Rubble

There was an article in the paper the other day about how the Pentagon was being asked to explain a recent purchase. They had purchased new uniforms for the Afghan Army at a cost of $28 million. A major problem is, the uniforms have a proprietary forest camouflage scheme on them while Afghanistan is 98% desert and woodlands only cover 2% of the terrain. 

The U.S. Inspector General criticized the purchase in June and has begun criminal proceedings. Senator McCaskill, of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, wants answers and the House Armed Services Committee is investigating. The Pentagon admits it has spent $93 million since 2007 on private label uniforms for the Afghan Army without competitive bidding. If they were to simply use a desert camouflage pattern owned by the U.S. military and not being presently used, they could save $71 million over the next decade.

It makes one wish we still had a Senator William Proxmire, the originator of the Golden Fleece Award in 1975. He would issue the award in a monthly press release to illustrate how government agencies were being charged excessively or spending foolishly for goods and services. The Defense Department was often the recipient of the Golden Fleece. It's not easy to forget the $640 toilet seats they purchased that won the award.

When the Inspector Generals' Office audited the Army last year they found trillions of dollars in accounting mistakes. They found missing receipts and invoices, 16,000 missing files, "unreliable data" and came to the conclusion that the finances of the Army could be "materially misstated."

The Pentagon is legally mandated to be ready for a full audit by September 30 of this year. Legislation has been introduced to impose penalties if they are not ready. Since the Pentagon has never been audited before, and one study they buried last year showed $125 billion in unaccounted for spending, it will be a major undertaking to clarify where our tax money is really going. Especially when the bureaucracy at desks, over a million employees and contractors, is almost as large as those in the active military.

And yet, there will be a bipartisan effort to endorse or provide more than the $50 billion increase the President is proposing for the Defense Department. Go figure!

It's not just the wasted money! It's the absolute irrationality of the perpetual and pervasive acceptance of violence as the preferred option that has entered the psyche of our society and is sucking the life blood out of our democracy and economy.

I watched with absolute horror our "success" in Mosul the other evening on PBS. The reporter is walking through the rubble with Iraqi military as they continue to make sure all the ISIS soldiers are eliminated and any potential sympathizers are taken into custody. They lead one person away, since no one else knows him. He's suspect! One wonders what happens to him outside the range of the camera. Others are digging through the rubble to find the bodies of family members. The death toll of civilians stands around 40,000. ISIS produced many but so did U.S. supported air strikes. One word describes much of  Mosul today, rubble.  It made me think of the Vietnam war days, when "we had to destroy the village to save it."

I'm also thinking about Vietnam after an extended conversation with a Vietnam era vet this week. He was dropped into the jungles a few hours after they had been sprayed with agent orange. His physical disabilities have escalated over the years to the point where he can't describe the pain he feels. Call it full body! And don't watch the recent film on the after-effects of agent orange and other munitions on the people of Vietnam. That horror will invade your dreams.

We measure military success these days in body counts and rubble, like Mosul, declaring "victory" here and there and so easily ignoring the aftermath. 

Let the decision makers dig the corpses of children out of the Mosul rubble. Let them serve in the institutions sheltering broken bodies in Vietnam. Have them sit down and talk with a vet willing to describe their past and continuing experience of hell. Maybe then they would recognize there are other ways to resolve international conflicts than always through violence and war. What ever happened to our State Department and diplomacy?

Carl Kline

 Lesson from Charlottesville

         The havoc in Charlottesville, Virginia that resulted in the murder of Heather Heyer, the deaths of two police officers, and the injury of 19 other people has brought us yet again to a time of national soul searching. Some members of Congress have introduced a bill to censure the president who one day strongly denounced the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups, and the very next day just as clearly endorsed the ideology of these same groups. Mayors in a number of cities have taken bolder action as they have removed statues honoring leaders of the Confederate States of America. Meanwhile, white supremacist groups are planning for more demonstrations and reportedly are recruiting new members and successfully raising funds. The question Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. asked in 1967 is as timely as ever, “Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?” (Beacon Press, 1968).

There is growing awareness, if not consensus, that the United States is a race-based nation, and that racism is a white problem. Therefore, the attitudes and actions of white people will, to a large extent, determine how we answer the above question posed by Dr. King. But, as President Barack Obama noted in an acclaimed speech on race which he delivered in 2008, we are “stuck in a racial stalemate.” Obama’s speech was necessitated by a fiery sermon on race delivered by his pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, which had so enflamed white people that it threatened to derail Obama’s run for the presidency.

Now, nearly a decade later, we  remain stuck in a racial stalemate. Evangelical leaders like Liberty University President Jerry Falwell, Jr., and Pastor Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Dallas have strongly defended the president’s support of white supremacist groups and denounced as “fake news” reports that depict him as a racist. At the same time, Civil Rights champions like the Reverend William Barber II and the Reverend Liz Theoharis are giving leadership to a new “Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival,” which will coincide with the 50^th anniversary of the Poor People’s Campaign led by Dr. King in 1968. Denouncing racist statements from the White House and from evangelical pastors, Barber has declared that the purpose of the 2018 Poor People’s Campaign is 

“to build a moral army of love.”The fierce debate on race that is taking place within the Christian community and more broadly across the nation is, I believe, a positive sign for it means that we are moving past our racial stalemate. We have to take sides. But I suggest in the following that the present crisis is about more than taking sides. Speaking as a white Protestant pastor, I contend that it is time for the church to rediscover its authentic witness to the gospel, and “bring good news to the poor” (Luke 4: 18, NRSV). The summons is to come together in “deep solidarity,” to use a phrase coined by religious scholar Joerg Rieger of Vanderbilt University. Deep solidarity depends on finding common ground on which diverse communities may stand without erasing or ignoring differences that have the potential to divide us.

I suggest that the Golden Rule is our moral common ground, “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you” (Mt. 7: 12, NRSV). Religious scholar Karen Armstrong reminds us that the Golden Rule, stated both positively and negatively, is central to all religious life and it is the source of all morality.

Reviving the spirit of the Golden Rule is essential both for the survival of the human project and for our integrity as people of faith. Without such a revival we cannot be true to ourselves or our witness to the Christian gospel. Our faith will become inauthentic. James Baldwin examines the lack of authenticity among people of faith in his classic book, The Fire Next Time (Dell, 1964). Here he writes that white Americans find it difficult “to divest themselves of the notion that they are in possession of something of intrinsic value that black people need and want.” He continues, “A vast amount of energy that goes into what we call the Negro problem is produced by the white man’s profound desire not to be judged by those who are not white . . . . It is for this reason that love is so desperately sought and so cunningly avoided” (127,128). Baldwin alleges that white people do not wish to know the truth about themselves, or take responsibility for their own lives and what goes on in our country. The combination of white power and white denial leaves white people trapped in “burning house” (127) of “moral contradiction” and “spiritual aridity” (130). People of color do not want to be assimilated into this burning house, and white people refuse to leave it. Thus our stalemate. Baldwin calls upon white people to examine and re-examine everything we believe about ourselves and about this country.

Viewed from another perspective, the social model of racism is that of a zero-sum society. More for “them,” (people of color) means less for “us,” (white people). This rigid model devalues cooperation resulting in an uncompromising structure that is violence prone when besieged by real or imaginary threats. White supremacists, in the binary, zero-sum, society, are worried about survival, while multiculturalist live in the illusion that people of color want to be and can be assimilated into a society that has systemically rejected them for 500 years. Both groups operate out of an inauthentic narrative. The former deny white privilege; the latter acknowledge white privilege and affirm the need to treat all people with equal dignity and respect, but often find themselves feeling alienated from white-dominated institutions and networks of power. Both groups feel trapped in a world that is either beyond their control or out of control and, therefore, become ensnared in webs of inauthenticity when what they truly want is to live authentic lives.

The Golden Rule is rooted in a social model that is truer to our actual lived experience than the zero-sum model, and it’s more conducive to a society in which the ethic of deep solidarity can be put into practice. The practical cost of refusing to incorporate this ethic into our daily lives is twofold. First, we will see replications of events in Charlottesville in other communities and an escalation of violence. Second, we will experience a hollowing out of the Christian faith as the fundamental norm of the Golden Rule and the actual social practices of the church grow further and further apart.

The alternative to this vortex of violence is to engage in the difficult and sometimes dangerous but always rewarding work of creating genuine relationships for the sake of building communities in which everyone can flourish and in which Christian communities can give an authentic witness to the faith they profess. What is at stake for the church is whether Christianity becomes an increasingly narrow and privatized personal faith, or a constructive presence that is able to deal with the life and death issues of our time?

Lastly, we, as Christians, must come to a clearer understanding of power in our political economy. Is power best placed in the hands of the elite, or does it need to be built from the bottom up? Answering this question entails examination of existing power structures and networks, identifying winners and losers in today’s political economy, and forging what I call “Golden Rule alliances” of deep solidarity.

The lesson from Charlottesville is that we cannot remain stuck in a racial stalemate.  As Dr. King wrote in the conclusion of Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, “We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent coannihilation. This may well be mankind’s [sic] last chance to choose between chaos and community” (191).

Rev. David P. Hansen  PhD

These are the Words…

Small Expressions of Hate that are Really Not So Small

        They were two separate incidents, each causing hurt and confusion, each happening recently, within about a block of each other. On one occasion, about two months ago, I was standing in front of a local church where I had gone for an interfaith clergy meeting, people coming together to share and support, joined through differences. As I was about to enter the church, I had a phone call that a friend had a just died. Knowing that I would officiate, I walked quickly back to the car to make phone calls and respond to immediate needs. As I got to the car, parked just back from the street, a jogger approached and suddenly stopped, somewhat breathless. Turning toward me, he raised his fist high in the air and yelled, “BDS Israel!” I was stunned and taken aback, feeling threatened by a raised fist and a raised voice. With so much swirling in my head at that moment, I couldn’t quite process what had happened, all so quickly. At first, I wondered what does he know of my politics or of me? Does he know I am Jewish, or that I am a rabbi?  Then, I realized the obvious, it was my yarmulkah, of course, and that he was responding to me as a Jew. It was not about politics, therefore, but about something deeper, about whom I am as a person and as part of a people. I would have been willing to have a political discussion and to explore the web of associations from which his verbal assault came.  More importantly, I would have welcomed a person-to-person sharing, to have arranged to meet, to plan to have coffee at another time when there was not so much on my mind. But then he was gone, continuing to run rather than to engage, even as I turned toward him in my confusion and called out to wait a moment.

     The other occasion was just a week or so ago, right in front of JP Licks. As I approached the store, just before the door, a rather disheveled man was sitting at an outside table with a dog. I had noticed him as I approached, feeling concern for him, wondering of his needs and situation. I thought I might say something, but before I could, just as I came near to him, I heard him snarl loudly under his breath, “Jew!”   Again, my head spun, wondering if I had really heard him, realizing that, of course, I had. 

            Again, it took me a moment to realize that it was my kippah. Covering my head as an expression of relationship to God, an acknowledgement of the holiness to be found in every place and moment, I am both completely unaware of the presence of a small piece of material on my head and completely aware, a merging of realities, knowing and not knowing become as one. I kept going, entering the store, feelings churning, wary of the dog, trying to hold the jagged disconnect between my feelings of concern for the man and the hateful tone of the word he had uttered, a word that describes me. The word “Jew,” beautiful and noble in its essence, in its description of who we are, or terrifying in its utterance, in its association with a yellow star used to identify a hated minority.

           On my way out of the store just a few minutes later, I approached the man, pausing in front of him to make eye contact. I wished him a good day, and then I waited to give him an opportunity to respond. He looked up, as the dog did from its place by the man’s feet, “yeah, have a good day.” I thanked him and continued on my way. Later, I realized I would have liked to say so much more, to sit down, to ask him if he wanted some coffee, to ask if he could understand the pain caused by what he said, perhaps asking where it had come from. Though understanding why I had not said more, I was sorry that I had not had the presence of mind or heart to engage more fully in the moment. However much experience we have had with such expressions of animosity, it is confusing and disorienting when we feel a generic hate directed toward us simply for who we are, not as an individual, but as part of a people or group, or of a particular way in the world, whether bearing on religion, or gender, or sexual identity, or ethnicity or anything else that puts us outside the perspective or experience of the hater.

There are times when we need to go into ourselves and to feel the pain, to share it with each other, whether with words or simply with understanding presence. And yet, we cannot allow the pain to narrow the span of our arms or of our vision. We still need to hold all there is to be held of pain in the world, and even if through tears to see all the work that needs doing, so many others crying too.So it was in the effort to hold that jagged disconnect between my concern for the man and the hateful tone of his utterance.

     Thoughts of these two incidents weighed on me as we approached the Sabbath called Shabbat Chazon/the Sabbath of Vision that precedes the mid-summer day of mourning called Tisha B’Av. The name Shabbat Chazon is drawn from the first word of the prophetic reading for the day, Chazon Yisheyahu/the Vision of Isaiah, his plea to turn from ways that hurt our selves and others, to bring healing and repair through justice and righteousness. That is the way of response if we would heal the world. Jews have shed torrents of tears through these weeks of summer heat that call up hatreds and tragedies of the past and remind us not to be drawn into the vortex, but to rise above it and build anew the Temple of hope and redemption, not a building of stone and wood, of silver and gold, but of love and compassion for ourselves and all within the human family. That is the gift of Tisha B’Av, the ninth day of the month of Av, a day of fasting and mourning for all the hate and destruction that has been. Marking the destruction of both Temples, so the destruction of the world is contemplated, God protect us, the holy houses that stood in Jerusalem each in its time having represented the entire world. Seeds of hope are planted in the midst of destruction. Tradition teaches that the Messiah will be born on Tisha B’Av. So too, this month is referred to as Menachem Av/Av the Comforter. It is not a month as a period of time that itself brings comfort. We are each to be the comforter, drawing from the pain experienced in holding the memories brought before us, and extending our arms to embrace each other and hold all there is to hold.

        On the Sabbath before Tisha B’Av, Shabbat Chazon, we read the Torah portion D’varim (Deut. 1:1-3:22), beginning the last book of the Torah, Sefer D’varim, as Deuteronomy is known in Hebrew. As the portion and the book open, eleh ha’d’varim/these are the words, so that becomes our challenge and our comfort, to use words to connect rather than to divide. As Sefer D’varim, the fifth book of the Torah means literally, the Book of Words. 

               

         From out of confusion, acknowledging our pain in the face of hate, we are called to speak words to heal and not hurt, words to join us one to another. Responding to the small expressions of hate, that are really not so small, as encountered on sidewalks and street corners, whether addressed to us as Jews or to any other person for who they are, may words of love rise above and build soon a temple of peace that is the world itself.

Rabbi Victor H. Reinstein

The Uninhabitable Earth

There's a new apocalyptic article on climate change that deserves a reading by all those concerned about the future. Written by David Wallace-Wells, it's called "The Uninhabitable Earth" and first published in New York Magazine. You don't have to believe it all but I wish you would read it all. it's important we consider the way different elements of life on this planet interact with each other in a warming world.

Whereas most articles focus on one dimension of the problem, Wallace-Wells explores them all. So we read about the continuing rise of sea levels with the melting of ice in the arctic. Some consciousness of how Miami and Bangladesh may disappear in the next 50 to 80 years begins to register. We can't ignore the residents of those small island nations already forced to relocate because of encroaching oceans and we can't hide our heads in the sand but must think about the melting permafrost and huge potential methane releases. And as I read the article, I was aware an enormous iceberg has just broken off the Larsen ice shelf in Antarctica, a trillion ton, 2,400 square mile block of ice.

The article raises anew the threat of food scarcity. We're reminded that 20 million will likely die in Africa this year because of the severity of drought and famine in several countries. This, as I read in the local paper, that the forecast for crops in drought stricken South Dakota is down this year; winter wheat down 56%; spring wheat down 32%; oats down 30%. Warming the earth means declining productivity and nothing grows without adequate water.

There is a recognition in the article of how the oceans are being impacted. We're not just talking about ocean acidification, as if that weren't enough. Dead zones are becoming more common, like off the coast of Namibia and the western coasts of North and South America.  We're also watching as the coral reefs bleach and die. The makers of the film "Chasing Ice" have just released a new film, "Chasing Coral." Both films deserve the widest possible distribution as they give us the visual evidence of what we've been hearing.

There's substantial evidence in the article that we face, in this century; a sun that cooks us (literally, heat deaths); new plagues (think Zika and things like anthrax and bubonic plague, presently buried in Alaskan and Siberian ice); unbreathable air (think increasing ozone, CO2, wildfire smoke, fossil fuel releases in the atmosphere); perpetual war (think many more refugees driven by hunger and unlivable situations); economic collapse (think rural economy with limited agriculture; think flights grounded by extreme heat).

I can't do the article justice in a column. You have to read it for yourself. The important thing is the author is taking a far more holistic approach to the subject. You begin to recognize how the Creation works together for good or for ill. But it's all related. As we say in my church, there's an "Integrity to Creation." And if you mess with one part of it there are effects all over the place.

My own denomination, the United Church of Christ, voted at the recent General Synod a resolution on climate change. As a church, we have always believed in the goodness of God's Creation and our call to be good stewards of it. The recent resolution calls on all of our members to recognize the urgency of healing the climate of the earth, and invites all to exercise moral leadership in that healing, both in private life and in the public square.

In our understanding, we don't gain salvation by believing. And we don't get there alone. Christian faith is about proclaiming and manifesting God's realm right here on earth, right where we are. And that includes treating our home with the honor and respect God's good Creation deserves.

Indigenous people have been trying to tell us for ages that we're connected. You can't kill all the buffalo without changing the nature of the plains. You can't dam up the rivers and expect the salmon to spawn. You can't pump toxic wastes into the earth without poisoning underground water supplies. You can't put carcinogens in the environment and expect humans and animals to be cancer free. You can't continue to burn fossil fuels and expect the global temperature to remain stable.

And the best of our religious traditions teach us the same lessons. Understand what it means to over-reach and don't do it. Appreciate and give thanks for what you've been given. Keep it simple. Watch the ego. Limit your needs so they don't become greeds. Give more than you take. Care about others, especially those who come after you. Love your neighbor. The earth is the Lords, not ours to wreck!

Carl Kline

Our Agenda is Justice 

 David Phillips Hansen

       Our agenda is justice. When the political, economic, and spiritual life of the nation moves toward justice there is joy in the land and the whole body politic is healthier. But today we are confronted by a system of growing inequality and naked injustice. Wealth and power are increasing concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people and corporations. Oppression and exploitation act with impunity. There is work to be done.

        At the moment the future is unclear. Will we become a kleptocracy, as many fear, or a democracy? Will we have a government of the wealthy, for the wealthy, by the wealthy? Or, will we be able to defend, preserve and protect a government of the people, for the people, by the people? The answer to these questions may come sooner than we expect. Government and legislative leaders across the land are telling us that children do not need quality public education, health care is not a right but a privilege, and national parks and monuments are not a treasure to preserve but an economic resource to exploit. We are being asked to believe that people are expendable and the earth is a commodity. 

        But in town hall meetings, congregational gatherings and union halls people are standing up and fighting back. Movements like Black Lives Matter and Resist have taken to the streets and to capital steps. People's courage and commitment is breathtaking. Each of these struggles is necessary. Each is important. What is missing is adequate theological analysis. Our theology is not as helpful as it could be. We need a more adequate understanding of our history. We still want to believe that the United States is "the land of the free and the home of the brave." We want to sing, "My country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty. . . .Long may our land be bright with freedom's holy light."

       We have yet to grapple with the darker side of our nation's history. We cherish the words of the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men [sic] are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." These are powerful words that cause emperors to quake and empires to crumble. But we have forgotten that this same document, the Declaration of Independence, labels American Indians "merciless savages," and it goes on to say that their "known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions." We want to forget that many of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence also bought and sold human beings in the slave market. 

        We have not yet come to terms with this side of our history. We have forgotten that there were 70 to 80 million Indigenous Peoples in the Americas when Columbus "discovered" America in 1492. Native People lived here for 20,000 years or more before the dawn of the European Age of Discovery and Domination. We have not yet come to terms with what historian Charles Mann describes as the largest deforestation project in the history of the world, which happened as Euro-Americans moved from the Atlantic seaboard to the Mississippi River. 

          Only recently have we, white people, been willing to acknowledge that Indian boarding schools were by design what historian David Wallace Adams calls, "education for extinction."   The motto of these schools was "Kill the Indian, save the man." Today some Native Peoples call Indian reservations "extermination centers." Extermination centers in the heart of the land of the free and the home of the brave. We have not yet come to terms with this side of our history. 

        The United States today is a house divided. We have two histories that are met in a single document, the Declaration of Independence. One side extols our virtues, the other side reveals our shame. We have yet to come to terms with the fact that the United States is and was from the beginning a settler nation. White people suffer from what Navajo scholar Mark Charles calls "white trauma." White people are shamed by our history of Indian genocide, Black slavery and ecocide. Because we cannot accept responsibility for our history, we project the myth of American exceptionalism. We tell ourselves that the United States is the last best hope for freedom. We extol the virtues of rugged individualism and the free market. Because we deny the truth about our history, we justify colonial wars in distant lands, and label movements like Black Lives Matter and Resist as terrorist organizations. 

        Because white people suffer historical trauma, we gave tacit assent to then FBI Director James Comey when he formed an Interagency Terrorism Task Force to investigate and interrogate water protectors, members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and their allies who tried to block the North Dakota Access Pipeline. It is not by accident that 480 people were arrested there. Indigenous People were protecting their water and defending the land guaranteed to them by the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851. In that treaty the U.S. government promised the Indians that the land would be theirs as long as the sun rises in the east and the rivers flow. The Fort Laramie Treaty is one of 370 treaties ratified by the United States Senate. It is noteworthy that the United States has unilaterally violated every one of these treaties. Yet, it was the Native Peoples and their allies who were sprayed with mace, attacked by dogs, shot with rubber bullets, locked in cages, and arrested. What we witnessed at Standing Rock is the increasing militarization of law enforcement and the criminalization of dissent.

          We are a nation divided. Lincoln warned long ago that a house divided cannot stand. But there is a balm in Gilead to heal our sin sick soul. Jesus promised that if we tell the truth, the truth will set us free. The prophet Isaiah told us, "beautiful upon the mountain of care are the feet of those who bring good news to the captive." President Obama said that if we love our country we have a responsibility to change it. Dr. King reminded us that "the great glory of American democracy is the right to protest for the right." 

          When we "pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America," let us remember that those words were written by Edward Bellamy in 1890. He was a Baptist preacher and a Christian socialist. He wrote the Pledge of Allegiance in the Gilded Age in the hopes that it would spark a moral vision and reign in rampant materialism and excessive individualism. Katherine Lee Bates penned, "My country tis of thee sweet land of liberty," in 1893. She was a lesbian and a Christian socialist. 

         There is a balm in Gilead to heal our sin sick soul. In March of this year the Jesuits returned 525 acres to the Lakota Sioux Tribe on the Rose Bud Reservation. More recently Andover Newton Theological Seminary reached out to 396 Indigenous tribes and nations with an offer to return stolen items that are housed in its museum. These may seem like small steps but they are important steps. Returning stolen property is an act of justice. It is a sign of hope. It is a healing balm.

         It is a sign of hope when people and institutions withdraw funds from banks and financial institutions that seek to profit from pain and injustice. To date more than $5 million has been withdrawn from banks and financial institutions as part of a global effort to defund DAPL. It is a movement that must continue and spread. Energy companies are building pipelines in Louisiana, Pennsylvania, and Florida. In all these places Native Americans are protesting these developments as violations of treaty agreements.

         We must connect the fight for interracial justice to the fight for economic justice. We cannot have one without the other. Institutions like the Native American Bank are investing in economic development in indigenous communities. In many states there is renewed interest in public banking and co-operatives. There is growing consensus among economists that the present neoliberal economic system will not last another 40 or 50 years at most. If we want to create a more transparent and democratic economy the time to act is now.

         Saint Augustine said long ago that God has given us a world in which there is enough to meet everyone's need, but not enough to satisfy one person's greed. Yet, greed has become the basis for global economic growth. The World Council of Churches reports that every day private financiers exchange $1.5 trillion worth of currency. Less than five percent of that vast sum goes to the creation of actual goods and services.

            A rising economic tide does not lift all the boats. It does not end poverty. It exacerbates poverty. The gap between the rich and the poor is as great as the chasm that separated Dives and Lazarus in the parable of Jesus found in Gospel of Luke. It is the power of the wealthy and the weakness of the poor that perpetuates poverty. But there is a balm in Gilead to heal our sin sick soul. The World Council of Churches has produced important study documents we need to use in our churches. The WCC has identified global capitalism as an idolatry. Market Fundamentalism is a misguided faith in the sanctity of private property and power of the so-called "free market." It is a system that privatizes wealth and imposes the burden of cost on the public, while at the same time stealing vital and necessary resources and reserves from the public purse.  

           To help us better understand what is happening the World Council of Churches proposes that in addition to talking about the poverty line, we also need to talk about the "greed line." When one person's annual income is measured in terms of millions and billions of dollars, when most of a person's income comes from favorable tax codes, royalties and rents, dividends and deferred payments, when those in the front office are earning on average 471 dollars for every dollar paid to the person on the shop floor, we need to talk openly about the connection between greed and poverty. 

             As a justice-seeking, justice-loving people let us counter the Gospel of Prosperity for the few with a Gospel of Good News for all. The measure of the economy is not the GDP, or the S & P, or the DOW. The true measure of healthy economy is the well-being of the people. We need an economic measuring stick that values access to health care, decent housing, safe communities, good schools, and jobs that pay a living wage. 

              As a justice-seeking, justice-loving people we need to cherish this good earth. A Native American scholar told me that the difference between white  people and Indians is that white people think the earth belongs to them, Indians think they belong to the earth. Caring for the earth is what makes and keeps us grounded. Our watchwords for the future are cooperation and balance, not competition. We can learn to respect boundaries without making them barriers. Faith communities can be, must be, pioneers in creating a civil society.

           In Clarence Jordan's Cotton Patch Bible,  in the Sermon on the Mount the words of Jesus are unmistakable and clear: "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice; for they will be given plenty to chew on." My friends, God has given us plenty to chew on.

           Dr. William Barber challenges us with these words: "It is time to dig a little deeper, work a little harder, organize a little better." In the words of Isaiah, "Those who wait on the Lord shall mount up on eagle's wings. " We shall run and not grow weary. We shall walk and not faint. With heads held high we shall sing, "My country 'tis of thee sweet land of liberty."