Who will speak for the poor and broken?

Marty Haugen, a hymn writer of some renown in the world Christian community wrote a most powerful hymn that goes to the core of the Christian message:


Who will speak for the poor and broken?
Who will speak for the peoples oppressed?
Who will speak so their voice will be heard?
Oh who will speak if we don’t?

Who will speak for the ones who are voiceless?
Speak the truth in the places of pow’r?
Who will speak so their voice will be heard?
Oh who will speak if we don’t?

(M Haugen, GIA Publications, 1993)


Just whose job is it to care for those who are aged, homeless, seriously ill, depressed, widowed, disabled, bereaved, in pain? Who will speak on their behalf? For thousands of years, the poor were the objects of charity, subject to the kindness and generosity of their rulers and fellow citizens. The scriptures record the duty we have to support the poor and downtrodden, and Jesus, we might recall (Luke 6:20) advised his disciples that ‘Happy are you who are poor, yours is the kingdom of God’. This never meant that they had to fend for themselves, this speaks, surprisingly, of their closeness to the Kingdom of God.

The provision of health and social services grew from the growth of the public voices that emerged from humanitarianism, universal enfranchisement and the demand for an equitable share of the public purse. But despite the progress made in the last 150 years, the voiceless are still with us – still seeking justice. So, who will hear, and who will speak out?

‘The harvest is rich, but the labourers are few,’ writes Luke (10:1ff). There is much to do, and few to do it. In another time this was interpreted as priesthood or religious life, even a call to work and life as missionaries in far distant lands. Frederic Ozanam (founder of Vinnies) and Teresa Bojaxhiu (of Calcutta) responded to the immediacy of the poverty of their neighbours and sought, as their followers continue to do to this very day, to alleviate their suffering. Their critics have also been consistent: providing food, clothing and shelter do not challenge or change the systemic and structural injustice that allows such poverty to exist – lack of education, chronic unemployment, fractured families, alcohol and drug dependency, unplanned and unprepared parenthood, moving industry offshore, globalisation, war.

The church, and its living saints, are not inactive, but nor are they the only ones with the courage to accept the call to labour for the Lord, to speak for the voiceless, to challenge the status quo. It is within the gift of each of us to accept the mission given us through baptism and our common humanity to: preach good news to the poor… to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed (Luke 4:18). Whose job is it? Mine. And yours.