should, rather, realise that God’s grace can free us from such a superiority complex, and say, instead, ‘Here, but for the grace of God, go they…’  Such people as ‘they’ are often humble, not exalting themselves.

 And as long as we keep these unhelpful distinctions, these social groupings, we are always in danger of paternalism.  By this, I mean that our service provision is all about us, the experts, fixing the other.  Paternalism is the enemy of solidarity, the enemy of genuine inclusion.  Paternalism prevents people from truly standing shoulder to shoulder, from truly sitting down next to one another, from truly kneeling side by side.

 In the quote from Philippians, above, we read that Jesus was “found in human form”.  Jesus became one of us.  He looked like any other man.  There was nothing that made him different, except that He was God.  But to look at Him, He was ‘just one of the guys’.

 Another story from my own experience.  One of the best models of feeding programme I have seen was run by a local housing charity, working among the homeless and vulnerably housed.  It happened once a week, in a local church, at lunchtime.  It entailed a three-course meal for a pound (first time free of charge).  What I love about this model is that it adds value to the whole thing by charging for the meal.  That means it is not free, it is not a handout.  Those who eat are investing something in it, they became stakeholders.  But at a pound, it is accessible to almost anyone, as anyone can get hold of a pound.

 Also, this programme included a monthly ‘thrift store’.  This part was free, and allowed people to go into the next room and look at a small stall of donated clothing, and some household goods, and take what they wanted.

 The charity also encouraged ‘service users’ to become ‘service providers’ by volunteering.  A number of the regulars became volunteers at the programme.

 For a period of time, I regularly attended this meal, usually only eating the soup and bread course (which was free, although I always paid the pound).  I went to sit with the other people there, to listen, to chat.  I got to know quite a few of the regulars.  I always wore some form of Salvation Army branded clothing (never full uniform).  But once, a volunteer from the thrift stall came into the dining area, and went round the tables telling the guys about the stall.  She came to the table where I was sitting with two or three others.  And, looking me straight in the eye, with a sincere and sympathetic face, she told me to come through and help myself…

 For a second, I was torn.  I almost wanted to say, ‘Sorry, you’ve made a mistake, I’m not one of these guys…’  Then I realised how that might sound to my friends.

 So I smiled and said, ‘Thanks’.  And she moved on.

 And then I realised that, regardless how it might have sounded to my friends, it would have been wrong to say I wasn’t one of those guys.  I was having lunch with them, I was getting to know them.  In some way, I was one of them.  And my ‘blending in’ was, in some way, Christlike.  That is what we must become: indistinguishable from the little people, because we are with them, and they are with us, until, ultimately, we are all one – there is no them or us.

 There’s a famous quote from Oscar Wilde, that, “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”  We must recognise that we are all in the gutter.  We must realise this Biblical solidarity.  And then, all together, we can look at the stars.

Chapter 12 - The Word on the street

Nowhere to lay his head

 In chapter 8 of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus has just given a large body of teaching (commonly known as the Sermon on the Mount) to an even larger crowd, and has performed a series of healing miracles.  Still surrounded by crowds, Jesus decides to cross Lake Galilee, from his native Galilee to the Decapolis region.  Before getting away, though, a scribe approaches and says, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go” (Matthew 8:19).

 Scribes, as the name suggests, wrote things.  In particular, they wrote copies of Torah, the Jewish law, so that it could be available to more Jews, in synagogues usually.  These people were devoted to Torah, and would often attach themselves to a teacher, whose memory – and interpretation – of Torah would resource and inform the scribing.  And so, this particular scribe having seen, and especially heard Jesus, now wants to be his disciple.  He wants to attach himself to Jesus the teacher.

 And he has made a formal approach too.  First, he calls Jesus ‘teacher’ (or ‘rabbi’).  Second, he is interested in where Jesus is going, because he wants to go with him, to stay with him, live with him.  That’s how it worked.  A rabbi’s disciples followed everywhere.  They were live-in students.  Look at the example in John 1:38, where Andrew and another prospective disciple ask Jesus, “Rabbi... where are you staying?”  This was because they essentially wanted to move in with him.

And to this scribe, also seeking to move in with Jesus, he replies, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head” (Matthew 8:20).  This exchange is often taken as a test of the scribe’s resolve or commitment, and an illustration of the cost of discipleship to Jesus.  This is not a comfortable, easy or even prestigious lifestyle.  In fact, it seems many or even most rabbis were not wealthy, and had to eke out a meagre living in trades such as carpentry, as Jesus may have, at least at some point; the great rabbi Hillel worked as a day labourer.  This was not a glamourous career.

 A further angle to consider from this episode is that discipleship is a journey, and that following Jesus has no end point – in this life, anyway.  There is no time at which Jesus will say to his disciple – as other rabbis would – ‘I have taught you all I know; you are on your own now.’  Discipleship to Jesus is constant and continuous.

 But, illustrations aside, there is a literal meaning here to Jesus’ words, and it is often glossed over: it is possible that Jesus really did have nowhere to lay his head.  At least at some stages in his life, Jesus was homeless, of no fixed abode.

No crib

 The tradition tells us that the first of these stages was at the beginning of Jesus’ (earthly) life.  Jesus was born homeless.  Of course, this was not the actual beginning.  We recognise Jesus Christ as the pre-existent Word, who was with God and who was God, in the beginning (John 1:1).  And Paul, perhaps quoting an early Christian hymn, charts Christ’s journey from the height of Godhead to the depths of a poor, frail, human existence.  He lost everything.

 Something I think most people fail to appreciate about homelessness is the stress, the mental health impact it can have.  Think of it: someone may have had their own home, a family, a job; any of the things many of us take for granted.  And, sometimes very suddenly, they lost everything.  What a shock to the system.

 Yet, the Incarnation demonstrates a solidarity, an identification with this experience of great and traumatic loss: of status; of safety and security; of wealth and power; even of identity and the sense of close connection to family.

 At Christmas, we sing of the poverty into which Jesus was born: “Away in a manger, no crib for a bed…”.  Luke’s account of the story supplies the image of the holy family in a stable, and the baby in the manger, because “there was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7).  The inn mentioned here is not the same kind of establishment Jesus talks about in the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:34).  In fact, at Christmas, it may not be an inn of any sort.  The text may refer, instead, to the absence of a guestroom.  Kenneth E. Bailey has described the kind of building that may be in question here: a common single-storey, open plan house, with living accommodation at one end, and a lower part at the other end occupied by the family’s animals, like sheep, cattle, a donkey, perhaps.  In between would have been a feeding trough, the manger, in easy reach for the family to replenish, and for the animals to feed from.  It may be that Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem – his ancestral home – and were taken in by some distant relation who would not see them on the street, but had no guestroom to offer.  Thus, in cramped conditions, when the baby was born, he was placed in the manger, with its soft, warm fodder as bedding.

 Whatever the case, whether we read the traditional stable because there was no room at the inn, or the perhaps more accurate lack of guestroom at a domestic property, Jesus was born homeless, according to Luke.  Far from his family home, in uncomfortable conditions.

Flight of the Liberator

 And Jesus may have gone even further from home.  In a tradition preserved only in Matthew’s gospel, we read of the flight of the Holy Family to Egypt.  Joseph has been warned in a dream to take the infant Jesus and Mary to Egypt because Herod seeks to kill the child (Matthew 2:13-15).

 There are notable parallels with the infancy narrative of Moses in Exodus chapters 1 and 2.  Both Jesus and Moses are in danger of death as babies – borne out by the infanticide recorded in Matthew 2:16 and Exodus 1:15-22.  Both are hidden until the danger has abated.  And both become great liberators of God’s people.  Yet, how fragile, how delicately balanced it had all been.

 The parallels were surely not lost on Matthew.  In fact, since he is the only Evangelist to relay this episode, it is possible that its truth lies not primarily in its historicity, but rather in the power of the image of Jesus as a new, and greater, Moses.

 Of course, the Moses story, the Exodus event, is only occasioned by the flight of another family to Egypt: the children of Israel, Jacob and sons, who faced starvation in Canaan.

 In Jesus and in the Israelites, we see refugees.  These were people whose lives were in danger in their own land, so they sought refuge in another country.  And this is the story of so many today.  It is difficult for us in the West to appreciate the gravity of their situation.  Millions have had to flee their land, their homes, because to remain risks violence, imprisonment or death.

 Let’s remember, then, that Jesus might have more in common with the refugee than with those who choose to welcome the refugee – or not, as the case may be.  And let’s remember too, that just as Moses’ or Jesus’ infant mortality could have had catastrophic consequences for history, we may never know the saving impact refugees may have.  How many doctors have fled violence and oppression in their homeland, and saved lives in our NHS?  And who knows  what wonderful prospects may lie ahead of a child who arrives on our shores, fleeing a deadly fate?

 The world is saved and transformed because Jesus was welcomed as a refugee.

Sofa surfing

 And so we return to the adult Jesus, with nowhere to lay his head.  It seems his attitude and practice toward accommodation was quite relaxed.  We can gather that his lifestyle was that of an itinerant teacher, who went to a lot of people’s houses for dinner.  It also appears that he was a lodger with some, especially with some of the women with whom he associated.  Mary and Martha took him in (Luke 10:38), and we see at his death a congregation of women who may also have given Jesus board for the night (Matthew 27:55-56).

 Jesus seems to have been what today we might call a ‘sofa surfer’ – moving from one friend’s couch to another, as he has no place of his own.  On the positive side, this shows the kindness of friends to one in need.  On the down side, it can put a strain on relations, the needy friend can outstay his or her welcome, or drain already scarce resources in the household.  Perhaps worst of all, though, in today’s Britain sofa surfers are not always classed as homeless by local authorities – meaning that statistics for homelessness may be skewed, and individuals may not qualify for the help they need – because they ostensibly have a roof over their head, precarious though it may be.  This is perhaps ‘vulnerably housed’ at its most vulnerable.

 But Jesus identifies with the sofa surfers too.  He appears to have lived that life to an extent, and he also commended it to his disciples.  When sending out the Twelve on their ‘field training’, he told them firstly to travel light (Matthew 10:9-10), and then to find someone worthy to stay with in whichever town they enter (Matthew 10:11).

 On the other side of this coin, the writer to the Hebrews encouraged his readers to “show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2).  Perhaps there is here a reference to Lot’s hospitality toward two angels visiting Sodom, in Genesis 19.  And Sodom’s greatest sin was apparently their lack of hospitality (in fact, the opposite of hospitality) to God’s messengers, and thus an unreceptiveness to his message.  This would certainly make more sense of Jesus’ words in Matthew 10:15, that towns who fail to welcome the disciples are in for a worse fate than Sodom and Gomorrah.

 Hospitality is important to Jesus.  In particular, hospitality to the most vulnerable.  Perhaps he lived the way he did to create opportunities for others to practice hospitality.

Fasting in the wilderness

 Maybe Jesus also chose the nomadic path as a discipline, to free himself from attachment to material things, like a house.  In our culture, home ownership seems to be a benchmark.  Yet Jesus may never have owned, perhaps not even rented, a home.

 And we can see this discipline of detachment being exercised at the start of Jesus’ public life.  He took himself out – or, the Holy Spirit did – to the wilderness, the desert.  Here, he spent forty days, fasting.  The period of forty days, or years, is significant.  It is seen as a suitable period of preparation or a number for completeness.  It is also, though, the number of years the people of Israel spent in the wilderness.

 Jesus’ exchanges with Satan (Matthew 4:1-11) reflect that story.  The three scriptural rebuttals Jesus uses clarify the connection with the desert wanderings of God’s people Israel.  Each verse quoted is from Deuteronomy.  Let’s take them briefly, one at a time, in reverse order.

 The third verse is Deuteronomy 6:13, and is about covenant faithfulness, about loyalty and devotion to God, alone.  It’s about single-mindedness, focus.  And sometimes that is best achieved by stripping away all the trappings of our way of life.  Again, the writer to the Hebrews exhorts us to “lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily entangles…  looking to Jesus…” (Hebrews 12:1-2).  This is a laying down not just of sin – we know sin is bad, and should be laid down, right?  But the ‘weights’ are not sin.  This is talking about laying down other things, that may be distracting our gaze from Jesus, hindering us in “the race”.  And some of these weights – or burdens, we might call them – are very innocuous.  We may even say they are good.  Yet, even good things can sometimes get in the way.  Maybe we need to simplify, de-clutter, unplug.  To fast.

 The second verse Jesus quotes has to do with testing God.  This time, Jesus has not quoted the full verse, Deuteronomy 6:16, but just a part of it.  The original says, “Do not put the LORD your God to test, as you tested him at Massah” (emphasis mine, highlighting the ‘missing’ text).  This should immediately prompt us to ask, ‘What or where is Massah?  What is the text talking about?’  The verse refers to an incident recorded in Exodus 17:1-7.  Not long after their departure from Egypt, the people are without water in the desert.  They begin to quarrel with Moses, demanding water.  Moses asks them why they quarrel with him, and why they test the LORD.  Then God tells Moses to go on ahead of the them, and to strike a rock at Horeb with his staff, and water will come out of the rock for the people to drink.  And that is what happens.  So the place gets the name ‘Massah’, which means ‘test’, and ‘Meribah’, which means ‘quarrel’.  All this came about because of a question: Is God with us, or not?  There was a deep thirst, a dryness, and just physical.  There was a spiritual longing too, a sense of abandonment, of desolation.

 In the middle ages, some of the saints experienced something similar.  John of the Cross called it the dark night of the soul.  And he found that the answer was not to question God’s presence or goodness, but rather to throw oneself into the darkness, and trust God to catch us.  And this trust opens a wellspring of God’s love into the soul.  Once again, though, both material and spiritual desolation are stepping stones on the path to this rock of consolation.

 And finally, the first verse Jesus uses is from Deuteronomy 8:3.  It has to do with hunger and bread.  And the reference is to God teaching his wandering people humility and dependence on him, through his commanding manna – their daily bread – to appear for them.  The point is, it’s not the bread that sustains them; it’s the God who provides it.  His grace and love created us, and sustains us.  This is all grace.  It is God’s goodness.

 Fasting is not a rejection of God’s good provision, as we might be tempted to think.  Rather, fasting enables us to adjust our focus from the gift to the Giver, and to seek God first, rather than his provision.  We learn more of God and his goodness.

 This discipline also helps us to learn that enough really is enough.  So much poverty and want in our world is the result of wealth and greed.  A key lesson for me, from the story of the manna, is that each person or household gathered what they needed, and it was enough.  There was a daily provision from God of enough for everyone, and they each took what they needed.  I believe God has always worked this way.  He gives us our daily bread.  He provides enough for all his children.  But it’s up to us to share it.  To take and use only what we need.  In our consumer society, we are programmed to take what we want.  And this results in a lot of waste, a surplus for some, and a dearth for others.

 On the issue of homelessness, the increase of larger and less affordable housing only exacerbates the problem, as some simply cannot get a house.  There is neither the space, the housing stock, nor the political will it seems, to house those who can’t afford to buy or even rent a home.

 Fasting in the wilderness today may mean a radical re-think of: our consumer choices; our use or leisure time; where and how we live; the amount of waste we generate and what happens to it.

 As God once asked his people:

​“Is not this the fast that I choose:

   to loose the bonds of injustice,

   to undo the thongs of the yoke,

to let the oppressed go free,

   and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,

   and bring the homeless poor into your house;

when you see the naked, to cover them,

and not to hide yourself from your own kin?”  

(Isaiah 58:6-7)

 This kind of fasting, this voluntary poverty, also gives us the opportunity to understand and to identify with, in some small way, the experience of the poor, the vulnerably housed, the hungry and the homeless.  In this, we can be a little closer to Jesus.  And the world becomes a bit closer to heaven.  Closer to home.

Chapter 11 - "It's everyone's job to make sure I'm ok"

Awareness

 I grew up in a town less than twenty miles away from Dunblane.  And yet, I don’t think I had ever heard of Andy Murray’s home town, until one horrific day in March 1996.  I was 12, a year or two into high school.   And we had never known anything like what happened that day, so close to home.

 On 13 March 1996, Thomas Hamilton walked into Dunblane Primary School, armed with four handguns, and opened fire on a class of five and six year old children in the school gym hall.  One teacher and sixteen children were killed, and as many more were injured in the massacre.  The shooting ended when the gunman turned his revolver on himself.

 This was the worst mass shooting ever in the UK.  And it is made all the worse by the nature of the attack.  This was a merciless attack on innocent children.

 In the wake of the massacre, there was a sea change in attitudes, and policies, about child protection.  Children are vulnerable, but also extremely valuable to God.

The greatest

 In Matthew 18:1-5, we read the disciples of Jesus asking him who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

 Jesus answers them by getting a child to stand among them, and he says, “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.  Therefore, whoever takes a humble place – becoming like this child – is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven…”  I think there’s a couple of things to think about here.  In the first place, I think the disciples are confused.  They’re not thinking in God’s way, in the kingdom way.  They ask a question about the kingdom, but they don’t understand it.  They seem to think that it has a pecking order, that it’s a competition for status within God’s kingdom… But Jesus puts them straight, by showing them a child, who wouldn’t have had a lot of status in their world.  And so Jesus says, be like this child, accept a humble place, don’t get ideas above your station – in fact, don’t worry about status at all.  Then you’ll be the greatest.  That’s how God’s kingdom works: the last are first, the humble are lifted up.  I’ll never forget my former boss Alan Burns, when he conducted the dedication of our daughter, talking about this story.  And he illustrated very graphically what happened.  The disciples would sit on the ground, around their master.  So they’d be low.  And then Jesus has the child stand among them.  Stand.  So this child is suddenly above them.  This little, insignificant figure is towering over them.  They look up to the child.  That says all they need to know.  Who’s the greatest here?  The child is head and shoulders above them…

 The way to get ahead in kingdom life is to be humble, to come as children before God.

 In fact, the child image shows us so much about how we should live in God’s kingdom: we are to live as children of our heavenly Father, dependent on Him, obedient to Him.

 But then Jesus says something really amazing:  He says that, “whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”  Why is this amazing?  Well, it says that Jesus identifies Himself with children.  He says if we welcome a child, we welcome Him.

 Later on, in Matthew 25, Jesus says that whatever we do for the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick or the prisoner, we do it for Him.

 Jesus identifies with the little ones, the ones the world would call the ‘least’.  He’s in their corner.  And so, the child is important to Jesus.  Every child is important to Jesus.  And if every child is important to Jesus, every child must be important to us.

Causing harm

 In Matthew 18, and from verse 6, Jesus talks about the little ones, particularly the little ones who believe in him.  So, who does he mean, who are these little ones who believe in him?  Well, by the context, little ones might mean children.  Or it might mean those who are humble, like children.  Literally, it means ‘the least’.  It means those of low status.  This would include children, but I think it’s wider than that.  I think Jesus is talking about all those of low status, those seen as the least in the world: the children, the vulnerable, the marginalised, the poor, the voiceless…

 And when Jesus talks about these little ones who believe in him, does he mean those who come to church every Sunday?  Perhaps.  Does he mean those who have made a decision and prayed a prayer to follow Him?  Maybe.  But it might also mean those who are seeking him, those who are trusting in him, who are looking to him to help them.  And that could be a wider group – especially since some of these people don’t even know that it’s Jesus they’re looking for…

 So Jesus says that anyone who causes one of these little ones to stumble, or to sin, anyone who offends one of these little ones – well, there’ll be trouble.  It’s a big mistake, this really winds Jesus up.  You see, what he’s really talking about here is people hurting the little ones.  If anyone causes any hurt to one of these little ones, it’s really bad news.

 And hurting the little ones – the children, the vulnerable, the poor, the voiceless – can take many forms.  There’s physical violence and abuse – things that are done; as well as verbal abuse – things that are said; there’s neglect – things that are not done, needs that are not met.  And of course, we might think of spiritual abuse, which is perhaps the most obvious reference here – where one might damage the spiritual well-being of the ‘little one’, might cause something to come between the little one and God.

 Jesus has very stern words against those who might cause any hurt to any of these little ones, especially those who might have come to him for refuge…

 And we might think, “This is a church, full of good, Christian people…”  But sometimes we can cause hurt quite accidentally and unknowingly.

Wandering sheep

 In Matthew 18:10, Jesus says, “See that you do not despise one of these little ones.  For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.”  When Jesus says, do not despise, he’s really saying don’t look down on these guys, don’t have a low opinion of them.  These little ones, whether children, or vulnerable people, or poor people – whoever the world sees as lowly, as the ‘least’ – we’ve not to think of them that way.  Instead, we are to be humble ourselves.  Because we’re all little ones.  We’re all vulnerable in one way or another.  We’re all God’s children.

 And then Jesus tells the story of a lost sheep, a wandering sheep.  If someone’s got a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, won’t he leave the ninety-nine in safety, and go after the lost one?  Imagine the parent in the supermarket with their child, and they turn round, and the child’s gone missing… I think that’s the kind of story Jesus is telling here, this wandering sheep is like the child who’s gotten lost.

 And of course, there’s all these other sheep, who are safe.  So, Jesus says, the owner of the sheep can go and find this lost one, in the knowledge that the others are all safe.  I wonder if part of that safety comes from their being together.  They can look out for each other, keep each other safe, but the one out there on its own needs more care and attention…

 So, again, there’s a sense that Jesus is talking about someone who’s been one of us – a follower of Jesus – who’s lost their way a bit, and needs finding again.  But, if we go back to what Jesus said earlier: “whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me”, then we’re reminded that Jesus identifies with the ‘least’, the last, the lost.  And, our Father in heaven is not willing that any one of these little ones should perish, or should be lost.  God wants all his children home.

 If Jesus is bringing the lost sheep home (in whatever form they take), and rejoicing about it, let’s join in!  Let’s welcome the lost sheep, let’s keep them safe, let’s allow them to enjoy life to the full.

Suffer the little children

 In Matthew 19:13 and 14, we read of the disciples telling people off for bringing children to Jesus.  But Jesus says, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

 Children, like everyone else, matter to Jesus.  And we have a responsibility to make sure that they can enjoy worshipping God freely, that they can enjoy healthy relationships with God, with other children and adults, and to make sure they are safe.

 In my previous life, before becoming a Salvation Army officer, I worked in a special needs school.  And I’ll never forget the child protection training we received there.  The thing that stuck the most was, we were told about a little girl, perhaps five years old, who was asked, “Whose job is it to make sure you’re OK?”  She replied, “It’s everyone’s job to make sure I’m OK.”

 She was right.  And I think Jesus says to us, it’s everyone’s job to make sure each person, the youngest to the oldest, regardless of status, is OK.  There’s a proverb, perhaps African, that says, “It takes a village to raise a child.”  In other words, all children, and for that matter, all people, are formed by their environment, by their community.  What kind of community are we, for shaping people?  What kind of children, or adults, are formed in our community?

 Perhaps we have to look at our lives, under the light of the Holy Spirit, and ask if we are hindering anyone, or causing anyone to stumble or be hurt.  Do we hold attitudes that are not like Jesus.  Are our actions unlike Jesus?  Do we need to ask God, and allow Him, to change us?

 I think God made children on purpose.  I think childhood is a vital stage in our development.  Children must be allowed to be children – to enjoy, experience and express their childhood in healthy, natural ways – otherwise, they’re missing out on a key stage of development.

 Perhaps, though, this all speaks to us as followers of Jesus too.  If we’re not developing naturally as Christians, we’re not going to grow into healthy, mature Christ-likeness.  And perhaps that means we have to ask questions – to allow ourselves and be allowed to ask questions, to help us to grapple with our faith, to own our faith.

 I think Jesus, in this whole passage is saying, first, that we have to come to Him as children, and second, we have to welcome and safeguard and look after little ones – whoever they may be…