Bring Hope to the Table

My morning devotional time is usually brief. With a kid to get out the door to school, it fits between the alarm and the shower. Daily lectionary readings in my inbox keep me grounded in scripture. And inward/outward (an online ministry of Church of the Saviour in Washington, D. C.) challenges me with a thoughtful idea. But this morning, breakfast came first, and the surprise spiritual spark of the day was on a box of Kroger Corn Flakes.

A cereal box usually has some sort of marketing message for its target audience. Lucky Charms has cartoons. Cheerios talks cholesterol. Special K shows slim, attractive women touting weight loss. Odds are your breakfast cereal knows a little about you. You are what you eat, after all. But the advertisers know you also eat what you are.

My corn flakes this morning spoke to me (but not like Rice Krispies' "snap crackle pop"). The back of the box said something about hope.

Yes, it was written by someone who probably works in the corporate offices of a large food distribution company, and yes, it was probably approved by some mid-level executive whose job it is to protect the company's brand and drive profits. But the message was a good one. It was about Kroger's partnership with Feeding America. Among other things, it said:

"In the past five years, Kroger and you have helped provide 560 million meals to needy families in our communities."

It talked about their food rescue program, bringing perishable foods from the store shelves to local food banks. I thought of the fresh breads and baked goods, the sandwiches, salads and fruit, that we serve at Daily Bread to Lynchburg's food-insecure. When I see employees at our local store pulling the deli sandwiches off the shelf at the end of the day, I know who will eat them tomorrow.

It talked about in-store donations to stock food banks with dry goods. And I thought not only of the food donation boxes by the check-out line, but of the hundreds upon thousands of starter sacks of food we've packed at the Rivermont Area Food Pantry over the yearsFinally it said that to make an even bigger difference, customers should hold food drives in their communities and make donations themselves.

All this is well and good. I was impressed with Kroger's commitment to feed the hungry. When good and generous corporate citizens address the critical needs of the communities in which we live and they do business, it's a sign of hope. But something nagged at me after I spooned the last drop of milk from the bowl. Good as it was, something was missing.

The box talked about essential moral actions, which are relvant for any person of faith, any person of good will. It didn't say it in so many words, but as a Christian it wasn't a stretch to get from the Kroger message to the charge that not to feed the hungry would be like walking by on the other side, ignoring the man robbed on the Jericho road. It would be like letting a bleeding person bleed, or withholding CPR . It would be like denying an AIDS patient the lifesaving drugs that commute the death sentence of the disease. Jesus had clear words for those who have two coats when a neighbor has none.

Let those with ears to hear (even if it comes on a cereal box)...

Because there's more that has to be said. I supposae what niggled in my mind's ear was this. For those who have not only ears to hear but voices to speak, more is required. We have a further obligation. Feed the hungry, yes. Of course. But then take it to the next level. Speak up and speak out. Work to reform a system that allows hunger to persist.

No one who studies such things denies that we can produce enough food to feed the entire planet. We have the capacity. We have the technology. We even have the ability to distribute food wherever it is needed. What we don't have is the will, the sense of moral necessity to take care of our neighbor with more than a charitable donation. What we're lacking is a collective will to establish justice.

There is nothing just or equitable about anyone in this day and age dying of malnutrition, undernutrition, or starvation. God tells Micah the first thing required of God's people is to "do justice." So we shouldn't just talk about it it. Let's do it! We have the ability to grow, process, and distribute healthy food to every human being on the planet. What we lack are just economic and political systems and a collective moral sense of urgency. Sometimes we have the urgency, but we don't believe we can make a difference. What we then lack is hope.

Hope for the Christian isn't aimed at the improbable or unprovable but is aimed at God's vision of human flourishing. Our hope translates into concrete actions like sacking starter bags in the food pantry. But more: it means advocacy, education, and lobbying efforts to reform unjust distribution systems and transform hardened and cynical hearts. It means calling out bad corporate practices that deny life's necessities to those who can't afford them. It means being critical of any form of capitalism that is so completely laizzes faire that it elevates self-centered liberty above the other-regard of unconditional love. It means using democratic processes of the public church to persuade, to inspire, and to implement.

Do all this in faith and we "bring hope to the table," as my Corn Flakes copy writer suggests. But the hope of food for the hungry comes from a larger, even more inclusive table than any board room or editor's desk. Hope that will change the world comes from a table set with the memory of sacrificial love. Hope comes from a table where all are welcome and no one is denied. Hope comes from a table where justice and peace kiss, and they promise to spend the rest of their lives in partnership for the flourishing of all of God's children.

It takes courage to bring this sort of hope to the table, a hope that feeds the hungry, yes, but also works to eliminate the structural causes of hunger. It takes a willingness to imagine a better world, more just, more loving, more reflective of shalom.

So, what are you having for breakfast?

Blessings and Peace,
David

Racism is prejudice plus power

This morning a member of Spirit of Joy asked me if I'd ever written a racial autobiography. The answer is, sort of. Yes, I've written about my experiences of race, but it's been in the context of preaching. And yes, I've talked about my awakening to issues of power and prejudice, but usually it's been in the context of teaching or part of a dialogue group.

So, here goes...

We moved to Eureka, Illinois, from the south side of Chicago when I was a few months old in 1965. Dad was a minister working on his doctorate at the University of Chicago, and Mom was a first grade teacher in a newly-integrated school. This was the same year the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was used to overturn local ordinances against a person of color spending the night within the Eureka city limits. It was news when the first black family moved to town. They were not welcome and didn't stay long. We were white and therefore more welcome, and we stayed.

Dad had taken a position as chaplain at Eureka College. His most controversial sermons in chapel dealt with Civil Rights and the Vietnam War. Sometimes when he preached , we'd get burning smudge pots thrown up into our yard by students. This wasn't Berkeley, after all. Not all college students in the 60s were advocates for justice. Some were more comfortable with the status quo.

One of my earliest memories was helping Mom sew banners to be used in the College chapel. By helping, I mean getting in the way, of course! One that fascinated me was of four interlocked hands: black, red, yellow, and white. Another was a large peace sign. I didn't know these would be seen as radical statements. They were just our values.

Mrs. Colburn taught second grade. She used to spend her summers on the Navaho reservation weaving with tribe members. She brought looms and weavings back to class in the fall, and she taught us about Native American culture through activities and stories. I learned something about acts of solidarity from her, even if I didn't understand yet about economic and political oppression. She taught me to weave, and so my Grandpa made me a simple loom based on a Native American pattern. I tried to recreate some of Mrs. Colburn's Navaho designs in my own weaving. I still think of her when I think about race and economic and political justice. She planted a fertile seed.

During middle school our family moved to Bethany, West Virginia. I learned in WV history classes how the state formed out of the racism of the Civil War. But the only "race" concern my friends and I really noticed was who was Italian or Irish, Polish or Greek. If you were a mix or couldn't identify with one group or the other fully, you didn't fit in.

It was in college that I became more fully aware of the white privilege that precedes me everywhere I go and the institutional racism from which I benefit every day without having to lift a finger. A teacher who'd fought in the Battle of the Bulge helped me understand just how elite my position is in our culture. Nobody pays attention when I walk into a department store past the jewelry counter. I won't ever be racially profiled. I can go to court and expect a fair trial. I can trace my family back to our origins in Germany because public records are available and family lines are intact. I take such things for granted. Those whose ancestors came here as slaves cannot.

White privilege was driven home for me when Katy and I discovered we were approved for our first rental house because the landlord preferred us to an Hispanic couple. Why? Race. Does benefiting from white privilege make me racist? Sigh. Yes. Let me explain.

In Dismantling Racism, Joseph Barndt argues convincingly that racism is prejudice plus power. Of course, anyone can be prejudiced. Most of us are. We make judgments about people based not on full knowledge but simply first impressions. Cultural assumptions are our starting place. Most, if not all, of us are prejudiced. But not everyone has power to act on prejudice. In our society, power (which means wealth, education, health, and access to decision-making) is still largely held by white, heterosexual, married males. Power is personal, yes, but it's also institutional and cultural. People like me hold all the trump cards. And we don't give them up without a struggle.

Does this make me racist? I'm white in America. So, in a word, yes. The playing field isn't level. I start every touchdown drive at first and goal. Or to use an apt metaphor from hockey that has a nice double meaning, I'm always on a power play, whether I want to be or not. I benefit from the prejudice plus power equation culturally and institutionally, even if personally I don't want to think of myself as prejudiced. The reality is that even with the liberal, aware parents I had and the education and awareness I've gathered over the years, I live in a white power culture that gives my voice credibility before I've earned it. I have access where others do not. If you're white, so do you.

Yes, this makes me squirm.

But It's a matter of faith for me to share this, to confess it, because I know full well that many of us have more in common with Jesus' oppressors than with his disciples. I read the Christ hymn in Philippians 2 as a challenge for my life: to empty myself, to pour myself out. This means divesting myself of power while at the same time using what power I have to empower others. I'm not very good at it yet, but I'm getting better. This awareness shapes me theologically and politically. It gives me a deeper sense of God's redeeming and saving presence among those I may think of as marginalized but who don't need my guilty pity. They need justice. And I need it. God expects it.

My hope is that as the church of Jesus Christ, we can recognize injustice when we see it and work to balance the playing field, and in doing so completely change the game. Equal opportunity won't exist until relationships are fair and just, and we treat each other not as types or races or genders but as beloved children of God.

I realize the conversation is only starting. And this is a weighty place to begin. Still, as we set off along the way, I wish you:

Blessings and Peace.