Since I am no stranger to prayer and the Word has always been my authority, my first thought when I heard the headline being uttered with contempt, last Saturday, was Micah 6:8: "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."
Hence, the prime minister’s ridicule of “justice” and his naked contempt for the administrators and administration of justice are among the reasons I would not participate in his so-called National Day of Prayer. After all, the mouth that curses The People on Saturday could never genuinely bless them on Thursday.
One of the main tenets of the Christianity our Nation professes is “justice,” and the Bible explains that this is not simply what is sought in the courtroom.
I know it is commonly preached and believed that the great cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed for homosexuality. But, conveniently, professing Christians seem to forget the other reasons given in Ezekiel 16:49: “Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness … neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.”
Today, enlightened Christianity aligns with what is known as “liberation theology,” which acknowledges that not only individuals, but nations can be sinful by instituting political systems that cause poverty, social inequality, and even violence on the local and global scales.
So when I listened to the head of government not only disparaging those calling for justice, but accusing them of “mashing up” the country with their demands, what I heard was a mockery of prayer, itself.
When a man dies on the sea shore because medical help could not get to him in time, his blood cries out from the sand for justice. After all, it is the scoffing prime minister and his Administration who have allowed access to our God-given beaches to be restricted or denied.
They have ignored the biblical admonition that “the children first must be fed” and, last year, vengefully advised a wealthy expatriate to sue citizens who had crossed “his land” to get to Laurys Bay. And hundreds of self-professed Christians rejoiced at the ensuing court case … because the beachgoers were seen not as lawfully entitled Antiguans, but as “Opposition.”
The scornful prime minister also forgot that “the labourer is worthy of his hire” (Luke 10:7), and therefore the new employees of the Ministry of Works should not have had to picket in order to be paid. That is exploitation; and the only remedy is justice.
It is also a grave injustice that the people of this country have been lied to (“an abomination to the Lord,” Proverbs 12:22) and stolen from (the eighth Commandment) by a minister of finance who took 40% extra from us in vehicle-licensing fees for the express purpose of road rehabilitation. Every driver on every bad road – especially those daubed with indifferently applied “sugarcake” – is owed justice for this literal highway robbery.
The entire population has been dealt an injustice – financial and human rights – by being made to pay for numerous costly reverse osmosis plants, only to be told we should not depend on APUA for water but secure our own means of supply.
Isaiah 55:2 asks, “Wherefore do ye spend your money… and your labour for that which satisfieth not?” The unwashed armpits, the piles of laundry, and the dozens of empty plastic bottles lined up in kitchens and bathrooms across this country cry out for justice.
And after years of increased Social Security deductions every January, the pensioners deserve justice for being strung out by the minister of finance until the very last day of August, when there was little left in their pantries and fridges and they had spent their last dollar on medication that Medical Benefits does not cover.
And since we are all – poor and rich –equal before God, where is the justice for Jack Stroll, whom Global Bank of Commerce and its boss have exhausted in the courts in a case from which even judges are clutching their robes and running as far as they can? (Is his money as dead as the hurricane-struck Barbudans’ US$1 million?) And are these jurists among those suddenly identified as corrupt by His Lordship the Prime Minister in his latest temper tantrum?
Speaking of court cases, is it fair and just that We, The People, have had to foot the bill for high-priced US attorneys to represent the prime minister et al in the never-ending Alfa Nero matter, when some dead-broke families have sons languishing without bail in the now-deadly 1735?
