Human Rights Day

Jude Levermore, Head of Mission at the Methodist Church, shares this reflection and prayer to mark Human Rights Day and its Methodist heritage.

On 10 December 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the first global enunciation of human rights was adopted. So, every 10 December we celebrate Human Rights Day. Why should its anniversary matter to us Methodists?

Well, the United Nations itself began in a Methodist cradle. In Methodist Central Hall Westminster. On 10th January 1946 The Revd Dr. William Sangster and his congregation vacated the premises to worship at the Victoria Palace and then the London Coliseum so that MCHW could host the very first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. Apparently, the managing trustees at the time took some persuading to move out for the time the building was needed. The story goes that Ernest Bevin who was foreign secretary in the new Atlee Labour Government had said that he had wanted to host the meeting in a venue which had been “bathed in prayer”. I suppose at a time still raw with the pain of the war and rich with hope for the future, a prayer was exactly what the setting up of the UN represented. Whatever the back story, that large congregation at the time moved out of the way to allow for something new to be born.

Two years later this new organisation adopted a charter, one of Human Rights. All that was a long time ago though, and the idea of Human Rights is not as straightforward or even as hopeful as it once was. Even back when Rowan Williams was Archbishop of Canterbury disquiet had begun to bubble up. He gave a lecture in the Ecumenical Centre, Geneva in 2012 on ‘Human Rights and Religious Faith’. In it he called out the way in which the concept of Human Rights had developed as a purely universal legal code around the entitlements claimed by individuals and push his listeners to consider much more deeply the community aspect of human interaction. In other words he suggested an approach that brings together secular ‘rights based’ thinking with a more overtly Christian understanding of human relatedness. Martin Luther King might call it ‘beloved community’. I might name it the Kingdom of Heaven. That approach can help us in some way now, in 2024, as we continue to wrestle with the concept of Human Rights- which should be so straightforward, and yet is not!

I was fortunate enough to have been born in a community safe from world atrocities, this means my exposure to trauma has been fairly limited, and I take my Human Rights for granted, it also means I have a tendency to slip into a saviour/protector/defender mode when I notice those whose rights I judge to have been ignored. I am an avid writer to my MP on behalf of those with little voice, a campaigner for the rights of women, a protestor for justice and peace, a keen upholder of human rights. All good you say. True.

The Methodist Church in Britain has declared that it is striving to be a ‘justice-seeking church’. For today’s thought though I’d like to gently remind us what needed to happen to enable that first meeting of the UN. The congregation at MCHW needed to leave the building, to get out of the way. Our justice principles sometimes require us to get ourselves out of the way. The search for justice, for human rights, means treating others with respect, and may involve reclaiming lost worth- both those things may, on occasion, require me to move myself out of the way. Our practices for justice of being 'with' not 'for' people, of having humility in community, of being attentive to my power, all these practises may, on occasion, require me to get out of the way. As a person who like to get in the way of injustice this is a balance in approach to which I may need to pay attention.

So, this Human Rights day I pray…

Gracious God,

On this Human rights day give me the courage to consider how I might challenge the infringement of the rights of others that I witness.

Guide me as I consider how best to have humility in my community and to use my power with extreme care.

And as I pray this for myself, I pray this for our world’s leaders. Lord may they know themselves as you know them and act in accordance with your will.

Amen.