Years ago, a few weeks before Christmas, our friend and neighbor Jessie King rose up in church and appealed for us to bring shoeboxes filled with combs and hair brushes and little toys for the severely handicapped children in the state hospital near Glen Ellen. She said many of these children are all but forgotten and never receive Christmas presents. She said she would like the gifts placed on the communion table so they could be blessed before she took them to the hospital.
As she finished her presentation, Jessie quoted words ascribed to Jesus: “For as much as you have done it unto the least of those among you, you have done it unto me.” But before she got it all out, Jessie began to cry. She cried up there in front of the congregation, terribly embarrassed, thinking she had failed. “I let those dear children down,” she said.
The following Sunday, shoeboxes full of combs, brushes and little toys piled up on the communion table and spilled over the front pews. It’s wonderful that people can be so kind and generous in such situations. And, beautiful to see, countless people have rallied behind those who lost so much in the fires. By and large, we Americans are good that way.
However, we are not nearly as good at challenging unjust systems as we are at responding to the suffering such systems cause. These days, in spite of being led by many who claim to be devout Christians, just about every proposal in Congress does exactly the opposite of those words Jessie King quoted from the Gospel of Matthew.
As a nation we are creating a system in which those who are most among us will have more and more and those who are least will have less and less. Current “tax reform” bills threaten the health care of millions and increase the burden on those at the very bottom of the income scale, while richly rewarding those at the top.
How is it possible that a nation with huge numbers of compassionate people, a nation with caring churches in every city, town and village, nonetheless, when it comes to national policies, brings forth unfair and cruel proposals?
Back in 1932, Reinhold Niebuhr, considered the most important American theologian in the last 200 years, tackled this question in his book “Moral Man and Immoral Society.” Writing during the Great Depression, Niebuhr saw that those who have the most are well organized and well-funded to take advantage of the economic and political system, and so life becomes difficult for the least among us on a national scale. He says this is an old story, constantly recurring in the political life of nations as the bond between financial influence and political power takes its toll on those less wealthy and less powerful.
Niebuhr says this bond is so strong that complete fairness is not attainable, but people of faith and good will must strive toward it nevertheless. He says this can happen if Americans learn to express their native unselfishness in political actions as well as in personal good deeds. Before he’s through, Niebuhr says the compassionate among us must take to the streets in peaceful demonstration on behalf of the least among us. It’s the most effective power left to those without power and influence, he says.
As Christmas comes on, we do well to consider that the record shows Jesus coming from a more or less middle class family. His father was a carpenter, we’re told, and his family could afford swaddling clothes and a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He was born in a stable not because his family couldn’t afford the inn, but because there was no room there. Some scholars say Jesus owned a house in Capernaum during his teaching days.
So, Jesus was not destitute, but he identified with those who were. The norm is to strive to be among those with the most; Jesus stood with those with the least. That’s one of the remarkable things about him, I feel, and it challenges us who would be his followers.
Bob Jones is the former minister of the Guerneville and Monte Rio Community Church
