The Sustainist

Out of the Shadow of Death

Why do Christians retell the story of the horrible death of Jesus every year during Holy Week (the week leading to Easter)?  Aren’t there enough tragedies in the world today? I think it is precisely because of so many continuing tragic stories of our time that we need to continue to recall the story of Jesus’s death – and resurrection.  The ritual of retelling the death of Jesus exposes the unjust religious and political system that caused the persecution, torture and killing of an innocent man whose purpose in life was to love and invite us to love one another.  The follow-up story of Easter – the resurrection – undoes the fear that we have about death, so that we can do something constructive about the injustices and persecutions of the innocence of our time. 

What are we afraid of when facing the issues of our time?  For example, what is the fear of the people of the United States when we are dealing gun violence?  What fear do we have in addressing “marriage equality” for gays and lesbians?  What fear do we have in the midst of our continuing financial crisis?  Holy Week invites us to face our fear and take the difficult steps of linking our fear to its ultimate destination – death.  That is, what’s the worse that could happen?  It is the fear of death that clouds our judgments causing many of us to refuse to have reasonable and civil dialogue that can lead to resolutions.  Easter takes the fear of death out of the equation so that we can have the courage to tell the truth about ourselves, and our communities.  Emerging out of the shadow of death, Easter empowers us to explore how we can address the systemic issues together as people who live in communities made up of many diverse gifts and resources that are not to be feared but to be embraced and utilized in order to create sustainable communities.

2013 Opportunities to Study with The Sustainist: April 15-19 Missional Ministry in the Grace Margin and Holy Currencies Orientation Los Angeles, CA July 15-19 Holy Currencies: Beyond Time, Talent and Treasure Los Angeles, CA August 19-23 Fundamental Skills for Building Inclusive Community and Holy Currencies Orientation Rainbow Lodge Retreat Center, North Bend (near Seattle), WA Register at:  www.kscopeinstitute.org

Reflection Questions for Easter (Year C ): Acts 10:34-43    How do you testify to the resurrection of Christ in the world today? Isaiah 65:17-25   What does it mean to dwell in God’s new heavens and new earth? Psalm 118:14-24   What is the chief cornerstone of your spiritual life? John 20:1-18   What fear does the Easter story invite you to face in order to discover new hope?

Eric H. F. Law
Kaleidoscope Institute
For competent leadership in a diverse changing world
www.kscopeinstitute.org

Reverse Stewardship

Recently, I attended a conference of the Consultation of Endowed (Episcopal) Parishes. During the conference, the idea of “reverse stewardship” was explored in conversations with participants. We’re all familiar with the regular idea of stewardship: People pledge their money to support the ministries that the church is doing. But “reverse stewardship” turns that model around 180° and does the following: Instead of collecting money from people, the church gives each member money—say, $20—and the church member is to invest that money back in the local neighborhood community. The church has the people do their homework by researching and making a list of businesses in their community that support the local economy.  That is, these businesses utilize local resources and hire local people, and these business owners live in the neighborhood and pay local property taxes.  Alternatively, groups of church members can pool their money together in order to do things such as sponsoring a neighborhood sports team, or starting a scholarship fund. This way, you are teaching church members—and this includes children—how money can be a currency that exchanges into blessings for the local community.

If you do this every month, your church might become famous in the local community, and you will have increased your currency of relationship a great deal. Another side benefit is that you are teaching your congregation to use the currency of money in an ethical manner to rejuvenate the local economy and when the local community is moving toward a healthier local economy as a result of “reverse stewardship,” over time the money will come back to support the church through your expanded currencies of relationship, truth and wellness!

If you want to learn more about ideas such as this, come to the Kaleidoscope Spring Institute next month!

2013 Opportunities to Study with The Sustainist: April 15-19 Missional Ministry in the Grace Margin and Holy Currencies Orientation Los Angeles, CA July 15-19 Holy Currencies: Beyond Time, Talent and Treasure Los Angeles, CA August 19-23 Fundamental Skills for Building Inclusive Community and Holy Currencies Orientation Rainbow Lodge Retreat Center, North Bend (near Seattle), WA Register at:  www.kscopeinstitute.org

Reflection Questions for Palm Sunday (Year C ) Luke 19:28-40    What are the things that we welcome enthusiastically at first but reject later? Why? Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29   What does it mean for you to enter the gates of righteousness? Isaiah 50:4-9b   How do we sustain each other in time of adversity? Philippians 2:5-11   What does it mean to have the mind of Christ?

Eric H. F. Law
Kaleidoscope Institute
For competent leadership in a diverse changing world
www.kscopeinstitute.org

Anointing Love

Last Saturday, I boarded a bus with 25 religious leaders at BorderLinks in Tucson, AZ (https://www.borderlinks.org/) - an organization with the mission:

Through dynamic educational experiences, BorderLinks connects divided communities, raises awareness about the impact of border and immigration policies, and inspires action for social transformation. 

The bus took us toward the U.S./Mexico border at Nogales which “was once an easy, friendly and relaxed two-nation border town” as described in the official website of Nogales, AZ.   “The urban fabric is now split in two,” the website description continues, “Separated by an international border, yet still Ambos Nogales remains heavily reliant on each other.”  This somewhat neutral description quickly evaporated as we moved close enough to the dividing wall to look over to the Mexico side of Nogales.  While we saw in the U.S. side “a progressive city that has been able to maintain its small town charm, rich traditions, and vibrant culture”—another somewhat accurate description from the website—on the Mexico side, we saw dwellings made of unfinished cinderblocks, car tires and wood panels, crowded on the hillside pushing up against the border wall.  

After we cross the border into Nogales, Sonoma, we listened to stories of people planning on crossing the border illegally in order to be with families and make a better living.  Some had repeatedly been deported back from the U.S. and still they would try again.  We drove by the manufacturing plants factories called Maquiladoras, which take advantage of the efficient proximity to the U.S. and the abundance of inexpensive labor.  We had lunch in a cinderblock house in which our gracious host shared her struggles in challenging the factories to honor the rights of the workers who made an average wage equivalent to $35-$75 per week. As we continued our journey, I saw a vision of a large machine and people were fed into it with prescribed paths.  Even when they were fighting the system, they are still confined by the rules of this machine.  I was desperate to find hope.

Finally, we arrived at the "Hogar de Esperanza y Paz" where stories of hope were shared through adult education programs, programs for children, community gardens, and mirco-economic development.  I saw these programs as ways to create reasons for people to stay.  However, this place of grace seemed so small in the face of this enormous destructive system of exchanges across this border that favors the corporations and the rich, while the poor continues to struggle to find sustainability including making the dangerous journey north.

Yet, this glimpse of hope is what we have to hold on to.  We have to find ways to connect with this vision and then share and expand using our currencies of relationships.  As long as there are systems that exploit the poor, we will always have the poor among us.  And we might try to help the poor within this system, but our limited efforts are not going to address the heart of the problem.  The solution is to transform the system, or at least name and realize an alternative sustainable community.  We can only do this by first anointing the “sustainist” in ourselves and each other—the part of our heart and soul and mind that truly love and respect humanity and the earth.  If more and more people are dwelling in the way of love, we might have a chance to truly transform our systems from scarcity to abundance, limiting border to expanding margin, from fear to grace.

BorderLinks envisions a world in which people, within and across social borders, respect and care for each other, value and celebrate differences, and build healthy and just communities where everyone has equal opportunity for a full and dignified life.

2013 Opportunities to Study with The Sustainist: April 15-19 Missional Ministry in the Grace Margin and Holy Currencies Orientation Los Angeles, CA July 15-19 Holy Currencies: Beyond Time, Talent and Treasure Los Angeles, CA August 19-23 Fundamental Skills for Building Inclusive Community and Holy Currencies Orientation Rainbow Lodge Retreat Center, North Bend (near Seattle), WA Register at:  www.kscopeinstitute.org

Reflection Questions for the Forth Sunday in Lent (Year C) Isaiah 42:16-21    What new thing God is doing? Psalm 126   What does it mean for God to restore our fortunes? Philippians 3:4b-14   What did you learn from this text about value? John 12:1-8   What did you learn from this text about value?

Eric H. F. Law
Kaleidoscope Institute
For competent leadership in a diverse changing world
www.kscopeinstitute.org

Love First, Not Judge First

A few weeks ago, at a workshop, I asked participants to stand up and approach at least 3 people and say, “You are a beloved child of God and God is very pleased with you.”  This activity always connects people in meaningful ways very quickly.  At this particular setting, a man started crying and said, “No one has ever said that to me before!”

For many, love is something that we earned.  We have to do something good and pleasing to someone in order to receive love.  Some of us might also think that we don’t deserve such a love because we have done something wrong and have made mistakes in the past.   Some of us might think that a person who loves us unconditionally doesn’t really exist. Some of us might think that it is foolish for a person to love anyone without any conditions and might open him/herself up for abuse.

Yet, Jesus talked about God as someone who loves us first unconditionally.  We don’t have to earn this love. When we have made mistakes, instead of judging us, God still loves us.  In response to this unconditional love, we don’t judge ourselves, or others, but love first and do good.  This unconditional love is the foundation of a sustainable community.  It is in the offering of this love to each other that energizes the flow of material, human, spiritual and natural resources throughout the community, rejuvenating relationships, creating a gracious sustainable community.

 

2013 Opportunities to Study with The Sustainist: April 15-19 Missional Ministry in the Grace Margin and Holy Currencies Orientation Los Angeles, CA July 15-19 Holy Currencies: Beyond Time, Talent and Treasure Los Angeles, CA August 19-23 Fundamental Skills for Building Inclusive Community and Holy Currencies Orientation Rainbow Lodge Retreat Center, North Bend (near Seattle), WA Register at:  www.kscopeinstitute.org

Reflection Questions for the Fourth Sunday in Lent (Year C) Joshua 5:9-12    What did you learn from this text about living in abundance? Psalm 32   What does it mean to trust in God? 2 Corinthians 5:16-21   How are you being a new creation in Christ Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32   What does God love you?

Eric H. F. Law
Kaleidoscope Institute
For competent leadership in a diverse changing world
www.kscopeinstitute.org