An Age of Hunger
by Lynne M. Baab
I have a short list called “books that changed my life.” The first book (chronologically) on that list is Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger by Ronald Sider. It came out in 1978, when I was 26 years old. The statistics about the number of people worldwide affected by hunger stunned me. My life was never the same afterwards.
For the first few years after reading the book I focused on living simply so my husband and I could give away more than 10% of our income. We gave to our church, to a number of friends who served in various ministries, and to Christian relief and development organizations which worked to help the hungry.
I worried about the effect of handouts on the people who receive aid. In the mid-1980s I heard about micro-loans, those very small loans that help people get small businesses off the ground or help them expand their already existing small businesses. The idea of micro-loans seemed wonderful to me, truly a hand up rather than a hand out. The organization that does mirco-loans the best then (and now, I believe) is Opportunity International, so my husband and I began to give money to Opportunity. Soon after that I began to serve on one of their boards, which I have continued to do off and on for more than 20 years.
When the disaster of September 11th happened twelve and a half years ago, I found myself thinking over and over about the fact that between 5 and 10 times more people died of the effects of hunger worldwide on that day than died in the twin towers. And the next day, and the next, the same number of people died again. We were rightly outraged at the number who died in New York. Where is our outrage about hunger?
Since I first read Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, the percentage of people worldwide 
affected by extreme hunger has decreased. So that’s good. But the actual number of people affected by hunger has increased, because the world population has increased so much. That’s bad.
How do we keep from being so overwhelmed by the scope of the problem that we are frozen into doing nothing? For me, focusing on one form of development work has helped, even though I know micro-loans are only one of many ways to address hunger. Education makes a difference, as do ministries and organizations that help improve health. When disasters strike, relief efforts are essential. All of those matter, and I’m delighted that Christians have supported and served in those areas. I have continued to give money, a bit of time, and my prayers to micro-loans. It’s wonderful to have one particular focus rather than scattering my time and energy widely. I still have moments when I feel overwhelmed by the needs, but having one focus helps with that form of discouragement.
During Lent, when we walk with Jesus to the cross, we remember the sin and injustice that took him there. We have enough food in the world to feed everyone. Poverty and lack of food are caused by political and economic realities that reflect sin and injustice. During Lent, I encourage everyone to think about the one form of relief or development work that excites you, such as micro-loans, health, education, disaster relief, etc. I encourage you to find a ministry or organization that works in that area, and to give your resources and energy to it as fully as you can. You’ll probably feel anger. You’ll probably feel frustration. You’ll experience the companionship of Jesus. The one who walks to the cross during Lent enters into every human need, including the struggle to find enough to eat. Jesus is there and we need to be, too.
Bio
Today’s post is written by Lynne M Baab. Lynne is the author of numerous books on Christian spiritual practices, including Sabbath Keeping,Fasting, and Joy Together: Spiritual Practices for Your Congregation. She teaches pastoral theology in New Zealand. Her website has numerous articles she’s written about spiritual practices, as well as information about her books.
surrounded by ordinary saints – Emmanuel Garibay
It is the beginning of the second week of Lent, the week that in our devotional A Journey Into Wholeness Is devoted to reflecting on issues of hunger and poverty. In past years Tom and I have engaged in the $2 challenging, restricting our food budget to $2/day for a week in solidarity with those who live on less than $2/day not just for their food budget but for their entire expenditure. This year we are not doing this.
In my Ash Wednesday post this year I commented Lent is not really about sacrifice and deprivation, it is about freedom and transformation and as I sit here reflecting on the horrors of poverty and chronic hunger, that is what comes to mind. Depriving myself and giving the money to the poor may alleviate their suffering for a moment, but what can I do that will change their situation permanently? How can I bring freedom to those who are bound by the injustices that create poverty? How can I help to transform the lives of those who seem to have no hope of enjoying the privileges I take for granted?
It’s not easy to always shop or live with the world in mind, but all my life decisions have consequences for others and often, by ignoring the issues, I condone the injustices under which God’s beloved children live. I can buy cheap clothing because Chinese garment makers work long hard hours for a pittance. I buy cheap food and enjoy cheap meals because many farm and restaurant workers do not receive a living wage.
Tom and I have already made some changes to our lifestyle that encourage more ethical living and help to provide for some who live at the margins. We buy fair traded shade grown coffee from Camano Coffee Roasters, partly because of their partnership with Agros International, a Seattle based community development organization that works to empower the poor in Central America. We also buy only fair traded locally produced Theo’s chocolate. We try to support local organic farmers and artisans and give generous tips in restaurants. I am also currently investigating ethical clothing companies. And we try to live simply and sustainably in order to reduce our carbon imprint and free up more resources to help those at the margins. Our goal is to give away half of our income each year.
But these seem like such minor changes and I realize the need to grapple with more substantial decisions that can have major consequences for our poorest neighbours. My question is what changes can I make over this season of Lent that will not only transform my own life and the way I live every day of the year, but the lives of others as well?
One area I have looked at is ethical or socially responsible investing which seeks to consider not just financial return but also social good. This has become a booming market in the last few years, but I struggle because it seems that financial gain is still often more important than social good. I also struggle with how to do that without replacing the bondage of slavery with that of dependency. How do we truly bring freedom and liberation?
One form of social investing that is very attractive to many Christians, microloans, is often geared towards the poor and seems to have the potential to bring freedom and liberation not just to those who live in poverty but to the rich too. I first learned about this form of transformative help when I worked with David Bussau of Opportunity International, on a document on the Biblical basis for micro finance in the early 90s. That document states:
A strong economic base provides the springboard for many dimensions of a family’s life. The provision of capital and income for a man who has been unemployed and ashamed of his inability to provide, often results in reconciliation of families that have been fragmented and separated. It can provide medical care for children whose parents were once denied this right and access to a decent education for children once forced into child labour. Families that have adequate income can provide the essentials of a decent life – shelter, nutrition, immunization, access to clean water and basic health care. These are all examples of the transformation Jesus would have advocated to see families restored to wholeness and abundant life.
I believe that we are called to consider the needs of others as more important than our own and above all else to strive to bring wholeness and abundant life especially to those who are poor and marginalized. Jesus showed particular concern for this segment of society, encouraging his followers to give up their possessions and give to the poor. Part of the responsibility of those of us who have resources is to share with those who have no resources. When we do this all our lives are transformed. South African Missiologist David Bosch expresses it well,
To become a disciple means a decisive and irrevocable turning to both God and neighbour…. In their being converted to God, rich and poor are converted toward each other.”
To be converted towards each other means that we are all transformed. The rich (and all of us who are middle class in Australia, New Zealand, North America and Europe, are rich) are transformed because we claim a new identity based not on the security of wealth and prestige but rather on the right and just relationships that are the standards of the God’s eternal kingdom. God sets the wealthy free to serve rather than control others and so devote their attention and wealth to the concerns of God’s eternal world of wholeness and abundance.
To the poor Jesus also offered a new identity – the opportunity to be free and responsible human beings with dignity and self-worth, able to serve God and others in society as God intended. By his words and actions, Jesus constantly demonstrated that the call of God’s eternal kingdom was to bring this kind of wholeness and abundance to to the lives of those at the margins. The equality Jesus envisioned was not a levelling down in which all became poor but rather a willing abdication of the rights of all so that through the practice of servanthood all might be fulfilled, live in harmony with God and develop fully the gifts with which God has endowed them.
So my question for all of us to consider this week is: How do we work for the wholeness and abundance of all God’s people and especially those at the margins? How do our decisions and actions set those who live in poverty free to be the liberated, fulfilled people God intends them to be?
St Patrick via StepsofJustice.com
March 17th is St Patrick’s Day and while many here in the US think only of green beer with corned beef and cabbage some are aware that this is a day to remember one who helped to spread the gospel in a time of darkness and oppression. It seems a very pertinent celebration for the season of Lent. Brad Culver tells us:
In Patrick’s Letter to Coroticus he speaks out against Croticus a British slave trader whose soldiers were raiding along the Irish coast slaughtering men and taking women and children back to England to be sold as slaves. The Letter is an especially important document because it shows St. Patrick as the first to speak out against slavery and in defense of women. As one who had been enslaved himself, Patrick proclaims his authority as a Bishop and speaks out against the kidnapping and murder perpetrated by his Roman countrymen. Read the article here
And if you really want to go green for St Patrick’s Day in honour of St Patrick who often used examples from creation to illustrate his points, consider these ideas:
- Eat locally grown corned beef and cabbage or better yet consider a vegetarian option like potato leek soup and soda bread made from local grains. Scientific American reported in 2009 that producing half a pound of corn-fed hamburger releases as much greenhouse gas into the atmosphere as driving a 3,000 pound car nearly 10 miles.
- Drink only local brews
- Toss green bird seed instead of confetti at your St Patrick’s Day parade.
- Plant something green in the garden or buy a green plant for the house.
Or you may like to read through Patrick’s Breastplate.
And just because I could not resist adding my own stamp to St Patrick’s Day here is my rendition of the prayer in a responsive litany:
We bind unto ourselves today
the strong name of the trinity,
By invocation of the same,
the Three in One and One in three.
We bind this day to us forever, by power of faith, Christ’s Incarnation;
His baptism in the Jordan River; his death on cross for my salvation;
His bursting from the spiced tomb; His riding up the heavenly way;
his coming at the day of doom; We bind unto ourselves today.
We cast off the works of darkness today,
And put on the armour of light,
Light before us and behind,
Light within and light without,
Light to guide and to lead us,
Let us clothe ourselves with Christ.
Christ behind us, Christ before us,
Christ beside us, Christ to win us,
Christ to comfort and restore me,
Christ beneath us, Christ above us,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love us,
Christ in mouth of friend & stranger
Let us wrap ourselves around with the belt of truth,
And strap on the breastplate of righteousness,
Let us clad our feet with the gospel of peace,
place the helmet of salvation on our heads.
And take up the shield of faith.
Let us clothe ourselves with Christ.
We bind unto ourselves today, the power of God to hold and lead,
God’s eye to watch, God’s might to stay, God’s ear to harken to our need,
The wisdom of our God to teach, God’s hand to guide, and shield to ward,
The Word of God to give us speech, God’s heavenly host to be our guard.
In the love of God who shelters us,
In the light of Christ who walks beside us,
In the power of the Spirit who dwells within us,
We place ourselves today.
Let us clothe ourselves with Christ.
We bind unto ourselves today the strong name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same, the Three in One, the One in Three.
Of whom all nature hath creation, Eternal God, Spirit, Word;
Praise to the God of our salvation, Salvation is of Christ the Lord.
This week’s challenge in the devotional A Journey Into Wholeness focuses on the hunger and the needs os so many around the world who suffer from deprivation. The prayer card has sat on an easel on my desk all week reminding me of this fact and as I is drawn into freedom there is also responsibility to those who lack the comforts I take for granted. The litany is also taken from the devotional.
A Litany for the Brokenness of Hunger
Blessed are you, God of the universe
Lover of justice and righteousness
Bringer of freedom and wholeness
We bow down before you, for your name is holy.
You care for the widow and the orphan
You grieve for the sick and the dying
Your compassion is stirred by the poor and the starving
We bow down before you, for your name is holy.
You are to us a forgiving God
Though you punish our misdeeds
You will have mercy on us when we repent
We bow down before you, for your name is holy.
Pause to remind yourself of the millions around the world who live in poverty
God, be with us
Before us to guide us
Behind us to protect us
Beside us to befriend us
Make us aware of your world.
God, be with us
Give us eyes that see the poor
Give us ears that hear their cries
Give us hearts that meet their needs
Make us aware of your world.
Read scripture passages for the day from the Daily Lectionary
Pause to remind yourself of times that you have been indifferent to the cries of the poor. What action can you take to change this?
Have mercy on us, son of the living God,
Draw us closer into intimacy with you,
Draw us deeper into a life at one with yours,
Draw us forward into the ways of God’s kingdom.
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For the kingdom, the power and the glory are yours. Now and forever. Amen.
God, you have set us free
Not free to do what we please
But free to love you with our whole heart gladly
Free to love our neighbors as we do ourselves.
God, we need to know your freedom
Free us from our selfishness
Free us from our indifference to the plight of the poor
Free us to love and serve you with all our being.
God, we want to live in your freedom
Free us to show compassion to all who are cast by the wayside
Free us to share generously so that others will not hunger or lack provision
Free us to live in love and mutual care.
God, you call us to freedom
Freedom to love you with our hearts and souls and minds
Freedom to love our neighbors as ourselves
God, may we enter the freedom of your kingdom today.
Pause to offer up your own prayers for those who face hunger around the world
Let God’s compassion bloom in us
Let God’s righteousness bear fruit
Let God’s generosity be harvested
May God’s life be born afresh in us
May God’s light shine in hidden places
May God’s love take root and grow
Wesley’s Chapel, House & Museum, with a statue of John Wesley in the foreground. Photograph by Mike Peel
Today’s prayer, the Wesley Covenant Prayer was adapted by John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, for use in services for the Renewal of the believer’s covenant with God. The original prayer was probably written by the puritan Richard Alleine. The covenant prayer and service are recognized as one of the most distinctive contributions of Methodism to the liturgy of the church in general, and they are also used from time to time by other denominations.
I am no longer my own but yours,
Put me to what you will
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed for you or laid aside for you.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to Your pleasure and disposal
And now glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
You are mine and I am yours. So be it.
And this covenant now made on earth, let it be satisfied in heaven.
Amen
And another beautiful prayer attributed to Wesley.
O God, seeing as there is in Christ Jesus
an infinite fullness
of all that we can want or desire,
May we all receive from him,
grace upon grace;
grace to pardon our sins,
and subdue our iniquities;
to justify our persons
and to sanctify our souls;
and to complete that holy change,
that renewal of our hearts,
Which will enable us to be transformed
into the blessed image
in which you created us.
O make us all acceptable to be partakers
of the inheritance of your saints in light.
Amen.
Giving Space For Soulwork
by Jonny Baker
I lead a training course for pioneers, that is people who are setting out to start something new in mission. A focus on the gift of who you are has become core to what we do as part of what we call mission spirituality. I didn’t expect this when we set out – after all it sounds like pioneering is all about activity but we have found that the best pioneering or indeed the best anything is most likely to flow out of paying attention to your own sense of the person God has created you to be and how he is affirming and calling you out of that. It sounds simple but it can be extremely difficult. We are all fractured and wounded, more perhaps than we know or like to admit and it is far easier to keep the front stage shiny and bright rather than risk have a look back stage and God forbid make ourselves vulnerable by allowing others to come and have a look back stage. But this journey towards the brokenness of our inner selves is essential if we are to become more fully who we are, which is our life’s work. We talk about this with students as ‘soulwork’. Lent it seems to me is a season that is a gift to us to do some of this journey, this paying attention and soulwork.
With our pioneers we strongly encourage two practices that are tried and tested in our faith that serve to aid this which are spiritual direction and retreat. I was in danger of being a hypocrite and couldn’t ask students to engage in things I wasn’t doing myself. So the last four years have seen me build both practices into my own life in a more committed rather than sporadic fashion. These practices are changing me.
Spiritual direction is a space for intentional conversation about what’s is going on in relation to faith and life, somewhere to reflect on what is happening in relation to you and God. At it’s best it is an accompanying and a listening from someone who is wise in the ways of the soul (by which I mean the whole person of course, but perhaps especially what is at the core) and the Spirit. It’s not counselling or therapy though those are wonderful gifts too because it’s lens is a life of friendship with Christ. The person I see doesn’t actually like the word direction but prefers the notion of being an accompanier, a listener, a soul friend. Have you got a space where you are able to have intentional conversation with someone about this sort of stuff?
The last four years retreats have taken me to Lindisfarne, to an uninhabited Scottish Island, to an Ignatian retreat centre for two periods of extended silence on guided retreats, and very shortly on pilgrimage to visit some of the sites of Celtic saints in Ireland. My life is hectic and it’s partly the nature of modern life but it’s also the kind of person I am. I am an achiever, somebody who loves to get stuff done. But retreat enables me to breathe again, to stop, to disconnect and to be. Just switching off the technology and setting up automated replies on phone and email is heavenly. Sometimes in retreat I have bumped in surprising ways into God, into what I have come to call the Presence of Silence, and at others it’s just been good to get away and not so much takes place.
Silence is key, though some find themselves more at home in it than others. I was first convinced of this by watching The Big Silence, a TV series which took people on an 8 day silent retreat. They were from different walks of life and not particularly religious. But for all of them in different ways once they had slowed down somewhat they seemed to notice things about themselves and their lives – whether to do with deep longings, restlessness, vocation, grief, woundedness, who they are. It just surfaced whether in memories, dreams, prayer, or from seemingly nowhere. Perhaps this is why some people seem afraid of silence, we’re actually afraid of facing ourselves? But what was lovely is that stuff surfaced in an environment that felt safe for those people because it was guided and it was in the Presence of Silence which is a presence of unequivocal embrace and acceptance by the Love That Loves Us, a presence that enfolds and holds us in our own vulnerability and woundedness. I found the same to be true – in silence stuff surfaced in my life in the area of my own sense of self and who God has called me to be, and in particular my own broken self. For example through a dream I met a part of my self that I had shut away for 17 years. I think it took silence for it to get my attention and to begin a healing process. This photograph is a coat I wore on that retreat and it became a symbol for me of being wrapped around by God’s love and held together in my brokenness.
blog http://jonnybaker.blogs.com
photos http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonnybaker/
pioneer course – http://pioneer.cms-uk.org
Bio
Jonny is passionate about contextual and global mission and the particular edge he brings is the imaginative connection of the Gospel to contemporary culture. He is a creative communicator. He particularly connects with pioneers, leaders who have the gift of not fitting in as they are called by God to new forms of mission and ministry often beyond the edges of the church. Jonny works for the Church Mission Society and has done for the last 11 years believing that cross cultural mission is a gold mine for ministry in our own contexts now. The main focus of his work in the last few years has been setting up and leading the innovative Pioneer Mission Leadership Training. This has been very exciting with all sorts of creative pioneers engaging with it who are starting new mission projects. Jonny is a member of Grace, a creative church that was part of a movement in the UK that became known as alternative worship. He is author of Alternative Worship, a collection of resources from that movement, and more recently Curating Worship exploring lessons for leadership out of those creative communities. See http://pioneer.cms-uk.org , http://about.me/jonnybaker for more info.
Today’s first prayer is attributed to St Teresa of Avila, the great Carmelite reformer and nurturer of St John of the Cross, though it is not found in her writings and was probably actually written by Mark Guy Pearse and Quaker medical missionary Sarah Elizabeth Rowntree. (Thanks Teri Petersen for pointing me to this article that explains). However it is such a beautiful prayer that it definitely needs to be part of our Lenten collection.
I have always found inspiration from the lives of those who have gone before. Their footprints provide places for me to stand and words and prayers encourage and strengthen me as I too seek to move forward into the ways of God. It seems appropriate that we celebrate the lives of some of these women during this season of Lent.
Teresa of Avila by Peter Paul Rubens
Teresa of Avila is one such person. In her classic The Interior Castle she says: “Let nothing disturb you. Let nothing frighten you. All things pass. God does not change. Patience achieves everything.” I have decided to add this book to my Lenten reading as I guiltily realized yesterday that there are presently no women on my list and yet much of my inspiration comes from women.
In many ways Teresa of Avila was a very ordinary person – struggling with some of the same life challenges we struggle with today. But out of that struggle came a rich inner prayer life that continues to inspire many today.
Here is one of my favourites of her prayer/poems. Read it through several times. Listen to the beautiful musical rendition at the end of the post. Allow their truths to take root in your heart. As you read this prayer and listen to the music may you too consider what action God may ask of you as a result of reading and meditating on them
“Christ has no body now, but yours.
No hands, no feet on earth, but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which
Christ looks compassion into the world.
Yours are the feet
with which Christ walks to do good.
Yours are the hands
with which Christ blesses the world.”
Music by David Ogden
This second prayer IS from Teresa of Avila’s writings – Enjoy.
your kindness melts my hard, cold soul.
your beauty fills my dull, sad eyes.
Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)
Photo: By Peter Paul Rubens – Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Bilddatenbank., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5096194
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