Sunday, November 10, 2024
Reflection by Barbara Metcalf
Last Sunday, Steve said that we looked forward to an eventful week ahead. “Eventful” sounds right. The event of the week, of course, has been the election of Donald Trump to the presidency – with all the importance that position holds for our shared civic life. If we look to our leaders as models for behavioral emulation, he is not that. And as for his policies, for many of us, expectations for what he will actually do in office are not optimistic either. This election raises fear that governing policies fostering everything from social justice to environmental concerns is now at risk.
Is there nothing new under the sun? Our readings today are populated by vulnerable, long-ago characters whose very lives were indeed at risk. Widows stand for helplessness in Jesus’ time Widows are front and center and serve as an emblem of vulnerability. Naomi and her widowed daughter-in-law Ruth had no hope until Ruth found a husband. The widow of Elijah’s story lived on the edge of starvation until Elijah intervened. In our third passage, Jesus describes widows at risk of losing their homes to temple officials. These officials feigned sanctity but exploited the weak.
Now, as then, individual actions, whether for good or ill, protection or exploitation, made for monumental difference.
It’s not just about what any given person does. Our society today not only requires the actions of individual public servants but public policies as well to assure the social justice we all hope for. As a new regime takes power in our country, many fear that those policies may indeed be at risk and that many individual lives will suffer as a result.
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Today’s scripture readings all touch on the weak and vulnerable. The widow is a prime example. The readings describe a widow and her widowed daughter-in-law; a widow gathering sticks and struggling to feed herself and her child; the poor widows exploited by the scribes.
If I can move from the lessons to the calendar, November 11, tomorrow, is the feast of St Martin. The readings are good background for the story of Saint Martin, a 4th century Roman legionnaire. St Martin rose to help the poor. Like Elijah, Martin would multiply food for the poor and needy. Martin was generous. He rendered practical help in a time of need. He took off his cloak and cleaved it in half with his sword to be able to share it with a poor beggar[1]
We don’t hear much about St Martin. But his feast day has been historically important in parts of Europe. It has been a celebration of generosity on the part of the powerful. It has been on occasion associated with fasting all the way up until Christmas. At times Martinmas was also celebrated to mark the end of the harvest season.
Some years ago, Tom and I were on a boat trip on the Rhine and stopped one evening at a village celebration of St. Martin’s Day, complete with horses and geese (given one legendary story about Martin hiding with geese). There was a participant on horseback dressed as Martin in the role of a 4th century Roman legionnaire. There were school children carrying lanterns and ready for songs, treats, and a great bonfire.
Martin is worth remembering. He offers us lessons. Most obvious of these lessons would be generosity to the poor, even if not as dramatically as cleaving our cloak in half to share with someone needy. As individuals, many of us support organizations that either provide aid themselves or lobby in the interests of generous public policies.
There are examples of generous collective giving at St Alban’s, including the sandwich/shower project, periodic collections of canned goods or socks, and so forth. We have also at times united to write letters to elected officials to support food-related social programs. It’s a fair guess that many of these programs will become even more important in the years ahead.
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Apart from St Martin, for most people, of course, the important calendrical occasion this coming week is the commemoration tomorrow of what is now known as “veterans’ day,” a day focused on the contributions and sacrifices of those who provided national military service over the years. There is a bit of a tie-in perhaps in that St Martin was also a military figure. The day originally marked the end of World War I in Europe on the 11th day of the 11th month at the 11th hour. This was a war that came to be seen as particularly unnecessary and tragic.
Ever more powerful governments can do great good and great ill. Looking ahead what we can hope and pray for is that the power of the government will indeed be used for the good. May we, above all, be spared policies that damage the vulnerable, people who are vulnerable by their poverty or lack of education or legal status or sexuality or social position. With a new regime in power come January, it may be time to consider what any one of us can do to help bend the arc toward justice in whatever small way that we can. It will be time for local action. We need to join with like-minded people right here and beyond to lobby and to act.
[1]Wikipedia fills in with details on Martin. His story gives us the very word “chapel.” The priest who cared for Martin’s cloak in its reliquary was called “a cappellanu,” and ultimately all priests who served the military were called “cappellani.” The French translation is “chapelains,” from which the English word chaplain is derived. A similar linguistic development took place for the term referring to the small temporary churches built for the relic. People called them a “capella,” the word for a little cloak. Eventually, such small churches lost their association with the cloak, and all small churches began to be referred to as “chapels.”