28 November 2005

Stephen G. Ray, Jr. enters into a discussion about Sin-Talk and the Drama of the Welfare Queen in "Do No Harm."

During the 1980's and 1990's, headline accounts described the problem the nation faces as the abandonment of responsibility. According to this depiction of our nation's "sin," society has abandoned its responsibility to create self-sufficient citizens by establishing an artificial environment in which whole segments of the population are "taken care of."
...In their dependent state, they lose any sense of social responsibility. While this particular discourse could have used a number of images, it is instructive to note that the central image that has come to symbolize this pathologically dependent person is the welfare queen - a sexually irresponsible, young, urban (code word for non-white) woman on welfare.

And...may I ask...places this label on people who are within the welfare system - Those who have enough and those who want to keep what they have. Unfortunately, that is all of us. If we don't say it we think it and even worse, we say nothing when it is inferred or even said aloud. People with power and wealth (yes, even the most modest wealth) tend to keep silent and let the sin-talk about poverty and irresponsibility rule the day. As followers of Jesus, we are all the more called to speak up. Yes, there are always people who are willing to pick up stones and begin to put to death those people who do not fit within our well-kept society. And yet, we, the followers of Jesus, must follow Jesus and put an end to the abusiveness of a well-groomed system. No matter if there are abuses in that system of tangled bureaucracy, remember that there are people caught in that system and they are like us....made in the image of God. How dare we speak of them as though they are less than us...unworthy of the honor and respect due to all who present the face of God to us. I know that it always takes time for me to sort through my quick judgments. And yet, it is necessary to do that. It is necessary to give myself the opportunity to think again...pray again....and then come with new eyes to those I too often judge as being worth less than me.

Connection: Take a second look...take a second or two...take time to prayerfully consider the worth of the "other" as we all stand before our God. We may begin to have a new sense of vision.

Come, Lord of All, be for us the power for life that pulls aside the curtains and walls that attempt to divide us. When we become intoxicated by the drug of separation and status, remind us of the cross and the life that comes through that way you walked among us. Amen.