This advice from Jesus comes after a warning about the hypocritical scribes and Pharisees. In Jesus’ world, the talked a good game, but didn’t follow through with consistent actions. The scribes and Pharisees were the religious and political leaders of the time, and they often got a bad rap. It’s interesting to me that Jesus is telling his followers that although the followers should not do what the leaders do, the followers should do what they say. Do as they say, not as they do. That’s so different than now. Now, we seem to dismiss everything about someone or some group if we don’t like what they do. We miss the opportunity to learn from their words, or their intent, just because they don’t always practice what they preach.
This is the reading from the Gospels selected for the commemoration of Harriet Beecher Stowe. I have a special place in my heart for her, as my mother-in-law wrote a script that has been turned in to a movie about Stowe, her visit to her brother’s seminary in Ohio, and how that ignited and fueled her abolitionist fire, eventually resulting in her writing Uncle Tom’s Cabin. That book and her bravery swept not only the US but many countries in Europe. It is said that upon meeting her, Abraham Lincoln said, “so this is the little lady who started the great war”. Indeed! The movie, Sons and Daughters of Thunder has been released in the Midwest.
Like Jesus, Stowe spoke out against the religious and political leaders of the time. This is always a brave thing to do, but especially for a woman in the late 1800’s. Her insistence that slavery was abhorrent kept her going, and her fiction writing was compelling and relevant enough to keep the abolitionists going. While slavery and its ugly repercussions haven’t disappeared in the US, we at least have a common understanding of its evil.
This morning, I’m thinking about the political and religious leaders of today, and of the messages they need to be hearing. I cannot imagine any circumstance where putting children in cages could be seen as the right thing to do. Well intentioned political and religious leaders say the right things; I’m sure many are Christian and may believe what they profess. But then their actions are so wrong.
It’s hard to know what to do in the face of that – of hypocrisy the would allow a child of God to put another child of God in a cage – for any reason – for any amount of time. Some people take to the streets in protest. Some write letters to their political and religious leaders. Maybe like Stowe, some write fiction. I feel stymied and impotent in the face of this action, which feel so far away and removed. I can imagine Stowe felt stymied, and far away from the evils of her time. She did what she knew how to do. And it changed the world. We all need to do what we know how to do. God can use all of that. And we need to get in the fray. The prayer to commemorate Stowe reads, in part:
Gracious God, we thank you for the witness of Harriett Beecher Stowe, whose fiction inspired thousands with compassion for the shame and sufferings of enslaved peoples.. Help us, like her, to strive for your justice.
Today, I want to think about my voice, my tools, my gifts. I want to use them all to strive for God’s justice, especially addressing the injustices created by the wrong actions of the political and religious leaders.
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