“When I feed the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor are hungry they call me a communist.”
These are the words of Dom Helder Câmara, archbishop of the Brazilian diocese of Olinda and Recife who was brutally murdered on August 27, 1999. Dom Helder Camara was 90 years old when he was murdered. He was internationally acknowledged as “a man of God and a defender of the poor.” Known as “the red bishop,” he was a source of embarrassment for the military regime. For many years he was subjected to endless interrogations and threats. Considered a threat to national security, he was adamant that he was no communist, no Marxist, and no subversive. Yet he spoke out when others were silenced. From 1970 to 1983 he was banned him from public speaking in Brasil, and his name could not be published in any Brasilian media. He turned to speaking out in the international sphere.
Cardinal Arns of Sao Paulo said of him: “Dom Helder is a poet, a mystic and a missionary. As a poet he knows how to say things and the people understand what he says… As a mystic, he lives praying, and passes his whole life always with God… But he is also a great missionary, a man who brings the ideas of God to the hearts of people. I have no doubt that he is the greatest man of the Church in Brazil.”
On this World Food Sunday 2009, signifying the end of World Food Week, the words of Dom Helder Camara still hold today. Camara spoke of finding a way to put food into the mouths of every person on earth. For that he was branded a communist. Ten years later, the world is no further ahead, and in fact is beginning to slide.
The world economic crisis has brought into stark relief the extreme fragility of the global food system. For the first time in history, more than one billion people are undernourished, 100 million more than last year; one in every six persons is hungry every day. This is not the consequence of a poor global harvest, but rather is the economy, which has reduced incomes and employment opportunities, and significantly reduced the access of the poor to food.
Hence, the theme chosen for World Food Day this year is “Achieving food security in times of crisis.” While the fallout from the global crisis still dominates the news, it is of paramount importance to remind the international community that the crisis is stalking the small-scale farms and rural areas of the world, where 70 percent of the world’s hungry live and work.
Developing countries are now more financially and commercially integrated in the world economy, so that a drop in global demand, supply, and credit availability has far more immediate repercussions on developing countries. At the same time, foreign aid to the poorest 71 countries will decline by 25%.
The stark fact is that unless substantial and sustained remedial actions are taken immediately, the World Food Summit target of reducing the number of hungry people by half to no more than 420 million by 2015 will not be reached.
It is not only financial resources that are needed. A whole series of fundamental problems need to be resolved: how aid is channeled, how it reaches small farmers effectively, reform of the world food security governance system, and an increase in the share of national budgets dedicated to agriculture and private sector investment.
Jesus directly addressed such issues. It is unfortunate that two thousand years later, the same inequalities, prejudices, and inequalities exist. It was Jesus’ way to point out how things will be turned around, so that those who think they come first might find themselves in a different position. Granted, worrying about whether we come first or last is not a reason, in itself, to work for changes to inequalities. But Jesus’ consistent theme was that the last shall be first in the realm of God. The intent of Jesus’ teaching was that if human beings actually worked to bring about the realm of God now, those who are poor, hungry, crying - would find themselves being treated with dignity and care, with food on the table, a roof over their heads, freedom to get an education, and good health care.
Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.
But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.
Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.
It’s interesting to compare the Matthew version, called the Sermon on the Mount - and Luke’s Sermon on the Plain. Matthew only includes the blessings, while Luke has Jesus giving both blessings and curses. Matthew addressed spiritual poverty, spiritual hunger, and spiritual grief. Luke seems to address physical poverty, physical hunger, and physical grief. For World Food Day, it seems to me the two complement each other. If you are physically poor, then your spirit is in danger of becoming more constrained to the narrow world of struggling from day to day. If you are physically hungry, and your body begins to waste, your heart and your spirit will starve as well. Dom Helder Camara understood this, I believe, and worked out of that understanding. His focus was on poverty and hunger, and the world systems which created that hunger.
Former US President Bill Clinton received an honorary Doctorate from McGill University this weekend. One of his comments, while addressing the issue of health care in the US, is also absolutely pertinent and apt with regard to global hunger. Clinton said “It's simply going to be impossible for us to build the world we need unless in the wealthy countries, we are ruthlessly honest about where we are wasting money and hanging on to yesterday's way of doing things."
“If I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. If I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”
Sources:
1. Biography of Dom Helder Camara, by Fr. Tony Lalli, from the Xaverian Mission Newsletter
2. Jacques Diouf, Director-General, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
3. Former US President Bill Clinton, McGill University Friday October 16, 2009.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
A Life of Gratitude Mark 10:17-31 October 11, 2009 Thanksgiving Sunday
There was a special brightness to the day as you rose in the morning. The sun shining through your window added particular radiance to morning prayers. The air around you felt vibrant and alive. You felt as if today would be a special day.
You moved out onto the street, and people stepped out of your path. They knew you were important, but they also thought you were greedy. They kept their distance, just in case you cast your eye on their possessions.
You had space to see everything going on around you. With your clear sight lines you easily noticed some people setting out on a journey. Unlike most groups of travelers, trailing behind these people were women carrying children, Pharisees shouting questions, and sick people who pleading leader of the group. You could see the man was the new teacher named Jesus who everyone seemed to be talking about, how he could teach, and heal. People were even saying he knew the way to eternal life.
So you join the crowd following after the travelers. You hurry to the head of the group, up to their leader, and throw yourself down at his feet, and you ask Jesus about the question burning into your mind..
"Good teacher," you blurt out, "what must I do to inherit eternal life." Jesus replies to your question.
"You know the commandments: You shall not murder; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness;you shall not defraud; honor your father and mother."
"Teacher," you declare to Jesus with a little smile, " I have kept all these since my youth." Jesus smiles in return, and you know he approves of you. Again he responds.
"You lack one thing; " he says to you. "Go, sell what you have. Give all the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, and follow me."
Ouch. Gasps of shock from the listeners around, and dismay. Here is a man who has followed all the rules all his life. He comes to Jesus looking for validation that everything he has done is sufficient. Wham! Jesus says ‘Well, there is one more thing.’ Jesus then posits what seems to the young man an almost impossible task - to sell everything he has and give it away to those who need much.
In the culture of the time, if someone was of good character, then all good things came his way as a matter of course - it was assumed that if someone was wealthy that person was also good; if someone did not have good character he would not be wealthy, and thus if he was not wealthy it must mean he did not have good character. Essentially, prosperity and virtue went together.
Jesus essentially says to this man that the reason for discipleship is not the promise of reward. The man asks Jesus “what must I DO to enter the realm”, and Jesus answers with an action which is more extreme than obedience to the commandments.
Margaret Visser's most recent book, "The Gift of Thanks", addresses a social ritual we take for granted. How many times did your mother tell you to say "Please" and "Thank you"? It is part of our ritual of politeness, and we get irritated at people who don’t say thank you. In Japan, it is even more so. Thanks must be given at every opportunity, and there is a ritual of thanks for every occasion. If you are invited to someone’s home for dinner, and you then don’t see them for another six months, when you do see them you have to say thank you yet again.
Margaret Visser responds to our 21st century experience of dismissing thanksgiving when we say "I don't need gratitude. Everything I want I can buy." She says that "We often forget that it is not gratitude and giving, but advantages taken for granted, and then unshared, that are much likelier to produce and encourage both differences in status and injustice."
A quick Google of “gratitude” brought some interesting results. The website for Café Gratitude - a chain in California - focuses on locally grown foods and an attitude of being generous and grateful.
Then I found a page called Gratitude Quotes. Rev. John Henry Jowett was born in Halifax, England, and served pastorates there. He lived from 1864 to 1923, and for a time was minister at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. He said "Life without thankfulness is devoid of love and passion. Hope without thankfulness is lacking in fine perception. Faith without thankfulness lacks strength and fortitude. Every virtue divorced from thankfulness is maimed and limps along the spiritual road."
He also said “The real measure of our wealth is how much we would be worth if we lost all our money.”
This goes directly to Jesus’ comment to the young man, who had observed all the virtues, all the rules, and yet was missing the one critical thing.
The rich man came from a detailed, rule-based religion, and was asking a rule - based question. His culture told him there must be a rule-based answer, one which could be fulfilled in much the same way other rules were fulfilled.
Jesus responds first to being called “good teacher”, reminding the rich man that "good" is not a compliment one tosses around in polite company, but a particular state of being that only God inhabits. Second, he says, the rules are clear, there are ten. Follow them.
But this rich man knows something else is needed, and so does Jesus. That is where gratitude enters the story. This rich man has all the advantages - money, comfort, enough food, enough clothing, respect. But he takes it for granted; he assumes it is his right to have it. Jesus is clear he needs to share what he has with others in order to fully enter God’s realm.
Margaret Visser’s phrase sticks with me - advantages taken for granted, and then unshared, which produce and encourage differences in status, and injustice. There, I think, is the key to this Gospel reading. Here was a wealthy man who took for granted his advantages, and did not share them. Jesus directly tells him that sharing can create a difference and right an injustice.
I don’t for a moment think Jesus really was telling the man to literally sell everything he had and give it all away. I think Jesus was telling the man that by sharing what he has, he demonstrates his gratitude to God, and brings the realm of God a little closer.
Sources:
1. Inheriting Life, a sermon by Rev. Frank Fisher, Waltham Presbyterian Church, Utica, Illinois.
2. Rule Based Answers, Thanksgiving sermon by Rev. David Shearman, Central Westside United Church Owen Sound, Ontario.
3. Margaret Visser, “The Gift of Thanks”, HarperCollins Canada, 2008.
4. “Feasting on the Word”, David L. Barlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville. 2009.
5. Rev. John Henry Jowett 1864 - 1923.
You moved out onto the street, and people stepped out of your path. They knew you were important, but they also thought you were greedy. They kept their distance, just in case you cast your eye on their possessions.
You had space to see everything going on around you. With your clear sight lines you easily noticed some people setting out on a journey. Unlike most groups of travelers, trailing behind these people were women carrying children, Pharisees shouting questions, and sick people who pleading leader of the group. You could see the man was the new teacher named Jesus who everyone seemed to be talking about, how he could teach, and heal. People were even saying he knew the way to eternal life.
So you join the crowd following after the travelers. You hurry to the head of the group, up to their leader, and throw yourself down at his feet, and you ask Jesus about the question burning into your mind..
"Good teacher," you blurt out, "what must I do to inherit eternal life." Jesus replies to your question.
"You know the commandments: You shall not murder; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness;you shall not defraud; honor your father and mother."
"Teacher," you declare to Jesus with a little smile, " I have kept all these since my youth." Jesus smiles in return, and you know he approves of you. Again he responds.
"You lack one thing; " he says to you. "Go, sell what you have. Give all the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, and follow me."
Ouch. Gasps of shock from the listeners around, and dismay. Here is a man who has followed all the rules all his life. He comes to Jesus looking for validation that everything he has done is sufficient. Wham! Jesus says ‘Well, there is one more thing.’ Jesus then posits what seems to the young man an almost impossible task - to sell everything he has and give it away to those who need much.
In the culture of the time, if someone was of good character, then all good things came his way as a matter of course - it was assumed that if someone was wealthy that person was also good; if someone did not have good character he would not be wealthy, and thus if he was not wealthy it must mean he did not have good character. Essentially, prosperity and virtue went together.
Jesus essentially says to this man that the reason for discipleship is not the promise of reward. The man asks Jesus “what must I DO to enter the realm”, and Jesus answers with an action which is more extreme than obedience to the commandments.
Margaret Visser's most recent book, "The Gift of Thanks", addresses a social ritual we take for granted. How many times did your mother tell you to say "Please" and "Thank you"? It is part of our ritual of politeness, and we get irritated at people who don’t say thank you. In Japan, it is even more so. Thanks must be given at every opportunity, and there is a ritual of thanks for every occasion. If you are invited to someone’s home for dinner, and you then don’t see them for another six months, when you do see them you have to say thank you yet again.
Margaret Visser responds to our 21st century experience of dismissing thanksgiving when we say "I don't need gratitude. Everything I want I can buy." She says that "We often forget that it is not gratitude and giving, but advantages taken for granted, and then unshared, that are much likelier to produce and encourage both differences in status and injustice."
A quick Google of “gratitude” brought some interesting results. The website for Café Gratitude - a chain in California - focuses on locally grown foods and an attitude of being generous and grateful.
Then I found a page called Gratitude Quotes. Rev. John Henry Jowett was born in Halifax, England, and served pastorates there. He lived from 1864 to 1923, and for a time was minister at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. He said "Life without thankfulness is devoid of love and passion. Hope without thankfulness is lacking in fine perception. Faith without thankfulness lacks strength and fortitude. Every virtue divorced from thankfulness is maimed and limps along the spiritual road."
He also said “The real measure of our wealth is how much we would be worth if we lost all our money.”
This goes directly to Jesus’ comment to the young man, who had observed all the virtues, all the rules, and yet was missing the one critical thing.
The rich man came from a detailed, rule-based religion, and was asking a rule - based question. His culture told him there must be a rule-based answer, one which could be fulfilled in much the same way other rules were fulfilled.
Jesus responds first to being called “good teacher”, reminding the rich man that "good" is not a compliment one tosses around in polite company, but a particular state of being that only God inhabits. Second, he says, the rules are clear, there are ten. Follow them.
But this rich man knows something else is needed, and so does Jesus. That is where gratitude enters the story. This rich man has all the advantages - money, comfort, enough food, enough clothing, respect. But he takes it for granted; he assumes it is his right to have it. Jesus is clear he needs to share what he has with others in order to fully enter God’s realm.
Margaret Visser’s phrase sticks with me - advantages taken for granted, and then unshared, which produce and encourage differences in status, and injustice. There, I think, is the key to this Gospel reading. Here was a wealthy man who took for granted his advantages, and did not share them. Jesus directly tells him that sharing can create a difference and right an injustice.
I don’t for a moment think Jesus really was telling the man to literally sell everything he had and give it all away. I think Jesus was telling the man that by sharing what he has, he demonstrates his gratitude to God, and brings the realm of God a little closer.
Sources:
1. Inheriting Life, a sermon by Rev. Frank Fisher, Waltham Presbyterian Church, Utica, Illinois.
2. Rule Based Answers, Thanksgiving sermon by Rev. David Shearman, Central Westside United Church Owen Sound, Ontario.
3. Margaret Visser, “The Gift of Thanks”, HarperCollins Canada, 2008.
4. “Feasting on the Word”, David L. Barlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville. 2009.
5. Rev. John Henry Jowett 1864 - 1923.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Bread and Roses Hebrews 2:6-12 Sunday October 4, 2009 World Wide Communion Glen Ayr United Church
It has been testified by others before ; “What is the human race, that you are mindful of it, the son of man, that you care for him? God made the son of man a little lower than the angels, and gave him honour and glory." In giving everything to humans, nothing was left that is not subject to God. At present we do not see everything subject to God; but we do see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might experience the life and death of humans.
*****************************************************************
Yesterday afternoon, I led a memorial service for the sister of a long-time friend. My friend is Japanese Canadian married to a Chinese Canadian. She, her sister and brother, were born Buddhist, but the circle of friends spanned all faiths and cultures. At the reception, people sat around large tables to eat. In the course of an hour and a half, seven different people came to sit and tell me about their experiences with the church. Each of them was on a spiritual quest, each was seeking something, each had no trouble saying they were searching for a spiritual centre, yet the church was clearly ruled out as a possibility - mostly because of the experiences they had as children and young adults growing up in the church. I heard stories of lasting psychological damage, of broken relationships, of an absolute and repressive way of thinking which, in the words of one person, shut down the soul instead of encouraging it to grow. The question was very clearly asked: “Isn’t religion supposed to open us up to the universe, not cut us off and destroy our creativity?” One person said that although he wasn’t religious, he recognised that there was heart in the service which touched people. Another one spoke of the absolutism of his church which he had rejected, but how good it was to hear someone preach about hope, rather than certainty in the future. I heard about experiences as an immigrant to this country, being discriminated against and pushed aside, being the “other”.
And there we were - several strangers around a table, eating and laughing, sometimes crying and sniffling. I noticed that people were very caring about each other - even those they didn’t know. They were serving others, and they were being served by others - and both giving and receiving with grace. We had sushi and green tea, sandwiches and coffee, Yiddish pastries, nanaimo bars, cream puffs, Japanese rice dumplings. We shared around a table where everyone was welcomed, everyone fed and nourished, and not just with food. As we ate, someone accidentally broke a rose off one of the flower arrangements, and they picked up the rose and put it in the centre of our table. It was rather disconcerting, as I had called my sermon “Bread and Roses” . It was also disconcerting because I was worrying about how to put the sermon together, and here in a room of mostly strangers, the sermon became real.
So I went looking for the poem by James Oppenheim, written in 1911, called “Bread and Roses”. Two lines jumped out - because they seemed to mirror the conversations around the table:
“Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes--
Hearts starve as well as bodies: Give us Bread, but give us Roses!”
I couldn’t help but bring this to bear on the passage from Hebrews - that Jesus was made in exactly the same way as all other human beings are made, and experienced the same life and death that all human beings. He suffered pain and illness, he got grouchy, he got elated, he got tired, he got hungry and thirsty - and sometimes he was estranged from his faith community. He grieved for the loss of friends and felt helpless when death entered his closest circle.
I was also reminded that Jesus ate around tables with strangers - with whatever food was common to their culture. He didn’t insist that they share his faith, or that they observe all the minutiae of Jewish observances. He didn’t, so far as we know, invite them to attend synagogue with him. But he knew what Oppenheim wrote, that hearts starve as well as bodies. Hearts need to be fed, to be opened and uplifted to the world, not crushed and broken. Jesus was more interested in what kind of people they were, how they treated others around them, and lived by example. He spoke about loving, sharing, and caring. Jesus’ table was wide open to anyone who wanted to be fed - literally or spiritually - bread, and roses. Jesus’ table was a symbol of God’s gift of grace and community to all peoples, regardless of faith.
I had the feeling yesterday that the table of eastern and western food, green tea and coffee, was representative of the world wide table of God’s family. People of every ethnic descent were in the room, sharing a meal and their lives together.
Isn’t that what this table, today, is meant to be? Yes, it is communion Sunday for all the Christian churches, but it is also a day when we can make an open statement about the grace and generosity of God in creation. It is found around a common table, with ordinary food, and people who care. God’s table is wide open - to nourish the body and the soul, to give us space to grow and expand our souls and our lives. Bread, and roses. May it be so.
Sources:
From the poem “Bread and Roses”, by James Oppenheim, first published in The American Magazine, December 1911.
*****************************************************************
Yesterday afternoon, I led a memorial service for the sister of a long-time friend. My friend is Japanese Canadian married to a Chinese Canadian. She, her sister and brother, were born Buddhist, but the circle of friends spanned all faiths and cultures. At the reception, people sat around large tables to eat. In the course of an hour and a half, seven different people came to sit and tell me about their experiences with the church. Each of them was on a spiritual quest, each was seeking something, each had no trouble saying they were searching for a spiritual centre, yet the church was clearly ruled out as a possibility - mostly because of the experiences they had as children and young adults growing up in the church. I heard stories of lasting psychological damage, of broken relationships, of an absolute and repressive way of thinking which, in the words of one person, shut down the soul instead of encouraging it to grow. The question was very clearly asked: “Isn’t religion supposed to open us up to the universe, not cut us off and destroy our creativity?” One person said that although he wasn’t religious, he recognised that there was heart in the service which touched people. Another one spoke of the absolutism of his church which he had rejected, but how good it was to hear someone preach about hope, rather than certainty in the future. I heard about experiences as an immigrant to this country, being discriminated against and pushed aside, being the “other”.
And there we were - several strangers around a table, eating and laughing, sometimes crying and sniffling. I noticed that people were very caring about each other - even those they didn’t know. They were serving others, and they were being served by others - and both giving and receiving with grace. We had sushi and green tea, sandwiches and coffee, Yiddish pastries, nanaimo bars, cream puffs, Japanese rice dumplings. We shared around a table where everyone was welcomed, everyone fed and nourished, and not just with food. As we ate, someone accidentally broke a rose off one of the flower arrangements, and they picked up the rose and put it in the centre of our table. It was rather disconcerting, as I had called my sermon “Bread and Roses” . It was also disconcerting because I was worrying about how to put the sermon together, and here in a room of mostly strangers, the sermon became real.
So I went looking for the poem by James Oppenheim, written in 1911, called “Bread and Roses”. Two lines jumped out - because they seemed to mirror the conversations around the table:
“Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes--
Hearts starve as well as bodies: Give us Bread, but give us Roses!”
I couldn’t help but bring this to bear on the passage from Hebrews - that Jesus was made in exactly the same way as all other human beings are made, and experienced the same life and death that all human beings. He suffered pain and illness, he got grouchy, he got elated, he got tired, he got hungry and thirsty - and sometimes he was estranged from his faith community. He grieved for the loss of friends and felt helpless when death entered his closest circle.
I was also reminded that Jesus ate around tables with strangers - with whatever food was common to their culture. He didn’t insist that they share his faith, or that they observe all the minutiae of Jewish observances. He didn’t, so far as we know, invite them to attend synagogue with him. But he knew what Oppenheim wrote, that hearts starve as well as bodies. Hearts need to be fed, to be opened and uplifted to the world, not crushed and broken. Jesus was more interested in what kind of people they were, how they treated others around them, and lived by example. He spoke about loving, sharing, and caring. Jesus’ table was wide open to anyone who wanted to be fed - literally or spiritually - bread, and roses. Jesus’ table was a symbol of God’s gift of grace and community to all peoples, regardless of faith.
I had the feeling yesterday that the table of eastern and western food, green tea and coffee, was representative of the world wide table of God’s family. People of every ethnic descent were in the room, sharing a meal and their lives together.
Isn’t that what this table, today, is meant to be? Yes, it is communion Sunday for all the Christian churches, but it is also a day when we can make an open statement about the grace and generosity of God in creation. It is found around a common table, with ordinary food, and people who care. God’s table is wide open - to nourish the body and the soul, to give us space to grow and expand our souls and our lives. Bread, and roses. May it be so.
Sources:
From the poem “Bread and Roses”, by James Oppenheim, first published in The American Magazine, December 1911.
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