Paul Barber outlines some of the areas of injustice and privation in Aotearoa that we can reflect on and help to address during Lent.

A mixture of both hope and disquiet for the future accompanies our team in the preparation of our annual State of the Nation report each year. Where do we see signs of God’s spirit of love and justice made real among us? Where do we see warnings of injustice and harm in our land? How much of God’s love at work can we understand out of the incomplete information available?

The people I am working with in The Salvation Army represent a wide range of theological thinking, different faith traditions and those who do not align with any faith, but we share the spirit of aroha and love towards the people we seek to serve. We contribute to the threefold mission of caring for people, transforming lives and reforming society. For the people who seek help and hope through our services, some have their lives turned around, while others, living with huge challenges in life find some support to keep going.

Behind the stories of personal struggle that come through the doors of The Salvation Army services are larger social and economic influences that make it more likely someone will be hungry, homeless, become addicted to alcohol or drugs, or mistreat those around them.

Lent — Time to Attend to Privation

Lent is traditionally a season of fasting, of going without in the weeks leading up to the most important Christian festival of Easter. Fasting is integral to many religious traditions. Historically the Lent season in the northern hemisphere probably involved a lot of involuntary fasting for poorer communities as it fell in the coldest and hardest part of winter when stored food ran low and people were eking out the last stocks, looking toward the new growth of food crops in spring.

Hunger

There is a lot of involuntary fasting going on in houses in this country every day and in the season of Lent that must be source for deep prayerful reflection. How can we draw on the spiritual energy to “feed the five thousand” in this country and achieve the vision of kore hiakai — zero hunger?

The “Costs… of living Nga Rourou Whakaiti”, the theme for State of the Nation 2023, points beyond a narrow focus on the cost of living as impacts of inflation on living costs and looks to the wider social costs. It draws on the whakataukī/saying:”Mā tou rourou, mā taku rourou, ka ora ai te iwi / With your basket and my basket the people will be nourished.” Which is to suggest that when food baskets are empty, we are not doing enough together to support the people.

In the biblical story of the feeding of the five thousand, faced with a seemingly insurmountable challenge to feed thousands of hungry people with almost nothing but some loaves of bread and a few fish, a miracle of sharing occurred that saw no one go hungry. People’s lives are built around relationships of love and care and our task is to nurture these relationships in our families, communities, schools, workplaces.

Stop Language that Implies Violence

It is disturbing to hear economists and commentators suggest that our country might “need” a recession, an economic policy version of “tough love” that says we need to be forced by higher costs to sort out our “excessive spending”. The decisions being made to drive up interest rates to force a slow-down in borrowing, spending and economic activity that is likely to lead to people losing jobs is often described as a “blunt instrument” in economic policy. Such language has shades of abusive behaviour, echoing the “blunt instruments” used against partners and children in family violence.

Surveying the distressing family violence and sexual offending statistics that record violence towards mainly women and children, or the growing sense of mental distress among young people even as alco-pop drinks are ever more intensively marketed to them — there is already an excess of trauma from abusive behaviour in our nation. We do not need that trauma to be added to.

Need Political Leaders to Improve Our Lives

We elect our political leaders to work to make our lives better — disasters come fast enough without seeking to create them with economic policy decisions. The last thing people in the communities we are working with need is our political leaders to intentionally steer more people into hardship.

During Lent…

Here are things to reflect upon in Lent that can be seen as the spirit of love at work in our land.

Believe in Our Young People

Consider the trend of more than a decade in reduced youth offending, a trend reflected in other countries as well. That is the wider context for the “spike” in recent months in youth involvement in ram raids that captured social media and wider media attention. We need to continue to believe in our young people and provide more support so every single one can find a future to believe in.

Keep People Employed

Social policy designed to keep people in employment and lift lower wages is helping reduce poverty. But even with our labour market apparently nearing full capacity, over 190,000 people say they want a job but cannot find one. There are nearly 350,000 households including 209,000 children trying to get by on welfare assistance that, despite increases in recent years, is still not enough to ensure people can live with dignity in the face of inflation and higher living costs. We are partway through a turning around of welfare policy aimed to more than halve child poverty. Whether we complete the journey relies on political will and voters in this year’s election telling elected leaders this is a priority and demanding from them a coherent plan to get there.

Stop Delaying Justice

Backlogs in the court system are leading to a big increase in people sitting in custody on remand — waiting for a trial and/or sentencing. This is unfair to victims and the accused. Four out of every 10 of the 3,300 people in prison on remand will not even receive a jail sentence, but may have spent weeks or months in jail, lost employment, homes and family contact with very little access to support and no access to rehabilitation programmes. The saying “justice delayed is justice denied” could not be truer in this case. There is need for more community-based remand alternatives for people to turn to.

Keep Housing Families

The housing catastrophe seems to finally have reached a turning point, with the number of people waiting for social housing having fallen by more than 4,000 since April 2022 to just over 23,000, at the same time as house prices fall and consents for new builds are granted at record levels. But rents are not falling in many areas where people on lower incomes are renting. Home ownership remains out of reach for most lower income households. There is a long way to go.

When our hearts, souls and minds are gripped by the spirit of love and justice, it turns us around, onto a path that may not always be easy to follow. But if we keep putting one foot in front of the other we will get there.

Read: State of the Nation 2023 Report www.bit.ly/stateofthenation2023

Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 279 March 2023: 6-7