Lenten thoughts

We entered the period of Lent with Ash Wednesday last week. Priests smeared our foreheads with ash to remind us of the transience of our earthly life. That’s supposed to lead us to a period of introspection and get our focus and life priorities right.

Then again, many of us go through the ritual of Ash Wednesday, with all the prescribed sacrifices, and emerge on Easter Sunday none the better spiritually.

Yet, for us Christians, the period of Lent should have profound meaning. Beyond our colorful lenten traditions, we get a chance to reconcile ourselves with our Creator, for we are all sinners who offended Him.

But we often don’t get that far. Like the Pharisees so despised by Jesus Christ, we are often satisfied with having performed the rituals.

One of my devotional readings last week reminded me that Lent may suggest spiritual renewal to prepare for final judgment. But Christ left us things to do before we are called to account by our Creator. Two words: social justice.

The reading for the day was Psalm 72, the prayer of King David for his son, the soon to be King Solomon:

“Give your love of justice to the king, O God, and righteousness to the king’s son.

“Help him judge your people in the right way; let the poor always be treated fairly…

“Help him to defend the poor, to rescue the children of the needy, and to crush their oppressors.”

Psalm 72  expresses the duty of a king as he governs God’s people: assure justice and righteousness…

Scripture tells us, as followers of Christ, we should be concerned not just about the Eternal Kingdom, but also about  our society… our human governments… our social dynamics… how we live our lives right now.

The Bible contains many calls for justice in the here and now… about justice for the oppressed.

Jesus said the poor will always be with us. But it is not an excuse not to meet the needs of the poor right now.

Luke 4:16-18 tells us the story of Jesus preaching in the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth:

“He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor…”

It gets no clearer than that.  God is profoundly concerned with the needs of those in the bottom of society… the laylayan ng lipunan. God hears the cry of the poor.

Psalm 10:17 prays: Lord, you know the hopes of the helpless. Surely you will hear their cries and comfort them.

Such is the sin of Sodom.

Ezekiel 16:49-50 says “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy… Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.”

The other grievous sin is defrauding workers of their wages. Deuteronomy 24: 14-15 says “Do not take advantage of a hired worker who is poor and needy… Pay them their wages each day before sunset, because they are poor and counting on it. Otherwise they may cry to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin.”

Because we have a fairly high poverty rate and great inequality in wealth distribution, there are so many opportunities to do God’s work in our country.

Millions of Filipinos struggle to afford basic necessities. With the pandemic, the number of Filipinos in poverty  has now risen to over 26 million, just under 25 percent of the population.

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick Chua said the nation’s poverty incidence rate goal for 2022 – the proportion of Filipinos whose per capita income is insufficient to meet basic food and non-food needs –  will remain at 15.5 to 17.5 percent.

Beyond food and other basic necessities, our poor often suffer from injustice. This is particularly rampant in our rural areas where landlords and political warlords routinely oppress the poor.

Just now, we read of officials in a town in Negros who are terrorizing the people, denying them the right to campaign for their own candidates.

And there is the story of the farmer who was arrested and jailed for supposedly stealing some bananas, while our political leaders and their cronies steal billions and not suffer a day in jail.

Since our judicial system is the best that money can buy, the poor have nowhere to run to.

Despite the abundance of lawyers in our society, few make it their mission to help the poor get justice. No wonder social injustice has fired up the world’s longest running insurgency.

This is why we ought to be more discerning in the choice of the leaders we will elect, nationally and locally. We should stop voting for politicians from political dynasties and those with records of oppressing the people.

We should examine the lives of candidates and choose to support those who have made it their life mission to help those in the bottom of society, the laylayan ng lipunan.

It is not enough for a candidate to have once been poor. A track record of actively ensuring the delivery of social justice is a must.

We should also make it possible for a true Christian to have a social conscience, fight for social justice, work to help the poor and not get into trouble with the government. But then, the oppressors often hold government powers.

It’s sad our social justice problem is still as bad today as it was more than 50 years ago. This shames our nation, the only Christian country in our part of the world.

This Lent, meditate on a Christian’s duty to promote social justice. And choose leaders devoted to improving the lives of those in the bottom of our society. That’s what Christ wants us to do.

Matthew 25:40 quotes our Lord saying: “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco.