Tag: justice

I’m at The Justice Conference in Philadelphia this week. I wrote a series of posts several months ago reflecting on themes related to the pre-conference session “Sustaining a Justice Movement: how did John M. Perkins, Mother Teresa, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer do it?” which I will be leading on today at 9am. I’m going to reprint those pieces this week in hopes that we might all be thinking through these matters together. If you will be in Philly, I hope you’ll come to my session! If not, I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments, on Twitter, or on Facebook. Hope to see you at The Justice Conference!

How to Sustain Jesus’ Justice Movement, Part 4

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“We can’t do this alone.” These were the sentiments of my former student and her husband, who moved from Portland to Minneapolis/St. Paul to be involved in a community focused on addressing poverty while taking the vow of simplicty themselves.

How do you sustain a justice movement? Stay crazy. But it’s hard to stay crazy if you don’t live among beautifully crazy people who share the same values and who will inspire you and hold you accountable.

Hopefully, your accountability partners include some people who have been at it a while. My former student would let you know that you need crazy people who are also very wise. She and her husband knew they needed help. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Their justice movement would only last for a few days, if they didn’t connect with people with shared vision who had been at this work a lot longer than they had. Not those shock jocks and celebrities who talk a good talk, but people who had walked the walk a very long time, who had lived it out and had slugged it out with poverty, bearing wounds of loss and grief, while sharing life with and living among the poor.

You and I cannot do it alone. Whatever the justice initiative that we are aligned with, we need to make sure that we are aligned with other like-minded crazy people. Such people will include those who have been at it a good long while and who will help us put down solid foundations so as to build a house of justice that will withstand the storms of life that would beat us down and cause us to abandon the work.

A lot of people start out well and end poorly. They no longer care for the poor, the orphan, the widow, and the stranger in their distress. Disillusionment is one of the worst forms of poverty. People who end poorly often say that they used to be crazy and embraced the ideals my former student now embodies until they got wise and learned to play it safe. They thought they could do it alone. They should have known better. My former student knows better. She and her husband know that to conquer such foolish talk they must invest in a community that is rich in integrity and wisdom. Only then will they remain beautifully crazy through the years. Stay crazy and stay close to those who’ve gone before you. Finish strong.

I’m heading to The Justice Conference in Philadelphia this week. I wrote a series of posts several months ago reflecting on themes related to the pre-conference session “Sustaining a Justice Movement: how did John M. Perkins, Mother Teresa, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer do it?” which I will be leading on Friday, February 22 at 9am. I’m going to reprint those pieces this week in hopes that we might all be thinking through these matters together. If you will be in Philly, I hope you’ll come to my session! If not, I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments, on Twitter, or on Facebook. Hope to see you at The Justice Conference!

How to Sustain Jesus’ Justice Movement, Part 3

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Do you look at those you serve as the objects of your good will and charity or as subjects who shape you—even to the point of becoming your benefactors and friends? In discussing this subject with my colleague Beyth Hogue Greenetz, she said it is a lot more difficult to get burned out on serving people when they are your friends. It may very well have been the case that the same Mother Teresa who saw Jesus in those she served saw herself as the friend of those she served. Maybe this was one of the keys to the vitality of her work over the years.

One of Beyth’s and my ministry partners at New Wine, New Wineskins shared with a group of New Wine leaders of her encounter with a man asking for money at a traffic light. As she sat there in her car, she felt moved to give him some money. She told him “God bless you,” as she gave him the gift. The man smiled and thanked her. Seconds later, he came to the window a second time and said, “I have a box of pastries.  Someone gave it to me, but I cannot finish it all.  Would you like some?” My friend said that her eyes filled with tears, as she remembered the poor widow’s coin offering to God (Luke 21:1-4). All the man had to share was this box of pastries; he wanted to share it because he was thankful. My friend was blessed and thankful for this man whom she had blessed. It is such encounters as these at the traffic signals of life that lead to our own transformation and the sustaining of a justice movement. We meet Jesus in such encounters, as we are blessed by those we bless.

Such encounters at the intersections of life can be destabilizing if we want to stay in control, if we want to be the producers and charitable ambassadors who make everyone consume our good will. At some point, we will likely run out of good will and teeter and fall when we operate from this elevated position and posture. But what happens when we are open to making new friends along the way and are surprised by the blessings we receive from the seemingly least likely of benefactors? Our service becomes a grand adventure, as we experience the richness of the widow in the temple with her two coins and the man at the street corner with his remaining pastries. Our own coffers and cups and pastry boxes will run over as a result of the bounty of God’s relational grace.

I’m heading to The Justice Conference in Philadelphia this week. I wrote a series of posts several months ago reflecting on themes related to the pre-conference session “Sustaining a Justice Movement: how did John M. Perkins, Mother Teresa, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer do it?” which I will be leading on Friday, February 22 at 9am. I’m going to reprint those pieces this week in hopes that we might all be thinking through these matters together. If you will be in Philly, I hope you’ll come to my session! If not, I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments, on Twitter, or on Facebook. Hope to see you at The Justice Conference!

How to Sustain Jesus’ Justice Movement, Part 2

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How is a justice movement sustained? In my first post on this subject, I wrote that first and foremost, a justice movement is sustained by knowing that Jesus alone can and will sustain it. Apart from him, we can do nothing (John 15:5). Another key factor that we must realize is that when we serve others we are serving him. What difference might it make to you and me in caring for a sick person, an elderly widow, someone imprisoned, or an orphan in distress if we were to sense that in caring for them we are serving Jesus? In the account of the sheep and goats in Matthew 25, Jesus is recorded as saying, “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me…Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” (Matthew 25:34-36, 40) While it may very well be the case that the Lord is talking first and foremost about caring for his followers in need, I believe his words bear upon ministering to all people. When we serve them, we serve him. So, how shall we serve? Will we use those we serve to benefit us or our ministries? All too often, we find our worth through serving people rather than serving them in view of the worth we have in being loved by God. By the way, it is worth noting in this regard that the sheep here in Matthew 25 don’t even realize that they are sheep. Whereas the goats seem to be surprised to find out that they haven’t been caring for Jesus, the sheep are not cognizant of having done so. I take this to mean that they are not self-conscious, but conscious of the other (See Matthew 25:37-39, 44). Jesus tells us this story because he definitely wants us to keep in mind that when we care for others in need we care for him and because of him we are to care for others in need. The more we grow in the love of God the more we serve not so as to benefit ourselves, but to benefit the one who loves us. Our joy flows from loving the one who loves us and who loves those we serve. If I care for others because I want to assure myself that I am a sheep and not a goat, I am not really caring for them, but for myself through them. But as I know the love of God revealed in Jesus and that in serving them I am serving him who identifies himself with them I believe I will come to love them truly and freely with no strings attached. A justice movement that uses people to build one’s ego or one’s ministry profile is no justice movement at all. Justice flows from the loving and compassionate heart of God and leads to the love of the other with whom Jesus identifies himself in prison, in hunger, in loneliness and abandonment, in sickness and in various other forms of need.