“Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.” Isaiah 40:4
from Pixabay. By Claudio Bianchi. Click image for original.
The fellowship of the early Church were socialists, if not communists, and for some reason the modern Church finds this shocking or even scandalous. But community, sharing, making the playing field level has always been at the heart of any genuine living out of the Christian faith. Jesus told us to love God, despise money and to store up our treasure in heaven rather than on earth. He counselled the rich young ruler to sell everything and give the proceeds to the poor. Jesus was, we cannot deny, pretty radical when it came to money.
There is something about being poor that is deeply of God. Perhaps when we align ourselves with the lowest of the low and with the powerless, we are emulating what Christ did when he “made himself nothing” in becoming human, and “humbled himself” (Philippians 2) in dying for his creation. God chose Mary, an unknown young woman from a backwater, to bear the Christ child. And still the song she sings showing her understanding of true justice and God’s upside-down kingdom echoes through the ages:
“He has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.” Luke 1:52-53
Poverty is not just a lack of money of course, but of power and of access to power. On the UN’s website (www.un.org), Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon explains that poverty “..is manifested in restricted access to health, education and other essential services and, too often, by the denial or abuse of other fundamental human rights..” Poverty is not only being poor, but often being stuck in that world of doing without, becoming poorer, sicker, less and less able to do anything about your situation. Even in the west, where most have enough to eat and access to clean water, there is still a huge amount of poverty. And it is here too, a horrible vicious circle of credit and debt and being uninsured, unsafe, unprotected. To be poor is to be vulnerable and to have no way out.
My husband has been out of work for two years now since a breakdown exacerbated his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder to a place of serious disability. With both of us unable to work, it has been a long, difficult time of form-filling, red-tape twisting and hurdle jumping that would have made Kafka weep. Whilst grateful there are benefit systems in place, we’ve also had to rely on family for some things, and on the goodness of God to a degree that has crushed my husband’s faith and tested mine. Our case is nevertheless mild compared to those of many people. I have every sympathy with those having to use foodbanks and rely on aid, whichever country they live in. Rare are the people who choose poverty, like St Francis notably did. Most of us have it thrust upon us, and even in a developed country, it is not fun.
But God has been there for us and with us many times. In a former period of hardship, a friend’s unexpected help to clear debt is a powerful case in point. This friend (whom I have never met) told me that it was God’s money and it made no difference who was using it. That is the Christian faith, right there. That is a holy attitude to money that took my breath away, and a lot of my worries with it. I know I need to mature a lot more before I am capable of such wisdom. What a different world it would be, if we could all live with such generous and biblical understanding of what it means to be there for one another. It’s not about counting the cost, it’s not about tithing, it is about acting when there is a need, even pre-empting that need.
We all know that there is enough bounty on the earth to feed us all. There is enough land, enough water. One reason Jesus told us not to stockpile it was for the good of everyone. Sharing isn’t something we should just teach our children to do with their toys, this is something the Church needs to model at every possible level.
Supposing this was an attitude that then broke out into our communities, our governments, our aid packages, our planning for infrastructure and trade agreements? Then perhaps, we might be helping to teach society the way forward into God’s holy plan to level out the land so that everyone is spared the pain, suffering, humiliation and distress that poverty brings. And maybe we need to do that from a place of choosing to come alongside the poor, and working for true justice, till it rolls down in rivers.
This post is part of the October theme Living Into the Shalom of God.
“Never again!” God had touched her heart and mind to move toward radical-shalom action. A year earlier a young man had died of exposure on the streets of our community, and this local pastor couldn’t stand to see it happen even one more time. That was the beginning of the Hood River Warming Shelter.
Six years ago, Pastor Linda Presley convened a gathering of other pastors and city leaders to work toward opening a winter warming shelter. She didn’t draft a plan all on her own. Instead she called this team together to imagine, to share our experiences, and to plan. Remarkably, in three short months we opened a shelter! Over the past six years, with the input of shelter guests, volunteers, and other community members, the vision of Hood River Warming Shelter has grown to encompass not just wholeness for the individuals experiencing homelessness but also to begin to address the issues behind homelessness in our community and our inward attitudes toward those living outside. Together, we’re working toward an attitude of shalom.
As I spoke of in my last post, the fullness of shalom must be both an inward and outward journey. It is both personal and corporate. It would be tempting to separate these two aspects into the personal-inward journey and corporate-outward journey, as if one can exist in isolation of the other. That would be a mistake. There is only one journey and the inward-outward, personal-corporate parts of that journey are so tightly wound together we do injustice to God’s radical shalom by trying to untangle them.
My front yard hospitality garden is an example of a different approach than Pastor Linda used. As God compelled me to think about how my front yard could become an invitation to hospitality and I began to design what that might look like, God was working on some of my internal and personal issues and helping me to move forward. I’ve written about it. But guess what? Although that was a great inspiration motivated by a desire to cultivate community, I didn’t intentionally invite my neighbors to help envision what it would look like. To be sure, God’s shalom was at work, but I had divided the outward and corporate aspects of shalom from the personal work God was doing in me. I invited my neighbors into what I had already created by myself. While God has still used this feeble attempt, I know that God’s shalom might have been more fully released in community, in a corporate approach to design.
Last week I explored the inward journey of shalom. The inward journey, although very personal — dealing with my attitudes and my issues — is also very corporate and outward. These internal hang ups impact others by putting obstacles in their pathway to shalom. They also hamstringing my ability to live God’s radical shalom with others more fully into the world around me.
Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death. — Philippians 2:5-8 The Message
The outward journey of shalom requires the inward journey of shalom and the inward journey of shalom requires the outward journey of shalom. It is a dance of obedience and action, personal transformation and community transformation, and we see it expressed beautifully in the incarnation of Jesus.
Living into the radical shalom of God may look quite different from one community to another. Just as God works individually on our hearts, revealing what needs to be healed and changed at the appropriate time, I believe God similarly reveals brokenness within communities in a way that gradually leads in the direction of the fullness of God’s shalom. That is a journey you must engage in on a local level.
But there is an even grander scale to God’s shalom. While we may think events outside our community or life experience don’t involve us, movements arise in other communities that require us all to speak out on behalf of God’s shalom.
- When injustices threaten lands, cultures, and health — such as the current protests by Indigenous people in North Dakota — this is a shalom issue.
- When Black, Brown, and Native people are systematically targeted and jailed at rates much higher than their white brothers and sisters and shot at even higher rates, this is a shalom issue.
- When refugees are denied help and perpetual wars continue to kill, maim, and drive people from their homes, this is a shalom issue.
- When children go hungry, this is a shalom issue.
- When those living outside are ignored and worse, this is a shalom issue.
The list goes on and on, but the message of Jesus is clear: together we are to be the hands and feet of God’s shalom in the world. When we pray as Jesus taught us, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”, we are essentially praying that we will live faithfully into Jesus’ message of healing, hope, and restoration for the whole world. That becomes even more clear when we reach the part that says, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us”.
- How is your journey going?
- Who are you walking with?
- How are you discerning together the way of shalom in your community and within your own heart and mind?
This is not a solo pilgrimage. Shalom is the pathway of community faithfully living together the full expression of salvation through Christ into the world.
This post is part of our October Living Into the Shalom of God series.
by Gil George
photo by Ksar El Kebir from pixabay.com
There “They” are, walking down the street in my neighborhood. Who do “They” think “They” are? Coming into my place as if “They” belonged here, coming into my faith, my country, my neighborhood, my screen, my mind! Why can’t “They” go somewhere else, be someone else, or be more normal like me? Why do “They” persist in believing, behaving, and thinking so strangely? Why do “They” have to be so strange? Why can’t “They” just accept that “They” are wrong?
I call the above sentiments the voice of anti-shalom in my head, the voice of division and wholesale devaluing of the image of God that is borne in “the stranger.” One of the key pieces of Christian theology is that every human being bears the image of God, that there is no person that does not, in some way, reflect the divine image. In other words, when I allow myself to fear the strangeness of the stranger I miss out on the way that person can uniquely usher me into the presence of God.
So, who are “They?” Really, who are those others who we find the most difficulty in seeing the divine image? I suspect that for some of you, I am part of that “They,” or maybe you are part of my “They.” For some reason, we humans feel the need to place people into categories and define them by others we have encountered or heard about in that category. We have many names for this behavior that end in “ism”, and it has become more and more convicting to me that Jesus sees something very different when he looks at this person or group for whom I feel disdain or fear.
In 2001 I began to be convicted to practice a new spiritual discipline to start building the Shalom of God in my heart. This discipline radically changed me and has been painful at times, but it has enabled me to obtain some of the peace that passes understanding. After the September 11th attacks the Holy Spirit began convicting me to pray for those involved. I wrote down a few names like Osama bin Laden and al-Queda and began to pray for God’s image to be visible to me in them. This earned me some very strange looks and the opportunity to practice the discipline a little closer to home, but I felt a sense of peace I hadn’t before.
The love of God began to drive out the fear of those “scary” others, and opportunities opened for friendships and relationships that weren’t thinkable to me before the Shalom of God’s love began to be welcomed into my heart. I would love to tell you that the work of Shalom is finished in my heart, but since I am still breathing there is quite a bit of work left to do. Now though, when I read, hear, or feel that command to welcome the stranger I think “The stranger the better. Let’s do this.”
I would love to invite you to practice this discipline with me and share how it impacts you.
- Take some time to pray and ask God to help you discern and write down the name of someone or group that is strange to you or that you have a reflexive distaste for.
- Now that you have this person or group in mind take some time to pray and ask God to reveal exactly how the divine image is revealed in that person or group.
- Put a piece of paper or sticky note with the names or group somewhere you will see it every day, and whenever you do ask God to help you see how the divine image is present in those whose name or group identity you have written.
- Whenever you encounter someone in that group or that person ask God to help you see that person or group through the lens of divine love.
I pray that this will be as transforming for you as it has been for me.
This post is part of our October theme Living Into the Shalom of God.
We’ve heard from you and have compiled your list of favorite books on/about God’s shalom.
Here they are:
- The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Wrong Can Be Made Right – Lisa Sharon Harper
- Drinking from the Wells of New Creation: The Holy Spirit and the Imagination in Reconciliation – Kerry Dearborn
- Radical Reconciliation: Beyond Political Pietism and Christian Quietism – Allan Boesak and Curtis Paul DeYoung
- Why We Can’t Wait – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
- God’s Shalom Project: An engaging look at the Bible’s sweeping story – Bernhard Ott
- Mission Between the Times: Essays on the Kingdom – C. René Padilla
- Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church – N.T Wright
- From Saigon to Shalom: The Pilgrimage of a Missionary in Search of a More Authentic Mission – James E. Metzler
- Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life – Henri J.M. Nouwen and Donald P. Mcneill
- Justice: Rights and Wrongs Paperback – Nicholas Wolterstorff
- Living Toward a Vision: Biblical Reflections on Shalom – Walter Brueggemann and Charles McCollough
And Our Original List:
- Embrace, Leroy Barber
- Prophetic Lament, Sooong-Chan Rah
- Roadmap to Reconciliation 2.0, Brenda Salter-McNeil
- Shalom and the Community of Creation, Randy Woodley
- Sabbath as Resistance, Walter Bruggemann
- A New Heaven and a New Earth, Richard Middleton
- Ambassadors of Reconciliation: Volume 1, Volume 2, Ched Myers & Elaine Enns
- Reconciling All Things, Emmanuel Katongole & Chris Rice
- Friendship at the Margins, Christopher Heuertz & Christine Pohl
- The Book of Forgiving, Desmond Tutu & Mpho Tutu
by Christine Sine
Do we really choose between the world and Christ as between two conflicting realities absolutely opposed? Or do we choose Christ by choosing the world as it really is in him, and encountered in the ground of our own personal freedom and of our love? Do we really renounce ourselves and the world in order to find Christ, or do we renounce our alienated and false selves in order to choose our own deepest truth in choosing both the world and Christ at the same time? If the deepest ground of my being is love, then in that very love itself and nowhere else will I find myself, and the world, and my brother, and Christ. It is not a question of either-or but of all-in-one… of wholeness, wholeheartedness and unity… which finds the same ground of love in everything. Thomas Merton Contemplation in a World of Action. 155-156
Often when I talk about the concept of shalom and our need to work for the wholeness of others and of our world, people often ask me What about personal faith in Christ? Isn’t that more important? I love this quote because it sums up exactly what I feel. Becoming a disciple of Christ is not just about personal salvation, it is about reorienting our love towards God’s dream of shalom – of wholeness, and unity.
Salvation is about renouncing our false self – the self that is oriented towards self satisfaction and self centred living and grabbing hold of a dream for a world transformed by love. Theologian NT Wright sums this up well in his important book Surprised by Hope:
Love is not a duty; it is our destiny. It is the language that Jesus spoke and we are called to speak it so that we can converse with him. It is the food that they eat in God’s new world, and we must acquire a taste for it here and now. It is the music God has written for all his creatures to sing and we are called to learn it and practice it now.
Words without actions are nothing. Worship should not end when we leave the church building. It should be the driving force that energizes us for action out into God’s world. Unfortunately, this doesn’t often happen because we lack God’s shalom vision for our world and our lives. As Oswald Chambers said: It is easier to serve God without a vision, easier to work for God without a call, because then you are not bothered by what God requires; common sense is your guide, veneered over with Christian sentiment. Perhaps part of the reason that people are not influenced by our evangelism is because we are not acting as representatives of God’s shalom kingdom. And perhaps part of the reason they are not attracted to the church is because our lives are virtually the same as those of non believers.
It grieves me that so many people who call themselves followers of Christ live in exactly the same way as their non Christian friends. It grieves me even more that the United States, a country in which most people consider themselves Christians, has the highest infant mortality rate of any industrialized nation and the second highest poverty rate. (Only Mexico has higher ) If we truly lived transformed lives like those early disciples who gave up homes, jobs and sometimes family, maybe our world would be a very different place. And if we truly lived as citizens of God’s kingdom, speaking the language of love maybe we would see our world transformed in the ways that we say we want it to be.
What is your response?
- Immerse yourself in the New Testament vision of wholeness
- Read Luke 4: 16 – 21, and/or Revelation 21:1-4 then sit in silence for 5 minutes reflecting on this beautiful imagery of God’s eternal shalom world revealed in Christ.
- What part of this imagery of shalom most inspires you?
- How has this changed your view of Jesus’ purposes on earth?
- What is one change you would like to make in your life to move closer to God’s shalom purposes?
- Read Luke 4: 16 – 21, and/or Revelation 21:1-4 then sit in silence for 5 minutes reflecting on this beautiful imagery of God’s eternal shalom world revealed in Christ.
This post is part of our October theme Living Into The Shalom of God.
I don’t know about you, but it seems like this year has been flying by! In just twelve days we’ll begin the month of November and turn our thoughts toward Advent and Christmas. I’m not sure I’m ready. But it seems I’m always caught by surprise by the last quarter of the year. It’s a bit like the gas gauge on my car; the first three quarters of a tank seem to go on forever, but as soon as I reach that last quarter-tank it’s gone before I know it!
This year we decided to begin preparing for Advent a month early. As we explored blog themes for the final quarter of 2016 we really felt that Advent, a time of waiting and preparation for Christmas, needed its own time of preparation. This is important because Advent kicks off the church year, yet we’re often so proccupied with parties and planning for Christmas that it’s difficult to settle down and enter in to the season.
To help us slow down and focus we’re breaking our monthly theme up into weekly mini-themes both in November and December.
November: Preparing Our Hearts and Homes for Advent and Christmas
- Week 1: Overcoming Consumerism — Resisting the drive for more.
- Week 2: Resting in Chaos — How to create space for rest when the world is whipped up into a frenzy.
- Week 3: Keeping It Simple
- Week 4: Making Space for Hospitality — Ideas for gatherings of welcome and moments of connecting.
December: Entering the World with Jesus: Looking for Jesus in all the right places
- Week 1: …in our home
- Week 2: …in our neighborhood
- Week 3: …in our city
- Week 4: …in our world
Advent Photo Challenge is Back!
We will also have a daily meditation and photo/art challenge again from Jean Andrianoff. Jean has worked hard to make these reflections fit into our mini-themes while also following the story of God coming into the world as it unfolds in scripture. We’ll have the Advent photo challenge up and ready to view the week before Advent begins.
Be sure to join us on this entire journey by reading, commenting, reposting and even writing for the blog.
Speaking Engagements
Christine and I had a mutually inspiring visit with our friends at A Rocha in British Columbia. We led a garden workshop focusing on creating sacred spaces that are inviting to both God and neighbor. I know we both left feeling deeply blessed and enriched.
From there we scurried south to St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Tacoma, WA where Christine presented a workshop on Celtic spirituality for their Celtic Faire. After the workshop we were invited to stay for their Celtic dinner and the “piping in of the haggis”. What a wonderfully rich weekend!
While we were traveling the Pacific NW, Tom was busy in the Twin Cities at Colonial Church connecting with their exciting program, Innove, a community entrepreneurial competition for young folks to “create social and cultural betterment”. Tom will be in Birmingham, UK for the New Parish UK Conference Nov. 10-11, and the New Wine Urban Forum Nov. 17-19. Tom and Christine will be speaking together in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia Dec. 6-9.
Featured Authors and Books in October
- Leroy Barber and his new book, Embrace
- Brenda Salter McNeil and her new book, Roadmap to Reconciliation
- Soong-Chan Rah and his newest book, Prophetic Lament
In case you missed it before, we’re always looking to expand our community of writers. If you think you might be interested, or maybe just want to try writing one post to see how it goes, please check out our writer’s FAQ page then drop us an email to find out more.
Please continue to pray:
- For our board of directors as they help us walk through this important time of transition and discernment.
- For Gil George’s continued healing following a bicycle accident in July.
- For upcoming travel and speaking engagements.
- For Christine and Tom as they navigate the changes in their lives.
- And for me as I continue to adjust to my new role as Director.
Together creating pathways of Shalom,
Andy Wade
Director
Mustard Seed Associates // Godspace
Leroy Barber’s new book Embrace: God’s Radical Shalom for a Divided World inspired me. Though I usually read through a book in a few days, this was one that demanded much more of my time and my attention. Its call to reconciliation across race, gender and social strata is both a challenging and an essential one. I am still grappling with statements like: Standing up for your enemy changes the rules in the room. It makes people rethink situations and give an opportunity for love to rule the moment. (116) It is easy for me to respond in words alone when deep down I know that action and engagement is required.
Leroy Barber does not just write about the need for reconciliation, it has been the center of his life journey. I love the way that he shares stories out of his own journey as a framework for challenging all of us to engage more fully in God’s bridge-building work of love and reconciliation.
The uncomfortable questions Leroy asks often had me rethinking how I engage the important issues he raises. The following passage in particular is one that I know I will be grappling with for a long time:
So can we create traditions and practices that are both kingdom focused and inclusive? Are there practices that we – as followers of Christ – might do to include our brothers and sisters that happen to look, talk, act, and worship differently than we do? Can we establish traditions that might bless those around us who are not followers of Christ, practices that might help us grow to know our neighbors and other members of our communities? Can we be intentional about creating opportunities for just being friends with the folks around us, even if they are not the people we would have chosen or the place isn’t where we’d really like to be?
What, I wonder, are the traditions I need to create and enable others to create in order to be more inclusive? How do I add new people to my sacred spaces so that those I have previously excluded become more human to me?
The call to be inclusive, to stand up for those that are different and to seek to bring true peace and unity to a world that desperately needs it is indeed a call to radical shalom living. This book is an essential read for anyone who takes the call to follow Jesus seriously.
This post is part of our October theme Living Into the Shalom of God and was sponsored by InterVarsity Press.
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