Salutation: Parish Priest, Rev. Dr. Luedemann; Clergy; Parish Leadership; Leagues; and the congregation at large, greetings in the name of Christ.

Transcription

1 BIBLE STUDY CHRIST AND ECONOMIC FREEDOM Salutation: Parish Priest, Rev. Dr. Luedemann; Clergy; Parish Leadership; Leagues; and the congregation at large, greetings in the name of Christ. Introduction When I accepted the invitation from the Parish Priest to present this paper or deliver this Bible Study to the Durban Central parish I trembled because of the size of the parish. I then said, God help me. As I was thinking about the topic and the approach to follow, Luke 4: 18 came to my mind. Bazalwane, I would like to use this reach text of Luke 4:18 which I view as Jesus s Mission Statement. The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He has anointed Me to proclaim (Preach) the good new (gospel) to the poor; he has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. Luke 4:18 After reading the above passage on Luke 4: 18 how can anyone doubt that economic freedom/justice was important to Jesus? In fact, it is one of the central themes in the Word of God - from the Prophets through to Jesus himself. Those who spoke for God, spoke up for the poor; the oppressed and for economic justice. Jesus said God anointed him for this very purpose 1

2 (certainly for other purposes as well, but this was the first "gospel" or "good news" Jesus spoke of). It might sound weird if I say that Jesus was a freedom fighter (Please note I am not saying that he was and Economic Freedom Fighter ). He was truly indeed a freedom fighter in a sense that his mission was to set us free from the bondage of sin. The word freedom suggests that someone/something is oppressed and in economic sense there is no economic justice. The question about the role of the church in economic freedom is well answered by another question that we should ask ourselves as Christians. What would Christ do if people were oppressed economically? I argue that a sin oppresses sinners and therefore just as Christ did it is our mission as Christians and or shall I say believers to preach the gospel of salvation, repentance (freedom) to those who are still slave of sins so that that they may be set free. Furthermore as Christians we need to make sure that we do not turn a blind eye to economic injustices and to any systems that seek to exclude people from participating in economic activities. We need to look around us and identify the poor, the needy, the underprivileged, and the marginalized. We are the followers of Christ, and therefore should adopt his mission statement is Luke 4:18. Before we interrogate our text as presented by St Luke, let us first unpack our topic by finding acceptable definitions: Definitions Firstly, who is Christ? 2

3 In the Apostles Creed especially the Second Article on Redemption, Dr. Martin Luther tells us that the word Christ means the Messiah, the Anointed one. God anointed him with his Holy Spirit and Power. He was anointed for a specific position that of bringing peace between God and us. In this position he is Priest, a Prophet and a King. I find it interesting that there is a relationship between Dr. Martin Luther s definition of Christ and the text we read from Luke 4:18. Just note the presence of Trinity in these two pieces of writings (God/Lord, Spirit, Jesus/Son). This is important for our understanding. Martin Luther is suggesting that God the Father with his Holly Spirit has anointed the Son (Jesus). Jesus in Luke 4: 18a is saying, The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor Secondly, What is freedom? In an attempt to define Freedom, Cooray (2013) first distinguish between freedom and liberty. Liberty conveys the idea of the right or the ability of the individual to do what he wants. Freedom on the other hand is a word that contains inbuilt restrictions. He further states that my freedom to swing my hands stops at my neighbor s nose. A free society contains individuals who are free to do what they do, whilst respecting the freedoms of others. Freedom is the liberty of the individual coupled with concern by the liberated individual for the liberties of others (Cooray 2013:2). Freedom cannot be defined, except through an analysis of the restrictions on human action. Thirdly, let me attempt to define economy. 3

4 The term economics comes from a Greek word oikonomia = management of a household, administration (oikos, = house; and nomos = law) hence rules of the household for good management. In literature Economics is defined as a study of the production and consumption of goods and the transfer of wealth to produce and obtain those goods. Economics is the study of how societies use scarce resources to produce valuable commodities and distribute them among different people Samuelson (1948). A study of economics can describe all aspects of a country s economy, such as how a country uses its resources, how much time laborers devote to work and leisure, the outcome of investing in industries or financial products, the effect of taxes on a population, and why businesses succeed or fail. The flow of money, resources and services, which characterizes the economic cycle, facilitates demand and supply. The role-players in the economy include households, business, government and the foreign sector. These participants are involved in the processes of production, consumption and exchange. Bazalwane from these definitions I wish to draw from Coorey (2013) and conclude that economic freedom is about my ability as an individual (economic role player) to influence the management of production factors, financial resource, distribution and consumption of outputs/goods. If I do not have influence or access to Land (natural resources), Capital (financial resources), Machinery/equipment (technical 4

5 resources), Labour (human resources) I argue that I do not have economic freedom. Do we have control or influence over these resources in South Africa? This is the question that each individual must answer. I am not looking for an answer. Abaphathiswe okuningi kuyobizwa okuningi kubo Economic Freedom Economic freedom is about whether all role players in the economy do get what they deserve. Are the resources (Natural, Financial, Technical, Human) accessible to all or fairly distributed? Do the owners of production factors fairly compensate for the use of human resources? Are the owners of natural resources fairly compensated? Are the financial resources easily accessible to those who have natural and or technical resources? To be free economically you need to have influence over resources (money, land, machinery, etc) or have at least a source of revenue. Without these you will be leaving below the poverty line and you are poor. Bazalwane let us look around us. How many people around you sleep without food? How many people in this Parish or in your congregation come to church every sunday with empty stomach not by choice but because they don t have. What do you do? What do we do as the church? Do we preach to people with empty stomach and then go to Spur after service to have our lunch? Do we collect iminikelo from them and say God will provide? I have seen and I have had other ministers asking people to give all they have because God will provide. The other Pastor (well known to you his case was on the news paper) took a 5

6 pension payout from a retiring widow and said God will richly bless the widow while keeping money for himself. How do we feel Bazalwane when Jesus says I have been anointed to preach the gospel (good news) to the poor. What are these good news? Over the years in South Africa and in the world as whole we have witnessed a massive shift of wealth and power away from the poor and middle class to the rich. Bazalwane I have no interest in the mining industry, but let us take an example of the mining sector. Workers are more productive than ever; working harder than ever; producing more and more efficiently than any other mining workers in the world. According to the Adcorp (2013) report, real output per worker has been rising consistently in SA since. In 1967, the average worker produced R 63,162 (R 5,264 pm) of real output a year, whereas in 2012, the average worker produced R 143,412 (R 11,951 pm) of real output a year a growth of 127,1%. By the way productivity gains directly result in increased net income for the businesses receiving those gains. I have taken a liberty of presenting two charts from the 2013 survey conducted by the Fuller LRS from different unions, bargaining councils and sectoral determinations. The report covered 88 companies listed in the JSE and they published their annual financial statements. 6

7 Figure 1: THE DISTRIBUTION OF MINIMUM MONTHLY WAGES in 2012 (Rands) Source: Labour Research Services Report of

8 Figure 2: CROSS SECTOR AVERAGE CEO REMUNERATION 2012 Source: Labour Research Service Report of 2013 What I deduced from this data is that the suppliers of Labour, the people who go underground, and the people who face the most risk are getting 0,004% of the CEO s salary. A CEO is getting 224 times a salary of an average employee. Is there economic justice to this? I know some of these CEO s MD s and GM s are members of our church. I am sure they have answers and perhaps they deserve this because they also work very hard shaping the strategy of the organization, taking all the financial risks, etc. Let me stop politics and get back to our text in Luke 4: 18a 8

9 Luke 4: 18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me for he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. St. Luke here quotes, with a few important variations, from the book of Isaiah 61:1-2 We find Jesus Mission Statement in the first message He preached in Nazareth when He said, The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He hath anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. Isaiah 61:1-2 In his excellent work, The Life And Times Of Jesus The Messiah, Alfred Edersheim makes a strong case that the year Jesus began His public ministry was the Year of Jubilee, a year of celebration and liberation when all debts were cancelled, all slaves set free. If this be the case, Jesus message would be especially fitting, for He was about to set people free from religious domination as well. Throughout history these are the categories of people who are not economic players; in fact they have largely been dismissed as economic liabilities. I argue that they have no economic freedom. Reading my bible I came across hundreds of scripture passages that talk about economic freedom/justice; about lifting up the poor and oppressed; about reining in the excesses of the rich. In fact, there probably is nothing God talks about more in the bible than this topic. God spoke through virtually all of the prophets of the Old Testament about selfishness and economic inequality. For the sake of this study I will focus on economic 9

10 freedom/justice, lifting up the poor and oppressed. Oppression/Slavery Proverbs 22:7 The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower are the slave of the lender. Micah 6:8-14 He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? Amos 8:11 (4-6,7) Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord God, when I will send a famine on the land not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. Deuteronomy 23:15-16 You shall not give up to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you. He shall dwell with you, in your midst, in the place that he shall choose within one of your towns, wherever it suits him. You shall not wrong him. Leviticus 25:44-46 (28; 35-37; 39-43) As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you. You may also buy from among the strangers who sojourn with you and their clans that are with you, who have been born in your land, and they may be your property. You may bequeath them to your sons after you to inherit as a possession forever. You may make slaves of them, but over your brothers the people of Israel you shall not rule, one over another ruthlessly. 10

11 Genesis 1:28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Lifting up the poor The spirit of the Lord is upon me for he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor Luke 4:18a Jesus is preaching good news to the poor. What is the good news? Let us look at the Old Testament: Amos 5:24 (21-25) But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! The book of Amos is about a society similar to our own in which the profits produced by the work of the people were going, not back to the people who created them, but rather to the rich landowners. Amos called for economic justice and righteousness. Psalm 140:12 I know that the LORD secures justice for the poor and upholds the cause of the needy. Proverbs 13:23 Much food is in the tillage of the poor: but there is that is destroyed for want of judgement". Proverbs 29:7 The righteous cares about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern. 11

12 Now we let us turn to the New Testament (the Gospel = good news Jesus brought to the poor). Luke 6: 20; 24 Jesus said: Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God... But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Luke 18:18-23 A certain ruler asked him, "Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth. Jesus looked at him and said, how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." Luke 16:19-31 There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire. But Abraham replied, Son, remember that in your lifetime you received 12

13 your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us So when Jesus made his public declaration of interest, it was as profound as it was provocative. Moreover, Jesus said that he was on a mission from God. His mission is our mission If we are Christians or shall I say followers of Christ we should adopt his Mission Statement. The poor are in his heart, they are closer to him. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God Mathew 5:3. If you ask me: what should be the role of the Christian Church in economic freedom. My answer is the church should model its master The church should be like Christ and adopt his mission statement that of caring for the poor, the marginalized, the underprivileged. Let us look around us. How many people need us outside there and we don t get to them because they are poor? Look at family visitations, imikhuleko yezigceme, yezinhlangano. Who do we send prayers to? What criteria do we use to select a family to visit? Five to six leagues will visit the Mkhize family at Seaview in one month because there is enough space to sit, and there will be juice after the service. Mzimela at the Banana City who need prayer more than Mkhize will not be visited because he stays in a shack and cannot provide juice and sandwiches. There is no parking to park our Mercedes benz and Jeeps. Think about people who come to your congregation and they don t return because asibanakanga since they don t belong. Think of a person who wants to come to church but will not because they don t have labels (Cadducci, Lacoste, C&J) Bazalwane, the poor are closer to Jesus s heart. Let us model him, let us 13

14 get closer to them as well. Let us do one thing right: let us care for the poor. Bazalwane as Christians we really need to preach the gospel of reversing the widening gap between the "have's" and the "have-nots." As with any political question, when it comes to economics, Christians must honestly ask themselves which view best reflects Christian (i.e. gospel) values: individual wealth creation (selfishness) or promotion of the common good (sharing)? No matter how you look at it, if we really believe the gospel, then we will believe in the things Jesus believed in. We will live Jesus' values. Yes, even in our politics. Those values are all about loving God; loving (and treating) one's neighbor (and enemy) as ourselves; sharing what we have with others; and generally promoting a better, more just, righteous, and unselfish world -- for all of God's children. Resolution Bibliography 1. Cooray. M, (2013). The Australian Achievement: From Bondage To Freedom. Australia 2. Samuelson, P.A. (1948): Economics. McGraw-Hill. New York 3. in% pdf