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Justice is not an intellectual exercise. It is born out of a passionate longing for change. It does not come from the imagination of people in power, but from the struggle of people who have been locked out of the powerhouses. The laws granting women the right to vote in the US did not result from the male Congress deciding it would generously yield some of its power. Nor did slavery end without the initiative of thousands of slaves -- including Frederick Douglass -- asserting their dignity. We who have power, wealth, education, health, access to power - we’re the problem! It goes without saying that much of the poverty in the world today results from the self-serving economic policies of the industrialized nations - policies that advance our power and comfort. This is as clear as the New York deli owner’s statement to the press a few month’s ago, "If I paid my Mexican workers the minimum wage, I’d have to raise prices." So what are people of good will to do? Is feeling guilty the best we can come up with? For some people of faith, voluntary poverty has been an attempt to at least identify with victims of economic injustice. And there are many saintly examples in the life of church and community of people divesting all goods and suffering the fate of the least of our brothers and sister. This life style option should be honored; yet voluntary poverty is an oxymoron. The quintessential pain of poverty is that it is not voluntary. Empowerment is another option. We who have power seek to create the circumstances in which people can gain their own power. Literacy programs are a good example. Economic empowerment zones are perhaps not such a good example. Inevitably the successful empowerment zones increase the power of those who promote them, but the economic context does not change. If I empower another, it is perhaps I who am still pulling the strings; the balance of power has not basically changed. This critique comes very close to home since much of my life work falls in this category, seeking to encourage and equip others to act on their own behalf. So far in this analysis there is something seriously lacking - call it relationship, fellowship, human identification. Being present to one another across the boundaries that appear to separate us is a requirement of our Christian calling. Traditionally the church reflects on Jesus’ teaching, preaching, healing and disputations with the temple authorities. But the teachings and preachings and healings all emerge out of Jesus’ radical identification with the people of all sorts and conditions. Perhaps more than anything else, we see Jesus simply hanging out - eating, drinking, walking together with others, sitting on the lakeside talking, listening, learning. And in his singular presence with others the power of the presence of God, the Shechinah, becomes known. That’s a key to the life of justice and mercy. Walking humbly.
At The Employment Project where I work, economic justice begins by listening to people whose jobs had deteriorated until they felt diminished and disempowered. Week after week for six years my colleagues and I have met with people who have been disempowered by the new rules of the workplace. At these support group meetings we mostly just listen to one another. We might say that our meetings are an exercise in oral history. When a new person comes into a meeting, it’s often that the rest of the group says simply, "Tell us about yourself-your job history and your experiences in the workplace. Sometimes the newcomer looks almost surprised. "You really want to hear about me?" "Yes, tell us your story." And then often a fascinating human story is told. People are empowered by the telling of their story in a caring environment. We each have such stories to tell, but who cares to listen? It is my own experience that it is out of the telling and hearing that justice is born and that mercy is experienced. It’s instructive that the base communities, which were the foundation stones of Latin America’s liberation theology, were and are essentially opportunities for little people to tell their personal stories. Unless we put ourselves in a place where we can hear, the process is stunted. This takes a very deliberate stepping across boundaries. I’m not talking just about listening to the stories your children have to tell at the end of the day, or what we share with one another in the coffee hour. We must be intentional in hearing the mother on welfare, the homeless family, the reluctant immigrant. Jesus was even suspect because of breaking boundaries, talking with women, Samaritans, tax collectors, lepers. And in these relationships people were empowered and healed. During the 1960s I met a perceptive and gifted 19-year-old active participant in the Civil Rights movement, Jane Stembridge, who wrote the following poem reflecting on Jesus’ walking humbly with poor people. About Jesus Christ who walked around a lot and listened carefully Jesus walked around a lot where people were Jane Stembridge, Jackson, Mississippi, 1963 Contact Paul K. Chapman: economicjustice@mindspring.com |
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(Photo: Chapman is second from right)