March 7, 2021 – Today’s post may be a bit longer than most and on a heavier subject than we usually do, but I encourage you to read it through
______________: A POLITICAL MANIFESTO FOR TODAY?
- Reduce the gap between rich and poor
- Seek to ensure full employment
- Introduce measures to help the poorest, including a living wage
- Offer the best possible education
- Empower individuals to feel they can make a difference
- Promote tolerance
- Promote equal treatment for women
- Create a society based on values and not on profits and consumerism
- End all forms of enslavement
- Avoid engaging in wars\
- Avoid narrow self-interest and promote a world view
- Care for the environment
Now some of you might be thinking we have become completely liberal – but this is not my Manifesto – it was actually written by John Wesley for the 18TH CENTURY! It could have been written for today as many of the issues it talks about are issues we are still talking about.
John Wesley made quite a bit of money from his publications, but chose to live on a modest salary throughout his entire ministry and gave everything else away to help the poor and less fortunate. Some years as much as 90% of his income.
Here are a few quotes from some articles on the internet *
Wesley, who was suspicious of riches (as was Jesus), once told a colleague, "The poor are the Christians." He stirred so much animosity with his criticism of wealth and defense of the poor that he was prohibited from preaching in Church of England parishes. His response was the famous declaration that the world was his parish. He went out and preached standing on his father's gravestone. The poor heard him gladly.
Wesley's thinking about and approach to ministry with the poor changed over the years. When young he encouraged acts of charity, such as giving alms to the poor, even begging from the rich on behalf of the poor. He organized a society to provide relief for poor, sick, and friendless "strangers."
Later, Wesley would move away from charity and begging as responses to the needs of those on the economic margins. He looked for more lasting benefits and took a stance in favor of an 18th century form of individual, family, and community empowerment. He advocated and helped to organize:
- Employment collectives, such as for seamstresses
- Loan programs so that persons could get capital for small businesses
- Free or low-cost health clinics
- Housing for widows and orphans
- Schools for the poor
Wesley encouraged the early Methodist preachers to live among the poor in order to maintain solidarity with them. He and his brother Charles sometimes acted as arbiters between the poor abused by the early industrial revolution and civil authorities. One mayor accused the Wesleys of causing "much mischief" in England, but they won him to the cause doing justice for people.
The more I read and look into a holistic approach to the Gospel I find that we must become a people who not only care about the spiritual well-being and the salvation of the people but also about how they live now. We need to be aware of how we can live out our lives for the King, and help other brothers and sisters be able to do so as well.
Here are some additional comments about the Wesleys –
The Wesleys were keenly aware of poverty as the result of systems of injustice. They combined a positive concern for the welfare of people with protests against specific forms of injustice. John sharply criticized the exploitation of the poor by industrialists, merchants, doctors, lawyers, and distillers; he condemned colonialism and slavery. To a large degree, the treatment of the poor became for Wesley the litmus test of the value of Christian life and service.
As he grew old and Methodism became larger and more prosperous, Wesley deeply feared a growing complacency toward poverty. He warned of this in one of his last essays. He wrote: "For the Methodists in every place grow diligent and frugal; consequently, they increase in goods. Hence they proportionally increase in pride, in anger, in the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes and the pride of life. So, although the form of religion remains, the spirit is swiftly vanishing away."
We share these thoughts with you and challenge you to think about them and reflect a bit about your own life and way of living. Pray and ask God if there is anything you need to do differently?
Also, pray for our economic programs here – we are working to get them started up again so that they can be long lasting with or without us.
Pray for the upcoming Annual Conference of the Churches here to be held on March 26-27, 2021.
*https://www.umcmission.org/Learn-About-Us/News-and-Stories/2011/May/Heritage-Sunday-John-Wesley-and-the-Poor