Easter is etymologically linked to the Hebrew word, pascha, or Passover. Death “passed over” the Israelites during their escape from Egyptian oppression.  In Easter, Jesus becomes the new pascha where death, in all its manifestations, still passes over. In Easter, death throws up its feeble arms and surrenders itself to—

Life.

For the mother who fears the last scrape of the pot for her hungry child? Easter.
For the child who’s stolen from her village and sold? Easter.
For the father who can no longer face the shame of poverty? Easter.
For the people ravaged by war? Easter.
For our disappointments, our drudgery, our grief? Easter.

Save us from our fragile selves, O God;
Pass over this broken earth.
Easter us
We pray.

In most of the world today, to be a woman is to be poor.  Women comprise 70 percent of the poor, 66 percent of those who cannot read, nearly 80 percent of the world’s refugees, and 75 percent of the sick.[1]  While women comprise half the world, they do nearly two-thirds of the world’s work and receive only 10 percent of the world’s income.[2]  They are the majority of the world’s farmers, but own a mere 1 percent of property.  Women care for most of the world’s sick, but are less likely to receive treatment when they are ill. Childbirth remains the leading cause of death and injury to women worldwide.  Women caught in war zones face rape as a weapon of the enemy and as the prize of the victors. [3]  More than 1 million girls are trafficked each year, many into sex slavery.  And then there are women that are simply not here:  economist Amartya Sen estimates more than 100 million girls are missing from the world today due to years of “gendercide” in countries like China and India.[4]

Wake up, oh world, for the women among us suffer.

____________

Notes:
[1] Birmingham, B., “Half the Sky and Then Some,” Prism Magazine (Fall 2010, Vol), p. 6.
[2] Barret, D., and Johnston, T., World Christian Trends, 2003, William Cary Library Publishers: Pasadena, CA.
[3] Clinton, H.R., “Remarks at the UN Commission on the Status of Women,” March 12, 2010, New York, online at www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/138320.htm
[4] Gendercide, The Economist, March 6^th, 2010, p. 13

The gospel at its best deals with the whole man, not only his soul but his body, not only his spiritual well-being, but his material well being. Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial. – Martin Luther King, Jr, 1960

Strong words but from a man who gave his life for justice.

Mark Dever from Capital Baptist illustrates the Gospel with a camera. Put on the zoom lens and what does the Gospel look like? Heart change, repentance, and conversion, all resulting from an encounter with Christ.

Change out the zoom for a wide angle and you see a broad swath of society, a neighborhood, or a village. What does the Gospel look like? Love for one another. Trust and honesty. Productivity, employment,  and opportunity. Creativity and dignity. Healthy children. In short, peace, or shalom as the Hebrews call it.

Zoom without the wide angle, and wide angle without the zoom is insufficient. We need both: the whole Gospel.

The night was anything but silent.

“In the days of Herod…” So begins the story of Jesus according to Luke. Herod became King of Judea through a massacre. During his reign, He murdered his wife and his wife’s mother. He slaughtered infants in Bethlehem. At his death, He decrees a hippodrome full of prominent citizens must also die.

Caesar Augustus, Herod’s boss and emperor of Rome, was a tyrant too. Along well-traveled roads, lawbreakers and dissidents were regularly crucified. Innocent people were constantly oppressed. Young girls were enslaved for taxes unpaid.

These events were all too common during a period called Pax Romana, or “Roman Peace,” initiated by Augustus, the adopted son of Julius Caesar, the first emperor “god of the Roman State” making Augustus, the “son of god.”

Amidst this historical context, what do we hear?

Singing.

Mary sings, “He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.”

Zechariah sings: “He has come to his people and redeemed them..from our enemies and from the land of all who hate us…”

And a chorus of angels sing “…peace on earth.”

Three songs, each revolutionary–each a cry of suffering and song of deliverance. Mary? She could have been enslaved for her seditious lyrics. Zachariah? Executed for his. The chorus of angels declaring “peace” during the high tide of Pax Romana? Treason. Gabriel, proclaming the birth of the Son of God to Augustus, the son of god? A coup d’état, punishable by death.

Into a world saturated with pain and injustice, a light dawns. An unlikely pair: a peasant mother and trembling father. An improbable hero:  a defenseless child from the periphery. And, an impossible plan: a life of sacrificial love to overcome a world of violent suffering.

Unto us, a child is born.

When most people think of church, they picture a building. This makes sense, actually. The word “church” originated during the time of Constantine from a classical Greek word, kuriakon, which meant a sacred building, or dedicated temple.

But the biblical word for church doesn’t refer to a building at all.  Ecclesia simply means “called out,” a people gathered. For many, this definition, together with the verse “Where two or three are gathered in my name…” (Matthew 18:20), forms the essence of church. Beyond this, certain traditions add the “marks of the church” (one, holy, catholic, and apostolic) along with various sacraments such as baptism and communion.

Such a vision is incomplete. It leaves the church crippled.

In the Gospels, Jesus sends out his disciples “to preach the kingdom and heal the sick” (Luke 9:1). He commissions them to “Go…” into all nations (Matthew 28:18). And he empowers them to become “witnesses in Jerusalem, Samaria, and to the ends of the world” (Acts:18).  The word for “sent” (apostollos in Greek and missio in Latin) is invoked more than 100 times in the New Testament, and the idea of sending is a dominant theme throughout the entire Bible. The Father sends His Spirit to “brood over the waters…” just in the opening pages of Genesis. God sends his son into the world not to condemn it, but to save it (John 3:17). Since the beginning of time, God’s been on a mission to redeem, to heal, and restore.

The idea of sending is not reserved for apostles and missionaries. To be church is to be called and sent, to worship and serve, to gather and scatter. A disciple cannot escape it. Both are are indispensable. They are inseparable. The church gathered breathes in the life of God. The church scattered gives it away.  One without the other suffocates. One without the other cripples.

So, what is church?

People who gather in the name of Jesus to worship, commune, and draw strength…in order to…heal a suffering world as the hands and feet of Christ.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Let’s rethink church.

Six tenths of one percent of the federal budget is devoted to helping the poorest people around the world combat hunger, disease, illiteracy, and other issues related to extreme poverty. As a country, we’ve shown the world that all people have worth, dignity, despite their place of origin or their plight. Today we’re mindful of the Somalis and Kenyan’s living in Turkana who are experiencing famine or near famine conditions.

While a small percentageo of our budget, six tenths of one percent means a lot to those who receive aid.  For many, it’s a matter of life and death. Millions of lives have been saved because of the assistance our nation provides.  Much of the aid is channeled through relief and development groups like World Relief that multiply its effectiveness by working through local churches and community groups, empowering people to help themselves.

In 2011, our international assistance budget was cut by 11 percent.  For 2012, the House of Representatives has recommended a further 30 percent reduction.  While saving money and reducing the federal deficit is very important, this is the wrong place to cut.  We did not get into the fiscal mess we are in by spending too much on the world’s poor.  If we withdraw from urgently needed assistance programs now, millions will die and the world will become a more unstable place, potentially requiring us to engage in costly military interventions.

In the end, it’s not a budget issue or a political one. It’s a moral issue.  Will we put ourselves before those who need urgent help?

The Senate is making budget decisions right now that will impact millions of lives around the world.  The Senate Appropriations Committee has approved international assistance funding for 2012 at roughly the same level as 2011.  This is much preferable to the amount approved in the House.  The full Senate will be voting in the next few days on the funding bill.  Your Senators need to hear from you now.  Ask them to approve international assistance at the level set by the Appropriations Committee.  Ask them to reject amendments to further cut international assistance.

Let’s ask not for ourselves, but for those who suffer.

Wide swaths of wheat and apple-laden branches lined the road as I travelled with a delegation of Christian leaders to visit the Broetje Orchards in Prescott, Washington on August 30^th.  The sky was vast and cloudless in southeastern Washington, the country’s largest producer of apples.

Ralph and Cheryl Broetje invited us to see their business and ministry first-hand and to pray and strategize together towards immigration reform.   The Broetje orchard began years ago when Ralph bought a cherry orchard to help the suffering children of India.  As the Broetjes grew their orchard, they transitioned from cherries to apples as their main crop, and they also saw their workforce change from U.S. migrant families to primarily Latino men and women. The changing workforce sparked a curiosity among the Broetje family so they traveled to Mexico.  The Broetjes learned how their workers often fled dire situations in their homelands to trek a dangerous journey to come to the United States. They understood why mothers and fathers took the risk, all seeking to escape poverty to find a better life for their children.

The Broetjes saw injustice up close; it became personal.

Back home, the Broetjes began to assist their workers in unprecedented ways: employment, child care, schooling, and opportunities to purchase a house and send their kids to college. Today, the Broetjes have 1,000 permanent employees and up to 2,800 during harvest season.  The campus of First Fruits Orchard, one of the largest apple growers in the country, includes two affordable housing communities, an on-site daycare center, as well as an elementary school and a chapel for their employees.

The Broetje Orchards is more than a farm. It’s far greater than a business.  It is a community where each member takes pride in the work that God has put before them.  Martin Luther King called this “the beloved community.”

During our time together, Laura, who is on staff at First Fruits, told us about her cousin who recently tried to cross the border. Because he was diabetic, however, he was left behind to die while the others continued their journey northward to the United States.  She wept, but her tears were not new. She had shed such pain for years as she struggled to come to terms with the death of her cousin.  One man had worked for the Broetjes for over 12 years but worries daily that his family will be deported.  Another woman shared how her husband had been recently deported. Her daughter still waits at the door for her daddy to return.

A common thread emerged as we listened. Each person referred to their faith in God for strength and help in their circumstances.  They do not see themselves as victims. They are courageous—leaders who envision a better country to which they have contributed. They have given their lives to God, their country, and their family.

In sum, their faith inspired mine. Hearing their stories deepened my commitment towards immigration reform. As followers of Christ, at World Relief, we are calling for the restoration and reconciliation of not 11 million people, but of one individual, one family, real people with real stories, many followers of Christ, all broken and hurting. While we need better border security that is enforced according to the best of humanitarian standards, we also need a legal pathway for the millions of undocumented immigrants who meaningfully contribute to our society.

At the base of the Statue of Liberty, we read these words: “Give me your tired, your poor/Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free/The wretched refuse of your teeming shore/Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me/I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”  Yet, today, immigrants are scorned and considered an invasion, or threat, to our culture. They are afraid. The Broetje community in southeastern Washington State lives up to Liberty’s welcome. They seek to restore in each person a sense of worth and dignity, people made in the image of God who are valuable to their community.

While the Broetjes have taken bold steps of faith to see immigration not as a threat, but as an opportunity, the story is not finished.  Many of the migrant workers continue to leave in insecurity and pain.  Families are torn apart.  Hopes are dashed.

When one part of the body suffers, we all suffer (1 Corinthians 12). We cannot ignore the cry of the oppressed. Would you stand with me by joining the Broejtes in prayer? Justice begins with commitment.

Take a risk for justice.

Tin, tungsten, and tantalum are at the heart of the loodshed that plagues Eastern Congo. Novelist Joseph Conrad referred to the exploitation of Congo’s minerals as “the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience.”

When Western nations banned the use of lead-based solder in electronic equipment in 2002, tin became the mineral of choice for soldering and, Eastern Congo, an inexpensive source (1). Tantalum, used in iPods and cell phones, also comes from Congo. So does tungsten, which helps make Blackberries vibrate.

But tin, tungsten, and tantalum have been one of the leading causes of armed violence ravaging the Congo, thus the name “conflict minerals”. The proceeds of mines, along with illegal taxes collected on roads and border crossings controlled by rebel groups, militias and government soldiers, bankrolled virtually every armed group in the region (2).

To abate the flow of money from minerals mined in eastern Congo, the US government included a clause in the financial reform legislation of July 2010, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The aim of the Dodd Frank conflict minerals law was to prevent US companies from fuelling violence through their sourcing practices. Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat for whom the act is partly named, said, “The purpose is to cut off funding to people who kill people.”

But a recent New York Times editorial says the bill is having the opposite affect. The law, which has brought about a defacto embargo of tin, tungsten, and tantalum, has hurt those earning a few dollars a day from mining:

“The pastor at one church [said] that women were giving birth at home because they couldn’t afford the $20 or so for the maternity clinic. Children are dropping out of school because parents can’t pay the fees. Remote mining towns are virtually cut off from the outside world because the planes that once provisioned them no longer land. Most worrying, a crop disease periodically decimates the region’s staple, cassava. Villagers who relied on their mining income to buy food when harvests failed are beginning to go hungry” (3).

Meanwhile, it appears some warlords have turned to kidnapping and extortion to replace their lost income from tin, tungsten, and tantalum.

Complex? Absolutely. The implications of certain policies are unsettling and certainly require further review.  Meanwhile, our work at the grassroots level has never been more important. Communities are being restored. Families have returned to their homes with tools, seeds, and agricultural training. Victims have been helped. And, everyday thousands of clients, most of them women, receive low interest loans through World Relief’s community banks to start or grow small businesses.

Join me as we continue to stand with the people of the Congo.

Click here to learn about World Relief’s work in Eastern Congo

Notes:
1. Tin recently reached $25,000 a ton on the international market.
2. The major groups are the FDLR [Forces démocratiques de liberation du Rwanda], the Congolese national army, FARDC, and members of the former CNDP [Congrès national pour la défense du peuple] rebel group.
3. New York Times editorial, August 7, 2011, David Aronson.