Walk Against Warming – a speech given at the event in Darwin, Australia.

A few years ago TEAR Australia was proud to participate along with other aid and development organisations in Make Poverty History. Well, we’re still trying to do that!! At the beginning of Make Poverty History, Bono, from U2, said that ‘it’s not about charity, it’s about justice!’ I’m going to borrow that line a little.

What is climate change? Is it about melting glaciers in the Himalayas? Yes. It is also about justice. Is it about renewable energy? Yes. It’s also about justice. Is it about weather conditions that are becoming more extreme each year? Yes. It’s also about justice. Is it about reducing greenhouse gases spewing into the atmosphere? Yes. It’s also about justice.

It’s about justice for a country like Bangladesh. Despite having seven times the population of Australia, Bangladesh has a carbon footprint one quarter that of Australia in 2003. The average Australian lifestyle involved production of 18 tonnes of carbon emissions a year. The average person in Bangladesh has a lifestyle requiring only 0.3 tonnes of carbon emmissions a year.  Clearly, it’s about justice, when viewed from the context that many more people in Bangladesh are being effected much sooner and more seriously than people in Australia.

In other developing countries such as Nepal, the changes are already very significant.  Farmers who normally predict the arrival of the monsoon according to the flowering of a local native plant are no longer able to rely on this.  The plant will flower, and they may begin to plant in the expectation of the monsoons, yet the monsoons now arrive several weeks later.  Hence the seed they plant is often ruined during this time of waiting.  Stories like this have led to a prediction that South Asia may lose up to 30% of it’s usual annual grain production by the year 2050 if something is not done.  It’s about food security for those who are extremely vulnerable.  It’s about justice.

What does TEAR do?  Our local partners are working with small communities to plan what action can be taken locally.  Villages are learning to recycle and also utilise nurseries, where possible,  so that small plantings of crops may become possible.  They are also learning about risk management and how to cope with the changes that are likely to become inevitable.  Risk management is considering factors such as the melting of Himalayan glaciers which may increase local flooding.

What is TEAR doing in Australia?  TEAR is across a whole range of activities to raise awareness, take action and advocate on poverty and climate change together.  Voices for Justice, held just recently, involved visitors to many members of parliament.  While discussing poverty and the Millennium Development Goals, each minister was presented with a solar powered light – a renewable energy gift to bring the need to deal with climate change up close and personal.  It also showed that steps can be taken!

What motivates TEAR and it’s partners in all this activity?  I mentioned Bono earlier on.  I’d like to conclude by using some words from another songwriter some 3000 years ago.  A Hebrew songwriter who had his lyrics recorded in the Bible.  For a Hebrew person judgement is simply one side of the coin, with hope being the opposite side.  It is judgement that results in hope as oppression, violence, cruelty, deception and lies are judged, then hope is able to take their place.  Here are the words:

“Say among the nations that the Lord is King!  The world is firmly established; it shall never be moved.  He with judge the peoples with justice.  Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; let the field exult, and everything in it.  Then shall the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord; for he is coming, for he is coming to judge the earth.  He will judge the world with justice, and the peoples with his truth.” Psalm 96:10-13 (adapted).

Maintain Love and Justice

What is the job of the church? A while ago I was reading Hosea 12:1-6, something struck me. The Scripture Union guide had this allocated as the verse of the day on Saturday as the main readings for each day in the previous week have been following the life of Jacob, and if you recall Jacob was not exactly what you would call an inspiring citizen!  He had sought power and personal prestige throughout his life, often in completely underhand ways and yet, in an intimate encounter with an angel he found that blessing must be sought from a centre outside of himself. As a consequence he appears to be a new person when he later meets his brother however he shows himself capable or masterminding sheer brutality still in the revenge for the rape of his daughter Dinah.  So Jacob’s life is one that is always ambiguous, and yet it is this life that Hosea chooses to set up as the frame for the words he speaks to all of Israel: “Return to your God; maintain love and justice, and wait for you God always.

In the prophet’s call to Israel to ‘return’ and ‘wait’ there is this strong command sandwiches between two other commands to ‘return’ and ‘wait’: “Maintain love and justice”.  Here is an example from the Bible where once again, the call to live lives of love and seek the overthrow of all that diminishes humanity throughout the nations comes right in the middle of God’s response to an arrogant and self-satisfied world.  It is not something tacked on, something that is expected to come later.  The essence of the life that God seeks from those who turn to him is bound up in a life that takes love and justice seriously.

What if we in the fellowship or the body of Christ today simply adopted practices maintain love and justice in a spirit of depending on God??  If when we turn to God… we viewed the pursuit of justice as simply a part of what we have committed to, and not something for a special group of Christians – or something that follows later as a natural consequence… an extra part of our salvation.  What if this was actually integral with our salvation?

Shiphrah and Puah – Two Subversive Women

The story of Shiphrah and Puah is in the first chapter of the book of Exodus.

What can people possibly do about injustice and oppression? These two women show the way in very difficult times – at considerable risk!  The beginning of the Exodus narrative names these two midwives but once.  Even the concordance to my NIV Study Bible does not list them – although the index of subjects does.  So often we might be tempted to think that even our small, yet daring, acts of disobedience of the powers of empire make little difference.  The story of these two midwives shows us that this is not so!

In a way, the positioning of these two women at the very beginning of the Exodus narrative seems to highlight the contribution they would make to the rest of the story.  They are first new characters introduced by name at the start the book of Exodus, and so the events of redemption and liberation that follow would seem find their catalyst in the actions actions of these two faithful women.

This year the campaign of Micah Challenge is focussing on infant mortality, to follow the focus last year on maternal health.  In this context this act of disobedience by these two midwives would seem to beckon us to action – although our particular actions might seem small and insignificant in the face of the pressures that cause so many children to die in developing countries before they reach the age of 5 years.  What would my signature do?  What would my letter to my representative politician really achieve?  Aren’t they more interested in what happens in our country instead of issues in Africa, Asia or other parts of the two-thirds world?  These questions are very easy to conjure up… the world seems to be whispering them in our ears all the time.

Is there a way, that all of us might consider our spirituality, our faith, as a source of countervailing power outside the structures that people so easily assume to be ‘the only game in town’?  Shiphrah and Puah did so… they lived out of another dynamic that gave rise to their radical actions.  How might that dynamic work out in action through our lives?

Refugees – How Does All This Look… From a Distance?

A few years back, well maybe more than a few, there was a song recorded by Bette Midler and later, Sir Cliff Richard, called ‘From A Distance’. It was a song that expressed hope in the perspective of a transcendent God. As the policy for refugees in Australia was announced today, this song kept playing in my mind…. our Prime Minister has announced a ‘solution’, although the processing of ‘irregular entrants’ in East Timor has not yet been fully agreed to by that nation. Certainly, it has the appearance of being pragmatically sound from an Australian point of view.

But how can support be arranged for the vulnerable members of this group in a tiny nation that is likely to be bound by the chains of poverty for many years to come? By paying huge amounts of money for expat workers to set up yet another enclave in the midst of East Timor’s poverty? Or by simply hoping they won’t have to be held for very long in the detention centre?

Are we fools, those of us who long for the kind of future that is described in the song? Is it foolish to long for a world where the vulnerable are wrapped in love rather than behind the barbed wire of legislation all over again?  Is it really crazy to look for something more than pragmatism?

Jackson Browne doesn’t seem to think so:
“Don’t you want to be there?
Don’t you want to go know
Where the grace and simple truth
of childhood go;
Don’t you want to be there
when the trumpets blow;
Blow for those born into hunger
Blow for those lost ‘neath the train
Blow for those choking in anger
Blow for those driven insane…”

The trumpets seem to be blowing for the refugees, but the trumpets seem to be silent in walls of our parliament. Can you hear them?

G’day – what happens to ‘time’? It seems that life just revved past the last couple of months and the blog was left all alone. It has been great studying with Regent College by distance – I put my assignments in with no idea what kind of grades I might get. I truly enjoyed the unit – looking into how the church needs to recover the plot with regards to it’s being salt and light to the world. I’ve been very encouraged by all the stories I have read just lately in a book by Diana Butler Bass entitled ‘Christianity for the Rest of Us’. It’s about all of those people who struggled to keep a focus on the love of Jesus in ways that were often outlawed by the rigid heiracy of the church down through the ages – nicely written and easy to follow but challenging to digest… it’ll be with me for a while – or maybe longer!

Anyway I am looking forward to being here more often soon. Hope to write some stuff during this season of advent leading up to the celebration of the birth of Jesus.

shalom…..

Ecclesiastical Orphans

A line in a book by Charles Ringma grabbed my attention some time ago. While describing the current situation of the church in our times, Charles comments: “Not only do churches find themselves more and more at the periphery of society, but many Christians are ecclesiastical orphans in the churches that they still inhabit. As consumers of religious services the have little stake in and commitment to the religious institutions of which they are a part.” (Seek the Silences with Thomas Merton: Reflections on Identity, Community and Transformative Action)

Looking around at some churches many of the orphans have left.  Thinking about the area of Palmerston, in the Northern Territory of Australia, this is fairly obvious.  According to the last census, almost 50% of the town either stated that they had ‘no religion’ or simply did not respond to the question about religious faith in the 2006 census.  Although roughly 1 in 6 people stated that they are Anglican, very very few of the people in this denomination actively attend a local church – significantly less than 5% of those identifying as Anglicans would be participating regularly in the life of the local congregation.  The picture is somewhat different with other denominations, such as the Baptists, who are few in number by comparison with Anglicans, but seem much more committed to participation in the life of their local congregation.

The even more scary part of the story is to consider with Charles Ringma, those people who still participate in churches regularly, but who are, in fact, ‘ecclesiastical orphans’.  The main spiritual motifs that inspire us are not necessarily found in the churches we attend anymore. Some of us are despondent about the lack of Biblical teaching – while ‘explanation’ often abounds there sometimes seems to be doubt about ‘transformation’.  Sometimes there is extensive teaching about the Bible narratives but little challenge or application to live out the beliefs of the church in an active way in our everyday lives.

In the time since I started to compose this blog, my wife and I made a decision to ‘take leave’ from a congregational activity we had been part of for over four years.  If you like, we took on being ‘voluntary exiles’.  At the moment we do attend one other particular congregation more or less regularly although we move around a little.  I’ve also found myself in company with other folk who have also left behind battles with the institutional life in their own contexts.  Sometimes one group has discussion about scripture, mission, our work life and our neighbourhoods over a meal in the local pub.  The orphans ran away.  We trust that our vocation as followers of Jesus will be encouraged as we meet.  We wait on what is yet to come.

Community and the Cross of Jesus

G’day. This morning (the day before Good Friday) I took up my usual habit of using the Scripture Union Bible reading guide ‘Encounter With God’ to find my daily reading. It led me to John 19:16b-30. The passage traces the journey of Jesus from the scene of sentencing by Pilate to his eventual last gasp of life on the cross.

There are so many parts of this passage to comment on, but one in particular struck me: the one where Jesus brings together his own mother and the beloved disciple (often thought to have been John himself). He assigns them to family status with one another as mother and son. This was particularly striking to me because so often we think of the event of the death on the cross as concerned with the connection between humanity and God being restored in some way. It is not often we pause to reflect on the place of the cross in the creation of community.

Yet here it is. In the middle of the agony, the awareness that death must have been very close, Jesus pauses to bring two hurting people together. There is firstly his mother – who was about to lose a son of exceptional qualities. There was the beloved disciple, who was about to witness the death of the one he had followed during his ministry these last three years. In the place of desolation, we see a beautiful flower – the tender new relationsip created in the midst of impending loss.

Surely this image is one worth reflecting on.  Although we should be closer together than ever before due to globalisation where so much of what happens in one corner of our world impacts dramatically on those far away, our world still seems so divided economically, socially and politically.  Technology, which has the potential to be a great tool to link people together, has often distanced us from one another and from the great many people for whom a laptop, electricity and a phone line are distant realities, practically impossible to even dream about.

Although the cross is the centre of a restored connection with the creator of the universe, it ought also to be the centre of a renewed community within that creation.  As tomorrow passes by, pause and consider could Jesus also desire to draw all of us closer to someone else in the midst of loss?  Or perhaps simply to be someone who is there to extend warmth and kindness to others, whether their needs are great or small?  In doing so, we may find ourselves experiencing restoration with ourselves and with God.