You shall not abuse the resident alien in your midst ...
Ordinary Sunday 30, 27th October, 2002
The Rev'd Dr Colin Holden
Assistant Priest and Archivist, St Peter's, Eastern Hill
He has shown you what is good: and what does the Lord require of you but to do justly, and to show mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?
As well as grand scenes at the courts of Egypt, Assyria and Babylon, 19th century artists drawing on Biblical images represented scenes of a simpler kind, scenes of day to day life of people in Palestine – shepherds, harvesting. Many were reproduced in easily accessible sources, including the publications edited by that indefatigable promoter of British Protestant culture, Arthur Mee, with his ten volume red cloth bound encyclopaedia. As a small boy, I was fascinated by one showing Ruth and Naomi in a rural setting; Ruth, the Moabite woman, goes with her Jewish mother in law as she returns to Palestine. How is she to survive? The painting showed Ruth among the Gleaners. Surely, I asked, it should be cleaners? As a child, this mysterious archaic word introduced me to a dimension in the Jewish law of compassion and sharing. Gleaning involved the deliberate leaving behind of some grain as crops were gathered by reapers, so that those who were in difficult circumstances had a source from which they could gather material for food – sort of unemployment benefit in kind.
It was legal injunctions to be found in Exodus that created the opportunity that insured Ruth's survival in what for her was a foreign country; she in turn appears as one of the few women mentioned in the genealogical table, the family tree of Jesus. The provision that insured her survival is one of many in Old Testament law, and others that are consistent with it form this morning's first lesson. A careful re-reading of text will remind us that the Old Testament's legal system contained what we might now describe as a component dealing with basic human rights. It not only contains positive injunctions, such as 'you shall not abuse an alien', (or the regulation that some of the grain crop should be left behind for the poor to gather), but it offers a philosophical and theological basis for such attitudes.
This morning's lesson offers two significant foundations. The first is that there is some very real sense in which God is on the side of those who have no one else to stand up for them, and that conversely, those who exploit the defenceless or vulnerable are answerable to Him. Look again at the statement concerning the treatment of widows and orphans. This is a statement about fair dealing for the oppressed which starts with the nature of God. But there is a second premise, one that involves a reflection on their experience by the people of Israel. They are invited to remember that once they were ill-treated and abused as slaves in Egypt. If this was wrong for them, such treatment of others has the same effects, and is equally wrong. Here, there is an underlying assumption about what we would describe as something like 'common humanity'.
The connection between all of this and the Gospel, specifically this morning's gospel, is at one level clear and obvious. The treatment of neighbour – a category that embraces all others – that Jesus sees as being an essential or basic (a commandment) for those who claim to relate to God, includes this kind of attitude enjoined in Exodus. But instead of giving directions about specific situations, or ways of applying these principles, he describes the basic response in a way that can be extended over the widest possible range of experience and situations.
As usual, if we treat the Gospel, not as a series of isolated sayings, but as a body of teaching which has an underlying unity, there is a sting in the tail at this point. Jesus tells an illustrative story about treating people with dignity and decency. But the traditional roles have all been changed. In the story of Ruth, it is her in-laws in their home territory in Israel who live up to the expectations spelt out in Exodus. They have, and they make sure that the opportunities are there for support for Ruth. But in the case of the Good Samaritan, everything is turned upside down. It is someone who is supposed to have a wrong understanding of God, and to be culturally and racially on the wrong side of the rails, who stands up for the beaten up traveller; the people who have some control over resources and clearly should know better, don't fulfil that role at all.
Where do we stand in relation to this? There are various ways of answering that question. A broad one would be to say that across significant periods of their history, Christian communities have been on both sides of the equation. The doing has been mixed. In the period in Western history that we know as the Middle Ages, when institutional Catholicism was the most powerful single political and cultural as well as religious force, indentured serfs (meaning in practice people whose rights in the eyes of law were next to nil) formed the labour force for big land holders, including both the institutional church (in the form of monastic communities) and non-ecclesiastical individuals and groups. The treatment of serfs on estates owned by church institutions was generally no better than their treatment by other kinds of 'owners': in other words, when institutional Christianity had maximum power and influence, it didn't distinguish itself by the way it treated underprivileged workers. It had a record of exploitation that had the same low points that were visible among other employers of what was virtually slave labour. But even in some of the most dismal corners of European history, some bright lights appear. The record of the colonisation of Central and South America contains examples of appalling treatment of indigenous peoples, many used as slave labour – particularly in mining. But the basis for today's concepts of the rights of all people in international law appear in the legal writings and protests of Spanish priests in the West Indies, arguing that all kinds of peoples currently abused as slaves actually had basic rights. Most of us, whose history lessons at school included a good dose of English history, remember the use of child labour in 18th and early 19th century England underground in mines and above ground in factories. They were basically a slave labour force, whose work conditions were unregulated and contributed directly to serious illnesses and early death. The ownership and running of such establishments included plenty of aquiescent Anglicans, but it was also a body of devout Anglicans who pressed for legislation that would control, and eventually outlaw, such systematic abuse – and in their presentation of the case against, they included the kind of argument that I have already located in this morning's first lesson.
What of today and now? The resident alien and how he or she is treated isn't just a situation experienced by the writer of Exodus. It hasn't gone away, and is one we know in many parts of the world in a way that the writers of Exodus never dreamt of. However, whatever conclusions we come to, for those who profess a Christian belief and life, the attitudes enunciated remain crucial, and can form the basis for a contribution that we must continue to make as debates with ethical dimensions continue to take place. We must ask in the ongoing situation of Israel and its occupied territories: is the behaviour of Israeli politicians (and, indeed, of conservative religious Jewish elements) in their dealings with Palestinians consistent with these basic Biblical values, and would their practice encourage a different kind of transaction between Israelis and Palestinians to the ones most frequently reported at present?
What is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander. Closer to home, they are standards that can rightly be borne in mind as discussion continues on the way in which we treat those who arrive in our land, and whether we need to modify our treatment of asylum seekers. I was intrigued to note two items reported side by side on the ABC last week. One was that clergy visiting detainees had sacramental matter confiscated, particular wine, on the grounds that its use could lead to disorderly behaviour, and what were claimed to be Bibles (the ABC lacks some refinement in distinguishing between one sort of religious text and another – I would have thought, liturgical books) lest they disguise contraband. A state premier commented that this was deeply disturbing and constituted a breach of basic religious freedoms. Mr Ruddock was heard in the next item affirming that detainees had better access to mental heath services than most members of the Australian community. Perhaps religious practice is treated differently by the authorities, but even in that area, it sounds as though we can fall far short of the kind of principles enunciated in our readings, and we must not maintain silence that might be understood as consent.
The injunction of Exodus applied to a particular group of people, the Israelites, envisaged as a special and privileged people – special and privileged in their relationship with God. Within the Christian tradition, we say that there is no special chosen people, but that God's calling is to all. On a secular world scene, the second half of the 20th century has tended to speak of all kinds of issues, not in terms of single nations, but of larger blocs. Here Christians can make a definite contribution: by linking the privileges that some groupings of nations and cultures enjoy with the concept of responsibility to others beyond that bloc's boundaries.
Most importantly of all, there is the whole issue of fair dealing and compassion, grounded in an understanding of a common humanity – implicit in part of the Exodus reading. Each generation faces new and different attitudes and circumstances that challenge and seek to erode such an awareness, and the actions based on it. Given that, it is essential that we remind others that the insights I have been discussing are fundamental building blocks for much ethical behaviour, and for action that expresses our humanity in its richest way, and continue to offer that as a position that it is imperative for us to express.
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