Introduction

I offer this reflection as an attempt, in the context of a Ghana endowed with abundant natural resources but where many people are uncomfortable with the levels of homelessness and poverty that persist in our society, to spark a discussion about the meaning of our faith and the obligations that belonging to the Christian community imposes on us. The reflection suggests that Jesus was executed by decent people acting for good motives, since the God revealed by Jesus had profound ramifications for the ordering, behaviour, and structures of society, consequences that endangered the existing order. It suggests that Jesus was executed because his time’s leaders recognized the revolutionary economic, social, and political implications of the personal transformation that comes with being a follower of Jesus. The religious authorities believed that the society in which they lived was ordered according to God’s plan, and that by giving Jesus over to be executed, they were acting in conformity with that will. The Gospel depicts a battle between two very different conceptions of God, with dramatically different implications for our personal lives and the structure of our world. Jesus lost and died; nonetheless, the resurrection vindicated him, his understanding of God, and his vision for our world.

Jesus and the Marginalised

The poor are those groups in our cultures who are pushed aside, unloved, rejected, or marginalized. We can identify them by asking the question, “Who do you not want living next to you?”

Living the Gospel means affirming the dignity of every human being as a child of God. Affirming the dignity of travellers, homeless people, LGBT individuals and allies, sex workers, drug users, and offenders frequently challenges the traditional thinking of a society that feels insecure and often fearful, and hence prefers to keep them apart at arm’s length. The more we have to defend, the more our need to isolate ourselves from people on the fringes who we regard as a threat to our security. Thus, despite being prosperous in ways we could not have imagined a decade ago, there are more homeless people on our streets than ever before (100,000 people, according to the Ministry of Gender, Children, and Social Protection, 2023), our prisons are overcrowded, and hospital waiting lists are longer. There are less personality issues and adult repercussions from child sexual abuse.

Affirming the dignity of individuals on the edges today may be a deeply political act, just as it was in Jesus’ time. It may result in a challenge to political authorities if they fail to provide their basic necessities. Caring now is frequently a political act.

We are sometimes advised that religion and politics should be kept separate, but this was not Jesus’ method. His concern for and insistence on the dignity of every individual as a child of God had political ramifications for the organization of his own society, as it does for ours today. It also had personal consequences for him and his life, turning many of his contemporaries against him and rallying the authorities to remove him. Similarly, our care may necessitate political changes in our own society, as well as personal ramifications for our lives.

Christians’ desire for a new world, one in which each human being’s dignity and humanity are valued, necessitates a revolution in the economic, social, and political interactions that currently define our communities and globalized capitalism institutions. To challenge those systems by our words and deeds invites criticism, hatred, and antagonism from many in those communities. Shopping malls in Africa offer every possible luxury commodity to those who can buy them, while people starve and die a mile away. Drugs are unavailable to the poor in many parts of the world because patent rights, which protect drug companies’ profits, take precedence over the health and lives of the poor. Obscene poverty coexists with obscene wealth; exploitation and marginalization are seen as unavoidable, if unfortunate, byproducts of a world where “profit is the key motive for economic progress, competition the supreme law of economics, and private ownership of the means of production an absolute right that has no limits and carries no corresponding social obligation” (On the Development of Peoples, Pope Paul VI, 1967, para 2)

In Ghana, everything, including our basic needs, has increasingly become a commodity to be purchased by those who can afford to buy it: housing, education, health, childcare, elderly care, and the development and education of children with special needs are all readily available if you have the resources. If not, you rely on society’s willingness to provide resources that may be insufficient for the essential development and care that human dignity requires. Individuals’ basic necessities are human rights to which everyone is entitled by default and should not be dependent on the kindness – or lack thereof – of others.

All injustice denies a person’s dignity. Homeless individuals in Ghana live with the knowledge that they are not valuable enough to this society to ensure that they have a place to call home, despite the fact that many houses are vacant. Those who lack necessary medicines understand that their needs are less important than pharmaceutical corporations’ profits.

To fight injustice in the name of human dignity risks mockery, opposition, and rejection from many members of society who do not want the structures, policies, or financial resource allocations to change. To question the institutions, rules, or resource allocations that benefit the privileged is to risk the fury of those with too much to lose.
To live the Gospel of solidarity, to be motivated by Jesus’ zeal for an end to poverty and exploitation, and to build a world of justice and peace that represents God’s vision, is not for people who seek a quiet existence.

Conclusion

Jesus came to make God’s vision for our world a reality. A revolution is required to move the world from where it is now to where God wants it to be tomorrow. That revolution is the Christian community, referred to by Jesus as God’s kingdom or family. We, as a community, have a lot of soul searching and hard thinking to do. We are called to listen long and hard to the Gospel, to the King’s call, which invites us to transform this world through radical solidarity with all others, to follow him who gave his life for us by giving our own lives, as well as everything we have and are, to our brothers and sisters – a radical personal conversion that will revolutionize our world.