From Trafficking to Freedom

Human trafficking today, our modern forms of slavery, recall today's Scripture passages about the Israelites being in exile, Paul being in prison, and some surprising advice from Jesus to his disciples on how to become servant leaders:

Lamentations 1:1-6, Psalm 137, 2 Timothy 1:1-14, Luke 17:5-10
(Look these up at bible.oremus.org or biblegateway.org)

A Provocative Gospel

Friends, I bet you’ve noticed the Gospel of Luke….is a pretty provocative one:  as we’ve covered these past few weeks, it’s the gospel of the 99%, the gospel where the poor are lifted up and the mighty taken down a few notches, it’s a gospel that flies in the face of the status quo.  If you haven’t gone home offended yet by some of these gospel stories, I’d be surprised.  Luke’s Jesus doesn’t mince words.  Yet sometimes even a blunt Jesus can be a little hard to understand.

We also have in the readings today the psalm of exile in Babylon, and the passage from Lamentations of a people thrown into exile.  Throughout our study of Jeremiah, we heard this time was coming, and now it is here.

Photo: Alamy

The Devastation of Exile

So the people are now in exile, and they lament.  They have lost everything.  

Exile meant that after the city was conquered and destroyed, all the best and brightest were taken off to Babylon as labor to build its own cities and civilization instead of Jerusalem.  This wasn’t supposed to happen:  hadn’t they already been delivered out of Egypt?  Yet, here they are again, far from home, and held captive.  

There’s a new film coming out, Twelve Years A Slave, which is already being hailed as the ‘Schindlers’ List’ of American slavery.  I hope that when it arrives here, that some of us might take a field trip to go see it.  For most of us who are white, we can’t begin to realize how enormous a trauma slavery was and how it still affects the Black community in our country today.  Slavery involves exile, because people were taken from their homes and lives against their will, loaded onto boats, carried across the oceans, to become a labor force for a different race of people. But perhaps we can begin to understand even a glimpse of that experience by hearing these scriptures this morning in all their pain and bitterness.

God, Grief, and Suffering Seeking Meaning

In the Psalm today, the Babylonian captors asked their Israelite captives to sing their songs of Zion.  Now, a Song of Zion is a song about Jerusalem, and by that time in their faith lives, the Temple had become understood as God’s home.  Now they felt they were separated by God because they were separated from God’s home by a thousand miles!

You can also hear a painful Grief response in the scriptures, one that goes something like:  “I must have done something really awful to deserve this,  someone I love must be really angry with me; even God must be really angry with me!”

I think we often desire meaning in suffering, to know that our suffering is not for nothing.  And yet that desire we have meaning does not mean that our suffering is God’s plan, and it doesn’t even mean that our suffering is for some greater good.  I know that it hurts, but sometimes suffering is caused for no good purpose.  Sometimes it’s caused by purely evil purposes, one human against another with utter inhumanity.  Sometimes the only greater good would be for it to end.

Yet, the exiled Israelites believe that only the Lord can end their pain.  After all, this is still the God that led them out of Egypt and the slavery there.

So, let’s go back to putting ourselves in their shoes.  You can imagine that, right?  You can imagine how people uprooted from everything they’ve ever known, and knowing they have next to no chance of returning to that life, and being subjected to cruelty and domination every day of the rest of their lives?  People who have lost their children and parents and spouses to unimaginable violence?  They wouldn’t blink at exacting even a fraction of pain out of their oppressors like they’ve experienced.  They’re angry enough to kill their enemies’ children, as it says in the psalm.  In the same shoes, we might feel the same way.

And yet, really, they couldn’t retaliate, since it would probably cost them their lives, the last thing they had left.  American slaves knew this, and suffered severe beatings and killings.  People in prostitution and housekeeping today, are often in the same situation of fearing harm to selves or to loved ones if they were to stand up for themselves, or try to escape.

Human Trafficking:  What Does It Look Like?

One of our peacemaking themes for this season is human trafficking.  Trafficking is when exploits another human being in order to make a profit:  whether prostitution or pornography, corrupt forms of adoption, under-the-table household help, even exploiting people migrating in hopes of a better future.  Homeless teenagers are even trafficked in the streets of Madison at night, in order to pay for a place to sleep.

Of Slaves and Servant Leadership

So, with this understanding of slavery and trafficking in mind, let’s talk about today’s Gospel, which probably just got a whole lot less comfortable for us.  After all, Jesus and this mustard seed parable invoke a master/slave relationship.  Jesus asks the disciples if they would call their slave in after working all day and feed him dinner and wait on him.  Well, no, probably they’d rather have him keep working until they were fed.  But Jesus is training these disciples to be the future leaders of the church, not to have people wait on them because of their status, but for them to model servant leadership by waiting on those with least status.  If people want to applaud them for their service, they shouldn’t gloat, they should simply say, “we did what we ought to have done!”

Solidarity in Suffering

And servant leadership can involve even more difficult situations as well.  After all, Paul is in prison as he’s writing Timothy, offering instruction in Christian leadership.  Paul, who is suffering, is telling Timothy not to be ashamed that he is suffering, but to join him in that suffering, for the sake of the gospel.  The risks are high.  Yet there is hope, something even beyond the threat of captivity and death.

Bringing Hope for Freedom

You may have heard of Frederick Douglass, who said, “I prayed for twenty years and God didn’t answer until I started praying with my legs.”  In escaping his nightmare, he became one of the best speakers and advocates for ending the practice of African-American slavery.

Friends, even though these are difficult issues and moments in history to reflect on, I want you to leave here today knowing that there is also hope, and cause in rejoicing:  In the past, Presbyterian churches were among those working with the Underground Railroad, and fighting for equality afterwards even up through the time of Martin Luther King Jr.  To meet the needs of people trafficked and enslaved today, ministries supported through the Peacemaking program bring hope for freedom; work on advocacy for better protections; ministries of healing for survivors.  Sowing peace where anger exists.  Helping create conditions which allow people to work with dignity where they live, so don’t have to fall victim to traffickers in a strange land.

"Set Free" by ajosephproject.com

We know we can’t do it all, but we are able to help do a few good things.  And in the meantime, we can weep with our brothers and sisters who are far away, even in the past, and begin to understand when pain is carried forward.  And we can do so knowing we are not alone, but knowing that God is with us, just as God is with all who suffer and especially those who are being held against their will.  Nothing will ever separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.  Thanks be to God!

Prayers this week:

On festival of St. Francis, we give thanks for our animal companions and the joy they bring to our lives; and we remember with love those pets who have died.

For all who find themselves trapped and waiting for freedom.

For the peacemaking ministries of the PCUSA, especially those who work for the healing of survivors, and ministering to all who have been impacted or may be tempted to acts of violence.

For the many African people who died when their smuggler’s boat capsized in the ocean this week, who were fleeing violence and poverty in their home countries.