A second consequence of Wesley’s relocation was the practical empowerment of the poor. The early Methodists started free schools and economic co-operatives, the first free dispensary and building societies. Wesley’s Benevolent Loan Fund was designed to “stimulate the expression of initiative and independence on the part of the underprivileged” and the Strangers’ Friend Society with branches in every major city in the country was unique in that it operated “wholly for the relief not of our society but of poor, sick, friendless strangers.” Each of the great humanising social reformers who followed: William Wilberforce, Robert Raikes, Florence Nightingale, the Earl of Shaftesbury, John Howard and Elizabeth Fry had their faith roots in the eighteenth century evangelical renewal. Thus the emancipation of the slaves in the British Empire, the beginnings of popular education, the transformation of hospitals and nursing care, the ending of sweated labour in the factories and child labour in the mines, as well as prison reform – are all part of the legacy of Wesley’s prodigious compassionate efforts. With this heritage, and given the deeply degrading circumstances in which so many South Africans are still forced to live, I don’t believe any church congregation in our land can call itself Christian unless it is placing itself alongside the poor in practical, respectful, empowering ways.
Third, Wesley never consciously set out to be a social prophet, but like those we now call ‘liberation theologians’ he reflected on his theology in the light of his daily experience and what he found led him on a journey from piety, through charity, to justice. He found himself calling for social as well as personal transformation. Ever since the Holy Club days he had been committed to “works of mercy” among the poor, but now, in the process of regularly sharing their humble homes, their meagre crust, their heavy burdens and terrible degradations, he became increasingly aware of the systemic nature of economic deprivation. He scorned attempts by the rich to explain poverty away: “So wickedly false, so devilishly false, is the common objection: ‘they are poor only because they are idle’,” he declared.24 Thus, while his primary passion was preaching people into the Kingdom of God, he increasingly campaigned to bring English society into conformity with that kingdom, seeking the conversion of systems as well as individuals. He promoted campaigns for justice and protested infringements of it. He attacked slavery as “that execrable sum of all the villainies”, proclaiming liberty to be “the right of every human creature as soon as he breathes the vital air”.25 He protested the legal system and denounced war as the foulest curse he knew, “a horrid reproach to the Christian name”. The liquor traffic, political corruption, persecution of Catholics in Ireland – all received his attention. He used the press, the pulpit, the pamphlet and the private letter. He believed that if God could make individuals Christian, God could make a Christian England. One common thread ran through all of Wesley’s activism: he believed that every single person carried God’s holy image and mattered infinitely to God. Therefore any infringement of human dignity was a spiritual, not merely socio-political matter. This remains true: however complicated or fraught the social problems we wrestle with today, the fundamental Christian question we must ask in judging them and seeking solutions is simple: does this do honour or violence to the image of God in those whom it impacts? Any political policy – like apartheid – that does such violence is an affront to God. Therefore when the church engages such issues, far from “interfering in politics” it is declaring that there is no area of life beyond God’s moral authority.
Fourth, while he was convinced that no nation could be reformed without a spiritual awakening, Wesley was also persuaded that it would not happen without a radically different approach to wealth, property and poverty. At a personal level he saw money as a loan from God to be used for “first supplying thine own reasonable wants, together with those of your family; then restoring the remainder to God through the poor”.26 Wesley was seeking a “Gospel-shaped” economy rooted in compassion and equity and he was clear that those who strove to “corner” the fruits of the earth were “not only robbing God, but grinding the faces of the poor”. If we leap 250 years to today’s South Africa, who would deny that our nation stands in an uncannily similar place? Whatever we think of his belief that greater equity could come about through spiritual renewal, we cannot deny that achieving that equity for the South African nation is becoming literally the difference between its life or death.
I find that I can never read the story of my spiritual forbears without a sense of excitement. It leaves me with some idea of what being a Christian might look like. I have tried to put it into words thus …
One who grows from the discovery of being loved and accepted by God into a life of disciplined love for God and neighbour, expressed in acts of devotion and worship, compassion and justice, who is willing to be held accountable to this by one’s fellows, and has made an intentional option to stand with Jesus in solidarity with the poor and marginalised of society, against the powers that hold all such in bondage.27
I never ever had any singular ‘warmed heart’ experience, though there have been many moments of strong ‘presence’ or when some powerful spiritual truth has broken in on my consciousness. People speak of two kinds of ‘conversion’. One is as if someone comes into one’s darkened bedroom, flinging the curtains open, letting in the blinding light of day; the other is more like the slow awakening that dawn brings as it creeps gently through opened curtains into the room. Mine has been the second. I do speak in the next chapter about the day an ‘assurance’ about how I was meant to spend my life settled on my soul, but for the rest it has been a journey filled with small steps in the adventure of being a Jesus-follower.
One liberating truth for me has been that in following Jesus I am not asked to be superhuman. Episcopal priest and writer Barbara Brown Taylor writes: “I thought that being faithful was about becoming someone other than who I was … and it was not until this project failed that I began to wonder if my human wholeness might be more useful to God than my exhausting goodness.” She goes on: “Committing myself to the task of becoming fully human is saving my life now.” She believes that there is more than one way to do this, but because she is a Christian she says, “I do it by imitating Christ.”28
I like that.
Another freeing discovery is that following Jesus is not about earning brownie points to ‘get to heaven’ – whatever that means. The whole point of his life was to remind us that this is God’s world, to stand in solidarity with this world, to offer fullness of life29 in this world, and to invite us into God’s dream for this world and all of creation. In the Sermon on the Mount30 he painted a picture of the kind of world our lover-God dreams for us, a world of love and justice, peace and joy. And in the words we call the Beatitudes31 he described the kind of truly-human beings who could make that world a reality. Such people, he said, will be the yeast in the loaf and lights on the hill.
Heaven is not our priority. It can wait.
A tougher discovery is that following Jesus always involves other people who we have no hand in choosing. If we do invite him into our lives, Jesus asks the uncomfortable question: “Can I bring my friends?” And we look at the motley crowd clustered round him and see people of different colours and cultures and habits we were taught not to like, the unwanted and unwashed … and we plead, “Do I really have to have them too?” And Jesus answers simply, “Love me, love my friends.” The prayer “Lord, I’ve tried loving my neighbour, now can I please have your next ridiculous suggestion?” comes