There once lived a Holy Man who was martyred because he couldn’t keep quiet. He didn’t do political correctness. He travelled the length and breadth of the land doing good, mixing with and being loved by the common folk who were oppressed by tyrannical leaders who accused the Holy Man of stirring up rebellion. There was a history of failed rebellions in his part of the world and in his day, so the religious leaders determined to have him murdered. But rebellion never was on his mind, people followed him because there was something enigmatic about him. They couldn’t put their finger on it; he was selfless, loving, understanding, generous, and yet there were times when he fizzed and crackled with rage.

He made no difference between rich and poor – actually, come to think about it, he did. He said it was hard for a rich man to grasp what his life was all about. Perhaps that’s why the common folk loved him so much, and because of that there were times when they urged him to bring about regime change.

The society in which the Holy Man lived was founded on strict enforcement of religious observance, but he knew that only leads to deceit and dusty legalism. He understood that when you tell someone not to do something, the most common reaction is to rebel. But he was different; his life was guided by a deeper law; the law of love, of mutual respect, the law of freedom.

One of the final nails in his coffin was his confrontation with an ancient law that said, ‘Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy... on that day you do not work.’ Now the hypocritical enforcers will always find ways around their laws, but the politically incorrect Holy Man saw right through their charade and he took them on. One Sabbath there stood a man in their company who had a deformed hand. ‘Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath?’ said the Holy Man. ‘If one of you had a sheep that fell into a pit on the Sabbath, would you leave it there until the next day?’

He had them sussed, and with discernible disgust in his eyes he turned to the man and said, ‘Reach out your hand.’ And the man did so, and it became normal.

The Holy Man was right; his was the law of love that sets people free. The religious leaders were wrong, theirs was a cold, loveless law whose purpose was to subjugate and control, and so they had him eliminated because they had no weapon in their armoury that could stand against the power of freedom through love.

There’s something about the present WikiLeaks scandal that reminds me of the Holy Man of Galilee who was crucified because he refused to keep silent. WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assang is in hiding. In the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave he is seen as a terrorist of the same calibre as Osama bin Laden. Why? Because he exposed corruption, lies, greed and State Terrorism on a massive scale, and yet is he who is made out to be the baddie. Sounds a bit like shooting the postman who delivers an unwelcome letter.

The road less travelled is sparsely populated by those of the middle ground who speak out against injustice and poverty, who tend the downtrodden, the disempowered and the weak, who give a voice to the voiceless. It is they who act justly, love mercy and who walk humbly with their God.