Category Archives: Social Justice

Daily Riches: Overwhelmed By So Small a Sign of Love (Thomas Merton, Catherine de Hueck)

Posted on by under Faith and Doubt, Jesus the Savior, Loving Well, Social Justice, the Holy Spirit, The Love of God, The Poor and Disenfranchised

In his autobiography Thomas Merton tells about joining the parents of young black students performing a play at Friendship House, a gospel outpost in Harlem started in the late thirties by Baroness Catherine de Hueck:

“It was an experience that nearly tore me to pieces. All the parents of the children were there, sitting on benches, literally choked with emotion at the fact that their children should be acting in a play: but that was not the thing. For, as I say, they knew that the play was nothing…. They were not taken in by that. Underneath it was something deep and wonderful and positive and true and overwhelming: their gratitude for even so small a sign of love as this, that someone should at least make some kind of a gesture that said: ‘This sort of thing can’t make anybody happy, but it is a way of saying, “I wish you were happy.” …If the Baroness had tried to face the tremendous paradox of Harlem with no other weapons than these, I think Friendship House would have closed down in three days. But the secret of her success and of her survival in the teeth of this gigantic problem was that she depended not on these frail human methods, not on theatricals, or meetings, or speeches, or conferences, but on God, Christ, the Holy Ghost. According to the plan of her vocation, the Baroness herself had come to Harlem, and had started to live there for God, and God had brought her quickly into contact with the others who were … the saints He had sent to sanctify and purify, not Harlem, but New York.”  Thomas Merton

The King will reply, “Truly I tell you,
whatever you did for one of the least
of these brothers and sisters of mine,
you did for me.”
Jesus in Matthew 25:40

Moving From Head to Heart

  • How often does some small gesture of yours convey “I wish you were happy.” to some person in need? Does that seem like a small thing to do in the face of gigantic problems? Can you imagine it being “overwhelming” in power?
  • Where you live, do you try to “live there for God” as Catherine de Hueck and others did in Harlem?
  • Is what you’re attempting for God too big to accomplish by “human methods?” Have you fallen into the trap of reducing ministry to what seems reasonable or attainable?

Abba, unleash the power of divine love through me and your sent saints.

For More: The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and he seeks you. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. Thanks for following/sharing. – Bill

Daily Riches: Never a Man Like This (Dorothy Sayers and Sara Bessey)

Posted on by under Awareness, Ego Issues, Insiders and Outsiders, Jesus the Savior, Learning Your Proper Place, Loving Well, Marriage, Social Justice, the image of God and human dignity, The Poor and Disenfranchised, The Upside-Down Kingdom

“What is repugnant to every human being is to be reckoned always as a member of a class and not as an individual person.” Dorothy Sayers

“Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were … last at the Cross [and first at the tomb!]. They had never known a man like this Man–there never has been such another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, never flattered or coaxed or patronised; who never made arch jokes about them … who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously; who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unself-conscious. There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could possibly guess from the words and deeds of Jesus that there was anything ‘funny’ about woman’s nature.” Dorothy Sayers

“After years of reading the Gospels and the full canon of Scripture, here is, very simply, what I learned about Jesus and the ladies: he loves us. He loves us. On our own terms. He treats us as equals to the men around him; he listens; he does not belittle; he honors us; he challenges us; he teaches us; he includes us—calls us all beloved. Gloriously, this flies in the face of the cultural expectations of his time—and even our own time. Scholar David Joel Hamilton calls Jesus’ words and actions toward women ‘controversial, provocative, even revolutionary.'”  Sara Bessey

“Women aged fifteen through forty-five are more likely to be maimed or die from male violence than from cancer, malaria, traffic accidents, and war combined. One-third of women face abuse at home. …in most countries, between 30 and 60 percent of women had experienced physical or sexual violence by a husband or a boyfriend. Up to 70 percent of female murder victims are killed by their male partners.” Bessey

“So God created human beings in his own image.
In the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.”
Genesis 1:27

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you automatically see a women first as “a member of a class and not an individual” …made in God’s image?
  • Does the kind of love-of-women Jesus demonstrated characterize your family? Is it a value preached in your church?
  • Men, is your goal to be “a man like this man”–like Jesus–who prizes and honors women?

Abba, help me be more like Jesus in my relationships with women.

For More: Jesus Feminist by Sara Bessey

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Thanks for following and sharing my blog! – Bill

Daily Riches: The “Benedictine Century” (Joan Chittister)

Posted on by under "Being" with Jesus, Asceticism, Being and Doing, Community & the Church, Contemplation and Activism, contemplative virtues, Daily Office, Detachment and Attachment, Embracing Losses and Limits, fixed-time prayers, Humility, Hurry Sickness, Learning Your Proper Place, Loving Listening, Loving Well, Rule of Life, Simplicity, Social Justice, Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Formation

“The Rule of Benedict was a spiritual document written for males raised in Imperial Rome. But to Roman men in the patriarchal culture who were trained that domination and status and power were their birthright and their purpose in life, the Rule insisted on new ideals: humility, listening, community, equality, and service. …Benedictine spirituality, then, is first and foremost a practical way to live the good news of the gospel today. This society is a complex, consumer society; we can be simple. We can reverence creation. We can refuse to have one thing more than we need. …We can refuse to keep anything we are not using. We can give one thing away for every one thing we receive. …This society exploits. It breaks the back of sugar workers; it destroys farm workers; it wipes out the working person; it discards the middle-aged and forgets the elderly. We can minister to the world by calling for justice. This society dominates and is selfish and has it’s own goals as the inner force of its life. We can be community. We can say by our lives that there are times when it is important for us to step back in life so that others can gain. This society depends on power. We can practice the power of the powerless who show us all how little it really takes to live, how rich life is without riches, how strong are those who cannot be owned…. We can be the voice of those who are not heard and the hands of those who have no bread and the family of those who are alone and the strength of those who are weak. We can be the sign of human community. Finally, this society is anxious and angry and noisy. We can be contemplative. In the midst of chaos, if the Scripture is in our hearts, if we are faithful to lectio, if we build the Jesus-life in our own souls, we can see God where God is. Everywhere. Those are the elements of Benedictine vision that saved the Western world over the centuries again and again and again. Then they can save us from ourselves once more.” Joan Chittister

“even more blessed
are all who hear the word of God
and put it into practice.”
Jesus in Luke 11:28

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Was God speaking to you at some point in this reading?
  • Do you long to be part of such a community of faith?
  • Have you adopted a “rule of life” which guides your practice of these ideals of Jesus?

Abba, change me as I rediscover and embrace these ancient ideals.

For More: Wisdom Distilled From the Daily by John Chittister

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Thanks for reading and sharing this blog! – Bill

Daily Riches: Left Only With Neighbors (Preston Sprinkle, Oscar Romero, Martin Luther King)

Posted on by under Change Yourself First, Community & the Church, Death Daily, dissent and resistance, Forgiveness, Jesus the Savior, Learning Your Proper Place, Loving Well, Marriage, Social Justice, Suffering and Grace

“The church believes in only one violence, that of Christ, who was nailed to the cross.” Oscar Romero

“For early Christians, enemy-love was the hallmark of what it meant to believe in Jesus. …Unless you love your enemy, you actually don’t love your neighbor. …When Jesus talks about His suffering on the cross, He often commands His followers to do the same: ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me’ (Matt. 16: 24). Jesus suffers injustice on a Roman cross to die for sin, but He also intends it to be a nonviolent pattern for us to follow. When Jesus washes His disciples’ feet—even the feet of His betrayer—He tells His followers to do the same: ‘I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you’ (John 13: 15).  …Jesus rebukes James and John for their thirst for violent retaliation (Luke 9: 51– 56), encourages His followers to endure patiently when violently attacked (Mark 13: 9– 13), and disarms Peter when he violently resists evil by hacking off the ear of a man trying to arrest Jesus. ‘Put your sword back into its place,’ …Nonviolence is the astonishing rhythm of Christianity ….The Sermon on the Mount constitutes Jesus’s radical kingdom ethic. Heads will turn as we turn our cheeks. Our inexplicable behavior will call attention to our inexplicable God. Light will beam across our dark world as we love the spouses who don’t love us back, keep our word when it hurts, judge ourselves rather than others, and—most shockingly—love our enemies who are harming us. When we are cursed, we bless. When we are hated, we love. When we are robbed, we give. And when we are struck, we don’t strike back with violence. A person who chooses to love his or her enemies can have no enemies. That person is left only with neighbors.” Preston Sprinkle

“Negroes who engage in the demonstrations and who understand nonviolent philosophy will be able to face dogs and all of the other brutal methods that are used without retaliating with violence because they understand that one of the first principles of nonviolence is the willingness to be the recipient of violence while never inflicting violence upon another.” Martin Luther King

“For all who take the sword
will perish by the sword.”
Matthew 26: 52

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you think of nonviolence as “the astonishing rhythm of Christianity?” …as the way of Jesus?
  • Could you be “the recipient of violence” while refusing to inflict violence upon another?
  • Is enemy-love the “hallmark” of your Christianity?

Abba, grant me to have no enemies, only neighbors.

For More: Fight by Preston Sprinkle

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I hope you’ll follow and share my blog. Thanks! – Bill

Daily Riches: National Exceptionalism and Divine Providence (Charles Marsh)

Posted on by under dissent and resistance, Ego Issues, Insiders and Outsiders, Jesus the Savior, Nationalism and Patriotism, Social Justice, The Poor and Disenfranchised, The Upside-Down Kingdom, truth and illusion

“I am fighting for the work of the Lord.” Adolf Hitler

“…the weight of German exceptionalism and the spiritual veneration of military valor were not easy inheritances to disown. In nineteenth-century Protestant Prussia, no less a philosopher-patriot than Hegel resolved that his beloved Machtstaat (the ‘power state’ that was the German imperium) had been chosen by God to rule the nations by example, fiat, or force. It was God’s nature to manifest his will in superior and powerful nations, which demonstrated their providential purpose by imposing their will on their neighbors, as the ancient Hebrews had done. By the end of the nineteenth century, the idea of Germany as such a ‘world-historical nation’ had become as hallowed as the historicity of the biblical narratives. …Seeberg believed he was fulfilling his spiritual vocation by helping the German people discern the powerful hand of God in the new forces gathering to propel Germany to greatness. Among the professoriate there were precious few willing dissenters from this conviction. German Protestant theology from Schleiermacher to Harnack and Seeberg presumed the providential blessings of the warrior God. …In Protestant faculties and congregations, churchmen of fixed and iron-hard purpose who called themselves the Deutsche Christen, the ‘German Christians,’ were pedaling their loyalty to the fatherland. They claimed that God had chosen a new Israel, the German Volk; that the Christian doctrine of revelation had brought about the disinheritance of the Jews and that Jesus Christ had abrogated Israel’s ancient covenant. They wanted a strong church of muscular virtues–a manly church, eine mannliche Kirche–unified by German ideals. They even convinced themselves that Jesus was not a Jew. They boasted of their mission in the most inspiring terms imaginable: as the completion of Martin Luther’s work.” Charles Marsh

“What are nations without justice but large bands of thieves?” Pope John XXIII


“give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar,
and give to God what belongs to God.”
Jesus in Mark 12:17

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • National “exceptionalism”, God’s “new Israel”, “muscular values”– even “the providential blessings of the warrior God”–we’re hearing these kinds of themes again. What is your response?
  • Do you believe it’s “God’s nature to manifest his will in superior and powerful nations which [demonstrate] their providential purpose by imposing their will on their neighbors?” What’s the danger is such a view?
  • Hitler claimed to serve God, and most of the church supported him. What can we learn from this sad story?

Abba, help us discern your hand in power and in weakness. Ground us in reality, truth and courage.

For More: Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Charles Marsh 

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I hope you’ll follow my blog and share it with others.  I really appreciate your interest! – Bill

Daily Riches: Truth For a Nation That Has Lost Its Way (Bryan Stevenson)

Posted on by under Awareness, Community & the Church, Social Justice, The Poor and Disenfranchised

“Late one night several years ago, I was getting out of my car on an empty midtown Atlanta street when a man standing fifteen feet away pointed a gun at me and threatened to ‘blow my head off.’  …Panicked thoughts raced through my mind as the threat was repeated. I quickly realized that my first instinct to run was misguided and dangerous, so I fearfully raised my hands in helpless, terrifying submission to the barrel of a handgun. I tried to stay calm and begged the man not to shoot me …I knew that my survival required careful, strategic thinking. I had to stay calm. …A young, bearded black man dressed casually in jeans, I didn’t look like a lawyer with a Harvard Law School degree to most people; I just looked like a black man in America. I had spent much of my life in the church. I graduated from a Christian college and was steeped in Dr. King’s teachings of nonviolence, but none of that mattered to the Atlanta police officer threatening to kill me. To that officer, I looked like a criminal, dangerous and guilty. …That night in Atlanta, I [had been] sitting in front of my apartment, in my parked, beat-up Honda Civic for ten or fifteen minutes listening to music after a long day of work. I had apparently attracted someone’s attention simply by sitting in the car too long, and the police were summoned. Getting out of my car to explain to the police officer that this was my home and that everything was okay is what prompted him to pull his weapon and threaten to shoot me. …[He and his partner] threw me on the back of the vehicle, searched my car illegally, and kept me on the street for nearly fifteen humiliating minutes…. When no crime could be discovered, I was told by the police officers to consider myself lucky. Although it was said as a taunt and threat, they were right: I was lucky; I survived. Sometimes the presumption of guilt results in young black men being killed. From Ferguson, Missouri, to Charleston, South Carolina, communities are suffering the lethal consequences of our collective silence about racial injustice. The church should be a source of truth in a nation that has lost its way. As the dominant religion in the United States, Christianity is directly implicated when we Christians fail to speak more honestly about the legacy of racial inequality.” Bryan Stevenson

“You must not follow the crowd in doing wrong.”
Exodus 23:2

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Would you like to be a black male where you live?
  • Is your religion guilty of “collective silence?” …are you?

Abba, break the chains that bind us.

For More: America’s Original Sin by Jim Wallis

Daily Riches: Attending to Your Implicit Biases (Dana Bowen Matthew)

Posted on by under Awareness, Change Yourself First, Humility, Loving Listening, Loving Well, Social Justice, the image of God and human dignity, truth and illusion

“Implicit biases can be absolutely contradictory to your express preferences to be egalitarian, …you want to be fair, you want to be a good person, you want to treat people equally, but you don’t acknowledge or know that you have implicit biases. One of the researchers at Wayne State calls that “averse racism.” “Averse racism” because I’m averse to racism, but I have it and don’t realize it and therefore don’t treat it. …In America explicit bias and explicit racism is pretty much out of vogue, most people would be surprised to hear that when you look at the news, but … the racial climate in the United States has grown more complex, and it is implicit, not explicit bias, that is causing the kind of conflict that we have today. So explicit bias basically says I make a conscious choice to make an inferior or negative judgment of someone based on their race, their color, their ethnicity. I choose it–consciously. Implicit bias is much more subtle. It comes from the storage of all my experiences–what I saw on T.V., what I heard in the political debates, my [childhood] experience on the playground, my neighbor’s experience on their playground–and I gather this and store this in my unconscious mind as what we call “social knowledge.” It gets triggered automatically …I walk into a room, I see a person who is a member of a different race, and automatically all of the information that I gathered from living in the United States, from listening to music and news and newspapers and so forth, automatically it comes bubbling up and begins to influence and color my judgments, and my perceptions, and my conduct–my decisions about that person and how I’m going to interact with them. Here’s the rub: it’s more powerful than my explicit preferences. …People act more in accordance with their implicit biases than with their explicit preferences.”

“My dear brothers and sisters,
how can you claim to have faith
in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ
if you favor some people over others?”
James 2:1

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Are you committed to treating all people with justice–fairly and equally?
  • Could “implicit bias” be causing you to unwittingly do otherwise?
  • What specific behaviors could you use to “attend to” your implicit biases?

Abba, make me aware of my biases towards others and rescue me from the tyranny of illusion.

For More: Just Medicine by Dana Bowan Matthew (the quote is from a WNYC podcast)

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and God seeks you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest! – Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Following His Majestic Lead (Walter Brueggemann)

Posted on by under God's Grace, hospitality, Insiders and Outsiders, Jesus the Savior, Loving Well, Social Justice, the image of God and human dignity, The Love of God, The Poor and Disenfranchised
“Jesus–crucified and risen–draws us into his presence again,

the one who had nowhere to lay his head,
no safe place,
no secure home,
no passport or visa,
no certified citizenship.

We gather around him in our safety, security, and well-being,
and fret about ‘illegal immigrants.’
We fret because they are not like us
and refuse our language.
We worry that there are so many of them
and their crossings do not stop.
We are unsettled because it is our tax
dollars that sustain them and provide services.
We feel the hype about closing borders and heavy fines,
because we imagine that our life is under threat.

And yet, as you know very well,
we, all of us–early or late–are immigrants
from elsewhere;
we are glad for cheap labor
and seasonal workers
who do tomatoes and apples and oranges
to our savoring delight.

And beyond that, even while we are beset by fears
and aware of pragmatic costs,
we know very well that you are the God
who welcomes strangers,
who loves aliens and protects sojourners.

As always, we feel the tension and the slippage
between the deep truth of our faith
and the easier settlements of our society.

We do not ask for an easy way out,
but for courage and honesty and faithfulness.
Give us ease in the presence of those unlike us;
give us generously amid demands of those in need,
help us to honor those who trespass
as you forgive our trespasses.

You are the God of all forgiveness.
By your gracious forgiveness transpose us
into agents of your will,
that our habits and inclinations may more closely
follow your majestic lead, that our lives may
joyously conform to your vision of a new world.

We pray in the name of your holy Son, even Jesus.”

Walter Brueggemann

“He ensures that orphans and widows receive justice.
He shows love to the foreigners living among you
and gives them food and clothing.”
Deuteronomy 10:18

Moving From the Head to the Heart
  • Is your God one “who welcomes strangers, who loves aliens, and protects sojourners?” Has God welcomed you in this way?
  • How, do you suppose, God “gave food and clothing” to foreigners living among Israel (Dt. 18) or ensured “that orphans and widows receive justice?”
  • Helping those in need can be a discomforting, even dangerous act. It’s also not always easy to know how to help. As one who belongs to God, how can you be an “agent of his will”, following God’s majestic lead?

God of the helpless–help me follow your majestic lead.

For More: Prayers for A Privileged People by Walter Brueggemann (2010)

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and he seeks you. Thanks so much for following and sharing my blog! – Bill

Daily Riches: Where God Goes … And Where God May Be Found (Henri Nouwen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Karl Barth and Eugene Peterson)

Posted on by under Being and Doing, Contemplation and Activism, Downward Mobility, God's Grace, hospitality, Humility, Jesus the Savior, Loving Well, Social Justice, The Poor and Disenfranchised, The Upside-Down Kingdom, True Greatness

“But it is not said of Jesus that he reached down from on high to pull us up from slavery, but that he became a slave with us. God’s compassion is a compassion that reveals itself in servanthood. Jesus became subject to the same powers and influences that dominate us, and suffered our fears, uncertainties and anxieties with us. …He gave up a privileged position, a position of majesty and power, and assumed fully and without reservation a condition of total dependency. Paul’s hymn of Christ does not ask us to look upward, away from our condition, but to look in our midst and discover God there. …In the Gospel stories of Jesus’ healings, we sense how close God wants to be with those who suffer. But now we see the price God is willing to pay for this intimacy. It is the price of ultimate servanthood, the price of becoming a slave, completely dependent on strange, cruel, alien forces. …Jesus moves, as Karl Barth says, from ‘the heights to the depth, from victory to defeat, from riches to poverty, from triumph to suffering, from life to death.’ Jesus’ whole life and mission involved accepting powerlessness and revealing in this powerlessness the limitlessness of God’s love. Here we see what compassion means. It is not a bending toward the underprivileged from a privileged position; it is not a reaching out from on high to those who are less fortunate below; it is not a gesture of sympathy or pity for those who fail to make it in the upward pull. On the contrary, compassion means going directly to those people and places where suffering is most acute and building a home there.” Henri Nouwen

“God had looked upon the poor of the world and had himself come to help. Now he was there, not as the Almighty One, but in the seclusion of humanity. Wherever there are sinners, the weak, the sorrowful, the poor in the world, that is where God goes. Here he lets himself be found by everyone.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood.”
John 1:14 (Eugene Peterson)

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Consider this. Jesus made himself “completely dependent on strange, cruel, alien forces” in order to serve you.
  • Does your compassion (like that of Jesus) transcend sympathy and pity and involve “servanthood?”
  • Do you think it’s realistic to talk of going “directly to those people and places where suffering is most acute and building a home there?” (In many ways Nouwen’s life shows what he must have had in mind.)

Abba, may you be found by everyone.

For More: Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life by Henri Nouwen

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Thanks so much for reading and sharing this blog! – Bill

Daily Riches: The Heart of the Christian Faith (Lamar Vest and Richard Stearns)

Posted on by under Awareness, Insiders and Outsiders, Loving Well, Social Justice, The Poor and Disenfranchised

“Despite the fact that God’s heart for the poor is mentioned in some 2,100 verses of Scripture, many of us simply miss it. In a recent survey of adults in America conducted by Harris Interactive, although 80 percent of adults claimed to be familiar with the Bible–the best-selling book in history–46 percent think the Bible offers the most teachings on heaven, hell, adultery, pride or jealousy. In fact, there are more teachings on poverty than on any of those topics. …[And a] mandate for Christians to ‘go and do likewise’ (Luke 1:10) as laid out so clearly in the parable of the Good Samaritan…. How did Christianity drift so far from Jesus’ mandate to care for the widows and orphans? …From the first days of Christianity, followers of Jesus have demonstrated distinct concern for the poor and the oppressed. The apostle Paul speaks in Acts about returning to Jerusalem to bring ‘gifts for the poor.’ The early Christians rescued abandoned children and stayed in plague-ridden cities to help the sick. …When St. Francis leaped off his horse and embraced a leper, he was emulating what he’d read about Jesus. Throughout history, Christians have had a strong, if sometimes inconsistent, record of battling social ills. While some used the Black Death as an opportunity for fear mongering, Christians were among the few to remain in disease-ravaged cities to care for the sick. While many Christians acquiesced to slavery, it was a Christian, William Wilberforce, who led the fight to end the British slave trade and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others joining alongside him who championed racial equality in the United States. …Care for the poor and suffering should be at the core of our Christian faith because it is at the core of God’s desire–written large across the pages of the Bible.” Lamar Vest and Richard Stearns

“For I was hungry, and you fed me.”
Jesus in Matthew 25:35

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Well known Pastor Rick Warren was stunned the first time he noticed “the sheer volume of verses in the Bible that express God’s compassion for the poor and oppressed.” How about you? Are you still thinking the Bible’s biggest concern is heaven, hell or adultery?
  • Historically, many Christians emulated Jesus in their treatment of the poor and oppressed–and many others acted shamefully. If this is the measure, how are you doing?
  • Do you attempt to use your influence in the church to see that the poor are helped? …in your political party?

Jesus, I will follow you in caring for the poor, the helpless, and the oppressed.

For More: The Poverty and Justice Bible

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My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. If you liked this, please share!  –  Bill

Daily Riches: “Trouble” Is God’s Middle Name (Robert McAfee Brown and Jürgen Moltmann)

Posted on by under Awareness, dissent and resistance, Downward Mobility, Insiders and Outsiders, Social Justice, Suffering and Grace, The Poor and Disenfranchised

“… the God we are talking about is a risk-taking God. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and of Sarah, Leah, and Rachel, is always in the thick of things, siding with the poor, putting the divine name on the line for a bunch of slaves, and – in Christian terms – getting incarnated in the most unlikely and risky way imaginable, in a first-century Jew who lived at a time (like all times) when people in general didn’t like Jews very much and people in power didn’t like Jews at all. So if we get in trouble for affirming such a God, we can be sure that Trouble is God’s middle name and that such a God will be alongside us in the midst of trouble, rather than off in a remote heaven practicing neutrality. And if we can begin to make that most difficult switch of all – away from the gods of middle-class values and upward mobility and gilt-edged retirements plans – and if we can explore, even tentatively and gingerly, what it would be like to think with and act for those who are the victims, we might just uncover the most ‘unexpected news’ of all: that God got there before we did.” Robert McAfee Brown

“Reading the Bible with the eyes of the poor is a different thing from reading it with a full belly. If it is read in the light of the experience and hopes of the oppressed, the Bible’s revolutionary themes — promise, exodus, resurrection and spirit — come alive.” Jürgen Moltmann

“If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us …But even if he does not …we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” Daniel 3:17,18

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Does “getting into trouble” seem like an unseemly or obviously unspiritual thing to you? Do you think of God as “off in a remote heaven practicing neutrality?”
  • What can you do to better read the Bible “in light of the experience and hopes of the oppressed?”
  • Do you think of the Bible as mostly supporting things as they are, or as “revolutionary?” Does it matter?

Abba, keep me from a satisfaction and comfort that blinds me to the experience and hopes and struggles of others.

For More: Unexpected News by Robert McAffee Brown

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and he seeks you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: Immigrant Jesus, Then and Now (Pete Scazzero)

Posted on by under Awareness, Desolation's Gift, hospitality, Insiders and Outsiders, Jesus the Savior, Loving Well, Social Justice, the image of God and human dignity, The Poor and Disenfranchised

“For the last month I have been deeply affected by the pictures and stories of tens of thousands of refugees pouring into Europe. Then, this past week Geri and I were in Germany, speaking and interacting with church leaders from Eastern and Western Europe. We saw refugees in the streets, railway stations, and small villages. We had dinner with one of our German pastor friends about his small ‘suburban’ village of 600 that recently received 57 refugees. The town formed a task force of over 50 people to serve their massive needs (from clothing, to language study, to integration into schools, etc.). It was inspiring. This crisis goes beyond Europe to the world as a whole. We can expect greater migrations of peoples seeking stability and opportunity for years to come in the West. So how do we look at the news of what we are seeing…?

  • Let’s remember Moses, Daniel, Priscilla, Aquila, Ezekiel, and the Israelites were also refugees. Throughout history God has advanced His purposes by moving peoples around from one nation to another nation.
  • God is sending people to us in Europe and North America so that we might love them and preach the gospel to them. Many of us have been praying for the Muslim world for decades. God is answering our prayers by bringing them to our doorsteps. There is a great spiritual hunger among many who have become disillusioned with Islam (Yes, persecuted Christians and others who are fleeing poverty are also coming.).
  • If we close our doors to refugees and immigrants out of fear of losing our standard of living and comfort, we may be closing our doors to Jesus Himself. (Matthew 25:35)
  • We must lead the way in asking God to give wisdom to President Obama and other Western political leaders. The issues are complex. How does one determine who truly qualifies as a refugee? How do government leaders screen out ISIS and others seeking to spread terror? At what point are poorer countries like Serbia, Slovakia, Hungary and Greece unable to receive more refugees?” Pete Scazzero

“I was a stranger and you invited me in.”
Jesus in Matthew 25:35

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Are you aware of newcomers and changing demographics in your own neighborhood? Are you aware of the European crisis?
  • What might be God’s invitation in all this to you? …your family? …your church?
  • What emotions does this issue bring to the surface for you? Can you sit with those before God?

Abba, may we do all we can for those with nowhere to lay their heads.

For More:  Jesus Was a Migrant by Deirdre Cornell

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and he seeks you. Thanks for reading and sharing this blog! – Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: The God of Justice and Justification (John Stott, Carl Henry and Gary Haugen)

Posted on by under Awareness, Community & the Church, Jesus the Savior, Social Justice, the image of God and human dignity, The Poor and Disenfranchised

“What this book [Good News About Injustice by Gary Haugen] obliges us to do is ask ourselves some basic and uncomfortable questions that living in a comfortable culture may never have allowed us to ask before. First, what sort of God do we believe in? Is he concerned exclusively with individual salvation? Or does he have a social conscience? Is he (in Dr. Carl Henry’s memorable phrase), “the God of justice and of justification”? How is it that so many of us staunch evangelical people have never seen, let alone faced, the barrage of biblical texts about justice? Why are we often guilty of selective imagination? Second, what sort of creature do we think a human being is? Have we ever considered the unique value and dignity of human beings, made in the image of God, so that abuse, torture, rape and grinding poverty, which dehumanize beings, are also an insult to the God who made them? Third, what sort of person do we think Jesus Christ is? Have we ever seen him as described in John 11, where first he ‘snorted’ with anger (v. 33, literally) in the face of death (an intrusion into God’s good world) and then ‘wept’ (v. 35) over the bereaved? If only we could be like Jesus, indignant toward evil and compassionate toward its victims! Fourth, what sort of a community do we think the church is meant to be? Is it not often indistinguishable from the world because it accommodates itself to the prevailing culture of injustice and indifference? Is it not intended rather to penetrate the world like salt and light, and so to change it, as salt hinders bacterial decay and light disperses darkness?” John Stott

“[Your father] defended the cause of the poor and needy …
Is that not what it means to know me?”
declares the Lord.”
Jeremiah 22:15-16

 Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Are you moved by “the barrage of biblical texts about justice?”
  • Like Jesus, are you compassionate toward the victims of evil? Are you part of the struggle to bring them justice?
  • In what ways might you/your church be failing to treat others as “unique [in] value and dignity?”

Abba, forgive us if we have accommodated ourselves to the prevailing culture of injustice and indifference. May our hearts ache for others to experience, not only justification, but justice.

For More: God Who Stands and Stays by Carl Henry

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: Remembering and Rising to Our Better Selves (Pope Francis and Thomas Merton)

Posted on by under Humility, Loving Well, Patience with Yourself, Social Justice, truth and illusion

“I came into the world. Free by nature, in the image of God, I was nevertheless the prisoner of my own violence and my own selfishness, in the image of the world into which I was born.” Thomas Merton

“Our world is increasingly a place of violent conflict, hatred and brutal atrocities, committed even in the name of God and of religion. We know that no religion is immune from forms of individual delusion or ideological extremism. This means that we must be especially attentive to every type of fundamentalism, whether religious or of any other kind. A delicate balance is required to combat violence perpetrated in the name of a religion, an ideology or an economic system, while also safeguarding religious freedom, intellectual freedom and individual freedoms. But there is another temptation which we must especially guard against: the simplistic reductionism which sees only good or evil; or, if you will, the righteous and sinners. The contemporary world, with its open wounds which affect so many of our brothers and sisters, demands that we confront every form of polarization which would divide it into these two camps. We know that in the attempt to be freed of the enemy without, we can be tempted to feed the enemy within. To imitate the hatred and violence of tyrants and murderers is the best way to take their place. …In this land, the various religious denominations have greatly contributed to building and strengthening society. It is important that today, as in the past, the voice of faith continue to be heard, for it is a voice of fraternity and love, which tries to bring out the best in each person and in each society. Such cooperation is a powerful resource in the battle to eliminate new global forms of slavery, born of grave injustices which can be overcome only through new policies and new forms of social consensus.” Pope Francis

“ Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
Luke 6:31

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Is religion as you practice it, part of the problem (extremism, reductionism, polarization), or the solution (protecting freedom, fostering love, working against grave injustices, creating social consensus)?
  • Is the language of your religious leaders characterized by the moral courage, humility and hope that Pope Francis demonstrated before Congress?
  • Do you recognize both the “image of God” and the “image of the world” in yourself? Can you be gracious and patient with yourself accordingly? …with others?

Abba, may your image increasingly prevail in us as individuals and communities of faith.

For More: The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and he seeks you. Thanks for reading and sharing them. I appreciate your interest! – Bill

 

Daily Riches: The Revolution of Tenderness (Pope Francis, Pete Scazzero and Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Posted on by under Ego Issues, Humility, Loving Well, Social Justice

“The great Jewish theologian Martin Buber described the most healthy or mature relationship possible between two human beings as an ‘I-Thou’ relationship. In such a relationship, I recognize that I am made in the image of God, and so is every other person. This makes them a ‘thou’ to me. They have dignity and worth, and are to be treated with respect. I affirm them as being a unique and separate human being apart from me. In most of our human relationships, however, we treat people as objects – as an ‘it’. In an ‘I-It’ relationship, I treat you as a means to an end – as I might a toothbrush or a car …as if [you] were subhuman. …The priest and the Levite [in Jesus’ story in Luke 10] did not make the connection that emotional maturity (loving well) and loving God are inseparable. They missed the ‘thou’ lying on the side of the road and simply passed him by.” Pete Scazzero

“The Gospel tells us constantly to run the risk of a face-to-face encounter with others, with their physical presence which challenges us, with their pain and their pleas, with their joy which infects us in our close and continuous interaction. True faith in the incarnate Son of God is inseparable from self-giving, from membership in the community, from service, from reconciliation with others. The Son of God, by becoming flesh, summoned us to the revolution of tenderness.” Pope Francis

“We as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin …the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” Martin Luther King

“no one can tame the tongue. …Sometimes it praises our Lord and Father,
and sometimes it curses those who have been made in the image of God.
…Surely, my brothers and sisters, this is not right!”
James 3:8-10

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you see loving God and loving others as “inseparable?”
  • Do you sometimes realize that you have degraded someone’s status to that of a mere object?
  • How could a “revolution of tenderness” undercut racism, materialism and militarism?

Abba, help me treat those made in your image with the dignity they deserve.

For More: Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Pete Scazzero

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”