Christian Solidarity: Witness as With-ness
Peniel Rajkumar reflects on acts of Christian solidarity.
1. On Spectators and ‘Spect-Actors’
As they led him away, they seized a man, Simon of Cyrene, who was coming from the country, and they laid the cross on him and made him carry it behind Jesus. (Luke 23:26 - NRSVUE)
Life has a habit of forcing some into situations not of our own choosing. That's the story of Simon the Cyrene. In Jerusalem, to enjoy the Passover festivities, Simon finds himself dragged into forced cross-bearing.
Simon is from ‘the country’, the margins of the Roman empire. He is often portrayed as a person of African descent (from Libya, North Africa), as in this painting by the Argentinian Nobel Laureate, Adolfo Esquivel. There are many Simons among us who feel that life picks on some because of who we are or where we are from – both of which prevent us from blending in or belonging. These Simons trudge along life, with their forced crosses, embracing the discipleship of daily struggle.
We can use the language of discipleship for Simon who carries the cross behind Jesus, thereby mirroring Luke's language of taking up the cross and following Jesus. However, glibly translating forced cross-bearing into heroic discipleship is problematic, especially when it glosses over suffering. Even Jesus prayed for his cup of suffering to pass. The discipleship of daily struggle is complex. It assumes different shapes –silence, patience, resilience, defiance – all seeking to preserve life, dignity, and one’s humanity.
I often wonder whether romanticising forced suffering as ‘sainthood’ secures for me the privileged status of remaining a spectator in the face of forced cross-bearing, offering me an escape route from the costly demands of Christian witness. Why bother when the ‘suffering factory’ is going to produce ‘saints’ I can applaud from the sidelines.
Christian witness in the face of forced cross-bearing perhaps entails becoming what the Brazilian theatre practitioner Augusto Boal calls ‘Spect-Actors’ – audiences who don’t remain passive viewers of a play’s unfolding plot but through active intervention seek to infuse the play with transformative meanings.
Christian ‘Spect-Acting' is about solidarity - praying for, learning from, and walking with the margins – the Simons in our midst. This inevitably entails becoming part of the story of Jesus Christ – the maligned and marginalised one - who teaches us that God's power to transform the world is made manifest in places where we least expect it, even on a cross.
[Image: Adolfo Pérez Esquivel’s “Stations of the Cross from Latin America”, used courtesy of Alastair McIntosh.]
2. Solidarity over self-interest
When she opened it, she saw the child. He was crying, and she took pity on him. “This must be one of the Hebrews’ children,” she said. (Exodus 2:6)
Xenophobia is on the rise today. In many contexts hostility towards the ‘other’ has assumed violent forms, largely emboldened by the silence of the powerful and their feigned ‘neutrality’. Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s words, “if you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality,” carries not just satirical humour but sad truth.
One biblical character who refuses to be complicit in the sin of neutrality is Pharaoh’s daughter. Some scriptural traditions have named her ‘Bitya’ (meaning the daughter of God). Though an Egyptian, Bitya rescues Moses, a Hebrew baby, from genocide, defying the decree of her own father. She acts decisively in a context where her father has successfully sold the potent weapon of fascists – ‘fear of the other’ - to his people.
We have resonances of this in the nationalisms of today where the natural human tendency to “fear” is subverted in a toxic manner to become an insidious ally of violence. Instruments of life are converted into weapons of death. The river Nile, source of ritual purification and the flourishing of life, is used to kill children. The Hebrew midwives, protectors of life, are forced to become agents of death. Amidst all this Bitya acts defiantly choosing solidarity over self-interest. She reminds us of our “unconditional obligation to the victims of any order of society” whereby we are called “not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of justice”, but to “drive a spoke into the wheel itself”, to use the words of the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Bitya helps us to understand witness as ‘with-ness’ – solidarity. She inspires us to work, with courage and compassion, towards a world where Jesus’s promise of life in all its fullness becomes a reality not just for some but for all.
[Image: ‘The Finding of Moses’, by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836-1912) available in the public domain.]
3. On Good Samaritans and Good Innkeepers
Solidarity – understood as working alongside others – is much needed today as we confront the scourge of war, climate change, dehumanising poverty and various forms of discrimination. Working alongside others is not always easy. Many suffer from what one of my friends calls ‘Host-ility’ - the temptation to play host always expecting others to come and work alongside us, without cultivating the art of collaboration.
Reflecting on solidarity, I am drawn to the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). I particularly think of the innkeeper, who usually goes unnoticed. After all, the force of this parable rests on the shock of recognising a Samaritan as an unlikely ‘do-gooder’. While this was shocking to Jesus’ hearer’s only in their imagination, to the innkeeper this was a challenge in flesh and blood. The innkeeper had several reasons to be suspicious of the Samaritan. According to the historian Josephus, Samaritans were considered untrustworthy. How then could the innkeeper believe the Samaritan’s version of events, and cooperate with him? Was this some sort of PR stunt? Especially if local leaders like the Priest and Levite had avoided the injured man, was this not a foolish risk best avoided? Amidst this, the innkeeper emerges as someone who doesn’t let the power of prejudice stifle the possibility of partnering with a repulsive ‘outsider’ to foster healing.
Many artists portray the innkeeper as being driven by monetary interests (as this painting attributed to Willem Drost). But in a ‘honour-shame culture’ receiving money from someone not considered your equal can be demeaning.
The innkeeper challenges us to receive with gratitude the gift of the outsider. We learn the grace of re-identifying ourselves not against but alongside the ‘other’, recognising that healing our wounded world requires us to not only be Good Samaritans, but also ‘Good Innkeepers’ collaborating with others in the spirit of compassion, curiosity and courage.
[Image: The Good Samaritan Paying the Innkeeper | National Museums Liverpool School of Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn School of; Rembrandt van Rijn; Attributed to Willem Drost, 1648 – 1650.]
4. On becoming agents of ‘respair’
‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because...’ (Luke 4:18a)
The different dimensions of solidarity explored in this series find resonances in the passage popularly known as the Nazareth Manifesto. This is the passage in Luke 4 where Jesus, having returned to Nazareth, reads from a Scroll in the Synagogue. He cites a passage in Isaiah which speaks about bringing good news to the poor, freedom to the oppressed, and sight to the blind. Jesus identifies his own ministry in terms of solidarity with the oppressed and affirms that transcending borders in our service are signs of the presence of God’s Spirit.
However, Jesus learns the hard way that solidarity with people who are outside of our own communities (those who are ‘on the other side of our history’) is not everybody’s preference. In Luke 4, Jesus references two stories of solidarity across difference; the stories of the widow of Zarephath in Sidon and Naaman the Syrian. The moment he speaks about them in this context, people want to push him off a hill.
I find Jesus’s references to the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian fascinating. They bring out the importance of storytelling in Jesus’s life and ministry. We are shaped by the stories we hold. Jesus’s own reaching out to people beyond his own is linked to other stories - the unnamed widow of Zarephath shows radical hospitality in trusting and feeding Elijah, a stranger, during a severe famine. And the story of Namaan is incomplete without the story of the unnamed slave girl who tells him about Elisha. We see many borders being transcended here.
By retelling these small narratives in a way which explains his own ministry of radical solidarity, Jesus teaches us that the small stories matter, because they can contribute to a larger story – of love, liberation and life. We know from history how small actions count towards a larger change. Rosa Park’s defiance on a Montgomery bus became a catalyst for one of the most influential civil rights campaigns in history and was an inspiration for Martin Luther King Jr.
A world like ours needs ‘respair’– a fresh hope which allows recovery from despair. Becoming instruments of respair involves becoming part of those narratives of solidarity, small or big, which can make Jesus’ promise of life in all its fullness more possible. What are the stories of solidarity that inspire us? How can our stories of solidarity inspire others?
[Image: Jyothi Sahi (Oil on board. Painting at Ecumenical Centre, Whitefield, Bangalore, 1980) Available in the public domain.]
About the author
The Revd Peniel Rajkumar is an Anglican priest who currently serves as Director for Global Mission and Theologian for the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel). His theological interests span liberation theologies, lived mission, interreligious dialogue and Christian social ethics. Peniel also teaches in Ripon College Cuddesdon and is honorary canon theologian for York Minster and Worcester Cathedral. Prior to moving to the UK, Peniel led the World Council of Churches Programme on Interreligious Dialogue.
