One, chiefly Jewish criticism of Christianity is that we spend great deal of time focussing on what happens when we’re dead. They're right, of course. It’s easy to focus on saving people’s souls but not on what we can do about their current welfare.

It’s easy to think ‘society is horrendously unjust, but one day God will wipe away every tear. Yes he will, but that doesn’t mean we should just tolerate the modern injustices. Homelessness, war, austerity and discrimination are problems right now, and all of them are the fruits of our society, the result of choices that are made. If we ignore those and focus exclusively on our own eternal life, we’re tolerating the intolerable. Jesus says, ‘the poor will always be with us’, but I don’t believe that’s a commandment not to help them, or to lighten their load.

Social justice was present in much of what Jesus said and did. He didn’t feed the five thousand as a boast, he did it because they were hungry. He healed the sick. He gladly associated with people from the outskirts of society, people whose lives, cultures or jobs were counted taboo or unclean... He spoke of the world to come, and of the Kingdom of God in the here and now, and the actions we can be taking to feed the hungry, help widows and orphans, and work conscientiously to make things materially better for those in need.

Since the start of Lent, life has been growing materially worse for trans people, for the traveller community and GRT folks and for those in poverty. We’re seeing legislation and rhetoric and the newspapers step up against these groups. The ban on conversion therapy - which stands to save many, many young lives - has a loophole which allows this practice with its methods of shame and its monstrously high suicide rate to still be used against trans people. This is not a fact in isolation. It’s being held up by some as a symbolic victory in the culture war, whatever that is, with newspapers running far more scathingly transphobic articles than they had dared to until recently.

It is dismaying and wretched. This Lent has been hard and depressing for many. We should definitely pray for peace and for justice, but if that’s *all* we do we’re failing as a society, and that will have a human cost.

As we come towards the end of Ben-Them, I had hoped to reflect on a time of growth and honesty and hope, but it is hard to look at the current state of the world with hope. Yes, I have hope that is sure and certain for the resurrection and the beauty of the life of the world to come, but look at the world we’re in right now. It is not a temporary blip, it is real people on the verge of being unable to cope. Price hikes putting people on the streets. Legislation to criminalise the traveller way of life and make their very homes a crime. The rise of transphobia, and attacks on gay rights follow with it. And discrimination is never abstract. Attacks will rise. Lives will be lost.

I feel impotent to help. As individuals we can do nothing. But as community, as society, with solidarity for other oppressed groups - even if they are not our people - we can make positive change. Our world is under sin and under sorrow, but we can make it better. We can’t build utopia, but we can stop things before they get even worse.

I used to admire a friend for the way she could never forget the sorrows and injustices of the world, the wars, discrimination, violence and suffering. She bore them with her always. Turned out she had depression. Same here. It’s a hard time to have hope. I trust in God but I wish I could trust in humanity. I pray things will get better. But society is us, and we have to help answer that prayer. We have to!

One day we will all be dead and we can stop stressing about all this. That’ll be nice. But it’s not yet.