Praying Together 11th May 2025

Meditation for Easter 4

Collect

Almighty God,
whose Son Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life:
Raise us, who trust in him,
from the death of sin to the life of righteousness,
that we may seek those things which are above,
where he reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Revelation 7: 9-12

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying,

‘Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!’
And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, singing,

‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honour
and power and might
be to our God for ever and ever! Amen.’

John 10: 22-30

At that time the festival of the Dedication took place in Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the portico of Solomon. 24So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, ‘How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.’ Jesus answered, ‘I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.’

In 1807, an edited version of the Bible, reduced to just 14 Chapters, was produced for slaveowners to distribute to their slaves. Any chapters or stories giving reference to freedom were completely omitted. These included Moses leading the Israelites away from Egypt, Paul’s declaration ‘There is no longer Jew nor Greek, no longer slave or free…’, the description in Revelation ’there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.’

The belief was that a complete Bible “could instil in slaves a dangerous hope for freedom and dreams of equality”. What was left was heavily redacted to emphasise the duty of slaves to practice obedience and submission.

The reason behind all of this was simply fear. Fear that the Bible message would upset the social hierarchy and bring justice in a unjust world.

Which is profoundly true. It is meant to. So that fear still remains.

The Gospel message is dangerous, and continues to be distorted to reinforce and protect current social structures which depend on oppression – none more so than the ‘prosperity gospel’ of the millionaire ‘televangelists’ and the increasing number of obnoxious right-wing white male supremacists.

Frederick Douglass, the American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman (who had once been a slave himself), had this to say: “Between the Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference—so wide that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ; I therefore hate the corrupt, slave-holding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason but the most deceitful one for calling the religion of this land Christianity…”

As we speak, 49.6 million people live in modern slavery – in forced labour and forced marriage, and of these, roughly a quarter of all victims of modern slavery are children. Domestic violence is rife, and the role of women is still demeaned and repressed in so many societies. Slaves are not just people abducted to work in cottonfields – wherever there are people who have no freedom to make choices about their lives, where there is inequality and injustice, slavery exists.

The unedited Gospel message makes it clear that the oppressed and the dispossessed are His sheep. So are we. The difference is that we have the power to do something about it.