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February 20

Equality

It is stating the obvious to say our world is deeply divided: the first world and the two-thirds world; rich and poor; the powerful and the oppressed; majority groups and minorities. In the community of faith it can and should all be very different.

Throughout the entire Bible there is a consistent message that God has a heart for the poor and powerless and such persons should be treated with love, care, and justice.

That message is in the Pentateuch, the Prophets, the Psalms, the Gospels, and the Epistles. If there is anything that is clear in the biblical story, it is this message: love of God involves love of neighbor and in particular the poor, the fatherless, the widow, those in distress, those oppressed, and those in need. Thus to have a Christian heart is to have a heart for the poor.

The place where this great generosity of heart should begin is in the community of faith. But often this is not the case, hence the challenge of St. Augustine. He writes, “But it ought never to be that in thy Tabernacle the persons of the rich should be welcome before the poor, or the nobly born before the rest.”51

The great vision of Scripture is a new humanity in Christ. This is a humanity in which the way of Christ is embodied and where the old ethnic, economic, and gender barriers are broken down. When the church lives this vision, its witness will be revolutionary. Living this vision could change our world.

Reflection

“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus”

(Gal 3:28).