You Didn’t Tell Me I Had To Do Something!

This year marks seventy years since the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption and proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We have been born into a society that is familiar with its concepts advocating; dignity, liberty and equality for all people, with freedom of movement and speech, and also freedoms in the sphere of politics and religion and a fundamental right to healthcare and education. It is no surprise that UDHR is the most translated written work, second only to the Bible, as these concepts have sought voice globally without distinction towards race, sexuality, language or religious preference. Possibly now more than ever, the language of human rights has become normative. But familiarity may bring its own risks.

Alongside rights, there come responsibilities as we seek to advocate, as a Christian community, that all people are all of equal value to God, with no one escaping his love, and all needing each other to flourish in dignity. As with all mandates, declarations and wise instructions, we have an uncanny knack of wanting to pick and choose the bits that we are comfortable with – especially the bits that are inclined to affect our wallets, our time or our social standing.

Jesus faced similar questioning from experts in the Hebrew scriptures surrounding pivotal laws in their context. Which bits are the most important? If you narrow it all down, what is the bare minimum that I need to do for it to be acceptable before God? This challenge remains for me today, both in the context of what it means to live in a world that advocates human rights for all and to live life in a manner that resonates with Christ and what his church should be. Jesus’ response to his enquirers moved beyond a simple awareness of what the law was, loving God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, towards a call to be proactive in its application – to love your neighbour as yourself. My response to human rights, in the light of my faith in Christ, should always by dynamic, should always be stirred into action, should always be moved further than thinking this is a great concept.

The parable of The Good Samaritan remains one of the most familiar biblical anecdotes, even by those unfamiliar with the rest of the Bible, and is how Jesus made his point. Is there a greater illustration of what it means to offer love, compassion, care and dignity to another person from a most unlikely source? In a context where nothing good could possibly have been thought, never mind uttered, of a Samaritan, it is this outcast who is shown to have reached out sacrificially to an anonymous random stranger, previously overlooked and bypassed by religious folk no doubt capable of talking a good talk. They knew their laws, and responsibilities, but were conveniently too busy to act on what they knew.

Over the last twenty years leading a church community that I have often described as ‘glorious in its chaos and complicated in its beauty’, we have experienced many a random stranger fall through the door in search of hope, in search of dignity … in search of love. I count it a privilege to serve amid a myriad of broken people who look beyond their own frailties and choose to be proactive in their declaration of love to see that no one is left behind. It is in these moments the seeds of a poppy in the wasteland flourish and faith, hope and love are restored and freedom reigns.

Back in 1964 Bob Dylan recorded Chimes of Freedom, but it wasn’t until Bruce Springsteen’s 1988 version, supporting a tour for Amnesty International, the lyrics grabbed my imagination with such conviction. Described by some as Dylan’s Sermon on the Mount, the lyric speaks of “warriors whose strength is not to fight”, refugees on the road, the rebel, the “disrobed faceless forms of no position”, the luckless, the abandoned, the forsaken, the outcasts, the searching ones, the lonesome, the jailed, the aching ones and the “countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse”. It is for these we have the need for human rights, it is for these we have the need to love our neighbour as ourselves - not because the law says we must, but because the core of our soul will not let us walk on by.