Month: August 2021

Proverbs 22:1–2, 8–9, 22–23 and James 2:1–17

This week’s lectionary passages from Proverbs and James focus on God’s justice for the poor:

“Do not rob the poor because they are poor, or crush the afflicted at the gate; for the LORD pleads their cause and despoils of life those who despoil them” (Provers 22:22–23).

The rich and the poor have this in common: the LORD is the maker of them all” (Proverbs 22:2).

“My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?…You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors” (James 2:1, 8–9).

These passages condemn partiality against the poor, and reiterate that impartial justice, justice which avoids favoritism toward the rich, must look first to the needs of the poor. The reason that the church must live out a “preferential option for the poor” (in the terms of the Latin-American liberation theologians), is because the status quo, the system as it currently works, is stacked against the poor. Seeking impartial justice requires recognizing that the current power dynamics of our society will always treat the rich preferentially, and so nothing less than an option for the poor can avoid favoritism and truly treat rich and poor on equal terms.

This favoritism is evident in our criminal legal system. As Bryan Stevenson puts it, “We have a system of justice that treats you better if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent.” Mass incarceration is driven by what Ruth Wilson Gilmore calls “organized abandonment followed by organized violence”: first, the “organized abandonment” of poor communities, in which the interests of state and capital collude to disinvest in those communities, “robbing the poor because they are poor and despoiling them at the gate.” Then, “organized violence” in the form of policing and prisons, which disproportionately target individuals in poor and marginalized communities, usually along racial lines. (This is what Chris Hayes describes as “a colony in a nation” in his book of the same name.) In other words, the “organized violence” of policing and prisons, targeted against poor communities, is the sort of “favoritism” and “partiality” the author of James condemns.

What these passages remind us is that the prison-industrial complex is not separable from (racial) capitalism — a connection made heartbreakingly clear this week as Hurricane Ida took out power in southern Louisiana and city governments and police rushed to prevent “looting,” protecting property, rather than meeting the needs of those affected by the disaster. This is what police are FOR. Abolition requires the questioning and restructuring of the ways our society is built to disenfranchise and disempower the poor.

Ada María Isasi-Díaz insists that the church’s option for the poor must not be described as “preferential” because “a preferential option is an oxymoron, for to prefer is not the same as to opt: the two are mutually exclusive.…When the moment of option comes, one opts for this, and in doing so one opts not for that. The option for the oppressed, as is true of all options, cannot be qualified…To claim to have a preferential option is a way of rejecting the demands of what it really means to opt for the oppressed and the impoverished” (in Decolonizing Epistemologies, 57).

What does it look like for us as a church to opt for the oppressed and impoverished? What does it look like to resist, fully and wholeheartedly, the organized abandonment and organized violence of policing and prisons? The author of James tells us: anything less than such an unqualified option for the poor is a failure to obey the law to love our neighbors as ourselves. We are complicit in the partiality to the rich which forms the status quo.

Hannah Bowman is the founder and director of Christians for Abolition.

Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23

When the disciples receive judgment for eating without hands thoroughly washed, Jesus transforms the judgment into a reminder that the way we live into tradition is nothing compared to how we tend to our souls.  Jesus said, “There is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile. For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

In this shift of thought, we are reminded of the ways in which tradition, including our laws, can be used to exact judgment against people around us, even when the inner heart of the accuser — or the systems that bring accusation — are acting outside of the ethical ways to tend to the souls of those around us.  If the seat of evil intentions comes from the human heart, then there are not people who are innocent and people who are guilty, judged and held on opposite ends by a system stewarded by people with those same evil intentions.  There are only people, each containing the same capacity for goodness and sin.  This gospel invites us into understanding the universality of our human hearts, how we are bound to one another by each having that seat of evil intentions inside of ourselves, that possibility that we could go against the laws and traditions that were not created for our flourishing.  This is not to bring judgment, like judgments were brought against Jesus and the disciples, but instead to offer compassion that is worthy of sin that we all hold in our human hearts.  

If we each have a human heart capable of evils, then we would be wise to look at those in front of us — especially those being judged as guilty alongside Jesus and the disciples — as people just like us, people who have the same capacity for both goodness and sin as we do.  If these evils come from within the heart, they are all something we are capable of, and yet the gift of grace is that God can only understand our guilt in relationship to our belovedness, because that is what we receive in salvation.  We, then, have the opportunity to share that same grace of God with those around us, choosing to see in those who are judged “guilty” a face of belovedness, knowing that any capacity they have for evil is a capacity we hold in common, and all evil is deemed defeated and resurrected by Jesus Christ.

We are all guilty, we all house that same seat of evil intentions, and yet only some of us — and usually those on the margins — bear the societal pain of systems of punishment.  In order for our world to ever feel like the kingdom of God, we will have to offer compassion to the universality of what we are capable of, begin to treat the actions of others in relationship to their belovedness, and entrust it all to the God who defeated and resurrected evil.

Erin Jean Warde (she/her/hers) is a priest, writer, spiritual director, and recovery coach in Austin, TX with more writing at www.erinjeanwarde.com.

John 6:56–69

In the sixth chapter of the gospel of John, Jesus covers a lot of challenging topics. That is, topics that have challenged the church over the last 2000 years. What goes on with communion? What is the bread of life? Who is the church? In response to the words of Jesus, many disciples say “This teaching is difficult. Who can follow this?”

The Greek word translated as difficult is σκληρός, it more often means hard or strong. For instance, in the middle of the parable of the talents, the servant who buries his talent, does so because he knows the master is a hard (σκληρός) man. The problem for the servant is that he doesn’t understand who the master is so he assumes the master is hard.

When we read the words of the prophet Isaiah tell us to break every chain, we today may also think, “This is a difficult teaching.” We may think to ourselves, “This is impractical. Isn’t the status quo good enough?” We may think we understand more than Jesus the bounds of God’s mercy in this world.

The response of Jesus to his disciples is telling. “Does this offend you?” For many Christians today, abolition does offend them. Their worldview has been shamed by a Manichaean expectation of good guys and bad guys and a just society separates the good guys from the bad guys. “Does this offend you?”

Jesus doesn’t soften the teaching on communion. John says that many disciples turn away, but Peter does not. Peter says, “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

Abolition is a crucible for the modern church as the Eucharistic controversies of the past have been. Does Jesus have the words of eternal life? Is mercy truly offered by God? Should we break the chains? 

“Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

Rev. Wilson Pruitt is a Methodist pastor and translator in Spicewood, TX.

1 Kings 3:3–14

It is not in the aesthetic of abolitionists to be complimenting and praising kings and rulers. But here, as we attempt to learn from this week’s lectionary, we find ourselves in the position to learn from Solomon in 1 Kings.

God shows up in Solomon’s dream, asking what he should give Israel’s new king. Solomon, as the story goes, requests wisdom and is granted it (along with riches and long life, evidently because he passed the ethics test and asked for wisdom rather than riches or long life). 

Whether we choose to accept this literally or not is somewhat besides the point for the purpose I hope to utilize this story. As I look at this story, I see a specific reason for Solomon’s pursuit of wisdom that I had previously overlooked: the people.

The role Solomon embodied as king of Israel was a fundamentally political one. For curse or for pleasure, he held the task and ability to rule the operations of a nation. And Solomon, in the throes of this new task, turned to God for guidance. 

“Your servant is in the midst of the people whom you have chosen, a great people, so numerous they cannot be numbered or counted. Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people,” Solomon asks God.

Here, we see a wisdom worth replicating. (In other areas of Solomon’s story, this is not the case). The wisdom is to seek out God’s guidance and discernment as we love and care for our neighbors, a great people — God’s people.

As we consider the political power we wield in a democratic republic, or even simply as people with some sense of agency, we must seek out God’s wisdom and direction and we must seek it not because we have a necessity to be right or correct, but because we love the people around us. 

Loving those around us, believing in their best and believing that they are fundamentally worthy of the best is at the root of the work we do as abolitionists. No one is to be thrown away or dismissed, all are God’s people, and we are to love them with our political activity.

Mitchell Atencio is a discalced writer and photographer in Washington, D.C.

Ephesians 4:25–5:2

The reading appointed for this week from Ephesians offers suggestions for what it looks like to live in a community established by the abolitionist values of mutual aid, accountability, and compassion, as opposed to a community governed by carceral ideals of surveillance and punishment. Looking at these instructions line by line reflects multiple facts of abolitionist praxis in our communal life:

“So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another.”

Central to an understanding of building what Connie Burk of NW Network calls “accountable communities” is truth-telling and honesty: both with ourselves and with each others. Accountability is a practice of radical honesty with ourselves, including the honest recognition of when we have done harm to others. It also requires vulnerability, as we listen to the truths of others. Building spaces for compassionate, vulnerable listening and exploration of difficult truths with transparency requires that we remember the holiness of our relationships with each other. As we hold space for one another to take accountability and be vulnerable because we have built a foundation of trust, we prove that we are “members of one another.” I have explored the role of honesty/truth-telling and of the concept of the body of Christs in our practice of accountability further, in our Accountability Toolkit.

“Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil.”

What is the difference between being angry and making room for the devil? I wonder if one answer to this difficult question is to interrogate our desire for vengeance and retribution. To be angry at harm is natural, just, and good. But to turn that legitimate anger into structures of punishment and retribution is, I think, answering harm with further harm. Such structures become the demonic institutions of policing and prisons that we see acting as forces of death in our society. Characteristic of abolitionist community is to be angry, but not turn to retribution. Or, as Mariame Kaba and Rachel Herzing write, provocatively, “Abolitionism is not a politics mediated by emotional responses. Or, as we initially wanted to title this piece, abolition is not about your fucking feelings.”

“Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labor and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy.”

In the response to thieves, we see the most concrete example in this passage of a restorative-justice response. There is no thought of punishment or incarceration for thieves — instead, the importance is living a new, accountable life in Christ. Repentance means that theft must stop, but there is no response of punishment. Instead, penitent thieves give back to the community, caring for the poor. Such care for the needy from their own labor is not only an actualization of mutual aid in the community, but also a form of reparations for theft.

Particularly given the ways the early church fathers wrote about wealth as theft, this injunction to thieves also reminds us that redistribution of wealth, mutual aid, and concrete care for those in need are an essential part of abolitionist politics. Those who have wealth should turn to labor for the sake of the needy. Instead of shame or punishment, the response to theft is reparations and care for one another so everyone will have enough.

“Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.”

Compassion is a hallmark of communities of abolition and accountability. The language of “tenderheartedness” or forgiveness here is not, I am convinced, intended to preclude legitimate anger. Nor can forgiveness be commanded of those who are survivors of harm, nor can reconciliation be insisted upon when there hasn’t been accountability for harm done. At the same time, a process of accountability begins with an openness to recognizing the humanity in those who have done harm to us — what Miroslav Volf calls the “will to embrace,” or what we might think of as compassion for the common humanity of all. It is because of this compassion that our demands for accountability and justice must not rely on degradation, retribution, or exclusion for those who have done harm. Perhaps forgiveness — although it cannot be commanded — can find a beginning in this compassion, a baseline desire to seek transformation of harm done rather than retribution for it.

“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

Ultimately, we are reminded, the mutual, everlasting love of the persons of the Trinity is at the basis of our Christian communities of accountability and abolition. To follow the example of God and to participate in the triune compassionate being of God insists that our way of living — communally, materially, and practically — is characterized by love. To structure our communities by such love means to structure them around honesty and accountability to one another in our relationships, the rejection of retribution, reparations and amends for harm done and mutual aid and care for one another, and compassion for everyone’s inherent humanity.

Hannah Bowman is the founder and director of Christians for Abolition.