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| ©Jason De Caires Taylor |
One of the most insidious attitudes I recognised in me in retrospect was the separation of people into 'Us and Them': anyone unlike me is at best avoided, and at worst seen as inferior. It's this attitude that distinguishes between those who work for the poor and those who work with the poor. It's what helps us to demonise and dehumanise others.
For lots of different reasons, I always felt it easy to relate to those on the 'outside'. It helped that I came to realise some of my own inner poverty. But what first really exorcised this attitude was experiencing poverty in a developing country for the first time. Some friends and I were hosted and given a week's worth of food by a man whose family were many hours away, and who were reduced to one meal a day - something I only learned afterwards.
A personal connection was made. If my own family or a neighbour suffered as he did, of course I would help. Since my lifestyle and the history of my nation were complicit in his oppression, why should I not care about his future? And the generosity and depth of faith he and others demonstrated in the face of desperate circumstances humbled me, taught me and broke me.
Caring about 'Justice' is important, but crucially it's about People; wherever they happen to have been born, or however different their outlook is to me. This song takes the gospel principle of a reconfigured family seriously.
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Almighty God, revealed as Father;
Daddy to me and to us all;
Help me remember my brothers
and sisters,
All that call you Father and
LORD.
Remember the poor,
my brothers and sisters,
Working to eat and
struggling to live.
Help me learn from
the lives of your favourites;
What I do for them
I do for you.
Remember the rich,
my brothers and sisters,
Trapped in lives
of idolatry,
Dying inside
whilst faith is in Mammon;
LORD have mercy,
on them and on me.
Remember the
drunk, the drugged and the homeless,
Both rich and poor
who lose their dignity.
The last, the
lost, the least and the losers;
Like brother
Jesus, my family.
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