The first and the last

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THE Covid-19 pandemic has revealed layers of injustice about how we value people, particularly the weakest.

The cancelled order of jeans made in Bangladesh by a large western firm because of the drop off in sales in western shopping centres meant that factories were shut without notice, and workers who rely on their pay to feed family back in rural villages sent home with no money, and no certainty of pay in the future.

One person’s wealth determines another’s wage. Or rather one company’s power determines another’s livelihood. The need for equal pay and fair trade worldwide is shockingly current.

The first sixteen verses of Matthew 20 reveal to us similar layers of injustice, choice and power. On the face of it this passage is about the labourers’ sense of injustice about pay. The landowner turned the normal pattern of employment on its head by paying those who arrived towards the end of the day the same daily wage as those who arrived first.

We could be forgiven for empathising with the early risers who felt ‘slighted’ by their boss. And we could be excused for understanding the angst of the late arrivals who may, like current retail garment industry workers in the south world, be struggling to feed a family, and might already have been turned away from a range of previous vineyards. But either of these responses possibly misses the bigger gift of this passage: those with power, like the landowner, have the opportunity to turn social norms on their head. It is within the gift of the wealthy and the powerful to choose to establish new patterns of distribution in favour of the weakest.

In the Iona Community, by the end of a typical week in one of our centres, the professional social worker, teacher or judge is on first name terms, and sharing in the washing up with folks who have survived abuse, children who have grown up in poverty, or refugees from around the world. Those who have power and authority in the world have become close friends with those who depend on their judgement. We are not unique in this regard. Many other church and community networks choose to up-end social norms which determine power through wealth. As do many great individuals.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Baden Ginsberg who died this autumn used her power in favour of the weakest. She championed the rights of poor women and changed the laws governing women’s rights over their bodies.

In this Covid-context, there are millions of ordinary folk in our communities who are ensuring that the homeless have shelter as winter comes; that the most sick and vulnerable are protected from the virus, and that the children who need support receive it. We give thanks for the people with power who use it to up-end unjust social norms. And we pray for all in power and request, loudly, that they do likewise.

Ruth Harvey is a Church of Scotland minister and Leader of the Iona Community.

This article appears in the November 2020 Issue of Life and Work

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