Protest actions

We are all too familiar with images of protest actions around the globe: 

·  Protests Actions against authoritarian rule in North Africa and the Middle East on 2011 in what is now called the Arab spring ushered in more democratic processes.

·  The Black Lives Matter movement at the height of COVID in 2021 and 2022.

·  The Me-Too movement

·  Our beautiful children acting for Climate Change, frustrated that their adult leaders are doing so little.

South Africa, the country that birthed me, is only who she is today because of Protest Action. From the Free Mandela protest action campaigns overseas, to the well organised, non-violent protest actions in the early days of Apartheid, South Africa today has a narrative of human rights. Thanks to Protest Action, South Africa boasts one of the world’s most sophisticated constitutions. Harvard law scholar Cass Sunstein called the constitution in the new democratic South Africa “the most admirable Constitution in the history of the world.” 

Australia, my adoptive country, has also been changed through protest actions.

Today we have marriage equality in Australia. While we remember the protest actions in 2017 that campaigned for the yes vote for marriage equality, the protest action began in 1978. People who identify as LGBTQIA+ launched what we now know as the Mardi Gras in Sydney in 1978, a protest movement that continues to encourage a positive self-esteem for people who are LGBTQIA+.

Australia has a long road to go before we can all relationships with Indigenous Australians anything close to just. However, the Torres Strait Islander man Eddie Mabo achieved an important role in protest action that led to more land rights. The High Court case that eventually overturned the lie of terra nullius was a significant change brought about through the Mabo led protest action.

Today I would like to thank you for your involvement in gentle, persistent, faithful protest action: your participation in the Eucharist.

The Eucharist as protest action 

The protest action that we have witnessed on the news around the globe has taken different forms. Some protest actions have been non-violent. Some protest actions have resulted in death and disability. Other protest actions have witnessed high levels of anger and aggression, such as the frustratingly short-sighted demonstration against lockdown measures in Sydney last week.

 In contrast the Eucharist as protest action is persistently gentle and consistent. There is no destructive anger, although there is the breaking of the bread. There is no blood shed although there is the constant call for the downfall of “The Powers” (whomsoever they may be) and the call for the uprising of the peasants, or the marginalised.

In analysing the John 6 text, one may be tempted to offer a spiritualised interpretation that reflects on the meaning of the Eucharist in terms of what the bread and wine signify during a Sunday Holy Communion Service. Many commentaries offer this over spiritualised interpretation. Such spiritual discussions on John 6 with the inevitable argument over transubstantiation are obsolete and irrelevant for a 21st century reader.

The political undercurrents of John 6 are related to the link made between Jesus the bread of life and manna, the bread of survival in Exodus 16. The manna story culminates in the annual Passover Festival. Passover commemorates how God freed and continues to free people from oppression. Thus, by linking Jesus the bread of life with the Manna story, John is deliberately alluding to the uprising of the oppressed against authoritarian despotic rule.

If the Eucharist is a form of protest action, we ask three questions:  

1. Protest action for whom? In other words, on whose behalf is the protest action for? 

2. Protest action against what? In other words, what do we object to? 

3. Protest action for what?  In other words, what is our vision and what do we hope and work for?  

Protest action for whom? In other words, on whose behalf is the protest action for? 

The Eucharist as protest action is for people who are hungry for life in all its fullness, the commitment that Jesus offers to each of us: “I have come that you may have life in all its fullness” (John 10.10b). For some this hunger may be a physical hunger. For others the hunger may be a deep desire for meaning and purpose.  

The Eucharist as protest action is for the vulnerable, those who come to Jesus and cry: “Sir, give us this bread always.” These words remind us of another dialogue in John’s Gospel, when the Samaritan woman said to Jesus: “Sir give me this water always.” The Samaritan woman is a vulnerable person, someone who is excluded and unwelcome.  

The Eucharist bread is broken for the life of the world. All are invited to share at the table. All are welcomed. These moments of Eucharistic action protest a world where only some are welcomed and only some invited. The Eucharist action is for the vulnerable of the world. But it is also an objection to the brokenness of the world where some have too much, and others have too little.  

Protest action against what? In other words, what do we object to? 

The Eucharist as Protest action objects against a world of injustice where some have too much, and others have too little. In John’s Gospel the people say to Jesus: ‘31Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, “He gave them bread from heaven to eat.”’ The reference to the story of Manna is relevant.  

The People of God have escaped from Egypt. Egypt is a place of oppression, a place where life was sucked out of God’s people as they were enslaved to a system of greed symbolised by the pyramids. In Egypt they suffered because some had too much and others too little. God frees them. They are in the desert. While in the desert God must teach them a new system of economics; a system that is not based on greed and a few having too much, and others enslaved to work. God rains down Manna. The people collect it. This teaches them that everything comes from God, all is a gift, it all comes from heaven. When they collect the manna, they will learn that work is a dignified activity where people work with God to mend creation. When they collect the manna, some will gather more, and others will gather less. But those who gather more will not have too much and those that gather less will not have too little. What God teaches them is a new system of economics that will give life to all God’s people. Life for all God’s people is God’s vision for the world, it is for this vision of sharing that the Eucharist action protests for. We live in an insane world where 26 billionaires had the same net worth as the poorest half of the world’s population, some 3.8 billion people[1].

Protest action for what?  In other words, what is our vision and what do we hope and work for?  

The Eucharist as Protest action envisions a world where all have enough, and all are treated with the dignity that is their birth rite as people created in the image of God. The dignity of being human and living a purposeful, whole, and healed life is the vision of the Eucharist. In addition to the manna, another important feature of the Exodus story alluded to in John 6 is the marriage between humanity and divinity. In Exodus, as God’s liberated people travelled through the wilderness, the Ark of the Covenant symbolising the Divine was among them.  The Eucharist re-members that the heart of our reality is the marriage between the holiness of our humanity with the holiness of God’s divinity. Every human is to be honoured because all are a unity of divinity and humanity.

The beautiful thing about the Eucharist is that God achieves this vision of human dignity for us and through us and with us. As Jesus explains to his audience, our task is to believe it: 28Then they said to him, ‘What must we do to perform the works of God?’ 29Jesus answered them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.’ 

Concluding comments  

Today I would like to thank you.  Thank you for coming faithfully to the Eucharist Feast. Thank you for being part of Protest Action that stands against a world, where so few have too much and so many have too little.  Thank you for being a partner with God in the Eucharist. Thank you for celebrating the marriage of the holiness of your humanity with the holiness of God’s divinity. Thank you for your work with God in mending creation.  

Pictures from Naked Pastor and used with permission, license paid.

[1] This is according to OXFAM. Read more here: https://indepth.oxfam.org.uk/public-good-private-wealth/.