The gospel of solidarity - Churches in Solidarity with Women: A Mid-Decade Assessment

The historical and cultural situation today is shifting and paradoxical. With the collapse of political ideologies and the spread of fragmenting and particularizing tendencies, solidarity with the people, which assumes the cause of the excluded and marginalized, has become for Christian believers a theological viewpoint that questions our passivity and well-being. As Karl Rahner has said, "only in having an unconditional solidarity with the |condemned of the earth' could we dare to speak about the love of God for us".(1)

I was part of an ecumenical delegation who went to Chiapas, Mexico, in February at the request of churches and ecumenical organizations there. Our group was struck by some passages in a document distributed by the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) on 18 January in response to promises of amnesty from the Mexican government:

From whom do we need to receive forgiveness?... Why do we need this forgiveness?...

Forgiveness because we could not keep quiet in the face of our misery?... Who needs to ask

for forgiveness? We, who during long years suffered death, hunger, expulsions from our

land and ill-treatment?... Who needs to ask for forgiveness and who could give it?

We could summarize these demands in one phrase: "love with justice" rather than "love with charity". For me this is the real meaning of the solidarity we must seek today, because the final expression of agape is solidarity.

The apostle Paul offers us an important clue for understanding the profound meaning of this love: "For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich" (2 Cor. 8:9).

The Latin American bishops in Santo Domingo (1992) revived the concept of solidarity in affirming that the "church offers us a key that introduces us to a universal solidarity -- the term is mentioned in Pope John Paul II's encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis ("On social concern") -- by means of a particular solidarity. The most surprising one, and the one which most obliges us is solidarity with the poor (Luke 4:16-21 and Matt. 25:39-45)." The solidarity manifested by Bishop Samuel Ruiz of Chiapas with the indigenous population of his diocese is the evangelical expression of solidarity as "a Christian virtue".(2)

Koinonia as solidarity

This sense of solidarity was central in the letters of Paul, who reminds the Christian communities in Greece several times of the "solidarity campaign" for the poor churches in Jerusalem. Some fragments of these exhortations in 2 Corinthians constitute a "theology of solidarity" among churches. Paul urges the Corinthians to imitate the generosity of the churches in Macedonia. It is important to note that he sees this generosity as be effect of the grace of God on them (8:1). When Paul uses the term "grace" in the context of this offering, he gives it three meanings: the gratitude of love (8:1,4; 9:16), loving service (the collection itself) and thanks (8:16; 9:15).

In 1 Corinthians 16:3 Paul had used the term grace (charis) in connection with the sending of the Corinthians' donations to Jerusalem. But here for the first time he identifies the "grace of God" as the cause of generosity in a community which produces koinonia for the service of the poor: "they voluntarily gave according to their means, and even beyond their means, begging us earnestly for the privilege of sharing in this ministry to the saints" (8:4).

Some writers have drawn a parallel between 2 Corinthians 8:9 and Philippians 2:5-9. The practical expression of the response to the "grace of God" is koinonia in the service of the saints in Jerusalem, and this koinonia is motivated by agape, which is fully displayed in Christ.

Although Paul does not specifically indicate the nature of the "affliction" of the Macedonians, it was clearly related to their poverty: "for during a severe ordeal of affliction, their abundant joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part" (8:2). In the context of Christian experience, material lack was transformed into an element of grace and positive resistance. We do not often link the word "resistance" with the concept of solidarity; yet today -- as in the case of the churches in Macedonia -- the two come together.

The "gospel of solidarity" which the Macedonian churches practised helps us to reflect on the kind of spirituality that will sustain and nourish our expressions of solidarity in today's world. The Bible gives many vivid images of resistance, solidarity, life and hope. Exploring these images can open up imaginative windows of insight into how communities of resistance and solidarity are built up.

A spirituality of resistance

The first, from 2 Samuel 21, might be described as "affirming life in times of death" or "the spirituality of resistance".

The story tells of a time of crisis. After three years of famine and drought, there was a widespread feeling of despair. King David was worried. What should be done? A dialogue with God gave him some insights into the dramatic cause of scarcity and drought. According to Yahweh, Saul's people had done wrong by a massacre of the Gibeonites, whom Israel had sworn to spare. The result was division, hatred and enmity.