A View from the Bottom

What with the ongoing USA Political Debate (some of which I, frankly, find rather embarrassing) I thought it might be wise to look at Liberation Theology as giving another value/bias in what it means to be Christian. At present, there seems to be a lot of political debate about "My" type of Christianity is better than "Your" type of Christianity. My thinking was/is that maybe an exploration from the Bottom might shed some light on what all of us are to be about. After all, we serve the One who tradition tells us was born to an un-wed mother in a stable/barn. Tradition also tells us that his family then fled as refugees to Egypt before returning "home" at a later date.

The following comes (in part) form a sermon I delivered a few weeks ago. Please note, that I have never been a manuscript preacher. It is much more typical that I produce some notes or an outline and go from there. I've also shown the Call to Worship/Opening Words and the Opening Prayer as I think they also shed some light on where the sermon is going.

Blessed be,
Joel

April 10, 2016

Topsy Turvy World: View from the Bottom                         – Rev. Joel Aosved

Call to Worship:

“And Then”

And then all that has divided us with merge

And then compassion will be wedded to power

And then softness will come to a world that is harsh and unkind

And then both men and women will be gentle

And then both women and me will be strong

And then no person will be subject to another’s will

And then all will be rich and free and varied

And then the greed of some will give way to the needs of many

And then all will share equally in the Earth’s abundance

And then all will care for the sick and the weak and the old

And then all will nourish the young

And then all will cherish life’s creatures

And then all will live in harmony with each other and the Earth

And then everywhere will be called Eden once again

~ Judy Chicago

Opening Prayer:

“Lord, I do not attempt to comprehend Your sublimity, because my intellect is not at all equal to such a task. But I yearn to understand some measure of Your truth, which my heart believes and loves. For I do not seek to understand in order to believe but I believe in order to understand. For I believe even this: that I shall not understand unless I believe.3”
― Gustavo Gutiérrez, We Drink from Our Own Wells: The Spiritual Journey of a People 20th Anniversary Edition

Readings before the Sermon:

Gustavo Gutierrez:

If there is no friendship with them [the poor] and no sharing of life of the poor, then there is no authentic commitment to liberation, because love exists only among equals. – Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation

Luke 1:46-55New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Mary’s Song of Praise

46 And Mary[a] said,

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
47     and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
48 for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
    Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
49 for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
    and holy is his name.
50 His mercy is for those who fear him
    from generation to generation.
51 He has shown strength with his arm;
    he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
52 He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
    and lifted up the lowly;
53 he has filled the hungry with good things,
    and sent the rich away empty.
54 He has helped his servant Israel,
    in remembrance of his mercy,
55 according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
    to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

Gustavo Gutierrez:
 “Man [A human] is saved if [s/]he opens [her/]himself to God and to others, even if [s/]he is not clearly aware that [s/]he is doing so. This is valid for Christians and non-Christians alike -- for all people. . . . We can no longer speak properly of a profane world. A qualitative and intensive approach replaces a quantitative and extensive one.”
― Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation

Sermon:

Haggen’s Coffee Klatch story:
During Lent, I sat down in one of the local grocery stores "cafeteria" sections to have a cup of coffee. Upon entering I noticed that there were a group of men (about 10-12) all of European ancestry and aged between 66-76. They had pushed the tables together to form a group, and it appeared as if this was a Men's Bible Study or some such group. (By the way, afterwards, I noticed that these men put all the tables back the way they were, etc.) I was drinking my coffee and reading something on my phone when one of the men's voices cut through my thoughts: “If only more Christians has actually voted for (so-and-so-named-candidate) in the last election …” I found myself thinking, and almost responding out-loud, “Hey, my Christian religious world view prompted me to vote for the other candidate.”

Once again, it really appears that the political process is being contentious & polarizing.  Most of my life memory it has seemed that the political debate was weather the country was going to elect a candidate representing either a “Management” or a “Labor” perspective – but both parties/candidates wanted the country/factory to run. I cannot remember when the last time we had an election year when there was no party agreed upon front-runner by this time.

As religious people, what do we use as “bench marks” in making decisions about not only our lives but also how we might vote?

I’m not going to tell you how to vote – I’m just going to explore one option for making these kinds of decisions.

The Bible is often used in our Judeo-Christian culture – and the bible has influenced our culture in many ways many of us are not even aware of.

• Garry Trudeau – Doonesbury fame – story during the Clinton Administration, wife invited to the White House for a gathering, Garry also attended, and the President tried to explain to the visiting King/Prime Minister who Trudeau was – Which dumbfounded the dignitary that the President would invite a Prophet to dinner. [I believe this story is correct, but I cannot remember where I heard it or read about it.]

I’m not as familiar with other scripture (Buddhist, Koran, etc.) but how does one read it/them? Doesn’t most scripture (especially the type that has a long historical tradition with many authors) move 3 steps forward and 2 steps backward? What do we emphasize?  

Christians might do well to examine what Jesus emphasized (he was Jewish after-all).

The important thing is to be aware of our bias.
Biases are similar to our values, but perhaps they are different, too. I think of bias as the glasses we wear to see the world. At times we remember we have them on, at other times we forget we are looking through them. For instance, how someone grew up is going to impact how that individual is going to see the world. A woman of African ancestry living in Georgia in 1890 is going to see the world differently than a man of European ancestry living in Idaho in 1990.

Liberation Theology uses the bias of the bottom: The Preferential Treatment of the Poor

• This actually is a theme through the Bible (Jewish and Christian): The prophets continued to demand that Justice be done/had for the widow, the orphan, the sojourner. Jesus was a peasant who constantly stood-up for the oppressed and who choose to continue wandering rather than set-up shop as a healer (becoming a patron to his family and village) – Jesus stressed a basic Justice Agenda of simple living, humility, and love of neighbor.
• I should mention that it is interesting that we have the Bible at all.
• Written/Composed by no-bodies (see the meaning of Hebrew) who were constantly walked-over and through.
• 10 of the 12 Tribes were lost – scattered – in one bout of colonialism.
• And the main figure in the new testament was a peasant in a colonized area on the edge of the Roman Empire.
• Other than Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States I know of no other history written by / from the people’s perspective.
• Mary’s Magnificent is often read during Advent – December – in preparation for Christmas, but do we really pay attention to it? The high are brought down, the low are brought up … It would seem that Jesus learned at the foot of his mother.

Liberation Theology’s roots are in the soil of the Catholic Church’s American Context – particularly the Latin American Context of the 60’s and 70’s and 80’s, although there were seeds going back into the 50’s.

When Religious (Catholic Nuns, Friars, Priests) started reflecting upon their context in light of the Biblical Scriptures the tree of Liberation Theology started to grow.

Gustavo Gutierrez (a Peruvian Dominican) is one of the strong names associated with Liberation Theology. Others would include Leonardo Boff (Brazil), Jon Sobrino (Spain) and Juan Luis Segundo (Uruguay). As Gutierrez stated: “I come from a continent in which more than 60% of the population live in a state of poverty, and 82% of those find themselves in extreme poverty.” [Gutierrez, Gustavo (1991). "Juan de la Cruz desde America Latina". Retrieved March 9, 2015.]

But the problem facing these Religious/the the people was that while the 60% of the people lived in poverty, the Church hierarchy supported (sometime unwarily so) the top social structure. It was a systemic problem. When some of these Religious wrote about their experiences and formed a theology around what they were seeing, they used Marxist language to explain what was happening. For a Pope who had first hand experienced Communism in Poland, this smattered of Communism. While never condemned, there was much hierarchical resistance. I should mention that while the distinction between rich and poor in Latin America was distinct (at least during this time - and still is today), this type of thing happens everywhere.

Here are a few quotes from Gustavo to give you a flavor:

“There are not two histories, one profane and one sacred, 'juxtaposed' or 'closely linked.' Rather there is only one human destiny.”
― Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation

“We take it for granted that Jesus was not interested in political life: his mission was purely religious. Indeed we have witnessed . . . the 'iconization' of the life of Jesus: 'This is a Jesus of hieratic, stereotyped gestures, all representing theological themes. In this way, the life of Jesus is no longer a human life, submerged in history, but a theological life -- an icon.”
― Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation

“Charity is today a 'political charity.'. . . it means the transformation of a society structured to benefit a few who appropriate to themselves the value of the work of others. This transformation ought to be directed toward a radical change in the foundation of society, that is, the private ownership of the means of production.”
― Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation

The following quote also gives a distinction of Poverty that Liberation Theologians found helpful:

“An essential clue to the understanding of poverty in liberation theology is the distinction, made in the Medellín document "Poverty of the Church," between three meanings of the term "poverty": real poverty as an evil—that is something that God does not want; spiritual poverty, in the sense of a readiness to do God's will; and solidarity with the poor, along with protest against the conditions under which they suffer.”
― Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation: 15th Anniversary Edition

This bias stresses Praxis: i.e. Orthopraxis (right living/behavior) leads to Orthodoxy (right belief). Christian Base Communities became a place to reflect on the way people were living to understand who God was and how God was working in their lives, and might be calling them to change. There is a bit of circular methodology here: Reflection on Life/Action leads to Reflection on Scripture/God leads to Reflected Action/Response leads to Reflection on Life/Action .... In this way, Liberation Theology strove to be bottom-up – the liturgical practices and Biblical interpretation coming from the people themselves rather than the Church Hierarchy.

Speaking out for the poor carried huge risks in some parts of the Americas – especially Nicaragua and El Salvador – remember Oscar Romero?

Liberation Theology impacted not just the Catholic Church, but most of the main-line denominations.

The ‘doctrine implies that the moral test of any society is "how it treats its most vulnerable members. The poor have the most urgent moral claim on the conscience of the nation. We are called to look at public policy decisions in terms of how they affect the poor."’ [Option for the Poor, Major themes from Catholic Social Teaching, Office for Social Justice, Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.]

This principle (of see how policy effects the most vulnerable) is now also used in discussing Climate Change, both in the sense that it is the poor who are the most effected, but also that the environment is one of the “voice-less.”

All religious traditions invite us to change.
All religions invite us to have a right relationship with Reality (small or capital R).

All religious traditions invite us to examine our biases.

Can you name yours?
Can you explain how they shape the decisions you make?

Closing Words:

“[Neighbor is] not he whom I find in my path, but rather he in whose path I place myself, he whom I approach and actively seek.”
― Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation