Reprinted from The Common Good, No 11, Lent 1999

www.catholicworker.org.nz

 

A Lenten reflection

Engaging the World —Redeeming the Principalities and Powers
of the 1990s.

By Jim Consedine

With that, the unclean spirits came out and went into the pigs, and the herd of about two thousand pigs charged down the cliff into the lake, and there they were drowned. Mark 5:13

As we answer the door and the phone to literally dozens of needy callers each week at our Catholic Worker houses, we are sometimes overwhelmed by the relentlessness of the oppression that assails some people’s lives. If it is not Income Support cutting a benefit, its a job loss being confronted, a sick person who can’t get to a doctor, a homeless person seeking accommodation, a teenager out of control or someone just not coping with the stresses of modern life.

Much of the infra-structure and support for these people has been cut away by the state. There is little community around them. So they are on their own.

At the beginning of February, some more blood was extracted from the lives of the vulnerable. The target this time was the 72 percent of the poorest New Zealanders – the single parent families. The Training Incentive Allowance (TIA) was being cut – again! Cutting the TIA is not about getting people into work as the government claims. It is an ideological decision about cutting social spending on beneficiaries.

The TIA was introduced in 1983 because poor single parents face additional barriers to education and employment opportunities. These include child care responsibilities and having to spend long periods outside the workforce. The TIA didn’t make it easy, but it did make it possible for some of these people to get qualifications and eventually, paid work. What this means is that more and more women and children will be living in poverty, without the chance to break out of a state of dependency. The additional stress will unquestionably lead to more social breakdown on already pressured family relationships.

Dialoguing with the government about such issues is usually a fruitless time of wasted effort. The cynical dismissal of the leadership of the Hikoi of Hope and the trivialisation of its message by the government gave a very good indication that ideology and not justice is where their priorities lie. Even the prayer of the Anglican church was unable to redeem that situation!

We were reflecting recently on Mark 5, 1-20, the story of the demoniac whom Jesus healed. The story is rich in imagery. The Gospel of Mark is written at a time of great social unrest, 66-67 AD, and revolution is very much in the air. The Roman occupying forces have become a target for attack and the state is building up its resources with a view to crushing any uprising by the Jewish people. Mark’s community of Christians is pondering how to act in the face of the rising oppression by the state and widespread unrest among the local people.

The demoniac story looks simple enough on the surface, but the real gold lies underneath. For example, the language used is very militaristic and that gives a good clue as to its meaning to Jewish and Christian listeners alike.

The evil demonic force with the man cured is recognised as a legion, the name for a platoon of Roman soldiers. The term herd used to describe the pigs is most unusual. But locals would recognise it, agele, as the word used for a band of military recruits. The phrases ‘he dismissed them’ and ‘charge’ are both military concepts. All of this language is used quite out of its usual context. Mark, it seems, is deliberately using it to denigrate the Roman occupying forces (and their horrendous cruelty) and designating them as being demonic or evil. In the story, Mark clearly presents Jesus as confronting Roman military power and oppression. The event ends in great hope because the demonic presence dashes headlong over the cliff into the sea and drowns. The power of evil is overcome and the man, who has been oppressed for so long, is free at last.

One doesn’t have to be an Einstein to appreciate that this post-resurrection story was used by Mark’s community and subsequently the wider Church to offer hope and to remind listeners that the power of the Risen Christ has overcome all forms of evil on earth.

Many in Aotearoa, who see the relentless pressure of the modern corporate culture and its continued effects on the poor and vulnerable and wonder just where it is all going to end, should take heart from Mark’s story.

For 15 years now we have watched the rise of the transnational corporation (TNC) and corporate capitalist empire. Like colonising nations of old, TNCs create their own rules, disenfranchise the local populace, override democratic governments, marginalise the less powerful, change the culture of the nation to suit their own corporate image and expatriate vast profits overseas. Colonised once by the British, Aotearoa is in the process of being colonised again by transnationals. This time it is not just indigenous people who are being hit. Low income earners, beneficiaries, the unskilled and even sections of the middle class are also being victimised. Marginalisation and disempowerment are going hand in hand with growing levels of poverty. The parliament itself has been captured by the corporate culture. Democracy at a national level has become a joke. Ordinary people now have virtually no say about their futures, and little say about issues of war or peace, the environment or their working lives.

The TNCs corrupting influence has not been limited to the social mayhem they create. The values of economic globalisation they seek to create runs counter to everything Christian teaching proclaims. At its heart the global economy is based on idolatry, built on greed and exploitation, domination and control. The corporate culture reflects a terminal sickness within the society itself. The frustration and sense of disempowerment this is breeding is evident everywhere. Most of the worst statistics in health, disaffected youth, premature death, suicide levels, and crime can be linked directly to this spiritual sickness and the values it promotes.

For the past 20 years we have watched the system of prison incarceration in this country get bleaker and bleaker. As the numbers ‘inside’ have grown (we imprison at the second highest rate in the western world) and the expenditure has exploded, $350 million this year, community leaders and politicians alike have ducked for cover whenever mature debate was needed. Old tired slogans about law and order never die, they are simply regurgitated every election year! So we don’t set out to seek the truth about the real causes of much crime like unemployment, illiteracy, abusive backgrounds and addictions. Slogans will do. Our leaders don’t want to know. It doesn’t suit the ideology. Nor the unredeemed fearful perceptions of the public, fuelled by the insatiable appetite of the media, desperate for advertising dollars and happy to feed on people’s fears.

Watching the committee of the most powerful political leaders in the country hear submissions on the SIS Amendment Bill left many feeling distinctly uneasy. The most powerful state agencies wheeled out their top brass to support domestic spying and home invasion in the interests of ‘security’, which now includes our economic security. They weren’t talking of the security threat caused by TNCs moving in and pillaging our resources, then moving out when their dirty work was done. That type of economic vandalism and the resultant sabotage of the social life of the community will not be the target of the SIS. It will be the small groups like CORSO and the Maori sovereignty groups who keep raising the plight of the needy and seek real justice who most likely will become their targets. Maybe even some church groups?

At the heart of the public projection of these state structures rests the BIG LIE, which repeats ad nauseam in a thousand different ways, ‘this is all OK, life will be better for you, this is the best way forward’. The truth is that usually much of what is being proposed is not good for the majority, life won’t be better, and it is not the best way forward.

The BIG LIE is a reflection of the presence of the principalities and powers spoken of in sacred Scripture. We always heard the devil was the father of lies. But mostly we thought he spent his time popping in and out of our individual lives. But such occurrences are rare as the recent Roman rite of exorcism indicates. Evil as a power, though, is alive and well. It appears to be mainly social structures that bear its rotten fruit. Such structures reflect a glossary of corporate sin - theft, exploitation, lies, pride, domination, control, dishonesty, greed, violence, abuse, death. Often these things present a benign face. They may well be wigged and robed, have a nice collar and tie, wear a smart uniform or a designer two piece suit and high heels. They will often be positively presented by the mass media, which after all, is owned and controlled worldwide by a elite handful of corporate identities whose god is power and money. And that is where the heart of the BIG LIE rests - in idolatry, by making wealth, power, prestige, money, status and position the centre of life and its meaning. These are the four legs and two arms of the great idol, so like the golden calf of the Scriptures.

Part of the Christian vocation is to engage and expose the principalities and powers of this world. It is such power that the Ploughshares activists confront in their faith filled commitment to rid the world of the weapons of war, particularly nuclear war. It was to that same power that thousands of people within New Zealand said ‘no’ to when they resisted the racist Springbok tour of 1981. It is that same power that is confronted when yet another mining company turns up to exploit and scar the beautiful Coromandel. It is that power that prison chaplains expose when they say ‘no’ to the building of more prisons, and the toughening of conditions within existing ones. It is that power people confront when they attempt to promote biblically-based restorative justice in the face of such an incredible array of vested interest.

Does this mean that all those involved in such structures are sinners or evil? Of course not. Most are probably neither better nor worse than most. They may well be unaware of their complicity in oppression. Or they may be seeking to ‘engage the powers’ themselves, to enable God’s redeeming grace to work through them and bring about some positive change. It is however a tricky business trying to maintain integrity in the relentless presence of such negative culture. But it is attempted by thousands and many fine people work within such institutions without losing their humanity. Conversely, others are quickly absorbed by the culture of such institutions and fail to see the negative effects on themselves. So many are subtly or blatantly corrupted by it and trade part of their humanity through their participation.

Lent is a time of reflection on the nature of Christian life and our response to the call of Christ at baptism that we might be bearers of good news. Lent reminds us that Easter and new life only emerge from the struggle of the winter and the overcoming of the powers of darkness. We ignore their presence at our peril. Lent reminds us that living the Kingdom of God in our midst can be a perilous thing inviting commitment to prayer, a clear analysis of what is happening around us and a sustained response. Lent is a time of journeying together in discovery. Only when we have commemorated Lent well will Easter truly have that ring of joy and hope we all seek. There are sprouts of new life and hope everywhere. Tens of thousands have chosen to live differently, to allow their spiritual lives to flourish, to choose God over mammon. At Easter we should celebrate these choices and recommit ourselves to overcoming the principalities and powers that would continue to hold us in shackles.