The Bitter Herbs of Bondage

Tonight is both Good Friday and the night of the Passover Seder. Both are days in which we remember the bitter herbs of bondage, of slavery. What kind of bondage? I suggest the question “what is bondage,” is a question each person must examine and discern for themselves. Sometimes bondage is easily discernable, and sometimes it is not.
A prisoner behind bars may feel he is in bondage due to the jailor. But perhaps the physical bars are not the cause of the bondage. What if the ailment that landed the prisoner in prison was something else? What if, for example, a robbery was the result of a drug addiction? Is the bondage the prison, or is the bondage, in fact, the addiction?

Other times, the bondage comes from forces within society. Forces of injustice.

A news account on NPR this morning reported that, due to state budget cuts to public universities, some students in California are not able to get into classes they need to graduate. Santa Monica College has proposed to address this problem by offering additional classes or sections which are not supported by state subsidies. Students who were desperate for their courses could thus finish degree requirements on time. (See story HERE.) The criticism of this solution is that it would create a two-tiered system. The “haves” and the “have nots.”
Is this not what we already have in the USA, to some degree? Rich people can already afford health care, education, cars, homes. Poor people can’t. Is the two-tiered system a form of bondage? An honestly conceived, Biblical view of economic justice and equality has always been somewhat subversive. As stated in another Good Friday blog post by a different writer, Brian Terrell, comparing the Roman Empire and the U.S. Empire stated:

Jesus called for a jubilee abolition of debt, for redistribution of wealth and for freedom to those in prison. His nonviolent stance did not keep him from meeting in dialogue with the zealots who advocated violent revolution. This would be all the evidence the U.S. Empire needs to detain an “enemy combatant” indefinitely at Guantanamo or indeed, to put him on a CIA hit list.

Liberation from bondage, in one sense, is always threatening to the oppressor.
On the other hand, the two tiered system is also oppressive to the oppressor. He just doesn’t realize it. The wealthy feel compelled to build walls and hire guards to protect themselves. They always fear social unrest.
I took these photographs at the ruins of a former home of a wealthy “Landlord” who was among the ruling elite prior to the Chinese Revolution. The home originally housed a large extended family consisting of several sons and their wives and children. The remaining structure is now occupied, more or less, by long term squatters. The original inhabitants fled for their lives after bribing some guards to smuggle them safely outside the walled compound.

Not every day, but sometimes, we should taste the bitter herbs, to remind ourselves of the bitter taste of bondage. Just as we can become accustomed to too much salt in our food, we can also become accustomed to the taste of bondage, so that we no longer notice it.
What sources of slavery are there that we can examine in our own lives, on this Good Friday, the day of Passover, the darkest night when we contemplate our own servitude and our own liberation from bondage?