This service called:

for repentance and conversion of ourselves, our society and our churches to the Gospel way of justice, nonviolence and a reverence for all life and creation. We call for an immediate end to U.S. warmaking in Afghanistan; that the U.S. halt all Drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere; and that Israel and the U.S. cease it military threats against Iran. We call for reparations to Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan; for total disarmament and the abolition of all nuclear and conventional weapons; an end to the U.S.-supported Israeli occupation of the West Bank; an end to torture and the closing of Guantanamo and Bagram U.S. military prisons and other military torture training centers like the SOA/WHINSEC; and an end to AFRICOM and the militarization of Africa. We call, too, for the repeal of the National Defense Authorization Act 2012 which allocates $662 billion for the Pentagon and codified into law indefinite detention for suspected terrorists and their supporters, both foreign and domestic. And we call for an end to corporate domination, justice for the poor and all immigrants, and for the conversion of our war-based economy to one centered on serving the common good, alleviating poverty, and protecting the environment.

Amen. Quite a laundry list, no? The service was powerful and very, very uncomfortable. My discomfort came from two places:

First, it was an unpleasant reminder of the great wrongs done in the name of a nation that is supposedly a beacon for justice and freedom. Specifically, our location in front of that building was a reminder that this evil continues to emanate outward from it despite having nice, liberal “folks” like the Obamas living there these days. It’s such a nice-looking building (despite the sharpshooters on top), and one that I can see while crossing the street in front of my home (about a mile away); it’s hard to imagine what really goes on there at the nerve center of a violent global empire that is so paranoid that it sometimes takes three (3!) identical Marine One helicopters to get Obama back from the airport (one decoy isn’t always enough – I have seen this with my own eyes).

Second, despite the power and usefulness of this vigil’s painful reminder, I couldn’t help but be discouraged by how it seemed to miss the point. It called for repentance from a great many awful symptoms of evil, but didn’t seem to approach the cause of that evil – that war is incredibly profitable for a lot of well-connected people, just as our collective poor health is profitable to other well-connected people. (And probably there is some overlap, since what better way to encourage poor health than through war?)

Anyone who thinks that electoral politics is going to change this dynamic is naive – we already elected a supposed progressive and look where it got us. We will never be offered a serious major-party candidate who is able to make any significant changes to the underlying power structure.

If it wasn’t already, this has been made abundantly clear through the rise of “super-PACs” that are highly influenced a single ultra-wealthy person (or couple) – five of whom have provided 1/4 of all money flowing through this thoroughly corrupt system –  and have now eclipsed the power of the campaigns themselves. Obama made polite noises about eschewing this tool, but has more recently decided that the means justify the ends, even if those means further neutralize him as a serious voice for real change.

Until we can decouple profit from power, we’re going to get nowhere. Since Lent is about Jesus as well as repentance, I think it’s a good time to depart from my usual Old Testament focus, and issue a reminder that John the Baptist offered a very clear and specific set of instructions for repentance.

“What should we do then?” the crowd asked.

John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”

Even tax collectors came to be baptized. “Teacher,” they asked, “what should we do?”

“Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” he told them.

Then some soldiers asked him, “And what should we do?”

He replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.” (Luke 3:10-14)

One of the key points in the overarching biblical narrative is the division of the kingdom of Israel after King Solomon’s death, which ultimately led to both kingdoms being conquered and the collapse (discussed last time) that lasted until Nehemiah led a community-based effort to rebuild.

Solomon is regarded as a wise and good king, and although he certainly had his personal flaws he made the trains run on time and delivered a period of great prosperity. But he also represented the continuation of the concentration of wealth and power that had been corroding Jewish society ever since they did away with judges in favor of kings. When Solomon died, his son Rehoboam replaced him, bringing none of the good and even more bad.

1 Chron 10:13. And the king answered them harshly, and King Rehoboam disregarded the counsel of the elders. 14. And he spoke to them according to the counsel of the youths, saying, “[My father] made your yoke heavy, and I shall add to it; my father flogged you with whips, but I [shall do so] with scorpions.”

Now, look at this story as a parable and you’ll find that the United States is in the middle of something very similar:

Industrial capitalism was a hard master. It caused great disruption to rural communities and traditional ways of life. Many workers lost limbs and lives in the great mines and factories of 19th and 20th centuries. Capitalism built great wealth on the backs of exploited workers, but (to be fair) it did deliver a way of life that was far more affluent and generally comfortable than anything enjoyed (by non-elites) at any previous time in history.

But then things got out of hand. A headstrong new king arrived in the form of a fancypants global financial system that promised even greater affluence for the shrinking middle class. We didn’t have to even do the real work of building and growing things; we just had to engage in physically easy but emotionally and spiritually draining jobs that put us in front of computers all day doing “marketing” and “finance” while people far away had to deal with the grueling and often poisonous work of delivering our computers, food and other goodies.

Under our new financial king, it is no longer possible to support a household on most single incomes, especially not through most work that actually created food or material objects. What’s more, work has become impossible to escape for many, with all sorts of handheld devices taking up ever more of our time and attention.

I believe that the long-run view of Steve Jobs will be rather critical, as one of the people who ultimately did the most damage to our abilities to focus on the people and things around us. And I mention this because it shows the extent to which the system has hoodwinked us by making scorpions cute and cool. We don’t have taskmasters standing over us because we have been trained so well that such explicit power is no longer necessary and we embrace that which enslaves us.

But back to Rehoboam…

15. And the king did not heed the people because it was brought about by God, so that the Lord might establish His word that He spoke by the hand of Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat.

Is this saying that God’s will is for the people to be oppressed? That is certainly the interpretation that has been popular among those who seek to rationalize the unholy partnership between religious elites and an economic system that goes against some of the Bible’s core lessons. However, the prophesy mentioned was that 10 of the 12 tribes would break off and be ruled by Jeroboam (comparable to most of the United States seceding from our power centers of New York City and Washington, D.C.).  Essentially God was looking for a way to trigger an uprising against the corrupt powers and saw an opportunity in a young king who didn’t know his limits and sought to further tighten the screws of oppression without providing any discernable benefit.

As is often the case in biblical texts, God was right:

16. And all Israel [saw] that the king had not heeded them, and the people replied to the king, saying, “What share do we have in David? And no heritage in Jesse’s son. Each man, to your homes, O Israel! Now see your house, David!” And all Israel went to their homes. 17. But the Children of Israel who dwelt in the cities of Judah-Rehoboam reigned over them.

The people’s concern about their lack of a “share” is worth dwelling upon. They did not feel that they were invested in the benefit of what was happening, much in the way that most modern people do not own a significant share of their own workplaces and the other businesses on which they depend. Rehoboam’s young advisors now correspond to the “regulators” who come out of the banking system (Hello Tim Geithner!) and are utterly unable to confront its most serious abuses. And the result of it all is banks that were “too big to fail” are now even bigger and we’ve missed a key opportunity to fix the system.

So, like Occupy Wall Street, they tried to withdraw. However the power structure was strong enough to survive passive non-cooperation and it seems that Rehoboam was anxious to back up his fierce words with action.

18. And King Rehoboam sent Hadoram, who was appointed over the tax, and the Children of Israel pelted him with stones and he died, and King Rehoboam exerted himself to get up into his chariot to flee to Jerusalem. 19. And the Israelites rebelled against the house of David until this day.

So it sounds like the king barely escaped from some sort of riot, doesn’t it? After only three kings Israel had gone badly astray. The people’s request that Rehoboam be less cruel seems to mark the last serious attempt at popular guidance of society. The people tried to move back toward the more participatory ways found under the judges, but it was too late. The kingdom was already entrenched so there was nothing to do but fight.

Now, consider the sad state of American politics in this light – captive by big business, dependent on its campaign funding and utterly unable to hold our real king accountable and prevent it from tearing society apart.

It remains to be seen whether we in the United States and western Europe have already passed this point of return, at which  – like Libya, Syria and perhaps Egypt – the only way to uproot the thornbush of power is by burning it out. I certainly hope not, but the signs are ominous. The loss of popular control through “technocratic” governments in Italy and Greece as well as state takeovers of cities including Harrisburg and Atlantic City (with Detroit now in the crosshairs) are warning signs of the final collapse of democracy.

So does this mean that revolution is now necessary? I don’t think it is – at least not in the pitchforks and torches sense. However, we need to go beyond calling for reform, beyond even the relatively radical protest embodied in the Occupy movement.

As it happened, the revolt against Rehoboam was not violent beyond the killing of a particularly loathed official who was sent to force everyone back to work. And here’s where it gets really interesting.

After Rehoboam returned to his capital, he mustered the army to crush the uprising. But then something happened that would surprise most moderns but is perfectly consistent with how resistance played out in biblical stories:

2 But this word of the LORD came to Shemaiah the man of God: 3 “Say to Rehoboam son of Solomon king of Judah and to all Israel in Judah and Benjamin,4 ‘This is what the LORD says: Do not go up to fight against your fellow Israelites. Go home, every one of you, for this is my doing.’” So they obeyed the words of the LORD and turned back from marching against Jeroboam.

This shows the immense responsibility of people of faith during times of uprising. Some may claim that God put our leaders in place and we should not confront those leaders. But here we have God clearly taking sides, and in doing so preventing a whole lot of bloodshed.

There’s no way to tell which of us might have the chance to make a difference, and perhaps no individual might have the impact of Shemaiah, whose prophetic voice turned back an army. But you never know what little action will tip the balance, and it’s important to speak out from whatever perspective you have. If that isn’t religious, great. There’s plenty of work to be done in convincing folks that Occupy is part of a great tradition of people’s movements. But if you are of a more faithful persuasion, this would be a good time to study up on what your heart and your holy texts teach about these sorts of moments.

Nehemiah is one of the less otherworldly biblical stories, containing no accounts of anything supernatural ever happening. Nevertheless, to fully extract its meaning, we must take a look at how we view biblical texts through a modern, “scientific” lens. We must recognize that Sodom and Jerusalem were both cities that failed to live within their means, that ignored the signs until God (call it Nature or Reality if you must) forced their hands.

It is tempting for modern secular people to reduce the Bible to a collection of stories and symbolism at best, or an irrelevant bunch of hokum at worst. I know this temptation from experience.

What’s unfortunate about such a reduction is that it limits the secularist’s ability to learn from the stories even without believing their factual accuracy. Maybe nobody really turned into a pillar of salt, but does that make the lessons of Sodom any less important?

Now, by “lessons of Sodom” I’m not referring to anything about sex, per se. Indeed, one lesson from this story is how badly people can miss the point of the story. After all, the prophet Ezekiel tells that Sodom was destroyed for its sins of “pride, laziness and gluttony, while the poor and needy suffered outside her door.” (Ezek 16:49-50)

Think about Sodom as a city wracked by some combination of revolt and invasion, not unlike that which later burned Rome, reduced the Easter Islanders to a confused remnant that couldn’t even explain how its ancestors had built the giant statues that are the largest things on the island or left the great Mayan cities deserted and swallowed by the forest. Europe as a whole almost went the same route, with the basic tools of civilized life -literacy and numeracy, for example – preserved only by a handful of monastic orders.

Social collapse is not unique to the Bible, but nor are societies in the Bible somehow exempt from basic laws of nature like the carrying capacity of the land and the near-inevitability of revolution if wealth inequality is not addressed. Violation of these laws does not always result in a full-blown smiting in which a city is wiped off the face of the earth, but it can.

A not-quite total collapse is depicted in the later fall of Jerusalem (of which Ezekiel warned in the above passage). The destruction of this city, which ultimately lay in ruins for more than a century, has a clear link to environmental degradation, which made the land unable to support its human population. Once the people were removed, taken away into Exile in Babylon, “The land finally enjoyed its Sabbath rest, lying desolate for seventy years, just as the prophet had said.” (2 Chron 36:21)

It seems we are not the first people to ignore warnings of environmental trouble ahead.

We usually think of sabbaths in terms of a single day of the week, but a seventy-year rest? That’s a long recovery time to make up for a lot of missed rest. And this is where we really need to learn: Our society is hell-bent on growth at all times and at all costs, and of course that’s not possible in the real world with its seasons and very definite limits to a small planet in vast space.

I just read “Toward a Jubilee Economy & Ecology in the Modern World” by Rabbi Arthur Waskow. It’s one of those pieces of writing that show up at just the right time (Thanks Mir!), and it has provided some nice material for tonight’s post. Waskow hypothesized that roughly every 50 years the economy will naturally grind to a halt, either joyfully or painfully:

Once every 50 years or so, if there is no redistribution of wealth and power there is a Great Depression. Why should this be so? Because over an entire generation, if the poor get poorer and the rich get richer there are more and more troublesome frictional effects. The poor become less able to buy what the institutions are producing and there emerges a glut of unused productive capacity…

Now in an odd way the Jubilee Year would itself be an economic “depression”: everybody is unemployed, the whole social apparatus stops. The difference is in the sharing. In a modern depression, the poor suffer terribly, most of the middle class a great deal, and some of the rich may lose their shirts. The burdens are unequal, and the pain of the “resting” that benefits the whole society is imposed on only some of its members. The Jubilee shares the “pain” of resting for in the short run, there might have been less to eat if for two years in a row no one had sown, cultivated, or reaped and turns the pain into a communal celebration.

To borrow another thought from Waskow’s other writings (I don’t recall the work, but this is one of those Great Thoughts that put him forever on my radar so I know he wrote it somewhere), the concept of Sabbath is not a law in the moral sense. It is more like a law of physics that we are completely incapable of breaking in the long run – no matter how naughty we might be. So either we find an orderly way to work Sabbath into our lives, or it will work its way in on its own terms in ways we are likely to enjoy less.

Back in today’s reading, Waskow also proposed:

a universal national “Sabbath” on all but life preserving emergency services.

Such a festival would give our society in a regular, chosen rhythm what only a few cities now experience only in a random, unchosen way. For such “festivals” now occur only when a great blizzard clogs the whole town with snow. Observers report that the first reaction is panic, an hysterical attempt to get to work. When it becomes clear that no one can work, a mood of joy and festive calm spreads across the city. Everyone shares: food, stories, emergency assistance. People play in the snow. It is a day of unemployment but in a mood of holiday, holy day. Much more a holy day, in fact, than most of the commercialized holidays that have been made occasions not of rest but of turning on the “consumption economy.”

This strikes me as particularly interesting because Waskow has turned disaster on its head. Ordinarily, those who see the Hand of God moving think of disasters as divine punishment. Most notoriously some declared Hurricane Katrina to be God’s wrath against sexual deviance in New Orleans even though the storm’s eye actually hit relatively-tame Mississippi.

But can disasters, in a sense, be a loving correction? Can they point us toward a safer, saner and more sustainable future?

Perhaps they can. If we are willing to learn. A blizzard is one thing, causing great disruption but minimal damage. But a major hurricane, tornado outbreak or earthquake is not much of a festival. Lives are lost and permanently altered in usually unpleasant ways. Even so, disasters point to our weaknesses and let us know that we must seriously attend to that which we prefer to neglect. Hurricane Katrina, oddly enough, was a perfect example of this, forcing us to look at the poverty and degradation of infrastructure that our high-rolling lifestyle has wrought.

New Orleans would not have survived Katrina on its own. As an independent nation-state it almost certainly would have become shorthand for unspeakable destruction – a modern day Sodom – left to molder away and sink into the swamps. The people of Baton Rouge would now whisper the name of the dark city whose corpse still looms out there among the bayous. But because New Orleans is part of a huge confederation of cities, it was able to draw support from its sisters and survive to fight another day.

Unfortunately, the whole family is not so strong these days. This year’s string of disasters has cast a stark light on the fiscal limitations of our nation’s ability to recover from injury. We seem to have mainly dodged the bullet as (so far) it’s been a quiet fall other than a few huge storms. So disasters are back off the front page. But the limits of our resilience is out there, lurking.

Religiously-minded folk might say that God has warned us. But whatever one’s perspective, its a warning.

Ultimately, Nehemiah’s story is a tale of recovery from a disastrous collapse of a decadent society, where hierarchy, exploitation and dependence on outside powers demanded a response that turned traditional power structures on their heads. That’s why it is so terribly relevant today. The crash hasn’t happened yet, but it is already unfolding all around us.

In the same way that Jesus’ followers in the Book of Acts pieced together a better way in their time, we need to seek models that work better than what our own Empire has delivered.

Let’s not be stubborn this time and wait for generations to suffer the effects of our arrogance. Let’s learn from the mistakes outlined in Nehemiah’s story. Let’s start tangibly rebuilding community now by organizing in ways that help us unplug from a system that – can I just say it? – is evil.

I ended this writing abruptly. As the name suggests, I had intended to pick it up again. Eight weeks have passed. That’s 56 days. Incidentally, that’s four days longer than it took Nehemiah to organize a community under siege to build a wall. He was a heckuva community organizer. Clearly the strategic thing would be to stop comparing myself to Nehemiah, but the more I look at that comparison the more important I think it is. I am particularly struck by how he kept sitting on his ass until Something picked him up by the scruff of the neck and got him in motion.

I don’t know if I’m up for doing something like what he pulled off, but I know I can’t do it alone.

And to get the right people involved, I need to get more people seriously thinking about the Bible as a manual for what needs to happen now. And to do that, I need to finish what I started to say about disasters, get people thinking about how the story of Sodom is the story of a revolution gone horribly wrong. Or how the split between the tribes of Judah and Israel represented a legitimate uprising against a brutal and corrupt regime that only survived because it had tricked everyone to believe that God was on the side of the powerful.

This is an open invitation. I would be grateful if any of you who read these words checks in on me in the near future, to keep me accountable about the writing that I need to do now. You know who you are. Not sure? Well, then maybe you should ask God. If you ask me I’ll just tell you yes.

Specifically, I want you all to expect me to post something on Sunday evening in which I finish that thought I started to express back in September. And then please keep poking me if I ever go more than a week or so without writing something. Thank you.

About this time some of the men and their wives raised a cry of protest against their fellow Jews. They were saying, “We have such large families. We need more food to survive.”

Others said, “We have mortgaged our fields, vineyards, and homes to get food during the famine.”

And others said, “We have had to borrow money on our fields and vineyards to pay our taxes. We belong to the same family as those who are wealthy, and our children are just like theirs. Yet we must sell our children into slavery just to get enough money to live. We have already sold some of our daughters, and we are helpless to do anything about it, for our fields and vineyards are already mortgaged to others.”

When I heard their complaints, I was very angry. After thinking it over, I spoke out against these nobles and officials. I told them, “You are hurting your own relatives by charging interest when they borrow money!” Then I called a public meeting to deal with the problem.

At the meeting I said to them, “We are doing all we can to redeem our Jewish relatives who have had to sell themselves to pagan foreigners, but you are selling them back into slavery again. How often must we redeem them?” And they had nothing to say in their defense.

Then I pressed further, “What you are doing is not right! Should you not walk in the fear of our God in order to avoid being mocked by enemy nations? 10 I myself, as well as my brothers and my workers, have been lending the people money and grain, but now let us stop this business of charging interest. You must restore their fields, vineyards, olive groves, and homes to them this very day. And repay the interest you charged when you lent them money, grain, new wine, and olive oil.”

They replied, “We will give back everything and demand nothing more from the people. We will do as you say.” Then I called the priests and made the nobles and officials swear to do what they had promised.

I shook out the folds of my robe and said, “If you fail to keep your promise, may God shake you like this from your homes and from your property!”

The whole assembly responded, “Amen,” and they praised the Lord. And the people did as they had promised. (Neh. 5:1-13)

This isn’t exactly a condemnation of banks, but it does squarely place usury on the wrong side of morality and should help gently guide people of faith away from an industry based on exploitation.

More recently, my girlfriend has been inspired by Bank Transfer Day, and is now organizing a Jewish version. Here’s her invitation, which she asked folks to pass along. (Careful what you ask for, sweetheart…)

Dear Friends,

As we awoke this morning to news that the main Occupy Wall Street encampment has been cleared by police, it is time for us to think seriously about how the energy of these occupations can be taken deeper into our communities. Not all of us have been able to put our bodies on the line by camping in places like Zucotti Park and McPherson Square, but most of us can better align our financial decisions with the values expressed by this inspiring movement.

Many of us have deep values of social justice – often deeply connected to Judaism – and many of us already dedicate our working lives or significant volunteer hours to building a more equitable world. Yet at the same time, we (myself included) have lent our own money (in the form of deposits) to the very financial institutions that fuel the inequality that we oppose and undermine our own work for justice!*

I tried to end my relationship with Bank of America in 2008, but I was just too addicted to the “convenience.” Now, inspired by the Occupy movement and Bank Transfer Day, I feel renewed commitment to break up with big corporate banks. Here’s why:

First, the “convenience” I got from being a BofA customer comes at a ridiculously high price for society – a price I’m no longer willing to pay. And second, I have a completely viable alternative with credit unions (non-profits designed to serve their depositor/owners and their communities) and community banks. These institutions offer much more convenience through ATMs and online banking than I previously thought.

I believe that there are many of us that might just need a little extra encouragement, access to some research on local credit unions and banks and a push from a supportive group to help us Move Our Money to institutions that are serving and investing in our community. Yesterday, Progressive Jewish Alliance & Jewish Funds for Justice sent an email encouraging the Jewish community to take tangible action and “align our pocketbooks with our values.”

I’m inviting you to join me in this effort. There are many ways that you can help:

1. Join me in brainstorming/organizing/planning and researching – I could really use this!
2. Host a houseparty (maybe a Hanukah Houseparty?) for friends to learn about credit unions and community banks and how to move their money. I’ll arrange the information, so no knowledge is necessary to open your house and invite your friends!
3. Be a facilitator or speaker at a houseparty to guide the discussion (doesn’t have to be your own house
4. Commit to attending a houseparty to learn about Moving Your Money
5. Commit to moving your money and doing it perhaps as part of a joint action or event or rally in the next couple of months

The Credit Union National Association recently announced that new and existing customers have transferred $4.5 billion in assets to credit unions between Sept 29 and Nov 2, so we’ll have lots of company! I want my money going toward things like community development in DC and I hope you will join me in any capacity that you can. Please let me know how you’d like to be involved and feel free to pass this on (and change the subject line to whatever fits well).

Much gratitude,

Miriam

*I’m talking about the banks taking our deposits, using them to make risky, irresponsible loans and investments to benefit their shareholders, crashing the economy and then engaging in a disgusting round of expedited foreclosures and lobbying to block legislation that would provide relief for homeowners.

Now, I’m not Jewish, but we’re all talking about the same God, and I think anyone who looks with open eyes will see that the existing system is just plain-old evil in its concentration of wealth and explosion of poverty. Miriam and many others are bringing a prophetic voice to the situation.

And there’s always this story of the only time that Jesus – another famous Jewish radical – is recorded using force.

When they arrived back in Jerusalem, Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out the people buying and selling animals for sacrifices. He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves, and he stopped everyone from using the Temple as a marketplace. He said to them, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves.”

When the leading priests and teachers of religious law heard what Jesus had done, they began planning how to kill him. But they were afraid of him because the people were so amazed at his teaching.(Mark 11:15-18)

It’s interesting to note that this was a pivotal moment in Jesus’ path toward martyrdom. He had crossed a line from preaching against the moneylenders to taking direct action against them in one of their more lucrative markets.

I’m very excited to see Miriam’s work building movement toward addressing the banking industry from a Jewish perspective, and hope that Christians begin to join in this repentance. Muslims, to their credit, have generally done a great job of setting up financial systems through which they can avoid usury.

Christians are also taking a hard look at how their savings are being used, both individually and collectively. One early adopter was Most Holy Trinity Church in San Jose, Calif.

So, Jesus people: We’ve got a couple of nice little templates. Is it time to knock over some tables?

UPDATE: The Washington Post has an article today (11/23) about how and why ”angry churches” are moving their money.

A couple of weeks ago a group of Methodists showed up to offer communion and hot drinks (the latter were more popular). Their numbers included a pastor from near Baltimore, who seemed to be having her world rocked. We had a great conversation about how this gathering had a certain similarity to the gatherings of believers who were casting their lot with a transformative  economic revolution in which they shared all things in common, facing a really uncertain future with little more than faith.

Yesterday, I ran into another religious group, which is part of the Twelve Tribes. They had brought food and musical instruments, and the younger of their number were dancing in a circle, generally wearing clothing that wouldn’t have been out of place 150 years ago. I initially mistook them for Mennonites. The Twelve Tribes live in a way modeled by the first followers of the Way of Jesus, holding all things in common. They had come to visit because the recognized the resonance with their own way of life.

They were handing out great booklets that started with the following call to revolution:

We live in an age of oppression — physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. We are oppressed from without and within. Screaming out for justice in an age of supreme injustice on all sides spawns the revolutionaries who strain every fiber to make a blow to the system. Everything is dark and twisted: poverty, genocide, generations under  medicated tyranny, political corruption, endless war, pollution, and ecological nightmares.

Although one could choose from a million different causes, the loyal heart that is yearning for truth and justice will stop at nothing short of the true solution to this age of sadness and chaos, heartache and brokenness. The ultimate act of revolution is to respond to the call that strikes right to the core, to the very essence of the world system itself. This call was presented and articulated in detail and clarity by Yahshua, the Son of God.

Right up to that last bit it would have had a decent chance of passing the Occupy DC general assembly.

The Occupy movement is not a religious phenomenon in the traditional sense. Maybe it would be more successful if it were a religious movement, but it is nonetheless transformative and we should note its resemblance to the uprisings found in the Hebrew scriptures

The Occupy phenomenon also resembles the Way of Jesus, although in a different way. Please consider the Council of Jerusalem, which is the only really detailed description of that earlier movement’s decision making process. (Alas, they were expecting Christ to return shortly and did not keep very good minutes)

Occupy DC makes major decisions by consensus of whomever shows up for the nightly general assembly. I’m involved in the Facilitation Committee, which is looking for ways to improve on that method, which – truth be told – is not working terribly well. But for now, it’s a big and somewhat confusing system of often poorly-defined committees, augmented by a spokescouncil that does not make decisions but helps the committees communicate. Even for someone with a couple decades of experience in collective decision-making, it’s somewhat difficult to figure out what’s going on.

The account of the Council of Jerusalem indicates there was some system of delegates. And while the decision it ultimately yielded was unanimous (different than consensus, which is merely an agreement that everyone can live with), I can’t help but be reminded of the “sausage making” that has frustrated so many people at Occupy DC.

To distill down the Biblical account, there was a pretty serious disagreement about whether Gentiles needed to follow the Law of Moses in order to be saved. Not surprisingly, the question of circumcision was at the top of the list of concerns.

The issue had been brewing for a while. So delegates were sent (Acts 15:3) to discuss it at a large gathering, at which “some of the believers who belonged to the sect of the Pharisees stood up and insisted, ‘The Gentile converts must be circumcised and required to follow the law of Moses.’” (v 5) Then “the apostles and elders met together to resolve this issue. At the meeting, after a long discussion, Peter stood and addressed them.” (vv 6-7) After more speeches (and presumably discussion) “the apostles and elders together with the whole church in Jerusalem chose delegates, and they sent them to Antioch of Syria with Paul and Barnabas to report on this decision.” (v 22)

So after all that, what did they come up with? A compromise couched in very humble language. It certainly wasn’t the proposal brought by the pro-circumcision crowd, saying only that “it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay no greater burden on you than these few requirements: You must abstain from eating food offered to idols, from consuming blood or the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. If you do this, you will do well. Farewell.”

There’s no record of how many hours went into this process, but clearly it took a lot of work by a lot of people. And after all that, did it solve all the problems of division within the community? Hardly. Instead, Paul and Barnabas followed their collaboration on this process by having a falling out over whether to work with another believer of questionable dedication to the cause. They soon went their separate ways. (vv 36-41)

Back at McPherson Square, there are all sorts of fault lines: cultural, political, economic, level of commitment. It’s not hard to see this thing blowing apart at any moment, and honestly I’m surprised it’s lasted this long. But for the moment it’s providing a really beautiful public space in which people can come together and engage across the barriers that usually keep us apart.

One of my favorite examples of this is the Ron Paul tent. It’s been there for a few weeks now, often staffed by a clean-cut fella (whose name I’ll leave out since he was originally a little skittish about his friends and family finding out) who hangs out in a collapsible chair and a campaign lawn sign. Lots of other occupiers give him shit, but he is also a magnet for many of the curious visitors (tourists, joggers and workers from nearby offices) who stop by and check out the scene, generally being careful not to touch anything. He is safe and normal-looking, usually wearing khakis and a button-down shirt.

Right after I met the Twelve Tribes folks, I noticed that he was holding court with three folks in suits (on a Saturday!). It turned out they were in town for a conference of the conservative/libertarian Federalist Society. I guess they felt like seeing history in the making, or wanted to gawk at the freaks, or maybe they were just passing through.

There’s more and more writing about the potential for Occupy/Tea Party agreement, but I bet these three had no idea they’d wind up in a park full of tents, hearing about how this patient and persistent Ron Paul supporter has been spending a good chunk of his life living in the park, within sight of a compound of tents that he described as having “some sort of free-love governance” and representing the opposite end of the spectrum of people who are just fed up and ready to come occupy public spaces in hope that it will somehow make things change.

I still don’t see how that change is going to follow from this tactic, but I’m utterly fascinated by it all. And as it was in the messy utopian impulse that eventually solidified into Christianity, the Occupy movement is terra incognita. We don’t know where it’s going, or how long it will last. But I’m pretty sure nobody will ever again look at McPherson Square the same way they did in September. We’ve passed a point of no return.

This blog’s theme is an exploration of how the Hebrew scripture (a.k.a. Old Testament) story of Nehemiah. As I’ve described in detail, the first six chapters of that book provide a fascinating and detailed description of how a decentralized grassroots effort succeed in rebuilding Jerusalem’s walls in 52 days, after generations of failure by the usual authoritarian top-down approach that relied on the blessings of government.

What I’ve seen at McPherson Square certainly has some resemblance to the rather chaotic way that tasks were handled by whomever happened to be near a given section of wall, as well as the general sense of being surrounded by a somewhat hostile and more powerful group. On the other hand, it’s also rather different in that Nehemian organizing in that there isn’t a clear leader, even in the hands-off visionary sense that Nehemiah modeled. And I’m also seeing less evidence of a real shared purpose.

Nevertheless, those who view this scripture as important – hopefully including all Jews, Christians and Muslims – should take the time to read Nehemiah’s story and reflect on what it says about how God does things among people. There are striking resemblances.

I am no expert on the Occupy movement, and barely feel like I have a handle on OccupyDC alone. But the more I look at this thing, the more it seems to resemble what was going on among the followers of Jesus in the years following his death. In particular, it echoes the rather erratic gatherings of the primitive church, which went by the name ecclesia, meaning “gathering.” (more event than organization)

I’ve previously written quite a bit about the spiritual side of the Arab Spring and revolt in general, and I have to admit I was overly optimistic about the awakening that was occurring there. I’ve been deeply disappointed by the sectarian violence that has followed, although also encouraged by the ways that many Muslims have come together to prevent violence against Christians.

The Occupy phenomenon is admittedly not as faith-oriented as the Egyptian uprising, in which the people consistently stopped whatever they were doing to pray, even when under fire by water cannons.

However, there are already people of faith wrestling to grasp what this means for their own spiritual life.

This wrestling has taken a variety of forms including sacred spaces at Occupations, as well as religious services. Interfaith Worker Justice has developed discussion guides for Jews, Christians and Muslims. There have also been both small and large interfaith services. And I recently attended a meeting of a nascent organization called Occupy Faith DC, which seeks to be an interfaith coalition in support of the movement.

But not everything is interfaith, and I’m particularly fascinated how people are engaging Occupy within their own religious contexts.

I have to hand it to the Jews. They’ve really been leading the way with trying to connect their faith with the legitimate moral challenges to capitalism that Occupy poses. In less than a day, a small group of local Jews got over 100 people to come for a Kol Nidre service, in which they returned the holiday to its roots of atonement for injustice. Since then, they’ve built a sukkah (booth) and have held weekly shabbat services.

Christians are also starting to make their presence known. Some churches have brought food. Other groups have set up church services. There is appropriate concern about preaching and it seems like most people have avoided being too pushy with anything.

I haven’t personally seen much large-scale prayer organizing among Muslims, but I’ve heard that Friday prayers have been organized and there have been several tents with Islamic signs and a Bahraini flag. And the Islamic Circle of North America issued a statement that included this: “ICNA sympathizes with the message of Occupy Wall Street protesters and supports their cause. These protesters are raising legitimate concerns regarding income disparity, unemployment and the state of our economy that cannot be ignored. As American Muslims we stand in solidarity with them across the country.”

This Occupy thing is relatively new, but it is already showing serious signs of stress. There have been incidents of police brutality, infighting and occasional acts of violence within the various encampments. The weather is certainly adding to the stress and I have my doubts about whether this is a viable tactic for the social and economic transformation we so desperately need.

But its a worthwhile struggle that deserves the support – and prayers – of people of all faiths.

The inevitable move away from the global food system rooted in Wall Street finance will be difficult, but it provides an opportunity for faith communities to help launch new local food systems while bringing food and productive economic activity into neighborhoods devastated by generations of neglect and worse.

Even if we escape another Great Depression, we still face rising commodity prices and global food scarcity that will tend to drive up food prices at a time that people can least afford it. As corporate supermarket chains consolidate, health in poor neighborhoods gets worse as a smaller number of companies chase greater concentrations of profit by shaving off their “underperforming” locations.

Large chains will generally be able to outlast smaller grocers by consolidating operations, and the likely result will be fewer jobs, fewer sources of good food and longer trips to buy groceries. This dynamic is likely to be strongest in relatively poor neighborhoods, where profit margins are generally lower and good food is already scarce.

The solutions offered to such food deserts are usually along the lines of banning new fast food outlets or encouraging developers to build grocery stores where the expected profitability is insufficient to attract development.  The former approach does nothing to address the lack of a positive alternative source of food; the latter approach overlooks the fact that there’s an economic reason why those neighborhoods lack grocery stores in the first place, which will intensify as the economy deteriorates.

How shall we produce our food, if not by an unsustainable global system?

Cooperative Response

The Hebrew prophet Jeremiah preached while Israel was in exile in Babylon, “Build ye houses, and dwell in them; and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them.” (Jer 29:5)

This passage addressed how to live in an imperfect world, while looking forward to the return home.  Rather than relying on the benevolence (and competence) of government or philanthropists, we must find way of address the immediate problems without reinforcing dynamics of dependence.

Home gardening is the most obvious way to respond to Jeremiah’s call, and is an important response for those who have access to a garden. But we should also consider cooperative responses that are rooted in the teachings and practices of many faith traditions.  By drawing on models like the Jewish kibbutz, the Christian healthcare cost-sharing ministry and interest-free Islamic finance, we can discern solutions that both address the immediate need for food and the underlying causes of food scarcity.

The interfaith community has a great opportunity to address the looming food crisis head-on while addressing an alarming rise in unemployment and drop in financial security that are pushing many of us to make dietary choices that may be harmful to our long-term health.

Rather than individually sitting idle or engaging in an increasingly difficult search for work, we should collectively engage in community organizing drives that will have both short-term and long-term benefits. In the short term, organizing brings us something productive to do, keeps up our spirits and joins us together as a community while providing us with the freshest of produce. In the long term, applying the existing economic models from all three Abrahamic faiths could lay the foundations for a new system of food production and distribution, based on local control and people’s needs rather than the drive for profit.

Building a Good Food System

There are three main components to any food system: production, retail, and distribution. In a locally-based system, production and retail will involve many small projects in a variety of settings, and distribution will involve collaborative work on a regional level, including extensive communication with secular groups working on this issue. Distribution is a more complex challenge that will be built upon a foundation of production and retail, but is still necessary to truly sustain the other two components that are the focus of this writing.

Whenever I see a vacant lot or an empty expanse of lawn that is always watered but never used, I wonder how many people could be fed if we used that land differently. It would be naïve to think that we can meet all of a city’s food needs by ripping up lawns, but certainly we can take a step in that direction. This would reduce our dependence on expensive food from afar and improve our flexibility to deal with short-term emergencies.

Retail food co-ops working with local farmers can plug some of the holes in a city’s food availability and build commercial activity where it is sorely needed, but we should also be looking at how food can be produced where it is needed most urgently.

To address this need, I propose something that I call the lovegarden. This name is a bit of a riff on the old wartime victory gardens and it reminds us of an opportunity to reach out to our neighbors in an important way.

Creating a lovegarden can be as simple as tearing up lawn around a church and planting vegetables. When the harvest is ready, it can be cooked in community meals or distributed to neighbors. Other than the expense of inputs, money is not involved. In some cases a young and energetic congregation may partner with another that has land but perhaps fewer people inclined toward picking up a shovel.

However, we must also encourage local commercial production, which might be paired with local processing to create a year-round supply of jams and sauces; this would create economic activity as well as jobs.

In suburban and rural areas, faith communities can grow food on land owned directly by the congregation or indirectly by its members (possibly through agricultural land trusts). These may be staffed by a relatively small team of full time workers, supported by a network of volunteers made up largely, but hopefully not exclusively, by congregants. These businesses would probably function best as autonomous worker cooperatives, operating as a tenant of the congregation, for a variety of legal and theological reasons.

Urban congregations may be especially interested in organizing the retail end of the system, as many of their neighborhoods are lacking in good food stores, and ready to benefit from the retained profits of a community-owned enterprise. They may also have some opportunities for food production, but it seems that these would be less likely to be viable for commercial channels.

There is certainly room for crossover volunteers, particularly with regards to any farming operations that spring up. Urban groups may send members out to help with production, or even take the lead on cultivation of some properties.

Time to Plant

Food prices are getting out of hand, and with gas prices up and jobs going down, we need to start thinking in terms of feeding people with our own sweat and love, rather than relying on the profit-driven system that created this mess. Like the Israelites in Babylon, it seems that we’re going to be in our current situation a while longer. So we need to start finding ways to feed ourselves and our neighbors.

Creating gardens where food is freed from its bonds to money and creating farms that generate jobs, dignity and food, would be a powerful testament to our faith traditions’ teachings about love for community. These efforts would show neighbors love and invite them to share the process of creating a bounty, much more clearly than simply sending out surplus charity.

The looming shift demands that we all work together to create a new way of feeding ourselves and each other – or perhaps it means rediscovering the old way. In any case, linking together faith traditions through common values of how food ought to be produced will provide the basis for fruitful conversation.

This writing is cross-posted at www.dcfoodforall.com.

This Saturday was one of those times: I got an incredibly clear sense of “Now is the Time.” I have been preoccupied by disasters, which I see as having a silver lining by providing an opportunity for people to connect with those around them in ways that are ordinarily discouraged by TV, social media and plain old inertia and fear. As a result of this, I sometimes hope for disasters.

I realize this sounds awful, but I believe the short-term (and sometimes medium-term suffering) of disasters is one of the few ways out of a much greater long-term Disaster. You see, disasters are one of the only things that wake us up anymore. And if we are not awake, we’re going to stumble into some very unpleasant circumstances.

In addition to the hurricane, we had just had a (very startling) earthquake this week, and it transformed just another day at the office to a massive post-evacuation gathering in the park – a huge cocktail party with nothing to drink and no script. It wasn’t all bad.

The next day at the office, things were subtly different. People touched each other, laughed nervously, admitted their fear, asked about how each others’ home held up. Suddenly, we’d all had a profound experience in a familiar and mundane place, with a familiar group of people. Things were different.

I believe that sort of difference is our only hope in the face of a crisis in which our economic and ecological systems are on the verge of collapse. So at least if disasters hasten that collapse in certain places, it provides more of a transition than would occur if we just merrily watch X Factor until the wheels come off the global economy and we find ourselves at each others’ throats because competition is all we know. That’s what’s described in the biblical book of Revelation and its description of the fall of Babylon.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Back at my rock, under the darkening morning sky, I had an epiphany that it didn’t matter whether the New York subways flooded with seawater this weekend. They will eventually, and it is essential not to wait until that happens to figure out how to get along without them.

Of course, that is primarily a problem for New Yorkers, but our own responsibility is to figure out how we can get along without New Yorkers having an easy and reliable way of traveling into Manhattan. Specifically, we need to learn how to live without Wall Street and the global web of exploitation that it orchestrates. Part of that is learning to grow our own food (or at least find cash-free ways of arranging for our neighbors to grow it). We must be able to feed ourselves as well as each other, without collateralized debt obligations.

Don’t forget: We pulled that off for most of our history. Fancy finance is new.

On the other hand, exploitation is the oldest trick in the book. It was behind the fall of Sodom (Ezek 16:49-50) and the schism between Israel and Judah (1 Kgs 12:1-19) and it will be the trigger for the prophesied crash of our beloved, abusive Babylon (Rev 18:4-19).

Ultimately, Nehemiah’s story is a tale of recovery from a disastrous collapse of a decadent society, where hierarchy, exploitation and dependence on outside powers demanded a response that turned traditional power structures on their heads. That’s why it is so terribly relevant today. The crash hasn’t happened yet, but it is already unfolding all around us.

In the same way that Jesus’ followers in the Book of Acts pieced together a better way in their time, we need to seek models that work better than what our own Empire has delivered.

Let’s not be stubborn this time and wait for generations to suffer the effects of our arrogance. Let’s learn from the mistakes outlined in Nehemiah’s story. Let’s start tangibly rebuilding community now by organizing in ways that help us unplug from a system that – can I just say it? – is evil.

But we should not distance ourselves from that concept of evil by limiting it to creepy little monsters with horns, or terrorists, or child molesters, or even police brutality against the few people who are taking a stand against whatever they identify as evil.

No, evil is way more sneaky than that. And to fully address evil, we have to unwrap the way that it has hidden itself from our view. The dominant single text used as a moral foundation in our society is now neutralized by fixation on its sexual teachings (which are sometimes good, sometimes bad, almost always a distraction from the real issue of how people treat each other in a society).

And even worse, the clear biblical stories of economic evil are veiled by the general separation of biblical times from our own. After all, what can we learn from stories where people are turned into pillars of salt or live three days in the belly of a fish?

Nehemiah is one of the less otherworldly biblical stories, containing no accounts of anything supernatural ever happening. Nevertheless, to fully extract its meaning, we must take a look at how we view biblical texts through a modern, “scientific” lens. We must recognize that Sodom and Jerusalem were both cities that failed to live within their means, that ignored the signs until God (call it Nature or Reality if you must) forced their hands.

In a disaster that literally separated more than a dozen towns from the outside world, it’s hardly surprising that folks came together and improvised with what they have. Today, there’s a story about a small trail through the woods that has become a replacement for US Highway 4, which has washed out in numerous places: Two formerly obscure dead-end roads come close to each other, and a shortcut through the woods is now the path of least resistance. Neighbors are doing what they can to direct traffic. This is obviously only a short-term fix, but still provides a fascinating and encouraging picture of resilience and creative problem-solving.

There has clearly been a lot of interesting stuff happening in Vermont, most of it outside the eyes of the most intrepid journalists, some of which have been traveling by bicycle to spend time in isolated towns.

But into the mix comes Sarah Waterman, a Vermont native who left home to get an MPA in North Carolina, with a focus on disaster preparedness and response. She developed this interest after Hurricane Katrina, after which she spent three months in Biloxi helping with the recovery there. She moved back home after school, where she was working on a startup to support nonprofit organizations.

Waterman is now leading VTResponse, which is a week old and already seems to be the main place to get information about how people are helping and can help each other. It includes links to crowdsourced maps that apparently have more up-to-date information than the state transportation authorities are able to provide.

So out of nowhere, we have someone who was in the right place at the right time and is providing a framework around which all sorts of decentralized effort seems to be crystallizing. Her little crew has been working nonstop to connect would-be helpers with those who need help. It will be an interesting effort to watch unfold.

Without projecting any sort of religious motivation or significance on Waterman’s work, I want to hold it up as a modern-day example of what Nehemiah did in catalyzing the reconstruction of Jerusalem’s wall. I think it is important for us to occasionally look at biblical stories without the haze of miracle. After all, these are often the accounts of people living in tumultuous times, who make good and bad decisions with occasionally outsized consequences. Demystifying these stories, at least temporarily, can help us get a better sense for how God might be moving in our skeptical age.

In any case, bravo to Waterman and her crew of volunteers.

This sort of collective organizing – embodied by both Nehemiah and Waterman – is unfortunately going to become more and more important.

My point is that it is only a matter of time before the government can no longer make any pretense of putting things back together like they were before. And frankly, I doubt the private sector has a chance of it, either. It will be up to communities to find new and creative ways of supporting each other in tough times.

For anyone who has perhaps been inspired to finally take disaster prep seriously, I want to offer a resource to supplement the valuable information about what individuals and households should do to prepare by accumulating specific supplies: In another day, in another blog, I put together a manual for collective disaster response. It’s crude but I hope it is helpful in this scenario. I encourage everyone to print it up.

Don’t leave it in your email, because you’ll need it most when the computer isn’t working.