The Psalmist speaks of the nature of God.  Why are we to lift up those who

are bowed down?   Why do we seek justice for the oppressed and food for

the hungry?  We, the church, live justice, because this is the nature and business of God.  One thousand years after the Psalms were written, Jesus came to show us more fully who God is. He lived and taught what his mother sang and taught him, the good news that God lifts up the lowly and fills the hungry with good things.  Mary, the one we remember giving birth this advent season echoes the teachings she has learned from the Psalms.  Now these words of who God is become flesh and dwell among us.  Jesus incarnates the prophecy and calls us to give flesh to God's acts of lifting up those bowed down.

 

For 10 years I have served a very poor church.  The church's total income is way below the poverty level, especially for a family of 45.  Many of the folks who worship with and have leadership at the church are homeless or unemployed.  Many have black or brown skin. Monthly fellowship meals are really a feeding of the hungry as the majority of guests at every meal are without work. The church pays utilities for a day shelter for the homeless in its small basement.  With only weekly offerings for income, somehow the church has no debt and a little surplus.  It must be that God cares about the poor and still makes a way out of no way.

 

Many churches with much greater income are afraid of a hands-on ministry with the oppressed.  Many of us wealthier Christians are deeply afraid of poverty, even if we have the privilege of white skin.  God has a special love for the poor, but it hurts to be poor.  Often the problems causing poverty are very complex.

 

Sam, with whom we hold hands and eat together at our weekly Bible study fellowship, is too weak to get a job because he just learned he is HIV+.  Lolita came with her baby to Bible study and worship to ask the church if they would allow a prayer rally for farmworkers who have been denied minimum wage and are suffering from nicotine

poisoning from harvesting tobacco.  Racism plays a role in all this.  Societal greed also hurts the poor.

 

Without hesitation, my bowed down church says yes to justice for the bowed down.  Their hospitality is God driven and unfailing for 137 years.  In my short time as pastor, we have hosted many a peace march, rally and prayer service because of the injustice of our war with Iraq. For 20 years Lloyd Presbyterian hosted rallies for a young man unjustly accused of murder and rape.  Finally, Darryl Hunt was proven innocent and has lifted up the lowly little church that stood with him as the city sought his guilt.  Before the trials of Darryl Hunt, this humble sanctuary was a center for civil rights for African Americans.

 

Why do churches seek justice for the oppressed?  Because God does and we are the people of God who are to live with Christ as our guide and role model, even to the ridicule of society.

 

Advent comes to us in winter.  It is cold and people without homes and heat can literally freeze on the sidewalk.  What joy it was to see that one of our large downtown Baptist churches just decided to allow their new gym to be a night shelter for the homeless until Spring comes.  No individual can do this.  It will take a community and good organization to staff this shelter.  God's people are lifting up the bowed down until they have the strength to stand and face forward.   Jesus, the child of advent, must have taken this psalm to heart as his mother read it to him.  When he became a man, he healed a woman whose spine actually caused her to bend over.

 

There are many pressures that can make us all bend like a tree limb covered with ice.  An affluent, safe and clean church can be bent over with a meaningless ministry when it fails to hear and respond to the cry of the poor.

 

Jesus learned about his mission in Isaiah, the Psalms, through his parents and study in the synagogue.  We are called to live into the mind and ways of Christ.  A ministry without justice for the oppressed is a bent over, weak and hobbling ministry.  The good news of Advent is that our savior Christ is coming, through the church, to liberate us all.

 

BY REV. LAURA SPANGLER, PASTOR, LLOYD

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, WINSTON-SALEM