First Sunday

This reflection was published as part of the Lenten Reflection Guide: A Jubilee of Hope.

The devil showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world in a single instant. The devil said to Jesus, “I shall give you all this power and the glory… All this will be yours, if you worship me.”

But Jesus answered, “You must worship the Lord your God, and serve him alone.”

The God that we worship as followers of Jesus is the one who “heard our voice and saw our misery, our toil and our oppression” as mentioned in the first reading of today’s liturgy. These days, we do not often hear or see much of the misery of the world. On the front pages of most newspapers, we more often read about people who want to gain glory, wealth, and power.

Maybe if we turn to page four or five, at the bottom in a small corner, we might see coverage of the working conditions for those who labor—including many small children—in developing countries extracting the rare metals modern society craves for our high- tech gadgets.

These metals are extremely expensive when we try to buy them, but who profits? Certainly not the laborers in developing countries. And this inequity is only the latest episode in a centuries-old story of colonization. So many countries in our world had their land, culture, and resources taken from them with little to no compensation.

Today, economic colonization flourishes outside of the limelight. What would happen if the wealthy countries in our world paid but a slightly more just share of the wealth they have extracted in exchange for the resources and labor that produced the wealth we enjoy?

As Christians, we are challenged to reflect deeply and open our hearts to “hear the cries of the poor” as our loving God does. That is the theological justification behind debt relief in a jubilee year. As explained in Deuteronomy:

If your neighbor is poor and gives you his cloak as security for a loan, do not keep the cloak overnight. Return their cloak by sunset so that your neighbor may sleep in it. Then they will thank you and it will be regarded as a Righteous act in the sight of the Lord your God.

Reading the newspaper is part of my prayer life. I read recently that the UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima urged African leaders to respond to the uncertainty in foreign aid funding by increasing domestic spending to fight AIDS. But she noted that many African nations were saddled with huge debts, which crippled their ability to cover the shortfall needed. “Without funding for the HIV response, we risk losing all we have gained… And if we want national governments to plug the gap, we must give them the means to do so.”

As far as I understand the system, the borrowers have paid back the sum of their initial loan—but it is the interest rate that keeps growing endlessly. Can we not create a better system for the whole human family to live in harmony and peace, sharing the gifts of our earth equally?

Perhaps I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one…

And when my turn comes to stand in judgement before God, I hope to be among the crowd that asks our Lord, “When did I see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did I see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did I see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?”

To which the Lord will reply, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”