Bob Ekblad's Blog, page 16

Erasing Labels

Lately I have been especially struck by the destructive practice of labeling, and how widespread it is in our time. In America these days racial profiling seems to be on the rise. Partisan political categorizing and outright hatred towards people of different persuasions are increasing as we move towards a national election. I regularly hear people refer to others as right-wing republican, liberal, fundamentalist, illegal, racist, evil, terrorist or jihadist.

Around Tierra Nueva people struggle with labels continuously. Some seek to remove tattoos that mark them according to their gang affiliation. Others seek to find employers who will hire them in spite of their felon or ex-offender labels. Many of the people we serve have been diagnosed as ADD, psychotic, bipolar, borderline, and many others labels, and told by mental health professionals that their conditions are permanent, requiring them to be on meds for the rest of their lives.

I have grown to hate the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) and our current penal code. Labeling dehumanizes people, reducing them to something that is much easier to incarcerate, medicate, deport, hate or even eradicate. Labels categorize, entrap, curse and brand us in ways that are nearly impossible t shake. Thankfully when we find ourselves before Jesus there is hope. He can remove labels and undo “permanent” conditions!

In Luke 5:12 there is a man covered in leprosy, a condition was seen as permanent in Jesus’ day. Jesus’ way of dealing with this man most certainly challenged the people’s normal, limited “realism” regarding what was possible, bringing them into a Kingdom of God-inspired imagination. In a recent jail Bible study I describe leprosy as a condition that was viewed as irreversible in Jesus’ day.  I ask the inmates: “What are some conditions or labels that are viewed today as incurable and therefore permanent?”

The men come up with a list that grows as I read this story in four back-to-back thirty-minute gatherings with inmates. “Addict,” “alcoholic,” PTSD, hepatitis C,” “HIV/AIDS,” “bi-polar,” “felon” and a host of other labels and conditions, including “disabled,” “terminally ill,” “sex-offender,” “chimo”(short for child molester), thief, liar, thug, psychotic.

A number of men share that they experience the labels “felon”, “ex-offender,” and “ex-con” as fairly permanent identity markers that keep them from getting jobs and from being accepted in normal society, including in churches. I describe how according to Mosaic Law, lepers were required to keep their distance from the public, crying out “unclean” when they came around people. We talk about what it would be like today if they would be required to cry out “I’m a criminal” or “I’m a felon” warning people whenever they walked through a mall or grocery store. This led to some good discussion, and the men could see that lepers in Jesus’ day had it pretty bad. We next discussed the question about how the leper got breakthrough.

“So what does this leper do when he sees Jesus?” I ask, inviting someone to read the next verse.

“When he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged him, saying, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean” (Luke 5:12).

The men take note of the leper’s humility, desperation and faith. Rather than yelling out “unclean,” the leper declares that if Jesus is willing he can make him clean. The inmates can see that the leper believes Jesus is able to take away a disease viewed as permanent, cleansing him totally of this condition and removing a label thought to be permanent. Many of the men don’t seem to question Jesus’ ability and power to change their situation. The bigger question for them is that of the leper: ‘is Jesus willing?’

Many people caught up in addictions, criminal lifestyles and multiple labels assume God is behind their afflictions or the consequences of their sins. Hyper-sovereignty and retributive justice are inherent in the dominant mindset among the world’s poor and marginalized.  If your fate and punishment are written in God’s book, there’s no choice but to surrender. In contrast, the leper here voices a thin but true faith as a kind of declaration that awaits Jesus’ response: “If you are willing you can…”

Jesus responds with direct action that goes beyond the leper’s request. “Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him,” making himself contagious in the eyes of any onlookers.

“Does the leper say, ‘if you are willing, you can touch me’? I ask.  “Why would Jesus reach out and touch him?” I ask.

The men are moved that Jesus’ care for the leper surpasses his fear of impurity, or of what people think.

Jesus both touches the leper and also declares his desire to cleanse him instead of showing agreement with and fear of his condition: “I am willing, be cleansed.”  Immediately the leprosy leaves the leper, showing itself to be a foreign invader that withdraws before Jesus powerful touch in the same way that demons flee at his command. Jesus holiness is stronger than the contagion. Jesus’ purity overcomes the impurity, eradicating the contagion and erasing the label. Jesus acts here as the ultimate tattoo remover!

Jesus sends the man who is now healed of his leprosy to the official diagnosticians for verification: “go, show yourself to the priest and make an offering for your cleansing, just as Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” Jesus sends him as a sort of apostle to the labelers, inviting them into a robust realism that includes the fact that Jesus eradicates conditions thought to be permanent. We talk about how that would be like going to the court to check on your criminal record and finding that it was erased or having your doctor verify that you don’t have Hep C.

I end the Bible study inviting the guys to risk asking Jesus to cleanse them of a label or condition that they’ve experienced as permanent. I suggest that taking a step of faith will increase faith, and that this story shows Jesus’ willingness to give us a new start.  The men appear willing to take a step of faith and ask Jesus to touch them, to cleanse them. I invite people to silently speak out what they want Jesus to do for them and the circle is quite. With eyes closed the men appear to focus in on the task at hand with hope.

I encourage you to try praying this way yourself, expecting Jesus’ cleansing, transforming touch. May you let Jesus the label-remover challenge your tendencies to label others and yourself. May you remember to see yourself and others the way God sees you and them: as made in God’s image, a beloved daughter or son of the Father of Jesus—our Father. May we let our own and other’s identities in God’s Kingdom become the dominant reality in our mindsets and practices, “on earth as it is in heaven.”

See http://www.bobekblad.com/category/blog for past blog entries.

Jesus’ Recruitment Strategy

Jesus’ calling of fishermen has struck me afresh as I’ve read Luke 5:1-11 with inmates in Skagit County Jail and Washington State Reformatory and our faith community at Tierra Nueva.  Before reading aloud the text, I introduce the topic of shame, and ask people to describe situations where they experience shame. I define shame as the feeling of being irreparably faulty and visibly lacking—like a beat up car that has so many things wrong that it beyond repair.

Inmates talk about being escorted by guards in their red jail-issue clothes with leg irons and handcuffs into court before the judge, the public, prosecutors and other attorneys and court personnel in their suits and ties. Their inability to bail out gives them the appearance of being failures, guilty of charges before they even plead.  Someone else mentions groups of citizens on official jail tours looking in on them through the glass of their cellblocks. “It’s like they’re viewing us like animals in a zoo except worse- because we have obviously failed.”

We read together Luke 5:1, which describes Jesus as standing by the lake of Gennesaret surrounded by a crowd of listeners. The men are intrigued that Jesus is not teaching in an official religious location but outside in nature, at the job site of fishermen who are men at the margins of Galilee, which is already at the margins of Israel. Jesus goes to where people are, not expecting them to come to him or to religious places.

Jesus’ entrance into the world of ordinary, working-class people has inspired me over and over, and most notably when I was first called into ministry. This inspired Gracie and my move to Honduras to work with peasants in their fields and homes, and our move to Skagit County 21 years ago to ministry to migrant farm workers in the fields and migrant camps and inmates in our local jail.

Jesus sees two boats lying by the edge of the lake there at the jobsite of fishermen. We observe together that in contrast to the crowds “pressing around him and listening,” the fishermen are washing their nets. We imagine them off to the side checking out Jesus from a distance, a posture that most everyone I’m reading with can relate to. We soon learn that they hadn’t caught anything in spite of toiling all that previous night, making Jesus present there in the place of their shame.

Jesus is next described as taking the initiative in moving closer to one of the fishermen, Simon. Jesus does this by physically entering deeper into his workspace, an empty boat—the site of his most recent failure. I invite someone to read Luke 5:3.

“And he got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, and asked him to put out a little way from the land.”

“Jesus is rather famous at this point,” I suggest to the inmates. “He was likely viewed as a kind of celebrity. He had gathered a big crowd of local people. If you were Simon how would you feel if Jesus publicly got into your boat and asked for your help to push out from the shore there in front of all the people?”

People can easily see that this would be a big honor– to have Jesus ask you for your help, and to be able to use your boat and skills to help Jesus and to help your community hear Jesus as he teaches. We read on about how he sat down and taught, and then imagine the scene there before the whole crowd.

“And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” And Simon answered and said, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets” (Luke 5:3-4 ESV).

“How would you feel if you were Simon, being asked by Jesus to put down your nets in front of the entire community who had gathered to hear Jesus after having worked all night and caught nothing?” I ask the men, having noted the likely public nature of Jesus’ request for the first time.

We discuss how Simon has just cleaned his nets after catching nothing, and how Jesus is asking him to get them messed up again. People mention the potential shame that Simon (and they) could easily feel to fish again after failing, and the utter disgrace they’d experience pulling up empty nets there before the whole community in full daylight– an embarrassing exposure of ineptitude.

We discuss with the inmates how saying “no” to Jesus would bring disgrace before the community, and how Simon’s calling him Master (boss) and acquiescence “but at your word, I will let down the nets,” could show Simon’s accommodating hospitality or at worst a humiliating submission, even more than authentic faith. Simon lets down his nets before the onlookers on the shore, and we’ve only read Luke 5:5, so there’s anticipation as I ask someone to read the next verse.

“And when they had done this, they enclosed a great quantity of fish; and their nets began to break; and they signaled to their partners in the other boat, for them to come and help them. And they came and filled both of the boats, so that they began to sink” (Luke 5:6-7).

We note together how the text emphasizes that “they” let down the nets, and wonder if “they” includes Jesus and Simon, as there is no one else mentioned as being in the boat. However it looks like “they” refers to Simon and perhaps his assistants, as “they signaled to their partners in the other boat” to help them.  They are described as filling the boats that nearly sink, and it looks like the text gives all the credit is going to Simon and his helpers.

“How would you feel if you were Simon at this point, pulling up this enormous catch before the gathered public and your fellow fishermen?” I ask.

The men all state that this would be hugely encouraging. Everyone agrees that Simon is experiencing public exaltation and vindication as a fisherman and a human being. Jesus’ presence with him and specific instructions empower him in his vocation, making him visibly successful and meeting his subsistence needs.  Most importantly they bring healing to his shame.

Everyone present can see how beneficial something like this would be for them right there and then. We look next with the inmates at Simon’s reaction to the amazing catch, and I invite someone to read Luke 5:8-10.

“But when Simon Peter saw that, he fell down at Jesus’ feet, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!  For amazement had seized him and all his companions because of the catch of fish which they had taken; and so also James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.”

Here we have the first mention that Simon is Peter, right at the moment when he saw the abundant catch, and fell down at Jesus’ feet expressing his unworthiness. We are getting to know him better as we hear his full name.

“But why does he tell Jesus to go away from him because he is a sinful man? I ask.

People respond that Simon Peter was feeling unworthy of such a big blessing. We discuss how he may have been afraid of his sudden success, and the men can all relate to this.

“When you succeed in front of everyone you’re set up for a bigger fall.  It’s better to stay down than to have visible success and then relapse or reoffend and lose everything,” a man states. Many of the men are in visible agreement.

I suggest to the inmates that Simon Peter was possibly known in the community as a notorious sinner. We talk about how maybe Simon Peter knows that everyone watching him from the shore knows that he’s running a meth lab on the outskirts of Capernaum, or that he’s suspected of stealing car stereos or burglarizing houses to feed his drug habit, has done time for domestic violence or is a felon. Maybe Simon Peter can’t handle Jesus publically blessing him in his “sinful man” state, and knows that his neighbors probably are not excited for him.  Does Jesus know who he is blessing? I invite someone to read on to see how Jesus reacts to Simon’s command that he leave.

“And Jesus said to Simon, “do not fear, from now on you will be catching men” (Luke 5:10).

Rather than agreeing with Simon’s request to go away from him, Jesus perceives that fear underlies his reaction, and tells him not to fear. We discuss together how Jesus addresses Simon’s fear of success, his fear of failure, of shame’s return— whatever fear he might have—we might have. Rather than being put off by Simon Peter’s confession, and leaving him more shamed than ever before the public and his colleagues, we notice that Jesus further elevates him by giving him a public promotion: “from now on you will be catching men.”

There in the boat, through Simon’s enormous catch of fish, Jesus catches Simon Peter, James and John. These fishermen are won over by Jesus’ shame-removing ministry, and say “yes” to his full-on inclusion of them in spite of any perceived unworthiness.

“And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him” (Luke 5:11).

The men in the jail bible studies and people in our Tierra Nueva community can see why the fishermen were drawn to Jesus and are themselves drawn to him.  We summarize Jesus’ recruitment strategy as a way to remind ourselves what to look for now as we anticipate his fishing for us.

We note first that Jesus takes the initiative, going to the margins of the margins—to the workplace there on the shore of the lake of Genesaret in Galilee.  Jesus continues to take the initiative, stepping into someone’s workspace, which is a place of failure (Simon’s empty boat). Jesus approaches Simon needing his boat and asking for his assistance. Next Jesus asks his recruit to do something public that is difficult to refuse, inviting risky obedience that leads to public elevation and empowerment in his vocation.  Jesus responds to push back (Simon’s unworthiness), addressing underlying fear and inviting him into something bigger (from now on you will be catching men).  Jesus’ recruits leave everything to follow him.

Jesus’ style of fishing is catching me again even as it caught Simon and John. I witness this Gospel story come alive in ways that catch inmates and people in our Tierra Nueva church. We pray together that our eyes would be opened to notice Jesus’ presence with us in our places of shame. May the Holy Spirit open our ears to hear Jesus’ shame-healing words and follow his call into a life of adventure as his disciples. May we learn alongside Jesus how to be agents of healing and calling in the places of failure of our world.

See http://www.bobekblad.com/category/blog/ for past blog entries

Siberian Journey

Our unforeseen journey to Siberia began seven years ago in a jail Bible study in Mount Vernon, Washington when I met Andrey, a then 21-year-old Russian man who God is now raising up as an evangelist and prophetic voice in far away Siberia.

Andrey grew up in a Russian Pentecostal family that migrated to Washington State when he was twelve years old. In his late teens and early twenties he got involved in drugs, leading to stints in jail and eventually a one-year sentence in Skagit County Jail. There in our weekly Bible studies his faith in Jesus was re-ignited. I watched him grow in faith and clarity of calling from month to month, and advocated for him during his year in immigration detention.

I have often advocated for immigrants charged with worse crimes than Andrey’s and won “cancelation of removal,” which allows people to retain their permanent residency status. Winning Andrey’s case required the local prosecutor’s cooperation.  Sadly he refused, in spite of widespread community support.

The best legal counsel, a massive prayer effort on the part of his family and church and my own testimony in his trial before a judge I even knew personally did not stop his removal. In 2010 Andrey was “cast out,” perhaps accomplishing Jesus’ instructions to evangelizing disciples to “beg the Lord of the harvest to cast out (ekballo) workers into the harvest” (Luke 10:2). Andrey was deported back to Russia with a lifetime bar to re-entry into the USA.

Andrey and I kept in touch through Facebook, where I learned that he eventually moved to Siberia to attend a Bible school and became active in a network of churches. A few years ago Andrey invited Gracie and I to Siberia, insisting that our approach to ministry was needed there and that his Bishop wanted us to come.

I was reluctant to go to Siberia due to uncertainty about what we’d be doing, an already busy schedule and other reasons. I grew up during the Cold War, when the Soviet Union was America’s number one enemy. I remember as a child hearing that if the Russia communists took over America, they would persecute Christians. This would likely include me being separated from my parents and even being sent to a re-education camp, or maybe even to a prison labor camp in Siberia. I always wondered whether I would hold up under persecution. This childhood fear may well have contributed to some hidden reluctance, which was soon overcome.

Krasnoyarsk was in the heart of the Soviet Gulag, and reputedly has some 45 prisons in the surrounding area. The more Andrey invited us the more Gracie and felt we were being called to go—even if the Russian churches couldn’t cover our travel costs. A week after putting the tickets on our credit card, a generous donor called us out of the blue and offered to pay for our tickets.

In March Gracie and I flew from Seattle to Bangkok, continuing on to snowy Krasnoyarsk via a seven-hour flight over China and Mongolia. Gracie and I arrived to -22 degree Fahrenheit temperatures, without really knowing what we were getting into. We ended up with a fully packed schedule. Andrey drove us from church to church through snowy aspen-covered hills and plains on Siberia’s permafrost-damaged roads, interpreting for us as we ministered together over ten intense days.

The first day we were to speak at a local conference, and were asked to teach on the broad topic of relationships. “What exactly are you hoping for?” we asked, and we were told that people knew almost nothing and needed basic teaching on dealing with gender differences, conflict, and child raising.

Some sixty people showed up in a large log cabin-like structure heated by coal (like every place). In prayer I’d gotten the impression that God wanted to heal people with Hepatitis C. After worship I mentioned this and invited people forward who had this condition. I was shocked to see over half the people came forward, including the five pastors attending the conference. Large numbers of people continued to respond to this same invitation in seven different churches.

We learned that most all of the pastors in this denomination and a large percentage of the people had been heroine addicts, and many had done time in a Siberian prison. The social chaos that ensued right after the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 90s included widespread use of intravenous drugs, and many had contracted Hepatitis C.

We were inspired to learn that twenty-five of the thirty-five churches in the network had their own recovery houses, and the denomination ran a yearlong Bible school that most all of the pastors had attended right after their year in rehab. For two days we taught the fifty or so students in this Bible school, most of whom had come straight there out of recovery houses.

Everywhere we went we prayed for people’s healing of Hep C and many other conditions, hearing report after report of people experiencing either intense heat or pain or pounding in their livers as we prayed, followed by the disappearance of symptoms. While we have yet to hear about blood tests confirming healings, we believe Jesus was healing people’s livers as we saw others get relief from other chronic conditions, and be filled with the Holy Spirit.

We witnessed God healing people’s hearts and freeing people from demonic oppression during ministry times. The pastors told us about the Russian version of fatherlessness due to the approximately 30 million men killed in World War II, in addition to widespread death during Stalin’s purges. Many of the people we were ministering to had been raised by single mothers or by fathers who themselves had not been fathered and had consequent blocks to knowing God as Father.

The last two days were the highlight of our trip as some 250 people gathered for a conference on holistic liberation. We had noticed a young man severely disabled the first day of the conference during worship. He was hunched over from severe scoliosis and he dragged his right leg behind him as he walked, hands clasped tightly.

On the last night we were told to not invite people forward for prayer for Hep C because probably 90% of the people had it. Rather the pastors suggested we have a prayer tunnel formed by the pastors and ourselves.

That night we prayed for hours as men and women filed between us. We were deeply affected by the condition of the people who came through the prayer tunnel. Many had scars on their heads, their bodies wracked by years of neglect and drug abuse. The young man who was lame passed between us, and we rebuked the plans of the enemy and blessed him.

The next day after our final Sunday service before flying on to South Korea a woman approached us gushing with enthusiasm. Andrey translated for her as she thanked us for praying for her son. “He is now able to bend his leg and his is standing completely straight!” she exclaimed.

The young man was brought to us and we were able to witness first hand the dramatic healing he had experienced the previous night. He showed us how he could bend his leg and back as he stood straight, his hands open. We learned that he had cerebral palsy from birth, and we heard him recount how he’d felt the Holy Spirit connect his brain to his leg and was experiencing a restoration of his memory.

We were moved and inspired by the people and leaders we met, and amazed by Andrey’s growing role as a catalyst for change and now a pastor in a new church pant. Andrey later joined us in Paris for a course on deliverance—eager to learn all he can for his challenging ministry.

We returned home inspired by these Siberian leaders, raised up from the prisons and drug culture to become effective evangelists and pastors. Now they were leading vibrant communities and overseeing recovery houses and “houses of mercy” that take in the most destitute people.  We conducted extensive interviews with the church network leader Bishop Maxime (pictured below with us in coal extractor), and a week after returning home he and another leader Sergei even visited us at Tierra Nueva, inspiring us further.

We are now working more deliberately then ever here at Tierra Nueva to raise up ministry workers from the margins through our training here and abroad– including critical perspectives from recovery programs with inner healing, deliverance and leadership training to see holistic transformation where it’s needed the most.

For more information see www.peoplesseminary.org and http://www.bobekblad.com/category/blog

Beach Stories

Today’s Gospel reading from John 21:1-14 shows the resurrected Jesus on the beach with his disciples, who don’t immediately recognize him. He directs these weary fishermen who’d been fishing all night in vain to cast their nets on the right side of the boat. They subsequently fill their nets to overflowing with 153 fish! Jesus is meanwhile cooking up fish and bread for them over a fire on the beach, and invites them to breakfast. John’s Gospel specifies that this was the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples since he was raised from the dead, making me long for new encounters and think back to recent ones.

In mid February Gracie and I went on a vacation to Maui with two other couples and a three-year-old. Late one afternoon I left the group on the beach, feeling a pull to walk and pray. A few minutes down the beach I ran straight into a make-shift tent. A guy invited me in and offered me a hotdog and a drink. He said he was from a local church, and that their pastor was out surfing and would be out of the water soon. A few minutes later I met Pascal, a man in his forties wearing a wetsuit—surfboard tucked under his arm. He briefly told me how he had lived in Maui for years before he was met by Jesus, windsurfing professionally, doing drugs and partying– like so many others continue to do today. Now he’s reaching out to the surfer crowd through his ministry Eternal Riders and has started a church just off the beach. He invited me to come by the following Sunday.

When I told Gracie and our friends there was interest, and that Sunday morning we visited their church.  I was moved by the passion of their worship, led by Pascal’s Hawaiian wife Cece, and inspired by Pascal’s humility and authenticity. After the service I learned that he was from Quebec and that French was his first language.  When he learned that we spoke French he told us about a church he was launching in Tahiti, suggesting that we should talk about joining them on one of their trips. We met for coffee a few days later and we will see where this connection leads.

The next day Gracie and I were set to cook dinner for everyone, and we had decided to have fish. Since fish was very expensive in our touristy beach town, we’d decided we would need to get our fish at Costco in the larger town of Kahului, a shopping trip I was not looking forward to.

Then on our way back from a long walk on the beach we saw a native Hawaiian casting into the surf. A young woman sat on the beach with her partner’s gear, a big shiny fish laid out in front of her. We asked her where we could find a fish like that and she said we could buy it from her for $10.00. I ran back for some money and a plastic bag and we ate delicious barbequed fresh fish that night.

The next day I was having some alone time, reading the Bible and praying. As I was listening to some worship music I felt a desire to head out to beach. As I worshipped and looked out at the surf I notice a man in a wet suit coming in with a spear gun, dragging a buoy. He would certainly know the kind of fish we had eaten the night before, I thought. I ran down to meet him and showed him a picture of the fish we’d eaten the night before on my phone. He told me the name of the fish, and showed me that the one’s he’d speared were the same.  I took a picture of him with his fish (below) and he told me how he sold fresh fish he spears out of his home in Kahului.  I said goodbye and headed back to our beach house.

He yelled after me to come back, and I turned around to see him and a woman motioning for me to return.

“Do you want a fish?” he asked.

I told him I didn’t have any money, but he insisted that he wanted to give me a fish.

“Are you Christians?” I asked his wife.

“Born again and Spirit filled just like you are!” she responded.

I was really surprised by this response as we had not talked about our faith at all.  I learned that he, Elijah, is from Fuji and she, Jaqui is from Micronesia. They are missionaries who have started a church in Kahului, supporting themselves by selling the fish Elijah spears.

I prayed for them there on the beach, we enjoyed another delicious fish dinner and we have exchanged emails since. I wonder where this encounter will lead, and think with new inspiration about the disciples miraculous catch on the right side of the boat as they paid attention to Jesus’ instructions. What sort of catches is Jesus preparing for us? I wonder. I want to pay attention, and look forward to future adventures, and encourage you to do the same.

Please pray for Pascal and Cece and their ministry with Eternal Riders and church in Paia (first picture below), and for Elijah and Jacqui in their ministry in Kahului (following pictures).

 

 

Bearing arms or bared arm? Jesus as God’s response to violence

Acts of vengeance to vindicate honor have been in the press on a near daily basis this past month, causing me to think seriously about how Jesus exposes and deals with human violence and reveals God’s radical, shame-disarming power.

In the immediate aftermath of Charlie Hebdo’s most recent depiction of the Prophet Mohammed, crowds of Muslims torched Christian churches in Niger, stormed a Christian school in Pakistan, and expressed their outrage toward France and the West in many other places.

The beheadings of two Japanese hostages and the burning alive of a captured Jordanian Air Force pilot by ISIS were followed immediately by Jordan’s execution of two militants and the death of 55 ISIS jihadists in Mosul through airstrikes.

“We are upping the ante. We’re going after them wherever they are, with everything that we have. But it’s not the beginning, and it’s certainly not the end,” Jordanian foreign minister Judeh said.

The US coalition continues to show its power by bombarding ISIS troops, and the cycle of violence will only get worse. How are we to proclaim Jesus as the answer in these dark and violent times?

Isaiah 53 begins with a question posed by people who have heard news that is counter intuitive to the logic of redemptive violence. “Who has believed our report?” they ask, seeming to suggest that not everyone has or will. A second question prepares the reader for a description of God’s saving servant: “Upon whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”

The arm of the Lord in the Old Testament is synonymous with God’s power (Isaiah 40:10; 48:14; 51:5) and is the means by which God intervenes in history.  The verb gālâ (translated“ reveal”) means to uncover, expose, or make naked; this verb invites the translation “upon whom has God’s power been uncovered (or bared)?”

The next verses of Isaiah 53 describe God’s naked power visible in a figure who has no form or majesty or attractive appearance, who is despised, forsaken—a man of sorrows who grieves and is not valued.

Unlike the armed forces of this world (the US coalition, Jordan, ISIS, the Israelis and many others), God’s servant bears our grief and carries our sorrows. The servant is even perceived as punished by God (v. 4). Speaking as the exiled prophetic community in the heart of an oppressive empire (Babylon), Isaiah describes God’s servant in ways that prefigure Jesus and show us a way to think about redemptive suffering and shame-bearing:

“But he was pierced through for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon him, and by his scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him” (Isaiah 53:6–7).

The first Christians saw Jesus as fulfilling this description of the Lord’s servant. Jesus reveals God’s power by letting humans strip him naked and nail him to a cross—exposing our violence and neutralizing it. He achieves his victory over shame, dishonor and death through submitting to it as innocent victim alongside us and on our behalf.

Before his enemies arrest him, Jesus freely offers his broken body and blood to the disciples around the table, inviting them and us to continue feeding on his vulnerable flesh and lifeblood “in remembrance of me.” He is raised to life by the Father, embodying victory over death and guaranteeing us his abiding presence with us now and forever.

Paul recognizes the offense of Jesus’ way of being Savior when he writes of Jesus’ cross as “foolishness to those who are perishing.”  But, he continues, “to us who are being saved, it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18).  He goes on to describe how this very different power of God, which he calls “the foolishness of the cross”, is a weapon against the world’s wisdom:  “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside” (1 Corinthians 1:19).

Jesus reveals God’s embodied wisdom that destroys the conventional wisdom behind ISIS executions, Jordan’s retaliation, the US coalition’s strategy to annihilate ISIS and vengeance in all the forms and the logic of shame that we’re seeing played out throughout our world.

Those in power in Jesus’ day did not believe in Jesus or his way of saving the world—and we can expect similar resistance today. Jesus identifies himself as the “stone which the builders rejected” (Luke 20:17–18), and all of the Gospel writers take note of this (see John 1:10–11). Believing Jesus is the “cornerstone” of the Kingdom of God requires faith, which is a gift from God that we can choose to receive.

As I witness the escalation of counter-terrorism efforts in Europe, mob reactions to dishonor and increasing violence and suffering in the Middle East, I find myself feeling drawn to contemplate and talk about the crucified one afresh, rediscovering the effective practice of Paul’s proclamation:

“But we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.  Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” (1 Corinthians 1:24–25).

I am Not Charlie: a Christian response to the killings in Paris

I was deeply troubled by news of this week’s killings of journalists at Charlie Hebdo, France’s beloved satirical newspaper, by two French Muslim brothers of Algerian descent, Chérif and Saïd Kouachi. I’ve been haunted by footage I saw of these gunmen’s shooting of a police officer in cold blood on a Parisian street where our good friends live and where we regularly stay. The killing of four hostages in the Jewish kosher grocery store by another jihadist activist, followed by the French police’s shooting of all three gunmen, has made this a traumatic week for France and the world.

Should we be surprised by these killings? Offense, resentment, and shame carried by many young Muslim men and others on the margins today incite rage. In this case, the rage is directed against the dishonoring gaze and mocking words of journalism that appears to consider nothing sacred, except free speech.

In the twenty years of my chaplaincy ministry in our local jail and in prisons around the world, I have witnessed the consequences of the exercise of free speech over and over. Exercising your freedom of speech to say whatever you want in a prison context (and many other places too) is possible, but it is not advised, especially if your words increase offense and lead to a sense of powerlessness and shame when the offended one may not have an effective way to respond. If you disrespect someone’s mother, girlfriend, or even fellow gang member, you will likely pay the consequences at some point.

Cartoons of a naked Prophet Mohammed published by Charlie Hebdo, as well as images of the victims of Israel’s recent bombing of Gaza or America’s tortured detainees add to many Muslim people’s experience of being disrespected by the powerful status quo. Chérif and Saïd Kouachi sought to vindicate the honor of Mohammed (and his followers).

Many second generation immigrants, like Chérif Kouachi and his brother (who was orphaned and then raised in France’s foster-care system), experience tremendous alienation growing up in Western European countries as disaffected minorities, and they find refuge in their identity as Muslims. Chérif Kouachi was reputed to have been first radicalized in his early twenties when he saw images and heard reports of American soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison.

The tremendous violence unleashed on Palestinians by Israelis has radicalized many young Muslims. Attacks on Muslims in Iraq, Syria and Yemen by Americans and their coalition through bombing raids, drone attacks, incarceration and torture is radicalizing many more. And Western media that dishonors Islam or justifies violent actions against it only adds salt to the wounds.

People all around the world have reacted to the massacre at Charlie Hebdo by identifying with the slaughtered journalists, who have come to represent freedom of speech. Masses of mainstream Westerners with signs “I am Charlie” or “We are Charlie” (“Je suis Charlie”; “Nous Sommes Charlie”) are effectively cloning en masse those viewed by Muslims as dishonoring and mocking Islam.

When the French public and their sympathizers choose to first and foremost stand in solidarity with those champions of freedom of speech such as Charlie Hebdo (the French value of freedom or “liberté”) rather than prioritizing pursuit of communication and mutual understanding with Muslims (the value of brotherhood or “fraternité”), they further dishonor disaffected Muslims, provoking them toward deeper frustration and resentment and increasing violence.

So how might followers of Jesus respond to this escalation of hatred and violence? Jesus warned his disciples: “You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end” (Matthew 24:6). Jesus expects his listeners to be aware that history is heading toward increasing tension and to resist the natural tendencies toward hard- heartedness or violence.

“Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved. This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:12–14). Anyone listening to Jesus is told to not be fearful, but to get on with the highest priority work—announcing the Gospel of the Kingdom. What is this Gospel?

It most certainly does not include Christians identifying with or justifying swift and effective retaliation, increased surveillance, growing suspicion, incarceration, hatred against Muslims, or fear. When James and John ask Jesus if they should call down fire from heaven to consume the Samaritans who refused them entry as they traveled toward Jerusalem, Jesus rebukes them, saying: “You do not know of what spirit you are of. For the son of man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them” (Luke 9:55–56).

Those following Jesus need empowerment by the Holy Spirit to love our neighbors, to love our enemies, and to actively pursue understanding and reconciliation. This includes first taking the log out of our own eyes through confessing our sin and renouncing our violence. We must refuse our natural proclivity to judge the other, and to seek instead understanding with Muslims or anyone we label an “offender.” Honest communication can happen only when we build relationships.

Now we have an opportunity—to refuse to let our love grow cold or be overcome by evil, but to pursue Spirit-guided ways to overcome evil with good; to refuse to let the light of our Gospel be overcome by the darkness, but to shine brightly, so that all can see the light of the face of Christ—the world’s Messiah Savior.

Now is the time to pray for the families and communities of the dead and for the people of France, for God’s comfort and peace. Prayers for peace for the larger European continent are critical at this time, as anti-immigrant political parties are on the rise everywhere, and the scapegoating Muslims and Jew is likely to increase..

In contrast to the shaming gaze, we must seek to look with the compassion of Jesus, who sees the crowds harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd, and then exclaims: “The harvest is plenty but the workers are few: beg the Lord of the harvest to cast out workers into the harvest.”

See– brother of the slain French policeman’s (a Muslim) call to not retaliate

Attend course in Paris “Towards a New Theology and Practice of Liberation,” April 24-26, 2015

Tierra Nueva’s London Certificate in Transformational Ministry at the Margins still has spaces available, January 15-17.

Epiphany reflection: Recognizing the time of our visitation

Angel David, Tierra Nueva’s Honduran director, has been my friend since I met him in his village of Mal Paso 32 years ago. We talk several times a week about life, Tierra Nueva’s coffee farm, and the Bible studies he’s leading.

“Roberto, this story about the magi is beautiful,” he tells me in an unusually animated voice. “We’ve been studying Matthew 2 in the communities, and people love it.”

I ask him what he found most interesting.

“The magi don’t bow down and give gifts to King Herod when they meet him in his palace,” he replied. “They bow before Jesus, a baby from a poor family that nobody important recognized.”

In a country where class divisions separate profesionales (anyone with a high school diploma and above) from gente humilde (humble or poor people) and campesinos (peasants), the magi’s awareness of the high value of Jesus, the humble one, gets people’s attention. In the days of Herod the King they came ready to pledge their allegiance to another, hidden king.

Angel David’s interest piqued mine, prompting me to revisit the story with our two pastors in training, Julio and Salvio.

The story opens with the magi coming to Jerusalem asking: “Where is he who has been born King of the Jews? We saw his star in the East and have come to worship him.” They expect the people in Jerusalem to know about the birth of their king. But King Herod and all Jerusalem were agitated by the magi’s quest for the King of the Jews. Herod, a puppet king of the Jews under Roman occupation, gathers together (Greek synago) all the chief priests and scribes, asking for intelligence on where their Messiah was to be born.

The religious leaders offer their Bible knowledge: Bethlehem is the place. This information facilitates Herod’s later slaughter of all the baby boys two and younger, though the OT Scripture cited in Matthew 2:6 referring to Messiah from Bethlehem describes a commander who is shepherd over God’s people.

“All the chief priests and scribes of the people” they are called. Do they belong to the people (and earthly human powers) more than to God? Or are they betraying the people by complying with the king rather than acting as shepherds. The outsiders, pagan magi (sorcerers, astrologers, astronomers), appear to be the only ones paying attention to God, who is guiding them to the true King.

Today our prophetic vocation is continually at risk of being co-opted by cultural and political forces. Noteworthy in this story is the leaders’ intellectual knowledge of where the Messiah was to be born, combined with their total ignorance that the King of the Jews (their king) has arrived. The pagan outsiders are more in touch with the Spirit. Later, Jesus will address the city of Jerusalem regarding its’ impending destruction “because you did not recognize the time of your visitation (Luke 19:44ff). Do we, too, risk missing our visitation?

King Herod calls for the magi, asking for the exact time of the star’s appearance, and then sends them to Bethlehem on a mission: “Go and search carefully for the child; and when you have found him, report to me, so that I too may come and worship him.”

The magi do not need help from the king or the religious leaders. They “went their way,” and did not search carefully or find Jesus as a result of their inquiry. The star goes before them until it stops over where the Christ was.” Upon seeing the star, the same star they had seen in the East, guide them right to the child king, the wise men rejoice “with exceedingly great joy.”

They are never abandoned in their search, but are personally guided to God’s Messiah. They are not guided by religious leaders or politicians, but by stars that God had created to mark “signs and seasons, days and years” (Genesis 1:14). They, together with the humble shepherds alerted by angels, are the select few witnesses of this first Epiphany. This realization brings them great joy.

When you experience God communicating personally with you to guide you the truth, this results in rejoicing exceedingly with great joy, a quality of joy I long to experience in 2015 and beyond.

Jesus himself is described as being filled with this joy when he says: “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants.” (Matthew 11:25). Deliver us, oh God, from the wisdom and intelligence of this world that keeps us in the dark regarding who you are and what you are doing.

When the magi enter the house and see this child who is the true King of the Jews, they fall to the ground and worship him. As Angel David observed, they do not offer their gifts and homage to Herod, the official king of the Jews. Rather they present gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the unrecognized child king, who later dies—rejected by the authorities and the people—between two thieves as “King of the Jews” (Matthew 27:37).

The magi embody the subversive worship of Jesus as King that refuses allegiance to the powers and the people, putting total trust in God’s revelation to discover the good and to avoid evil designs. Rather than reporting back to Herod as ordered, “having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod,” the magi leave for their own country by another way” (Matthew 2:12).

Today I feel inspired by my friend Angel David and by this story to join the magi on “their way.” I want to be led by God’s unusual means to discover and rediscover Jesus, the King of the oppressed and of all people.

I pray for mercy not to be trapped inside the “all” of the religious leaders, who had intellectual knowledge and an audience with the powers, but who missed their time of visitation, the appearance of Jesus. I pray for a movement of Christ followers who are alert to God’s guidance to go “another way,” the way indicated by God, who leads all who are willing to pay attention back to their lands to bear witness to Jesus and his beautiful Kingdom.

Consider attending “Towards a New Theology and Practice of Liberation”, April 2015, Paris

Palestinian shepherd and sheep on site of one of Herod’s palaces near Bethlehem

 

Freedom Not Incarceration

This week marks twenty years that I have served as chaplain to inmates in Skagit County Jail. Embodying and communicating God’s grace and love to prisoners in jails, prisons and immigration detention centers through one-on-one visits, advocacy, Bible studies, and worship services needs to grow in quality and reach in North America and around the world. At the same time, I see the need to expose and counter the lie that incarceration is necessary or redemptive the way we now practice it.

Protesters in Ferguson, Missouri, and around the nation express outrage fueled by racial profiling and mass incarceration of African Americans and other people of color that has been systemic in the American justice system. Gang activity thrives in prisons and is exported to the streets here and abroad. The fruits of imprisonment are resentment, hatred, vengeance, and exponential violence and death.

Now America is reaping what we have sown nationally and around the world. Recent news that seventeen of Islamic State’s top twenty-five leaders were imprisoned together by US captors in an Iraqi prison in southern Iraq (Camp Bucca) reveals how prison provides an ideal environment for nursing hatred, organizing resistance, and plotting revenge.

The execution of Western hostages by Islamic State demonstrates the wound of shame inflicted by the United States’ post-9/11 incarceration and war-making policies. Western hostages were dressed in orange prison uniforms and handcuffed at their executions, evoking Guantanamo Bay prison clothing and treatment.

The recent release of the CIA torture report documenting the use of clandestine prisons and “enhanced interrogation techniques” (torture) gives us a glimpse into the evil practices underlying widespread hatred against the United States. These practices have continued in more sterile form. The extensive use of drones by the Obama Administration to target and kill America’s enemies is leading to hatred and revenge killings now, and it will lead to an increasingly bitter harvest of chaos and death in the future.

I am continually struck by the clarity of Jesus’ agenda regarding prisoners and enemies. Jesus offers no apologetic for incarcerating, interrogating, torturing or killing. He came to proclaim release to the prisoners (Luke 4:18), echoing his Father’s commitment throughout the Old Testament to bring the oppressed out of slavery and into freedom. Jesus came to save us for our sins, not to punish us. Freeing rather than incarcerating prisoners requires a vast commitment to holistic transformation.

Last week we met with the Skagit County jail chief and lieutenant to discuss ways that Tierra Nueva’s jail ministry can have more access to inmates. We were encouraged by the jail chief’s plans to include rehabilitation programs and greater pastor access to inmates in the new jail. We clearly need to reform our current jail and prison systems.

In the face of a recent poll showing that 59% of the American public supports the use of torture, I feel called to pray and work for true justice and peace, for God’s Kingdom to come, and for a movement of faith-based reconciliation. Now is the time to proclaim Jesus’ mission of forgiveness and love of enemies, as well as his offer of abundant life for all, including offenders. Now we must seek to not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21).

Guided to God’s Priorities

Last week I returned from a trip to Honduras with my Tierra Nueva colleague, Mike Neelley. There we experienced the Spirit’s guidance towards both the “least of these” and towards church leaders with whom we needed to be reconciled for the sake of Jesus’ Kingdom.

Honduran Tierra Nueva director Angel David Calix had planned that we visit some of his family and our old friends, assuming this would be good. En route to the village he received calls from his brother who stated he needed to take care of his cattle. Then David learned that his sister-in-law was off to a larger town to receive a remittance from a daughter in Spain. He thought of the parable of the banquet in Luke 14:16-24, where invited guests excused themselves in favor of pressing obligations, causing the host to send out invitations to the poor and the crippled, the blind and the lame along “highways and byways”. Who then should we visit before our scheduled gathering with the faith community?

As David was considering what we should do he felt God brought to mind people on the extreme margins of his community: an older woman Veneranda, known as the village witch who he’s been reaching out to, her granddaughter Izaguiere, whose husband had died of AIDS and her daughter, Alejandra, both of whom are infected and shunned by the community. Others came to mind who live on the outer edges of a village that had suffered a massive exodus of over 25 families after eight men had been murdered in a string of vengeance killings. David, Mike and I visited and prayed for a number of families along this trail on our way to the gathering, where we sang, discussed a text from the Bible and prayed (see http://youtu.be/MdmYpiLx4nE).

Several of people who had once been part of our group stayed in their homes because they are now attending the Baptist church. Pastors prohibit their members from going to any other gatherings, which sadly means that any of our people who attend other churches are under their control and therefore “off limits”. As I was preparing to travel to Honduras I kept finding myself praying for unity between Christians, and thought that maybe we should seek out some pastors, offering to pray for them in a gesture of reconciliation.

The next day was to be spent in Minas de Oro, going house to house meeting and praying with families who David regularly visits as part of our “Hogares en Transformation” (Homes in Transformation) emphasis. We hiked high into the mountains above the town to meet and pray for Juan Baptista (John the Baptist), a man who had spent his life drinking and fighting, who now is serving as one of David’s right hand men (pictured below).

I noticed off in the distance a team of oxen yoked to a traditional trapiche, a press used to extract the juice out of sugar cane to make sugar. I wanted Mike to see this operation and asked David if we could take a detour. He said there was time in our schedule to stop by the sugar-making operation. As we were walking I remembered that Doña Petrona, the widow of one of our first Tierra Nueva promoters lived just beyond the trapiche. I asked David if we could visit her place and he agreed. As we approached Petrona’s house her son, a man in his late thirties named Noel, greeted us and offered to escort us to his mom’s adobe house further up the mountain.

He shared how 32 years before he had accompanied his father to our first course on sustainable farming at our farm on the outskirts of town. He expressed gratitude for Tierra Nueva and then told us that he was the pastor of the Baptist church. This was a total surprise, and I realized that we were being guided by the Holy Spirit right into this important meeting.

As Doña Petrona served us all strong, sweet Honduran coffee we shared Tierra Nueva’s mission to share Jesus’ extravagant love to people on the margins. He said he hadn’t known this was our mission. We offered to pray for him and he was deeply moved, saying that pastors in Honduras rarely if ever have people offer to pray for him or other pastors he knew. I felt a strong confirmation that my sense of urgency about praying for pastors was part of God’s agenda for this trip, which led us to visit Lucho, the pastor of a Pentecostal church in town. He welcomed our prayers, as did a number of Catholic lay leaders and priests in training, over the next few days.

It was exciting to experience the Spirit’s guidance as we traveled from village to village, from house to house. May you, too, experience God’s guidance as you go about your daily tasks this Christmas season.

Please pray for David as he continues to reach out to pastors, promoting unity in a deeply divided community. Listen to his description of his mission here http://youtu.be/w_rIVO_uDmY

Pray also pray for healing of Isaguire and her daughter Alejandra and for ongoing conversion for their grandmother Veneranda, as she is now actively turning away from the dark side to Jesus.

We are seeking to raise $20,000 to build buildings in Mal Paso and Minas de Oro that will serve as a training centers and gathering places for our growing faith communities. If you would like to contribute you can give electronically through this link: https://www.egsnetwork.com/gift/gift.php?giftid=E4EB2CF9D2AC4AF. Or, you can send donations to Tierra Nueva, Attn: Honduras, PO Box 161, Burlington, WA 98233, USA.

Being Remembered

The men in jail with whom I read Scripture are often moved by Jesus’ embrace of the thief dying beside him who pleads: “Jesus, remember me when you enter your kingdom.” Jesus’ immediate response, “Today you will be with me in Paradise,” is a promise of personally being included in his company– the best news the thief could hope to hear.

Being called by name and included is synonymous with being valued, wanted and acknowledged: “His sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out” (John 10:3). Jesus told his disciples to “rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven” (Luke 10:20).

It is very common for the men and women in jail to tattoo the names of their kids on their bodies. So God remembers us to the point of tattooing us on his hands: “I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands” (Jer. 49:16).  Being remembered and remembering another indicate that we are known, valued and cherished.

Recently I was driving down to a state prison where I minister to Spanish-speaking inmates. Suddenly I thought of the name of a man I used to visit in that prison, a man whom I have known for 19 years. He had a dramatic conversion while in prison, and we had been in regular contact the last two years of his sentence. I met with him a few times during the summer after his release as he’d expressed interest in getting involved in our ministry. When he stopped returning my calls, I stopped by his house several times but never found him home.

I had stopped pursuing this man, but God who never forgets brought him to mind and gave me a strong urge to call him. A close friend of his answered the phone. She told me she was there with him in the hospital and passed the phone to him. I was shocked to hear that he had survived a serious car accident early that morning and was in bad shape. After the Bible study in the prison that day, I visited him in the hospital. Bashed and bruised, with pain throughout his body, he told me he wanted to get back into regular contact with me and return to God. He happily received prayer.

A few days later I visited him at his home. I shared how his name had popped into my head as I was driving and how surprised I was that I’d called on the day he was hospitalized.

“You mean you didn’t know I’d been in an accident?” he asked, even more surprised. He then went on to share how I’d called him at other crazy times.

“One time at like two in the morning you called me from some airport in Europe or somewhere. I had just put on my ski mask and loaded my gun and was ready to go out to do a job. You asked me how I was and if I was staying out of trouble. It creeped me out, and I called the hommies and told them I wasn’t going out.”

Last Monday while teaching a Hebrew-based exegesis course on Isaiah 49, I was moved by the literal translation of Isaiah 49:1: “Listen to me, O islands, and pay attention, you peoples from afar. The Lord called me from the womb; from the body he caused my name to be remembered” [literal translation].

The servant mentioned here is Israel in Babylonian captivity, suffering the consequences of an “offender” people group. The servant is described earlier as blind and deaf, “a people plundered and despoiled; all of them are trapped in caves, or are hidden away in prisons” (Isa. 42:18–20). Yet the Lord had chosen the servant, putting his Spirit upon him to bring justice, to be “a light to the nations, to open blind eyes and bring out prisoners from the dungeon” (Isa. 42:1,6–7).

The downtrodden (but called) servant addresses the pagan peoples, telling how God had caused his name to be remembered from the time he was born—a sign of God’s persistent and personal love. The servant knew this would be good news that would move the far-away people, just as it moved my friend from the jail.

How does God cause people’s names to be remembered today? Who is remembering the names of those often forgotten: offenders, the excluded, and us– people suffering the consequences of personal or other people’s sin?

God’s coming into the world in Jesus shows us that the primary way God acts in the world is through people. God speaks to us, bringing people to mind for whom we’re called to intercede and possibly visit, call or pursue in some way. Gracie and I often think of people, sometimes in the middle of the night, and pray specific prayers we each feel moved to pray—only to learn later that the timing was really important.

May we attune our ears to God’s voice this Advent and respond, stepping into partnership with God’s outreach to others—a pursuit that concretely demonstrates to people that they are remembered, valued and loved.

 

On another note: Gracie and I were in Toronto with a team from Paris leading a training on holistic liberation.  Here are two of our presentations from October 24 (mine is the first hour, followed by that of my friend from Paris, Gilles Boucomont). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QA9Rc47FBY&list=UUI2UfDEgXYiMOaMowryN_IQ