“ Truly I tell you, whatever you did for the least for one of the least of these my brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me “ Matthew 25:40
The Ontario election campaign has officially begun. It has been flying along for months, unofficially. All three major parties and their leaders have been offering us election “goodies”. They are going to provide us with even more things/policies than we already have. I believe that we live in a great place with all kinds of services provided to us by the governments. Do we really need more ? There are no plans given to us, the taxpayers, about how we are going to pay for these new things that they are talking about, so that, we will put them in office.
Sarah Martin Mills, a farmer in the middle of Cambridge, mentioned in a presentation that “ she won the lottery. “ She was born in Canada. She has lived in relative comfort all of her life, and it has little to do with her. She works very hard, but she had the fortune of being born in Canada, rather than another part of this world. I have had the same experience of being born here, and living a life of luxury.
So, if Ontario is such a great place, why do we need more services from the government ? Mr. Ford, Ms. Wynne and Ms. Horvath are saying to us, that we need more services. It would not be smart for a politician to say that we are going to spend less on roads, health care and garbage pickup. Remember how angry local residents got, when the garbage pickup was delayed for a week around Christmas . We live a great place , if one of the biggest problems we complained about was, a few days of having to keep our garbage at home. But, garbage is a municipal issue not a provincial one.
The passage from Matthew is part of a parable that Jesus tells to the community he is part of in ancient Palestine. Sometimes it is called the parable of the “sheep and the goats”. Parables are hard to understand. The parable, I believe, invites us to take care of the people most at risk in our society. It talks about the naked, the hungry, the stranger , the thirsty and the criminal. So, when we/you/they take care of the at-risk population, you are doing it for Christ. As part of our Christian life, we must look at the poor, always.
The church used to do this kind of work, but over the years the government has set up programs for “ the least of these”. I think, I do not need more resources, but I will be looking at the politicians who say more about the least of these.
In ancient Israelite society, the mark of a great empire/people, was that you took care of the widow, the stranger and the orphan. You had to be interested and caring for the people who had few rights. The good kings made sure that these people were taken care of at all times.
Mr Ford, Ms. Wynne, and Ms. Horvath, I do not know need more. Take care of the people most ask at risk in the province of Ontario. Please.
Fred Redekop
Ponder Anew 