“My Rights!”

Rev. Brian Thorpe 20/09/2020

Readings - Genesis 2:4b-9; 15-25, Matthew 20:1-16

“My rights”. My guess is that you have heard this phrase from time to time over the last few weeks.

We’ve seen footage and photos of demonstrations and riots in many places as people say their rights are being trampled on due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Not too long-ago sections of the Christian community were up in arms as they felt their rights to practice their religion and free speech are under threat. I find this curious as this seems to me to reflect the self-centredness so prevalent today. My understanding is the walk in the Way of Jesus is about service, not self-centredness, and not rights.

In all this talk of ‘my rights’ I find myself asking the question ‘what about responsibility to others; where it is?

This question sent me to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in session on December 10th, 1948.

Reading the Declaration’s thirty articles it’s clear that the dignity and worth of every human being is being upheld. In our Judeo/Christian heritage we would say every human being is created in the image of God, as people have the right to be treated with respect

So, yes, the Universal Declaration of speaks of freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and assembly. 

These are fine ideals, yet, in our situation of identity, tribal politics and division there is a huge problem. Writing in his book ‘A Lot With a Little’ Tim Costello observes that within the political right, (and I would say the Christian right) identity politics coalesces around conservative values of freedom of speech for the individual, even when such speech disparages other minorities. He quotes former attorney general George Brandis saying ‘this gives the right to be bigots’. Not too long ago a Perth Christian leader was making what I thought were terrible statements about a minority community. When responses were made there was the cry of persecution.

Is it too obvious to say that in the current environment of ‘my rights’, the rights of others to be treated with dignity and respect goes out the window?

It’s interesting to observe that the Declaration envisages such situations. Article 29, states:

 1. Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.   

2. In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solelyfor the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.

So, there is no right to be a bigot. What there are, is responsibilities to others, in their right to be treated with dignity and respect. As we see, and experience today, somehow the duties and responsibilities to others are ignored in what I experience in many ways as a self-centred community and society.

At this point, and in the face of the deep brokenness we experience, you might well be asking what on earth has all of this got to do with the Creation season, or Sustainable September?

So, let me ask you, do you garden; do you like to potter about and grow things? If your answer is ‘yes’ why do you garden and grow things: what does it do for you?  Have you ever thought about that? 

Such questioning puts us in touch with this morning’s Genesis reading, the second creation story.

I think this is a beautiful, and profound, story from our Judea/Christian heritage as the question/issue of who we are is addressed. It’s very different from the more lofty/priestly language of Genesis 1.

I wonder how many focussed on the words at the end of the reading about husband and wife? It’s a great statement; one which I have used more than once at weddings.

However, that statement can’t be read in isolation: it needs to be read in the context of the earlier verses. These words also need to be read appreciating the context of the times; the ‘man is a generic term for humanity, and in no way should the text be used, or abused, for misogynistic thinking and behaviour.

The words in verse 7 about the man being formed from the dust of the ground, having breath breathed into his nostrils and becoming a living being are deceptively simple, yet utterly profound. 

Did you note in the reading that the breath of life was breathed into the man was the breath of the Lord God? These words are the window into who, you and I, are. We are not simply a collection of bones, muscles, and various organs held in place by our skin. We, you and I, are a living soul, a spiritual being, an expression of divine love:  Genesis 1:26 puts it differently in stating humankind was created in the image of God.

We then read that it wasn’t good for the man to be alone, so he was given every living being to name. By this naming activity there is a relationship, a relationship between the ‘man’/humankind and all of creation, and as in any relationship there is responsibility.

When I asked the question about why do you garden and potter about in the dirt, I suspect that there were thoughts along the line that it brings pleasure; there is something deeply satisfying in growing things. Why is it satisfying? Because in the context of the reading you are a person, and people of the land. You have a relationship with the land, and in the naming of all living things you have a relationship with the creation. 

I’ve got no need to say that this all gone drastically, tragically wrong; we have lost sight of, or never appreciated, that we are people of the land. As we endured a summer of bushfires, as California is burning, as is Brazil and Siberia, as another super hurricane hit the American southern east coast, as Pacific peoples are losing their homes because the ocean is warming, as we are faced with the extinction of the koala in just thirty years, it is much easier to criticise and disparage those who do appreciate their relationship with the land; even as we claim ownership of the land – to do what we like with, and it’s all catching up.

In the context of both creation stories you have been given responsibility, given stewardship over the land because it has dignity. I confess I don’t know much about Aboriginal spirituality. One thing I  have learnt that our Aboriginal brothers and sisters say they don’t own the land, the land owns them: look after the land, and it will look after you is what they are saying to us. 

In our walk in the Way of Jesus, you and I have a sacred calling; to live differently in radical discipleship. In our environment of ‘my rights’ that is what the Matthew reading addresses with the vineyard labourers. 

In our economy of scale, it does seem unjust for those who were hired last to be paid the same as the first hirees. Yet different standards apply. In Jesus, we learn, and need to keep learning, that God doesn’t work with a rights model. Rather, God simply loves because that, not rights, is what is at the heart of God’s being.

As people of the land, with divine and holy breath in you, seeking to follow in the Way of Jesus your calling is, to live and express this deep love, treating all people with dignity because they too are expressions of God’s love. 

Not only that your calling is to treat the land, and the waters, with respect and dignity because they too are expressions of God. The land is calling out in pain. Can we hear the cry?

Amen.