He has decided not only to be involved;

but also to take a lead in the movement.

He is determined to lead by personal example,

by embodying the ideals of the movement.  

He is determined to be loving, and to be just,

and to give himself freely in service of others.

‘The Spirit of God has gripped me,’ he says,

‘and has singled me out for a special task:

‘To share good news with the poor,

to free the prisoners,

to help the handicapped,

and to break the shackles of the oppressed.’

‘I must let the people know

that the day of God’s grace is upon us!’

For Jesus, this is not rhetoric; this is reality-

the reality he eats and drinks,

the reality he works for every day.

Every day

he makes time and space for the Spirit of God,

and he opens his soul to the Spirit of God;

his gut is ignited by the passion of God,

his bowels on fire with the compassion of God.

For him, empathy is not a superficial emotion,

but a deep gut-wrenching bowel-twisting sensation.

A visceral response to

the tears he sees, and the cries he hears,

And the suffering of others

that he feels, as if it were his very own.

He feels particularly anxious

about seeing desperately vulnerable people,

‘Sheep, without a shepherd,’

with nobody there to protect them.

And he feels especially angry

hearing about totally unscrupulous people,

‘Wolves, in sheep’s clothing’,

taking advantage of that vulnerability.

‘My grief is beyond healing,

my heart is sickened within me’.

‘Because of the plight of the daughter of my people,

from the length and the breadth of the land.’

‘For the wound

of the daughter of my people,

is my heart wounded.

I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.’

‘Can a woman forget

a baby she has borne?

Can a mother refuse to care for

the child at her breast?’

‘Perhaps.’ he says. ‘Even these may forget.’

‘But, I will never forget you.’

‘Come to me,’ he calls,

beseeching the crowds;

The broken men, the battered women,

the abused children.

‘Come to me, all you who are weary;

crushed by carrying the burden of living.

‘Come to me, and I will offer you a place of rest,

an oasis to restore your soul for the journey.’

‘Abide in me,’ he tells them, and I’ll abide with you.

Together we’ll be friends, you and I.

‘You can ask of me whatever you like,

and I’ll do it, because of my love for you.

‘I want you to know my joy in you,

and I want your joy in life to be full.’

And they do come, these lonely wanderers,

these broken, battered and bruised.

A man dripping with leprosy,

his body rank with running sores,

his soul hungry for belonging.

Jesus reaches out to enfold him,

to embrace him with love,

to heal him with touch.

A woman, bleeding for twelve years;

a dozen winters of rejection,

her self-respect haemorrhaging.

Reaching out one last time,

she finds Jesus and relief

in the same beautiful moment.

‘Go in peace,’ he tells them,

‘your faith has made you whole.’

They come, and they keep coming,

this troubled tribe of outcasts.

He tries to keep a lid on it, to keep it quiet.

 Cautions them to mute their enthusiasm;

lest acts of kindness become circus acts.

But the winds blow,

and the stories grow

and the crowds gather.

The all-consuming masses, pushing and shoving,

jostling like moths battering a single light.

They want this and they want that;

they want to see a miracle,

and they want to see more.

Jesus, at the centre of the chaos,

is giving all he has to give, and still it is not enough.

He often feels he is on a hiding to nothing.

He wants to help people,

but the more he does,

the more they want him to do.

         It is never ending.

But when he tells his disciples about it,

and, they try to help him,

they just make matters worse.

When some parents bring their children

to him, to ask him to bless them,

The disciples push them away,

to prevent them from pestering him.

Jesus is incensed, and says,

‘Hey. Let the little children come to me.’

He takes the eager children,

lifts them on to his lap, gives them a hug,

and blesses each of them, one by one.

Then, he turns to his disciples,

and says, ‘What are you doing?

This is what my work is all about!

The worst disease in the world is not leprosy -

it’s being unacknowledged, being unwanted!’  

But they take their toll,

these ravenous throngs.

Frustration clouds his compassion.

How to be pressed and yet patient;

how to be tired and yet care?

To dwell in the whirlwind,

in the midst of confusion and conflict, without losing his vision,

Jesus knows he needs a quiet centre.

And he finds that still place,

where he can be at peace with himself

In the eye of the cyclone,

face to face with God.

Jesus nurtures the hideout in the canyon of his heart,

harbouring in it, and lingering in its shelter.

It is a cave in the midst of the commotion,

a quiet retreat in the midst of the action.

Here he enters and listens;

and hears the stiil small Voice once again.

‘You are my Beloved.

In you I am well pleased.’

Fragrant, unconditional, limitless love,

running down, like thick olive oil,

into the recesses of his wounded soul.

Refreshing, renewing, reforming, redeeming grace.

Filling the void with the joy

of being loved, and being able to love.

A balm for frustration,

healing the deep hurt.

A wellspring of passion,

bubbling with compassion.

In it Jesus finds his strength, his stamina,

for the endless rounds

of giving and forgiving.

He learns the craft of caring,

the hard task of loving

friend and foe regardless.

 Jesus realises that it is important

for him to learn to care, himself, on his own,

regardless of whether anyone else does or not.

But he also recognises that caring, is essentially,

a communal, rather than individual, activity,

 and that, even he, simply can not do it alone.

So he invites others to join him on the job,

reviving the lost art of community care.   

He is painfully aware

of his friends’ strengths and weaknesses,

their gifts, and their frailties.

He knows

he can’t pin his hopes on them,

because, sooner or later, all of them,

will, one way or another, let him down.

But he also knows

that they can be good company,

and, in their own inept, but well-intended way,

will be a great vanguard of love and justice.

In sharing their company, Jesus feels stronger.

They reflect, and reaffirm, his personal struggle.

In watching their faltering, clumsy, stumbling,

often very funny, little attempts,

to advance their great cause,

Jesus gets a lot of encouragement,

        just to keep on going himself.

‘Together’, he tells them, wryly,

‘We can change the world’.

Change, he knows, is not so much in a strategy,

as it is in the ability of people, like them,

to convert every interruption

into an opportunity to care,

as constructively and productively,

as possible.

Thus the movement

deepens and widens;

the faltering ripple of hope

begins to extend outwards.

Jesus has journeyed into the wilderness

to a place the Jews call Jeshimmon,

‘the place of devastation.’

He finds himself

amidst blasted hills and broken valleys,

in a bare land strewn with hard boulders,

where only the slow dust speaks.

It is the ruin of a land;

the resting place of many a dream.

Where the realities of life and death

take on stark contrasting shapes and colours.

The desert’s breath is stale and still,

the air thick with the weariness of time.

It is a quiet place, without the confusion

of a more so-called civilised situation.

Here he stops and sits and reflects,

inhaling the quietness, listening to his heart.

This is a place of rumination;

a place where the muddy water clears

and the spirit plumbs its depths.

Jesus contemplates.

He thinks of his encounter with John,

the man they call ‘The Baptist’.

The skies tearing open,

the fluttering of wings,

the sound of the Voice.

A seeing and a hearing,

a glimpsing of the unseen and the unspoken,

a grasping of a vision and a vocation.

Earth and heaven bursting with a new beginning,

and his own unbearable, undeniable, calling;

To hold the dream, and to not rest until it be born,

to bear the pain of bringing it to birth.

He considers John.

John, the prophet and the preacher,

the wild man calling for wild changes.

Longing for the will of God,

aching for love and justice in the land,

Insisting the impossible is possible,

and, not just possible, but imperative! .

Jesus feels the echo of the message

resounding in his own soul,

Smells the fragrance of the spirit

wafting through the air.

Oh, to be a part of the movement;

to bring the dream into being.

Fleshing out faith,

speaking grace, practicing equality.

‘Filling every valley, levelling every hill,

making the crooked paths straight,

making the rough paths smooth,

‘Ensuring every man and woman

knows the awesome salvation of God.’

Jesus feels his imagination soaring

like an eagle in the empty sky.

And beneath it, far below it,

the sobering landscape of reality.

How to bring heaven to earth

without destroying the synergy?

How to take a soul, grown bone weary,

and make it sing and dance again?

How to take a half- forgotten step,

and make it a whole-hearted movement?

How to bring about genuine change in a world,

where love is bought and sold,

justice goes to the highest bidder,

And freedom is a faint memory carried by the wind?

Unsummoned, the memory serves him a warning:

a roadside lined with impaled bodies on bloody crosses-

Revolutionaries hung out, and left to dry,

for the treason of trying to fight for freedom.

Here, in the wilderness, without food or water,

Jesus waits and weighs up his options.

A thought comes to him—

‘If you are who you claim to be;

if you have the potential

that you are supposed to have, prove it!

That’s it – just prove it!’

‘Then people will be with you.

And you will be unstoppable.’ 

 Jesus turns his head and scans the horizon.

There is nothing to see save the desert;

The wilderness scattered

with boulders, rocks and stones.

And the thought comes to him—

‘If you turned these stones into bread

then the masses would be behind you’. 

 Jesus remembers the masses

gathering daily at dawn at the temple;

Waiting for the sunrise, and the signal

from the priests in the tower, to begin a new day.

And the thought comes to him—

‘If you climbed that tower, and lept down,

and landed safely in the midst of that crowd,

the masses would be with you all the way.’  

Jesus remembers the masses

of the twisted, tortured frames of the rebels.

Who had gone ‘all the way’ to change the world,

but ended up hanging, ignominiously,

on crosses at the side of the road

 like scarecrows in the sun.

Is this the fate of all dreamers and their dreams?

Nailed to history as a lesson in futility?.

Are there no other options? .

And the thought comes to him –

‘If you were prepared to compromise,

accept the system, respect the status quo,

and work for change, gradually, incrementally,

then, maybe,

you could succeed, where others failed!’

Jesus feels these thoughts

worming their way into his heart.

And he begins to wrestle

with the issues that they raise.

Didn’t he need to prove himself?

How else could he expect them to risk all

for a penniless carpenter from Nazareth?

Bet on an uneducated seer from Galilee

with nothing more than a pipe dream?

To ask a lot, you have to give a lot,

a sample, if you like, of what’s possible.

It’s only sensible.

Only reasonable. Only practical.

And what better way to show what’s possible

than to provide the people

With more of the things that they want

and display your power in the process?

That would impress the people – wouldn’t it?

That would ensure the support of the masses.

And that would mean a better deal,

when he came to terms with the system.

Jesus feels the rush of this logic

sweeping him inexorably downstream.

And he might have been carried away by it

except for a small stubborn rock of doubt.

How could a person, obsessed

with having to proving himself,

ever hope to lead a movement

dedicated to the service of others?

That would be impossible. Absolutely impossible.

So Jesus lets the wave of desire to prove himself

that is washing over him, simply come and go.

Where does that leave the idea of providing people

with the things that they wanted

and displaying his power, spectacularly, in the process?

Sure, it might assure him of support – but for what?

Spectacular events and free provisions!

And, dishing out what people want,

might distract them from what they need.

Bread and circuses may be fun -

but they don’t bring transformation.

Miracles fade into memory,

and bellies, once filled, are soon empty again.

Jesus knows full well that,

the only way hungry people will be fed,

Is if people create a culture of love and justice

where they care, and share, with one another.

So.

No side shows. No free lunches.

Where does that leave the idea of negotiating

some kind of new deal with the system?

Jesus knows, that, in the furnace of his soul,

the answer to that question is already forged.

The middle ground is occupied territory,

‘negotiation’, but another name for ‘capitulation’.

Brokering some kind of deal with the system

might provide him with safety and security himself.

But he knows that the system is always willing

to sacrifice the poor on the alter of expediency.

And, when it comes to the crunch, 

Jesus can not – and will not –

collaborate with such an iniquitous system.

Regardless of the consequences.

He does not have a death wish.

He has no desire to die a martyr’s death.

But, if death is the price he has to pay

for fighting for life and liberty, he’ll pay it.

Jesus is committed.

There will be no compromise.

No taking a backward step.

And no turning back.

Faith is not what we believe. Thats belief. Rather faith is the willingness to take a risk to act on what we say we believe. Thats faith.

So if communities become increasingly risk averse there is no way they can be communities of faith, regardless of what they say they believe.

Abraham is the father of the faith (in fact the father of three faiths) because he was willing to follow the call of God even though he didn’t know where he was going, was willing to provide hospitality for strangers who came to his tent even though he didn’t know who they were and was willing to ride out to rescue his relative who had been kidnapped even though he did not know how he was going to do it.

The disciples were encouraged to become people of faith by responding to Christ’s call to stop being ‘fishermen’ (which they knew how to do) and start becoming ‘fishers of men’ (which they didn’t know how to do) trusting that over time they would learn how to do it. And the good news for them and for us is that, in the end, in spite of the many ridiculous mistakes they made  - they were actually able to do it.

I think we know what we are called to do: to love God and love our neighbour. Most of us (in all three faiths) would say that we believe that these are in fact the greatest commandments. If we have faith, we will take the risk to live that out in our in the way we relate to everyone, in ever increasing concentric circles of care, starting with our family, then our community, our church, our work, our world.

Okay. We don’t know how to do it. But like the disciples we should trust the Lord that over time we will be able to learn how to do it if we try.

But I would like to make one proviso. So we do not do too much damage when we make the mistakes we will make learning to love God and our neighbour.

While love is willing to sacrifice for others, it should only sacrifice its own. You only have the right to sacrifice your time, your energy, your money – not an other’s or what you owe to an other. If your sacrifice impacts an other, then you need to have their permission to proceed. You have no right to sacrifice what belongs to an other in the name of love, because it is not loving at all.

Take care, Dave

In a much-cited article entitled “Resist not evil:” Conservatism in The Sermon on the Mount, published in The Busy Signal, J.A. Meyerson states that ’The main thrust of the Nazarene’s doctrine is: if you the poor are abused, exploited, stolen from, made to suffer or otherwise racked with injustice, grin and bear it. Those concerns are worldly, and you ought instead to be focused on heaven. This life, after all, doesn’t matter, and in the next one, you will be rewarded and your tormentors punished. So keep your head down, take your punches and deal with it!’

Meyerson says ‘Christ begins his sermon by issuing the beatitudes, probably the most fertile grounds for leftist quotations, but with the least reason. “Blessed,” Christ proclaims, “are the poor in spirit,” “they that mourn,” “the meek,” “they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness,” “the merciful,” “the pure in heart,” “the peacemakers,” “they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake” and “ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake”.’ Then he says, ‘The blessings he heaps upon the poor are all very nice, but he does not end them by saying, “and woe to those who have put you in this position; let’s topple their order and establish a more just society!” Instead he counsels, “Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.” (Matthew 5:12) Cry me a river, folks; this is your lot in life. Trust that things are going to be better once you’ve died’.

So Myerson sums up Jesus’ ‘thesis, expressed in the Sermon on The Mount’, as essentially conservative, basically saying ‘workers of the world: suck it up.’ [1]

I enjoyed reading Meyerson’s article because of its energetic engagement with many of the things that I care about, and because of the substantive issues it raised. And I would like to make some comments about some of those issues.

The first issue is about Meyerson’s (mis)representation of Jesus view of ‘heaven’. It is clear Meyerson sees ‘heaven’ as ‘life after death’ and suggests Jesus is saying, as many conservative Christians do, ‘that things are going to get better when you die’, ‘you ought to be focused on heaven’; ‘this life doesn’t matter’; ‘in the next one you will be rewarded and your tormentors punished.’ Which aids and abets the status quo.

Now in the Bible there are four books with four versions of the gospel story. And the one thing that they all agree on is: that the ‘gospel’ according to Jesus is all about the ‘kingdom of God’  – or as it is sometimes called ‘the kingdom of heaven’.

The core message of Jesus is the ‘gospel of the kingdom of heaven’. That’s why Jesus began his famous Sermon on the Mount with the words ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven’. (Matt. 5.3) In the sermon Jesus calls on his disciples to ‘seek first the kingdom’, to make it a priority, and to continually pray that the ‘kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven’.(Matt.6.33,10)

All throughout his ministry Jesus constantly preaches and teaches about the ‘kingdom’. All his parables are basically earthy stories about ‘the kingdom of heaven’. Only John records Jesus saying anything about ‘born again’ – twice on one occasion. Matthew, Mark, and Luke never record Jesus saying anything about being ‘born again’ at all. But all the gospel writers record Jesus speaking about the ‘kingdom of heaven’ again and again – some 114 times!

In the beatitudes, it is clear that, for Jesus, the ‘kingdom of heaven’ is a place where the meek ‘inherit the earth’ (Matt.5.5); where those who give mercy will ‘receive mercy’ (Matt.5.7); where the hungry will be ‘filled’ (Luke 6.21) and those who hunger and thirst for justice will be ‘fulfilled’ (Matt.5.6). It is a place where those who mourn will be ‘comforted’ (Matt.5.4) and those who weep now will ‘laugh’ once more (Luke 6.21). It is a place where peacemakers will walk proudly as ‘sons and daughters of God’ (Matt.5.9) and all those who are pure in heart ‘will see God’ (Matt.5.8)

So, as far as Jesus is concerned, heaven is a way of life; and it is a way of life that people should be able to experience here and now, on earth, in this life, as well as in the next. Which is why he uses the present tense, rather than the future tense at the beginning and the end of the beatitudes, saying ’yours is the kingdom of heaven’, so take it and make it your own. Jesus teaches his disciples to pray ‘May your kingdom come, may your will be done on earth as it is heaven’ every day (Matt.6.10) so that people can see God face to face, live as God’s children, be filled and fulfilled, find the comfort and the mercy that they need, wipe away their tears and have a smile that no one can wipe off their face, here and now, on earth, in this life, as well as in the next.

The second issue is Meyerson’s (mis)representation of Jesus view of the ‘system’. Incredibly, Meyerson tries to suggest Jesus ‘puts a happy face on the political and social systems which oppress’. When in fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

Jesus says we are faced with a choice: to be – or not to be – the change we want to see. And in Luke’s account of the beatitudes, Jesus makes the choice – and its consequences for us – painfully clear.

‘Looking at his disciples, he said:

20″Blessed are you who are poor,

for yours is the kingdom of God.

21Blessed are you who hunger now,

for you will be satisfied.

Blessed are you who weep now,

for you will laugh.

22Blessed are you when people hate you,

when they exclude you and insult you

and reject your name as evil,

because of the Son of Man.”

23″Rejoice in that day and leap for joy,

because great is your reward in heaven.

For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.

24″But woe to you who are rich,

for you have already received your comfort.

25Woe to you who are well fed now,

for you will go hungry.

Woe to you who laugh now,

for you will mourn and weep.

26Woe to you when all people speak well of you,

for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.”

Luke 6. 20-26

In Luke’s account of the beatitudes Jesus is using classic Jewish parallelism to  compare and contrast two completely different positive and negative scenarios.

So Jesus is saying that we need to think about the consequences of our choices.

Jesus calls us not to aid or abet the status quo, but to be poor, and be with the poor in spirit; to be hungry, and be hungry for justice; to be sad, because we are weeping with those that weep; and to be unpopular, because we are committed to follow the way of Christ with integrity, struggling to challenge the system and change the system.

The third issue is Meyerson’s (mis)representation of Jesus view of the ‘struggle’. Meyerson tries to suggest that Jesus did not encourage people to struggle against the system, but only to struggle to accept the system and comply with the system. Meyerson interprets Jesus saying, “Resist not evil” as meaning ‘Take it easy, you Saudi women who are stoned for the crime of having been raped, you American Indians who have been infected by disease and anguish while your land is stolen and your family murdered, and you Ugandan homosexuals who fall in love under the threat of execution, flogging and incineration’. ‘This is your lot in life’. ’Suck it up.’

People like Meyerson make assumptions about the way to bring about change. Because Jesus didn’t share their assumptions about the way to bring about change, they tend to assume that Jesus was not really interested in bringing about change. The most common way of trying to change a system has always been to mobilise  a group of disenfranchised and disaffected people at the bottom to overthrow the people at the top, and, thereby, institute a change of regime. This can be done either violently, by revolution; or non-violently, by election. Either way, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Because no matter how many times you may change the regime, the system remains. Jesus’ much more innovative, alternative stratagem – was not trying to change the regime – but changing the system itself!

 Jesus wasn’t interested in ‘resisting evil’, ‘reacting to evil’ or ‘retaliating against evil’. He was interested in ‘overcoming evil with good’. Jesus’ basic stratagem was to deny hierarchy, advocate mutuality, and reframe all his relationships, over time, in terms of equality. Time and time again Jesus told the people who were with him to reject any kind of hierarchical modus operandi and embrace the practice of genuine mutuality (which, we know, is the only thing which can create the space for the transformation of the oppressive American, Saudi, and Ugandan relationships that Meyerson cites.)

Jesus told his disciples: ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant…just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’  (Matt.20: 20-28) ‘You are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you’ve only one Master and you are all equals. And do not call anyone on earth `Father,’ (even if you are a Catholic!) for you have one Father, in heaven. (And you are all brothers and sisters). The greatest among you will be your servant. For whoever exalts themselves will be humbled, and whoever humbles themselves will be exalted’. (Matt.23: 8-12)

To start with, the disciples related to Jesus as their ‘Rabbi’, as servants to their master, but over time, he reframed his relationship with all of them in clear, radically egalitarian terms. But after three years, Jesus said to them: ‘I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.’ (John 15:15) Knowledge is power and in sharing power they became friends.

The kind of changes we need involve system change, rather than regime change. So Jesus said that rather than spend all our time fighting the current regime, we need to be working slowly but surely for transformation of the entire system, by implementing his strategy of white-anting hierarchy, building up mutuality, and reframing inequality in terms of equality, one relationship at a time. As far as Jesus is concerned, there is no fast track, no quick fix, only a long ongoing pro-active struggle for total revolution.

Jesus publicly associated with the synagogue – by attending and participating, ‘as was his custom’, in congregational meetings. (Luke 4:16) But, Jesus never attempted to move up in the system. He moved out on to the edge. And, locating himself ‘on the side-lines’, rather than ‘in the main game’, gave Jesus some great advantages.

One, it gave him perspective. From the sidelines he was able to see the whole field, and see what needed to be done to improve the game. Two, it gave him opportunity. On the sidelines he was far enough away from the game to be beyond its immediate control, yet close enough to affect the way it played out. Three, it gave him time. On the sidelines he was able to develop his short-term alternatives to the system while he worked on his long-term transformat-ion of the system. Four, it gave him space. On the sidelines he was able to demonstrate the alternatives he developed in the eyes of everyone, so they could assess for themselves whether they wanted to adopt them – or not. Five, it gave him a position from which he could advocate change, without being in a position to impose the change he advocated on anyone. So people knew they were truly free to adopt the change – or not to – as they desired. And because that made the change process much less threatening to the people in the synagogue it gave Jesus greater freedom to experiment in his struggle for change.

For Jesus, the struggle for peace and justice involved five different tasks: confronting injustice in society; delivering the poor from exploitation by the rich; liberating the powerless from oppression by the powerful; freeing people from cycles of violence and counter violence which are a constant threat to vulnerable populations; and creating just communities which are intentionally committed to including outcasts. [2]

Many people say Jesus said a lot about love, but little about political, economic and social justice.  But Jesus constantly confronted the injustice in his society. Meyerson says disapprovingly that ‘In Matthew 4:24, we find Christ healing people for the first time, but asking no questions about why they should be sick while the rich have their health and demanding no aid to the ailing from an empire that takes no pity on the luckless and which callously allows ill-health to run rampant’. But in John 5:1-13 Christ goes out of his way to heal a man on the Sabbath – deliberately breaking the Sabbath law – in order confront a society with its obsession with the kind of piety ‘which callously allows ill-health to run rampant’ without lending a helping hand. In the synoptic Gospels – not counting the parallel passages – there is a clear and unmistakable record of Jesus specifically and repeatedly confronting both Roman and Jewish authorities with the injustices they perpetrated in Israel – 40 times!

Jesus followed on from John the Baptist in denouncing the exploitation of the poor by the rich. John told the armed forces: “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely – be content with your pay.” And he told the tax collectors: “Don’t collect any more than you are required to”. He said: “The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same.”  (Luke 3.11-14) Jesus confronted Zacchaeus. an infamous tax collector, personally about his extortion. As a result of this encounter, Zacchaeus promised Jesus to give “half of my possessions to the poor”, and “if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” (Luke 19.8)

Jesus not only consistently denounced the oppression of the powerless by the powerful, he also actively advocated liberation of disempowered groups of people through the empowerment of the Spirit. Jesus attacked the key religious leaders of the day, as “lovers of money”(Luke16.14-15),who would maintain a façade of sanctity, by saying long prayers in public, but would “devour widows’ houses”. When he saw a widow “put everything – all she had to live on” – into the collection box, Jesus condemned the temple for extorting the last coin from the kind of person it was set up to protect. (Mark.12.38-44) Jesus broke the monopoly on forgiveness that the temple had developed through the sacrificial system  it controlled, by baptizing people in the Spirit and giving them the authority to forgive sins. “Receive the Holy Spirit,” Jesus said; and “if you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven.” (John 20.22-23).

Jesus advocated communities with leadership that would serve the people rather than oppress them. He said to his disciples: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave – just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”(Matt.20.25-28)

Jesus demonstrated the practice of active, radical, sacrificial nonviolence, that would free people from the cycles of violence and counter violence which are a constant threat to vulnerable groups of people. He said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd who owns the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd…and I lay down my life for the sheep.   All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and destroy;  I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10.8-18) Jesus turned to his friends and said: “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends”. (John 15.13)

Jesus created communities that were committed to doing justice to the marginalized and disadvantaged. The dominant value of Jewish society was “purity” – but the dominant value of Jesus was “inclusivity”. While the Jews despised Gentiles, Jesus declared “my house shall be called a house…for all nations.” (Mark 11.17) While the Pharisees ostracized “sinners”, Jesus invited “outcasts” to his parties. (Mark 2.16) Jesus said, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers, (sisters) or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed.” (Luke 14.12-14)

“Let your light so shine before men, that (Meyerson and friends) may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)

Peter, and his wife Adrienne, wanted to go to work in Vietnam. But, as often happens, things didn’t work out the way they had hoped they would. So, instead of moving to Hanoi, this Kiwi couple decided that they would move to Sydney and work with the Vietnamese community in Cabramatta.

When they arrived in Cabramatta, Peter and Adrienne joined Urban Concern, a faith community that was supportive of Servants work – not just overseas, but  back home- encouraging people to practice the Be-Attitudes in our own backyard.

Through Urban Concern Peter and Adrienne were introduced to Cabramatta and soon got to know not only the Vietnamese but also the Cambodians – and refugees from Former Yugoslavia as well. The whole world was on their doorstep!

In late 1999 Peter and his friends began to discuss the idea of ‘doing some-thing together’ in the community. By January 2000 the idea of ‘doing some-thing together’ in the community had resolved itself into the idea of ‘a community garden’. In February 2000 the Hughes Street Playground had been identified as the preferred site. And in April 2000 a formal proposal was submitted to lease a portion of Hughes Street Playground as the site.

Now the Hughes Street Playground was a notorious place. It had been taken over by the ‘smack squad’ a long time ago. But Peter and his friend Jeremy thought it was the perfect place for local people to begin to take back some of their space and put it to good sustainable community use.

They not only got permission to use Hughes Street, but also a grant from the Fairfield City Council of $10,000 to fund the initial set-up of the garden. And they got together with a group of local representatives over a twelve-month period to work out the details as to how to proceed with the project.

The group came up the idea of having an ‘Open Day’, to share the dream of the garden with the community, and to invite people of various ethnic backgrounds – especially those people on the ‘margins’ – to join in and work on the project together. Invitations were given out in seven different languages through community radio and a letter-box drop, and about two hundred people turned up for the ‘Open Day’ in March 2001. Ninety filled in forms with their suggestions.

In June there was an excursion to other community gardens round town. In August there was a training day on ‘organic gardening’. And in October there was the first on-site work-day. So by December 2001 the first eight plots were planted – and by January 2002 the first crops were harvested. And by July 2002 all twenty-three plots had been completed and allocated.

The construction of the garden has been dependent on the people in the project who are prepared to work for benefit of the whole garden, not just their own patch. And a committee of three people has been elected from each of the three language groups represented to manage the project.

The garden has been a great success on a number of significant levels. It has restored the park. The play area that had fallen into disuse is now being used again by families. The plots are fully subscribed and well maintained and people can gather fresh herbs and vegetables on a daily basis. Moreover, the garden provides a productive therapeutic occupation for a group of retired, unemployed or underemployed Cabramatta migrants and refugees. And it also provides a safe place for people to forge reciprocal  relationships of acceptance and respect across the cross-cultural divide – a symbol of what many of us believe is the ‘community of heaven on earth’.

Peter and Adrienne show us that we don’t need to be stars in order to be light, all we need to do is to reflect the light of God’s love in our lives. We need to simply think of the ‘good things’ we can do that can bring some ‘light into the darkness’, and keep on doing them come what may. It doesn’t matter whether the ‘good things’ we do are big or small, what matters is they embody the Be-Attitudes.

As they say – lighting a candle is a much better option than cursing the dark!

Dave Andrews

From Hey, Be And See (Authentic)

Let me tell you a couple of stories that show us how to shine a little light in our dark times. The first story is of ‘Mike and Karen and the Kahawaha Slum’.[1]

A few years ago Mike and Karen are an Aussie couple who decided it was time for them to take the Be-Attitudes more seriously and respond to the needs of the world’s poor more personally, more practically. So they decided to go with Servants to India. Upon their arrival in New Delhi they began to look around town for a slum to live in.

In 1999 Mike and Karen and their young son moved into the Kahawaha slum, built on government land along the bank of a drainage canal. They found a little hut and settled in alongside 900 hundred other families. Over the next couple of years Mike and Karen immersed themselves in the life of the slum, living alongside the slum-dwellers, learning their language and culture, and developing heaps of reciprocal trey relationships with people in the slums.

During this time they got to know Amir and Shruti. Amir was born and raised as a Muslim. He became a follower of Jesusas a result of reading Christian literature he confiscated at a check point when the O.M. driver refused to pay a bribe. Amir’s wife, Shruti was born and raised as a Hindu. After becoming a follower of Jesus, she met and married Amir and they went together to study at the Bible College.

When Amir and Shruti returned home, they met with angry reactions, particularly from the local Muslim community of which Amir used to be a part. A fatwah or order to kill was issued against Amir as an infidel. Amir and Shruti had to flee.

So they made their way to New Delhi. They arrived with nothing, and spent the first month living on the platform of the New Delhi Railway Station.

After that Amir and Shruti moved into a basti in a nearby slum. In the slum they found many other Urdu speaking migrants and refugees. And they felt a call to work in slums where there was a significant number of ‘their people’.

So Amir and Shruti began working in one of the largest slum colonies in Delhi.

Mike and Karen offered to help Amir and Shruti develop their work. And they were given the task of documenting the basic needs of the people in the slum.

In the slum there was a total population of 135,000 destitute people in 13,200 basti shacks. There was no government water supply to the area, so all the water for the slum comes from hand pumps. Diarrhoea and dysentery were common. Residents also regularly suffered from malaria as they lived so close to the river. A government survey in 1997 suggested that the male literacy rate in the area was five per cent and the female literacy area was two per cent

Amir and Shruti then asked Mike and Karen to help them develop a project proposal which Himmat - their emerging local community organisation – could submit to for funding. The proposal was approved, and the project began.

Over time Himmat has helped the people in the colony rebuild their houses after fires, then floods, then fires again, swept through the slums. They have trained 12 community health workers; started 16 kids classes; 32 adult classes; organized 80 micro-finance co-ops; and commenced 16 house churches.

On October 19^th 2001, someone pointed out to Mike a notice that had been pasted onto the communal toilet block. It said that the council was going to clear the slum and relocate the people 25 kilometres away in 6 days time!

Understandably, the people were in an distraught! Mike called several community meetings to discuss the eviction. After hearing anyone who wanted to contribute, the people decided they needed to get 1) a stay order until winter was over, which would give them time to raise the deposit to buy new land in the relocation area; 2) legal title to the new land before the relocation took place, and 3) legal entitlement to new land for all people in the slum who owned huts.

Mike, who is a lawyer by training, had identified a group of local lawyers who could take the case to the Delhi High Court. He liaised between the representatives of the slum and the lawyers and, eventually, together they got the backing of the court for the slum-dwellers basic demands.

During the hearings, a judge asked for a list of the families in the slum, and the council refused to make their list available. So Mike and his friends in the slum had to embark on the huge logistical task of making another list of all the families in the slum.

Chotu was one of Mike’s friends in the slum who’d offered to help. And the two of them, with the help of their friends, set about the task of collecting all the information. Chotu’s hut became the centre of operations, documenting every-one’s name, ration card, hut number, and entitlement .

After weeks of hard work, Chotu and Mike eventually got an up-to-date list together that helped ensure the entitlement of a dozen or more families who were eligible but would have otherwise missed out in the allotment.

One day Mike was dropping his son off at school, when he saw literally hundreds of armed police in riot gear getting ready to forcefully clear the slum. Mike borrowed a friend’s mobile phone and contacted everyone he knew in order to stop the provocation, and the inevitable violence that would result from the fighting that would follow the police action.

Fortunately, at the last minute, the police force was recalled to barracks and the relocation was deferred. Subsequently Mike and his friends were able to negotiate the peaceful relocation of the people, in the end getting land entitlements for more than eighty per cent of the slum-dwellers – some seven hundred and fifty families.

However, the people discovered there was no water, no electricity, next-to-no transport, and their new land was three to five feet lower than the road, so when it rained, it flooded, and became a dirty great big swamp! Mike and his friends had to go back to court with the lawyers again and again to make sure that the level of the land was built up, drinking water was provided, and electricity was put on. There are still not enough buses. The struggle of the Be-Attitudes goes on.

In the meantime, Mike and Karen and Chotu are working together with Amir and Shruti and Himmat and a range of other local agencies to provide small loans to help the people start some small businesses. Mike is also writing a pamphlet in Urdu on a protocol for relocating slum-dwellers, in the hope of it being used to inform people of their rights in future forced relocations in the city.

Dave Andrews

From Hey, Be And See (Authentic)

The first step we all need to take is a step of integrity. This is a personal step. When we decide that we can live ‘divided no more’ but want to live by what we believe and practice the Be-Attitudes . [i]

The second step we all need to take is a step of unity. This is a relational step. When we decide we need to ’unite with others’ and work out a way forward to practice the Be-Attitudes together.[ii]

The third step we all need to take is a step of solidarity. This is a political step. When we decide we need to make our private allegiances and private alliances we have developed to help us practice the Be-Attitudes public. [iii]

The fourth step we all need to take is a step of policy. This is a structural step. When we decide we need to develop alternative groups and organizations in our communities based on the Be-Attitudes. [iv]

However, nearly every time I talk with people about developing alternative groups and organisations, the conversation quickly turns from talk about internal sources we can access through the spirit to external sources like ‘funds’ and ‘numbers’.

If people want to organise a welfare programme, they want to talk about ‘funds’. ‘Where can we get the funds we need to run the programme?’ they inquire. If people want to organise a protest movement, they want to talk ‘numbers’. ‘How can we get the numbers we need to get a major social movement on a roll?’ they ask. These reactions reveal that people, both on the right and on the left of the political spectrum, believe that external resources matter more than internal sources of power. They believe that we can only do significant work in our community if we have access to either lots of cash, or large crowds, or both. It’s all about ‘fund raising’ and ‘number crunching’.

Because so many people frame their problems, and the solutions to their problems, in terms of access to resources, which, by definition, are beyond their control, they disempower themselves. If they can’t get access to the resources they require in order to act, they simply do not act. If they do get the resources they require, they may act, but they only act according to the terms, and conditions, that have been set for the support they receive. Either way, they abrogate their power to solve their own problems; they project the power to solve their problems onto others; and, in so doing, they render themselves powerless.

Jesus challenged people’s dependence on external resources. On two occasions he sent his disciples out into various villages to do some work for his Be-Attitude Revolution.

On the first occasion Jesus sent his disciples out into the world, he forbade them to take any money at all. According to Jesus money was not essential. Money was a merely a note promising to share a certain amount of commodities or services. What mattered to Jesus was, not that his disciples carried a note that held the promise of help, but that his disciples actually practised the Be-Attitudes and helped the people they met out of their own internal resources.

On the second occasion Jesus sent his disciples out, he allowed them to take a little money – but not much. According to Jesus money was never a primary source, only a secondary resource. External resources like money could be helpful as a secondary resource for community work. But, if external resources ever became a substitute for internal resources, and money became a primary, rather than secondary, consideration, then Jesus warned us, that money would destroy his Be-Attitude Revolution. After all, he said, ‘the love of money is the source of evil.’ (1 Timothy 6:10)

On both the occasions Jesus sent his disciples out to do work for his Be-Attitude Revolution, he didn’t send them out in big numbers, and he didn’t expect them to get big numbers involved. It was less a mass movement – more a micro movement. He didn’t send his disciples out in their hundreds, or thousands. But in twos. And he didn’t expect them get hundreds, or thousands involved. But one here, and one there. As far as Jesus was concerned, two meeting one, and forming a group of three, was a big enough crowd for us to begin our Be-Attitude Revolution.

For Jesus a ‘trinity’ was not so much a theological abstraction as it was a theological strategy for incarnating the kingdom of heaven on earth.  A group of three could create within themselves the stability and security necessary for incarnating a kingdom.(‘A cord of three strands is not easily broken’. Ecclesiastes 4:12) A group of three could create within themselves the subjectivity and the objectivity necessary for incarnating a kingdom on earth. (‘Let every matter be decided on the basis of two or three witnesses’. Matthew 18:16) And a group of three could create within themselves the space necessary for incarnating Christ’s kingdom of heaven on earth here and now. (‘Wherever two or three of you gather in my name’, Jesus said, ‘there am I in the midst of you’. Matthew 18:20)

Dave Andrews

From Hey, Be And See (Authentic)

When Jesus sent his disciples out into the world to incarnate the kingdom of heaven on earth, he imparted to them, what he called, ‘the power of the Spirit’. (John 20:21–22) This Spirit was ‘not a spirit of timidity, but of power, character-ised by discipline of self, and compassion for others’. (2 Timothy 1:7) So, as they opened themselves to this Spirit, it produced in them the strong but gentle power to control themselves, and to love others as they loved themselves.

Now most people who have been involved in trying to bring about change in the world would find it easy to accept Jesus’ idea – that power was the most important single issue in the process. But many would find it more difficult to accept the kind of power – ‘the power of the Spirit’ – that Jesus advocated. Not merely because of the spiritual language Christ used to describe the power he advocated, but because of the substantial difference between the dominant notion of power, to which many of us subscribe, and the alternative notion of power which he advocated.

There are two ways of understanding power.

Traditionally our dominant notion of power has been defined as the ability to control other people. The dominant notion of power emphasises the possibility of bringing about change through coercion – an approach that tries to make others change according to our agendas.

While the traditional dominant notion of power means taking control of our lives by taking control of others, Jesus advocated a radical alternative to the dominant notion of power – taking control of our lives, not by taking control of others, but by taking control of ourselves. This alternative emphasises bringing change by conversion – an approach that does not try to make others change, but tries to change ourselves, individually and collectively, in the light of a glorious agenda for justice. It breaks the control that others have over us and liberates us from our desire to control others.

The dominant notion of power is popular because it often brings quick, dramatic results. But the dominant approach to power is characterised by short-term gains for some, and long-term losses for everyone else. Every violent revolution there has ever been, has sooner or later – betrayed the people in whose name it fought its bloody war of liberation.

The alternative notion of power is unpopular because it is usually a slow, unspectacular process. But the alternative approach to power is the only way for groups to transcend their selfishness, resolve their conflicts, and manage their affairs in a way that does justice to everyone.

The essential problem in any situation of injustice is – that one human being is exercising control over another and exploiting the relationship of dominance. The solution to the problem is not simply to reverse roles, in the hope that once the roles have been reversed, the manipulation will discontinue. The solution is for people to stop trying to control each other.

All of us, to one degree or another, exploit the opportunity if we have control over another person’s life. Common sense therefore dictates that the solution to the problem of exploitation cannot be through the dominant approach to power – with its emphasis on controlling others.

The solution is in the alternative – the strong but gentle approach – with a set of attitudes, like the Be-Attitudes – which emphasise controlling ourselves, individually and collectively, through self managed processes and structures.

Some of us sincerely believe that if we are to help people, particularly the oppressed, we need to manage their affairs for them. But it doesn’t matter how we try to rationalise it, controlling others always empowers us and disempowers those we seek to help

The only way people can be helped, particularly the oppressed, is for them to be empowered to take control over their own lives. This is why Christ explicitly forbade his followers taking control over others, no matter how dire the circumstances. Their job was not to seek control over others, but to enable others to take control over their own lives. (Matthew 20:25–28)

It is a great irony to me that the greatest example we have in modern times of someone who did act on Christ’s advice, and practiced the Be-Attitudes like few Christians have ever done, did not claim to be a Christian. We need a lot more people who will experiment with the nonviolent revolution of ‘swaraj’ like Gandhi.

It is a pity that many of us who claim to follow Christ have not followed his advice. We could have been saved the crusades, the inquisitions and colonial religion.

It’s interesting to note that Christ and his disciples used organic images to describe how the ‘power of the Spirit’ – actually produce ‘swaraj’ or self control.

Self-management is de­scribed as the ‘fruit of the Spirit’. (Galatians 5:22) The capacity to manage ourselves develops quite unobtrusively – indeed, as quietly as fruit growing on a tree. The capacity to manage ourselves may develop unobtrusively, but is far more significant than we might ordinarily imagine.

Like a tiny seed, so small we can scarcely see it, that seems like it could never amount to anything great, the ‘power of the Spirit’ seems embarrassingly insignificant to begin with, yet grows into a capacity that is of tremendous significance in the end. (Matthew 13:31–32)

The capacity to control our own lives does not develop without opposition, but like a plant growing in the midst of weeds, ‘the power of the Spirit’ grows strong in an environment that could easily destroy it. (Matthew 13:24–30)

How the seeds of transformation, that bear the ‘fruit of the Spirit’, grow always was, and always will be, a mystery. (Mark 4:26–29) However, it is no secret that the seeds of transformation that bear the ‘fruit of the Spirit’ will not grow in our community if those of us, whose lives constitute those seeds, do not bury ourselves in the life of our community. ‘Unless a seed falls into the ground and dies it produces nothing, but if it dies it will produce much fruit, that brings much life to others.’ (John 12:24)

Dave Andrews

From Hey, Be And See (Authentic)

Edmund Burke once said ‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men (and women) to do nothing’. And that is the temptation we all face; the temptation to do nothing;  the temptation of withdrawing, taking it easy, turning on the tv, making cynical comments about the state of the world and doing nothing.

Jesus knew from hard personal experience how easy it is to succumb to the temptation to give up doing good, and to decide to go along with evil just to get along. Jesus’ challenge is: ‘not to be overcome with evil but to overcome evil with good’ (Romans 12.21) – ‘on earth as it is in heaven’ (Matthew 6.10).

There are four perspectives that explain the relationship between ‘heaven’ and ‘earth’ and explore the possibility of doing God’s will ‘on earth as it is in heaven’.

The first perspective is the ‘traditional perspective.’ [i] This perspective sees reality in terms of two parallel dimensions – a ‘heavenly’ one and an ‘earthly’ one – which intersect and interact, and simultaneously reflect and reinforce the actions of one in the other.

From a ‘traditional perspective’, the New Dark Age could be seen, as it is by Frank Peretti, in his best selling contemporary novels, This Present Darkness and Piercing The Darkness, as ‘earthly skirmishes’ in a ‘heavenly war’ between ‘God and the Devil’.[ii]

Certainly people like Martin Luther and John Calvin saw their battles precisely in these terms. Martin Luther said that ‘we are all subject to the Devil.’[iii] And John Calvin said that the task of every saint is to engage in ‘unceasing struggle against the Devil.’ [iv]

The second perspective is the ‘spiritualistic perspective.’[v] This perspective sees reality in terms of two parallel dimensions – a ‘heavenly’ one that is manifest in the ‘soul’ – and an ‘earthly’ one that is manifest in the ‘body’. From this point of view the heavenly dimension is ‘real’ and ‘right’; while the earthly dimension is either ‘unreal’ and/or ‘wrong’.

From a ‘spiritualistic perspective’, the New Dark Age could be seen as it is by Baba Ram Das, in his cult classic, Be Here Now, as nothing but a ‘bad dream’, from which we will eventually ‘awake’ to the realisation that ‘pleasure and pain, loss and gain, fame and shame, are all the same -they’re just happening.’ [vi]

Certainly people like the Gnostic Monoimus and Meister Eckhart saw matters precisely in these terms. They believed that ‘enlightenment’ would dispel the ‘ignorance’ that produces a ‘nightmarish existence’ and ‘experiences of terror’. [vii]

The third perspective, the ‘materialistic perspective’, is the exact opposite of  the ‘spiritualistic perspective’ [viii] This perspective sees reality in terms of two parallel dimensions – an ‘earthly’ one that is manifest in the ‘body’ – and a ‘heavenly’ one that is manifest in the ‘soul’. From this point of view the earthly dimension is ‘real’ and ‘right’, while the heavenly dimension is either ‘unreal’ and/or ‘wrong’.

From a ‘materialistic perspective’, the New Dark Age could be seen, as it is by Sigmund Freud in his famous text on The Future Of Illusion, as nothing but ‘fulfilments of the oldest, strongest and most urgent wishes of mankind.’[ix]

Certainly people like Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels saw issues precisely in these terms. They said that the so-called ‘religious’ character of much of the violence in the world was ‘simply a sacred cloak to hide desires that are very secular.’[x]

The fourth perspective is the ‘integral perspective.’ [xi] This perspective sees reality in terms of two co-terminous aspects of the universe – an ‘outer’ or ‘earthly’ one – and an ‘inner’ or ‘heavenly’ one – so that every event has both an ‘outer’ visible ‘material’ aspect and an ‘inner’ invisible ‘spiritual’ aspect.

From the ‘integral perspective’, the New Dark Age could be seen, as it is by Morton Kelsey, in his beautiful book, The Other Side Of Silence, as destructive ‘material’ expressions of demonic ‘spiritual’ realities, ‘that are actually parts of a single realm, (though) at present, they may appear to separate’.[xii]

Certainly people like Walter Wink and Charles Elliott see the current events precisely in these terms. Walter Wink says, ‘institutions have an actual spiritual ethos and we neglect this aspect of institutional life to our peril’.[xiii] Charles Elliott says, ‘we have to return to the basic position that demonic powers control structures’, religious and secular alike, ‘and it is those powers that have to be confronted if the structures are to be set free’ from their destructive proclivities. [xiv]

There is probably some truth in all these views. If the traditional view is true, we need to recognise there is more going in the world on than meets the eye. If the spiritualistic perspective is true, we need to seek spiritual enlightenment. If the materialistic perspective is true, we need to critique illusion in the name of the spiritual enlightenment that we seek. But, if the ‘integral perspective’ is true, the only way we can guarantee God’s will is ‘done on earth as it in heaven’ is if we exorcise our demonic propensities, embrace our divine potential,  and seek to do God’s will ‘on earth as it in heaven’ in the ‘power of the Spirit’ just like Jesus did.

A classic example of the impact of the transformative movement Francis and Clare started (see previous post), is the life of Elisabeth von Thuringia, known as the ‘Elisabeth of Many Castles’.

Elisabeth was born in 1207, probably at Pressburg, in Thuringia. She was the daughter of King Andrew II and Queen Gertrude of Hungary. King Andrew II – by all reports – was a bad king, whose misrule led his nobles to a revolt against him. They eventually managed to get the King to sign an edict called the Golden Bull – that was Hungary ‘s Magna Carta – a charter of rights and responsibilities. Queen Gertrude was apparently a good woman who, unfortunately, got implicated in the politics of the day, and was assassinated by the nobles in 1213. Elisabeth was just seven years old when her mother was murdered.

But before she died, Gertrude managed to do two things that were to shape the rest of her daughter’s life. The first thing was to share her faith with her daughter. Gertrude was a very devout Christian, and she encouraged Elisabeth to pray regularly from a very young age. The second thing was to arrange her daughter’s marriage. By the age of two, according to the custom of the time, Elisabeth was betrothed to the eldest son of a local Landgrave.  When the eldest son – Hermann – died, she was betrothed to the second eldest – Ludwig.

Ludwig married Elisabeth in 1221. When he was twenty-one and she was fourteen. Ludwig proposed that they take ‘Piety, Chastity, and Justice’ as their family motto.  They committed themselves as a couple to pray regularly, practice hospitality, and rule justly. In the same year Ludwig and Elisabeth were married, the Franciscans set up their first base in Germany. And Brother Rodeger, one of the first Germans to become a Franciscan, became Elisabeth’s spiritual mentor. He encouraged her to practice the Be-Attitudes as much as she could.

Elisabeth was very rich, and had brought great wealth a dowry to her marri-age with Ludwig. In the early days she had so many castles she was called ‘Elisabeth of Many Castles’. But as time went by this very wealthy woman became increasingly concerned for the poor. And she began to ride around the countryside, assessing the plight of the impoverished among her people.

Elisabeth couldn’t see the need and not respond to it.

Elisabeth began distributing alms all over kingdom. Even giving away the robes of state and the ornaments of office. Once she started giving, Elisabeth couldn’t stop at charity. And she looked for ways to give herself. She built a twenty-eight-bed hospital for the poor in Wartburg, and visited the patients daily herself. And she helped feed nine hundred hungry people daily herself. Ludwig and Elisabeth lived such exemplary lives that people started to refer to them as ‘St Ludwig’ and ‘St Elisabeth’.

In 1227 Elisabeth’s beloved husband, Ludwig IV, died. And the twenty-year-old Elisabeth was inconsolable. ‘The world and all its joys is now dead to me,’ she cried. The next year Elisabeth sent her children to stay with her aunt, formally ‘renounced the world’, gave away her inheritance, and joined the Franciscans, as the first tertiary in Hungary. The queen now dedicated herself to serving beggars. She provided them with clothes and shoes – and agricultural tools. She opened the first orphanage in eastern Europe for destitute children. And, at the hospice she established in Marburg, she tended to the needs of dying lepers with her own hands – washing the sick and burying the dead.

On November 17^th 1231, Elisabeth died. Worn out as much by the lack of support that she got from her spiritual director, as from her implacable service to the poor. But, at the age of twenty-four, Elisabeth died one of the most influential activists in thirteenth century Europe.

The political philosopher, John Ralston Saul, says of Elisabeth, ‘She and Francis of Assisi were the most famous activists (of their day). To a great extent they laid out the modern democratic model of inclusion – an important step towards egalitarianism. Elisabeth used her position, as a member of the ruling class, to put the ideas into action.’

Saul says that because of her commitment to the Be-Attitudes ‘like many others, Elisabeth created a hospice. But unlike others, she went beyond pity and charity. She washed the sick and buried the dead. It is hard to imagine now the public impact of a royal figure washing the bodies of the homeless dead. Imagine the (President, Prime Minister) not visiting or holding hands with street people, but (actually) washing their bodies for burial’.

Elisabeth’ Saul says ‘took the elements of personal responsibility, set out tantalisingly in the New Testament, and imagined a social model which would change our societies.’ [i]

In my view the only hope for a world entering A New Dark Age is the emergence of new movements of Brother Suns and Sister Moons. The story of ‘Brother Sun and Sister Moon’, began originally in the twelfth century Dark Age in Italy.

Francis was born to a French mother and Italian father in 1182, and his father called him Francesco – or Francis – after a trip to France. The ‘little Frenchman’ was brought up on romantic French ballads sung by travelling troubadours. The son of a wealthy merchant, Francis led a cavalier life in his youth, and was considered ‘the life of the party’ by his contemporaries.

Francis grew up with the dream that one day he would become a knight. So, in his early twenties, Francis took to the opportunity to fight for Assisi against a neighbouring town. However, his haughty military career came to an abrupt halt, when the young Francis was captured and incarcerated.

This time was to prove a turning point for Francis. For, during the year in prison and the year in convalescence following his release, Francis thought long and hard about his life. His dream of becoming a knight seemed ridiculous in the light of the harsh reality of war that had confronted him.

One day, when Francis was riding along a road, he simply stopped dead in his tracks. It was as if he could not carry on any more as he was. He dismounted, undressed, then – bit by bit – took all his knightly regalia – including his horse, and his sword and his armour – and gave it all away.

His father became exasperated with Francis, over his prodigality with the family’s property, and organised a meeting with the local bishop to pull him into line. But it backfired big time. Francis responded to his father’s complaints by renouncing his family, and his family’s property, altogether. Right there and then he gave back everything his family had given him. Including the clothes that he was wearing at the time. So that Francis stood there naked as the day that he was born. Then he turned to his father and said: ‘Until now I have called you father, but from now on I can say without reserve, “Our Father who is in Heaven” – He is all my wealth -  I place my confidence in Him.’

In order to consider his future, Francis decided to spend some time living as a hermit beside an old church in San Damiano. While there Francis heard a voice calling him, saying, ‘Rebuild my church.’ Francis responded to the call by repairing the ruins of the church in San Damiano, then set about the task of reforming the life of the church throughout Italy.

Francis approached the task of renewal – not as a legislator – but as a juggler! He had been brought up with troubadours coming to his house, singing romantic ballads that stirred the heart; and he aspired to be like one of the jugglers who accompanied the troubadours, drawing the crowds for the musicians, so they could listen to the music of the heart that they played. As Le Jongleur de Dieu, a ‘Juggler for God’, Francis wanted to travel from town to town, like an entertainer, without a penny   to his name, introducing people to joie de vivre, the ‘true joy of living’.

Considering his views, it is quite remarkable that Francis did not rage against the pompous opulence of medieval society. Instead, ever the romantic, Francis tried to woo the people away from their preoccupation with the trappings of power, and get them to fall in love with the lovely ‘Lady Poverty’. Poverty was not an end in itself. But, as far as Francis was concerned, people needed to be willing to be able to joyfully embrace poverty in order to practice the Be-Attitudes and joyfully embrace the poor.

In 1210 Francis obtained approval for a simple rule dedicated to ‘apostolic poverty’. He called the order the ‘Friars Minor’. And this band of ‘Little Brothers’ followed the example of their founder in caring for the poor. Then in 1212 Clare – a wealthy friend from Assisi; who, like Francis, had been con-verted, and had given all her wealth to the poor – started a sister order to the brothers, that was to become known as ‘the Poor Clares’.

Francis and Clare set about their task with such enthusiasm that people all over the place wanted to join them. And, as hundreds and thousands of people joined in from all over Europe, the humble movement of  ‘Brother Sun and Sister Moon’ began to gradually engage – and eventually change – the Dark Age in which they lived – in the light of the gospel.

Pope Urban II had called for a ‘Crusade’, or ‘Holy War’, to be led by ‘Christian Knights’, who would take up arms and sally forth to fight against the ‘enemies of Christ’.‘Cursed be the man who holds back his sword from shedding blood!’ was the blood-curdling cry of Pope Gregory VII ringing in the ears of the ‘Soldier of Christ’. And so, away they went.

Over the course of the next two centuries, Christians threw themselves,  into the task of killing thousands, if not mill-ions, of  ‘heretics’ and ‘heathens’. The People’s Crusade sacked Belgrade, which next to Constantinople, was the greatest nonCatholic Orthodox City in the world. In 1204, the Crusaders attacked Constantinople – raping, pillaging and plundering this great Christian City, without mercy, in the name of Christ.

In the meantime, the Crusaders also managed to assault the Holy City of Jerusalem, and slaughter it’s Jewish and Muslim inhabitants. Raymond of Aguilers enthusiastically eulogised the massacre as ‘a just and marvellous judgement of God’: ‘Numbers of Saracens were beheaded. Others were shot with arrows, or forced to jump from towers; others were tortured for several days, they burned with flames. In the streets were seen piles of heads and hands and feet. One rode about everywhere amid the corpses of men and horses. The horses waded in blood up to their knees, nay, up to their bridle. It was a just and marvellous judgement of God, that this place should be filled with the blood of unbelievers!’

Francis refused point blank to take up arms himself. And he managed to per-suade his followers not to carry weapons under any circumstances – even for the purpose of self-defense. Then he made his way to Egypt, where the Crusaders were fighting, and went about the camps begging them to remember the words of Christ – ‘that those who live by the sword will die by the sword’ – and beseeching them all to lay down their arms. When they refused to listen to him, Francis crossed the lines at Damietta and went to talk with the ‘enemy’ sultan, Mele-el-Khamil, to tell him about his beloved ‘Prince of Peace’, and try to broker a peace deal ‘in His name’.

Many historians consider the rule of life that Francis and Clare advocated for lay people as one of the major factors in the demise of the feudalism that defined the Dark Age of their day. Francis and Clare undermined the very sophisticated and very effective system of control, (upon which our post-modern system of oppression and exploitation may well be based) built as it was on the foundation of a network of castles, guarded by towering walls, and protected by heavily-armed patrols of free-lance mercenaries, simply by encouraging their brothers and sisters to practice the Be-Attitudes, lay aside their weapons, unlock the gates of the castles, welcome outsiders in, and gladly share their wealth with the poor.

Dave Andrews

From Hey, Be And See (Authentic)

Jesus doesn’t teach his disciples to pray: ‘give me this day my daily bread.’ Jesus teaches his disciples to pray: ‘give us this day our daily bread.’ Through his prayer, Jesus invites his disciples to make his passion – for every man, woman and child in the world to have their basic needs met – their own.

John says ‘This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If any of us has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in us? Dear children, let us not love with words or in speech, but with deeds and in truth.’ (1 John 3:16-17)

Jesus teaches his disciples to pray ‘forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors.’ Note that the word Jesus uses here is not ‘sin’, but literally ‘debt’.

What Jesus says is so important about forgiveness is not that we preach it, but that we practice it. There is no liberation from the cycles of poverty in our lives without forgiveness. And we have no right to expect forgiveness, if we do not extend forgiveness. We need to develop a global culture of forgiveness.

Jesus says ‘For if you forgive people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive people their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins’. (Matthew 6:14-15). Note that that word Jesus uses here is not ‘debt’, but ‘sin’. He seems to be saying that in order to show God’s love in the world, we should start with forgiving cash ‘debts’, and move on to forgiving all kinds of ‘debts’ – ’sins’ if you like. So we can not only be liberated from our cycles of poverty, but also from our cycles of violence!

Jesus says ‘You have heard that it was said, `Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect!’ (Matthew 5:43-48)

He says to us, ‘Let your light shine before people’ in this ‘New Dark Age’, ‘that they may see your good deeds’ – not your good ideas, or your good intentions, but your good deeds – and so ‘have a reason to praise your Father who is in heaven’ – because at long last, they can glimpse something of the goodness of God at work in their world in the way that you live your life. (Matthew 5:16)