Jesus’ Gospel message this Sunday concerns human agency. Human agency is the power to act. It is the power to do so wisely and conscientiously, in any given environment. Jesus tells short parables to explain agency. He explains the need to separate from the patriarchal family, to have planned foresight, and to be ready to deal with hardships (e.g. renouncing possessions). Unfortunately Paul, in the second reading, violates Jesus’ message. Paul is writing to a slave owner, Philemon, about a man he possesses as a slave, Onesimus, who has run away to Paul. But Paul sends Onesimus back to Philemon saying; “I did not want to do anything without your consent.” Paul presumes the right of agency for a master while he subverts it for a human being possessed as a slave. Onesimus’ power to act, wisely and conscientiously, has been compromised.
The compromising happens because Paul repudiates the three lessons of Jesus’ short parables. First, Paul does not separate from patriarchy but upholds it – he goes so far as to support its slavery over “my child Onesimus, whose father I have become.” Then Paul displays not planned foresight but mere optimism; he hopes Philemon will treat Onesimus well. Finally, fearing dispossession of a slave is a hardship on Philemon, Paul offers it as a request, “so that the good you do might not be forced but voluntary.” Paul indicates no such concern for the hardship of slavery upon Onesimus. Scripture scholars, historically wealthy men, tend to interpret the Letter to Philemon from Paul’s supremacist and colluding point of view. The Letter is rarely interpreted from Jesus’ agency or that of Onesimus’. Institutional Christianity influences members toward Paul’s acquiescence to the agency of the master class. Members of institutional Christianity are thus made like Onesimus. We are thus likely surprised or perhaps even angered when a modern day Onesimus demonstrates human agency. One Onesimus example is currently happening in the Dakota region. Dakota, which means “friend,” is a native name given to two states in a nation that has consistently denied human agency to native people; Sioux, Ojibwa, Mandan, Paiute, and so many others. The U.S. has thwarted their agency through invasion, war, intended disease, enslavement, forced relocation, and the denial of human rights. In the Dakotas the master class is using illegal permits, eminent domain, and mercenaries in an attempt to gain oil plunder. By doing so they impede a core ingredient of natives’ spirituality, reverence for the earth. It is that reverence that has hundreds of tribe members currently demonstrating their human agency for their communities and for the environment. The Dakota Access Pipeline desecrates native lands and threatens farmers, fields, various animals, bees, birds, forests, and rivers. Native peoples are expressing their human agency by peacefully blocking the $3.8 billion 1,150 mile long fracked oil pipeline at Standing Rock.
“Great Spirit, once more behold me on earth … You have made me cross the good road and the road of difficulties, and where they cross, the place is holy. … You have said that I should make a tree to bloom. With tears running … I must say The tree has never bloomed, Here I stand, and the tree is withered. Again, I recall the great vision you gave me. It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives. Nourish it then That it may leaf And bloom And fill with singing birds!” (Earth Prayer – Black Elk, Oglala Sioux)
Prayer: Great Spirit, may we always act from the root of agency that lives within us.
Question: How am I fulfilling my own human agency?
September 4, 2016 Gospel Luke 14:25-33 Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time