“human rights”
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A sermon preached at the Readings: Genesis
1:24-28, Mt 25:31-40 Left: French revolution Declaration of the Rights of
Man 1789 Below: Dom Helder Camara; |
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Hymns: “O Heavenly King” (504)
“Father who on man doth shower”
(341)
“We have a dream” (NHAWS 348)
“Amazing Grace” (215)
“Saviour again to thy dear name
we raise” (643)
“God said
let us make human being in our own image”
(Gen 1:27)
“Insomuch
as you did it to one of the least
of these my brothers, you did it for me”
(Mt 25:40)
“..He has
anointed me to preach good news to the poor”
(Lk 4:18)
Dom Helder Camara
the Saintly Brazilian archbishop,
used to tell how big landowners would invite him
to celebrate Mass at their establishment.
They would gather all their workers together- often hundreds of them
What was he to say?
Camara comments:
“If I preach and
say, for example,
that one must obey one’s employer,
and that one must work with patience and goodwill
and do one’s duty, for this landowner
I am a ‘tremendous bishop’, ‘a holy bishop’.
I can expect to be invited again to preach.
But if, whilst speaking of the worker’s duty and the landowner’s rights,
I have the audacity, yes the audacity,
to mention the worker’s rights and the landowner’s duty,
then it is quite a different matter.
‘This is a revolutionary, a progressive,
he is pro-communist’…..”
(Quoted in AP Castle, Quotes and
Anecdotes, Kevin Mayhew 1994)
Well if
that is revolutionary talk, then the Gospel is revolutionary.
Rights
and duties are two sides of the same coin –
one person’s rights require duties from the second person, and vice a
versa.
So what
exactly are our human rights and where do they come from?
·
For
some people (eg the Founding Fathers of the US)
human rights are simply self evident
·
For
others they are part of the political football match –
as the left fights for social and economic rights
whilst the right presses rights of individual freedom…
·
But
as Christians we turn to the Scriptures,
and more particularly to our Christian understanding
of the dignity of the human race and the place of humanity in God’s
plan.
Scripture
tells us the following:
1. Human being were made in the image of
God –
so to degrade or dishonour or deny rights to a fellow human being
is to take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
In the words of the parable,
Insomuch as you do it to one of these my brothers and sisters
you do it to God himself.
2. The Gospel is Good News for the Poor and the
Marginalized –
those who traditionally have their rights abused or eroded.
On that
Scriptural foundation,
we build our understanding of human rights –
The right to
·
Life,
food, clothing, shelter, rest, medical care
·
Found
a family, live singly, to procreate
·
Social
intercourse and assembly
·
Work,
property and a just wage
·
Freedom
of movement, nationality and migration
·
Freedom
of expression, education
·
Self
determination, political participation and legal protection
·
Religious
belief and public expression of it
That is
perhaps a template for treating every human being
as nothing less than a child of God.
And with
regard to good news to the poor,
David Hollenbach proposes the following three
guidelines
for ensuring that human rights policies
overcome the marginalization of the poor, minorities and the oppressed:
1.
The
needs of the poor
take priority over the wants of the rich
2.
the
freedom of the dominated
takes priority over the liberty of the powerful
3.
the participation of marginalized groups
takes priority over the preservation of an order which excludes them.
[J Milburn Thompson, Justice and
Peace, New York: Orbis 1997 p.96]
All of
this flows from the Scriptures –
and all of this we as Christians should
(1)Advocate for our society
(2) Adopt in our Churches and
(3)Live out in our individual lives
The
Church if we are honest has not always done well.
Here is newspaper headline:
“Churches send delegation to see exemption
from human rights legislation”
Here is a
passage by Jean Mayland reflecting on this:
“God said ‘Let us make human beings
in our image, after our likeness’
Men and women, able and disabled,
black and white, young and old, gay and straight –
the wonderful variegated image of God.
But no.
No gays here, no women bishops,
No blacks we might say but dare not.
No children to interrupt our holy meditation.
No human rights here.
After all, we are the Church!
The Church, the Body of Christ
Christ who dined with tax gatherers and prostitutes
Christ who affirmed women and respected them
Christ who praised the Samaritan and the Roman
Christ who stretched out his hand to the lame.
Two thousand years later when will we learn?”
© Jean Mayland
in “Wisdom in Calling ed
Geoffrey Duncan, Canterbury Press 1999
I hope
and pray that we as a Church do not stand judged by any of that.
For we
are called to follow God in seeking human rights for all –
in a
world where they are so frequently abused and ignored.
Some of us went to see a fairly gruelling
but brilliantly performed play at the Northcott
theatre this week –
“Township Stories” – gruelling because the key players in the story
have their rights consistently ignored or violated
either by the system or each other.
If you are thinking of going to see it,
you need to be able to cope with stage depiction
of murder, rape, child abuse and abortion –
it is not an easy play and it is in many ways
a deeply depressing view of the human condition.
But then right near the end the cast sing “Amazing
Grace”.
I am not sure why the playwright puts it there –
I suspect, given the bleak nature of the rest of the piece,
it is there as a piece of irony –
as if to say “And in spite of the total disaster of their life,
these foolish and blinkered people can still sing about salvation!”
Whatever the playwright had in mind,
for me “Amazing Grace” actually says something very positive.
It reminds us of a Gospel for a sinful race.
It says that when my brothers and sisters cease to respect
my rights, my dignity, my value, my worth,
still God accepts me as his child,
as someone with a place at his table -
to be cared for, respected and honoured –
He gives me that place not because I have earned it,
but because he chooses to give me rights and privileges
I have not earned –
Amazing grace!!
This is
the model we should take as we seek to follow Christ -
to treat others as God’s children –
seeing in others their potential,
and treating them as what they may yet be in God’s good time.
In the words of Jack Donnelly,
“Treat a person like a human being and
you’ll get one”
(Quoted in John Habgood,
Making Sense, SPCK 1993 p. 109)
If we
might but see each member of the human race
with
God’s loving, hopeful eyes,
as
they were created and as he ultimately intends them to be –
and then give them the place and the honour due to that –
then shall we
·
bring
good news to the poor,
·
proclaim the Day of Salvation.
·
Reflect
God’s amazing grace for us
in our love care for his people.