What about these recent anti-vax, anti-mandate, placard waving, irresponsible gatherings of malcontents and illegal road blockages, decrying our loss of freedoms?
The only freedoms we’ve lost have been forced on us by a pandemic, not a government decree. Free education and health endure. Freedom to live where we choose, provided we can afford the cost of a house or rent. We can friend and marry anyone we choose, we are allowed to work at whatever occupation we choose, provided we have the appropriate qualifications and skills. Most of us can still enjoy the beach and the (usually) blue sky.
To drive a car or fly an aircraft we need a licence which proves we are competent, for the safety of the public. To become a nurse or a doctor or a school teacher, we undergo significant training and pass examinations to prove we are capable and responsible. Most employers mandate special conditions of employment, even to the point, in many cases, of requiring regular staff drug testing. An employee surrenders his/her rights and freedoms in these scenarios for the greater good, and, fail these tests … no job. Pfizer certificates are no different.
It’s legal to play our stereos loud, and mow our lawns, but if it’s three in the morning (especially if I’m mowing my lawns at that hour), rules and restraint have to come into play.
And, what’s the big deal about “Stay home if you have symptoms”? We should be doing that for ordinary viruses. It’s right and proper and common sense if we want to protect work colleagues.
Even the very claim to freedom. Where does it say freedom is an absolute right? No rights are absolute; all are bounded to some degree, particularly in time of war or civil emergency, and we are in the midst of a serious civil emergency.
A friend says, “No government’s gonna tell me what to do!” Well, wake up. The government already tells you what to do, in so many ways. That’s a bogus protest. It’s the government’s job, and the judiciary’s, and the police’s, to ring-fence our lives all over the place – for our own and others’ protection. Freedoms we enjoy in easy times go if times become more precarious. For the greater good.
Some claim a legal right to refuse medical treatment – standing on the Bill of Rights. But can’t the Bill of Rights be subjugated in times of emergency? Don’t circumstance and context have some bearing on a normal right? Even if not, claimers cannot reasonably expect others to forgo their right not to be associated with them, or employ them.
Used by permission of The Spinoff’s Toby Morris
The bottom line, protesters, is … no, wait … this is the bottom line for all of us: we are free to choose – do, even – whatever we wish – comply or not comply, curse the government or praise it (remembering that Covid is the enemy, not the government), trust the science or the Fakebook echo chamber, rail against the sky falling on our heads or just enjoy the sky … but there will be costs and consequences to every choice.
Count the cost and accept the consequences. Don’t whinge, and put others’ needs before yours.
Ken F
But if the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. (John 8:36)
What would you do if you knew that Jesus was returning at midnight tonight? How would you spend the next fifteen hours? Praying, asking for forgiveness for all the things you’ve put off doing? What if you knew he would return a week from today? How would you prioritise doing all those things you haven’t got around to doing? What matters most?
The disciples were occupied with when will Jesus return. Jesus doesn’t respond to their question ‘when?’, but warns them and encourages them with three instructions:
Don’t be deceived! Follow Jesus’s teachings. The implication that the disciples may follow false leaders reminds me that the early Christians did split into so many different sects – that by the time Mohammed arrived he felt he had to create a new true interpretation – without the certainty we have of the help of our belief in Jesus, and the help of the Holy Spirit, to live as he advised us.
Take heed to yourselves. Don’t worry about the things happening around you. It’s enough to love the Lord our God with all our heart and mind and strength; and to love our neighbour as ourself.
Be alert! Don’t get distracted. Oh how easy it is to be distracted by material things, comfort food, escapist books or whatever else takes your fancy. I find that I get distracted more easily each year I get older: so my first action after I get up is to have my quiet time, and after my reflections I write my plan for the day. I usually follow the prayer plan I was taught in my youth: praise, thanksgiving, ask for forgiveness, intercessions and ask for help in planning and putting into practice my plans for the day. (Which always include two hours of gardening.) But some of that gets hurried by my need for breakfast!
I’ve always felt that the kingdom of God is all around us. Jesus is with us now in our daily lives. How often do we make ourselves aware of him? Ask for his help in our daily decision making and actions and difficulties. I tend to think quickly, and speak and act without thinking. Pray that we can ask for his help, moment to moment of each day. To be alert to each other’s needs, listen and look for the unspoken words in body language. Take this simple message home this week. I hope that its brevity will help the message stick. In the Name of God the Father, his Son, and the Holy Spirit.
This Mark reading features two unconnected – or not obviously connected – incidents/teachings. Actually, the whole chapter seems to be an assembly of some of the things Jesus did and taught in the week just before his execution. Although, given that I’m touched first of all by the pompous ways of the scribes (or ‘teachers of the law’ in some versions), especially in contrast to the meekness and humility of the widow, Mark may well have placed these two segments beside each other intentionally. So, we could unpack the attitudes of the scribes – part of the holy cabal of scribes, Pharisees and priests – and examine our own outward ways of being. Are we ‘scribal’ in any way, sisters and brothers? And we could then unpack the widow’s attitude to giving, or, indeed, God’s attitude to widows and orphans, and anyone in states of vulnerability.
But I feel rather to pick up on something from the Psalm reading.
Do not put your trust in princes, it says, … in human beings, who cannot save. When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing. Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God. He is the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them — he remains faithful forever. He upholds the cause of the oppressed, and … [and various vulnerable folk are mentioned, including the widows, who, of course, in those days, had no official or often even social means of support].
God loves the vulnerable – and the righteous, the Psalm says – so, accepting that, don’t put your faith or your hopes in human beings! They’re not as good as they seem.
In coaching school rugby and soccer teams, we would often find ourselves on Saturday mornings, early, on foreign fields in miserable weather. As opposition teams began to turn up I could sometimes sense my players’ growing anxiety, seeing the size and perceived skills of the opposition, and I had to try to calm them down. I’d use various platitudes like “the bigger they are, the harder they fall” (which was little comfort to my players!), or … one that seemed to work better was, “they no different than you. They still get up each morning and put their trousers on one leg after the other”. The mental image and associated giggles did seem to lower their anxieties.
Just last week I was discussing vaccinations with my son (who’d been in some of my rugby teams as a teenager), and I was trying to ease the tensions of a controversial topic by saying, “Look, at the end of the day, if Ashley Bloomfield [NZ’s Director General of Health] says it’s safe, and the thing we need to do, then that’s good enough for me.” To which Tom said, with a twinkle in his grin, “Dad, he’s no wiser than you or me … he still gets up each morning and puts his trousers on one leg after the other”.
Touche.
Don’t put your trust in people, people! … is the message of some of these verses from Psalm 146.
What – you mean don’t trust anyone? Not my husband, my wife, my family, my friends, the Bishop, the All Blacks, the climate change delegates at COP26?
No, I don’t think the psalmist would go that far. Like me, he would still insure his car! He’d look to the Lord for safety on the roads, but he would still insure his car. He would still look to God for his general safety and well-being, but he would still lock his doors at night. He would trust God for his health, but he would still – would he still, maybe?, get vaccinated!
See what I mean? If our property is threatened, we would call the police – hopefully they’d come quickly – but still, primarily, trust in our God. And even if things turned out badly for us, our trust would still be in him … ultimately.
There are many incidents in the Old Testament where the Israelites didn’t have their hope in God, and it cost them. Times when they made alliances with pagan nations; when they went after other nations’ Gods; when they wanted a King, ‘like the other nations’ (we learn in 1 Samuel chapters 8-10); when they turned to Egypt because the Babylonians were threatening, but Egypt had more horses and chariots than they did (as in Jeremiah 42, for example). Actually, that chapter is quite instructive: The enemy were at the gates of Jerusalem. The king didn’t know what to do, and his generals and political ‘friends’ were in rebellion. They were wanting to abandon the city, and seek refuge in Egypt. To force the issue, the rebels sought the advice of the prophet Jeremiah, swearing they’d adhere to whatever he counselled. Jeremiah sought God, then counselled the rebels to stay in Jerusalem – they would be saved – but not to look to Egypt (where they would die if they went there). The rebels promptly ignored the advice and … it didn’t finish well for them.
So this tells us to seek God when we’re in trouble, and to do what seems right before him – not necessarily what human advice might tell us to do.
But, back to the question of whom among men and women can we trust, should we trust? When is it ok to trust in other people? The secret is, I suggest, we can trust the people we trust, as long as we can do it without compromising our primary submission to the higher one: God.
I put it to you that it’s fine to ask for help: when I take my car to the garage for repair, when I try to get a good deal on motel accommodation – as Jackie and I were doing this time last week, when I accept my government superannuation, when I ask Jackie to go downstairs and get me the hammer – no, perhaps I shouldn’t admit that here – or when I ask the bank to look after my funds … these are all ways I can trust in men and women without compromising in any way and, whilst still truly trusting God for my overall wellbeing.
But there are times when our hope needs to be in God alone. Men and women are fallible – they have no real power or comfort or ability to work miracles. The mechanic is not God; banks collapse; motels can still rip you off. Only God … He, who is our true backstop.
I love the attitude of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. To me these epitomise the attitude of the widow (in the Mark reading): they were told they must worship the local king, or they’d be thrown into a furnace. They replied (in Daniel 3), “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” [Emphasis added] And you probably know how that panned out.
God forbid that we should ever have to face such a challenge, but let’s adopt their attitude in the face of any challenge. Do you have any challenges in mind this morning, facing you imminently? Then, be very clear about this: “God, whom we serve, is able …” The widow had her whole trust in God; the scribal cabal did not. Jesus highlighted the difference. And the psalmist says,
Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save. Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God. He remains faithful forever.
Sustainability: the big picture – what can we do? What are your thoughts and hopes?
Let’s not be put off by naysayers that it’s just too hard.
A Sunday School Teacher asked her eight eager 10-year-olds if they would give a million dollars to the save the planet. “YES!” they all screamed! “Would you give $1000?” Again they shouted “YES!” “How about $100?” “Oh, YES we would,” they all agreed. “Would you give just a dollar to the save the planet?” she asked. The boys exclaimed “YES!” just as before, except for Jack. “Jack,” the teacher said as she noticed the boy clutching his pocket, “why didn’t you say ‘Yes’ this time?” “Well,” he stammered, “I HAVE a dollar.”
And this is the crux of the matter.
What can we do? We are just one, we say. But we can do something. In the 1990s the global corporation Nike was targeted by campaigners because it had denied responsibility for any unprofessional conduct that may be taking place in its sub-contractor factories. However, statements made by two woman workers at a Nike plant in Vietnam and reported by CBS in 1996 set in motion a boycott campaign of Nike that was so successful that it has now become an object lesson in how giant corporations can be brought to account by ordinary consumers. The campaign scored a direct hit on Nike’s bottom line, and because of this the corporation today operates with an openness and transparency that would have been unthinkable thirty years ago. All because the ordinary consumer, just like you or me, reacted and said with their buying power, “No, we will not agree with this.”
By using demonstrations, opinion pieces and campaigns in traditional media and increasingly over social media, and especially by voting with our dollars and boycotting, we as consumers can flex our right to an opinion and sometimes we will get results.
Another couple of examples to encourage:
In 2009 a Honduran factory that supplied Russell Athletic was shut down soon after the workers unionised. The anti-sweatshop movement got on the case, with United Students Against Sweatshops persuading the administrations of more than 90 universities and colleges to suspend their licensing agreements with Russell. This translated to sales losses of sometimes more than $1 million per school. By November Russell agreed to rehire 1200 Honduran workers from the shuttered factory and open a new, unionised factory. The company also pledged not to fight unionisation in its other seven factories in Honduras.
A 2010 Internet campaign by Greenpeace led Nestlé to change its palm oil supplier. The issue at stake: Some of the palm oil used in some chocolate bars was produced by companies that were cutting down vast expanses of Indonesian rain forest, which destroyed tribal ancestral lands, killed orangutans and other endangered species, and contributed to emissions affecting climate change. By September 2013 Nestle was able to responsibly source 100 percent of its palm oil, two years ahead of its commitment.
In New Zealand, Kathmandu, Kmart and The Warehouse stated in their 2012 annual reports they have stopped working with some suppliers who failed to meet the requirements of each company’s respective ethical-sourcing code. This gives us hope.
We can make a difference – to our families, our communities and the world – by our actions towards sustainability. Let us not be like Jack in the joke not wanting to give the little we have, be that cash or time or energy, in order to make change.
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