Camels and Needles

Everyday Justice

I just finished reading a new book by Julie Clawson, called ‘Everyday Justice’.  This book touches on many of the same ideas and subjects that I have been thinking and writing about over the past year.  I highly recommend this book - it helps us understand how the daily choices we make impact people around the world and gives practical ideas and steps that enable us to live more justly.  In a consumer culture focused on finding the lowest prices and consuming more and more, we rarely stop to think about how our choices keep people trapped in poverty.  The church can and should lead the way with efforts like Fair Trade, sustainable agriculture, and encouraging economic development in poor countries.  This book shows us how.

There is also a website, where you can find more information and links.

Poverty

Imagine that you had not been born in the United States.  Imagine instead that you had been born in a small village in rural Congo.  What would life look like for you?  Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of a young boy living in the Ituri province of the Democratic Republic of Congo.  Bauma is 16 years old and this is what a typical day is like for him:

Bauma wakes up at sunrise on a thin mattress that he shares with 2 of his younger brothers.  The mattress sits on the dirt floor of his mud and grass hut.  6 people share this little house, which is not much larger than a walk-in closet.

Bauma wakes up hungry.  Hunger is a constant companion – he simply cannot find enough food to satisfy the gnawing pain in his stomach.  He has learned to ignore it.  Most days, he eats one meal, and occasionally goes without in order to make sure that his 5 younger siblings have at least a little something to eat.

Bauma and his younger sister Faraja are the head of their household.  Their father passed away several years ago in the Great Lakes war that devastated this region between 1998 and 2004.  Their mother died 2 years ago after contracting the AIDS virus.  She was caring for a neighbor who had AIDS and fell victim to the disease.

Bauma’s youngest sister was ill for several months last year.  A mosquito bite led to a severe case of malaria.  Bauma was able to carry his sister to a local aid organization a few miles down the road, and they gave her some pills that helped her to get better.  He was relieved that he did not have to pay the $4 for the pills – they could not have afforded that.  The aid organization also gave them a $5 bed net that will help to make sure that none of the other children get malaria.

Bauma has not learned how to read.  He went to school for two years, before his parents died.  He wishes that his younger brothers and sisters could go to school, but they cannot afford the $2 per month for tuition.  And there is no way that they would be able to afford the school uniforms and supplies that are required.

Bauma’s primary work is on the acre of land that his family owns.  He grows cassava, which is the family’s primary source of food.  They have a few chickens and 2 small goats that provide a little bit of milk.  On market days, he goes into town and tries to find work as a laborer, but there is rarely anyone hiring.  He wants to build a better life for himself and his family, but he doesn’t know how.

Bauma has considered joining the army.  They will give him a uniform and a gun and will pay him $20 per month.  He doesn’t like the things that the army does – sometimes they come through the village and demand food or money.  But if he doesn’t join the army, he’s not sure if his family will survive.

Bauma is a smart and hard-working young man.  He has a quick smile and loves to laugh.  You can find him in church every Sunday morning, and sometimes he even plays the drums.  In the midst of a life full of hardships, he leans on his faith in Jesus to give him hope.  In spite of incredibly hard circumstances, he still exudes joy and love and generosity that we find hard to comprehend.

Bauma’s story is not uncommon.  His life is typical of the more than 3 billion people around the world who live on less than $2 per day.  Many of these people live in rural villages, while others live in the slums of large cities.  Regardless of where they live, their lives are filled with challenges – they live just one small misstep away from starvation, illness, or even death.

Most of us who live in the developed world cannot comprehend the daily reality of those who are poor.  We wonder why these people don’t go to school and apply themselves so that they can break out of the poverty trap.  We fail to understand the immense challenges and obstacles to escaping the harsh realities of extreme poverty.

Poverty is not caused by laziness.  Poverty is most often caused by systems and structures that make it virtually impossible to build a different kind of life.  Most poverty is caused by circumstances that the poor cannot control.

We may not want to acknowledge it, but poverty is most often a function of where we are born.
Those of us who were born in the United States start out with many advantages that people like Bauma never had.  We have safety nets and we get second and third chances.  We are blessed to live in an environment where we are able to recover from a tragic event or a failure.  This is simply not the case for half of the world’s population.  They can work hard, apply themselves, and start to build a better life - but one wrong choice, one disease, one act of violence can take it all away.

As Christians, we should be concerned with the plight of people like Bauma.  Scripture tells us that he is a person created in the image of God, and is deeply loved by his Creator.  God grieves for the poor.  God’s heart is broken by poverty and suffering.  Throughout Scripture, we see that God is concerned about poverty.  Over 300 verses in the Bible talk about the poor.  Many of these verses are directed toward God’s people - calling us to care for those that the world has forgotten.

In the 4th century, St. Augustine wrote about God’s special preference for the poor.  As Augustine read Scripture, he recognized that God has great compassion for those who are poor.  Augustine understood that the church should have the same engaged and compassionate stance toward the poor.  He wrote, “We are called to emulate God by showing a special preference for those who are poor and weak.”
It is my prayer that as we start to understand the realities of poverty, our hearts would be broken.  We acknowledge that we cannot take for granted the blessings that we have been given, and we start to think about how we can love and serve the poor as God has called us to.

Consumerism

Best Buy developed a marketing campaign for the 2008 Christmas season that was oriented around the tagline: “You, happier”.  For years, advertisers have been alluding to the fact that using their products will improve our lives.  Best Buy was the first to come out and just simply say it: if we want to be happier, a purchase at one of their stores will do it.

Consumer culture attempts to give us the secret to happiness, joy, meaning and purpose.  They spend billions of dollars each year teaching us that these things do not come from faith in God or in living a moral life.  They do not come from relationships with family and friends.  They do not come from doing good things that have meaning and purpose.  According to Best Buy, happiness comes from stuff.

We live in the most materialistic and consumer-oriented culture in history.  It is the very foundation upon which our society is built.  We live to consume.  We are bombarded every day by advertising and messages that tell us that we have to have more.  We are promised happiness and peace in the accumulation of possessions.  We are encouraged to pursue the ‘good life’, where anything that we want is at our fingertips.  We are even told that if we buy the right products, our marriages, families, and friendships will improve.

What is most remarkable is that so many people have simply accepted this culture of consuming as a good thing.  We decry the decay in values in our culture.  We complain that our lives are too busy, that we are financially strapped, that we are stressed out about our bills, and that we want more time for relationships and things that we value.  But we fail to recognize that these things are natural by-products of our materialistic culture.  Most of us never think to question whether the race to produce and consume is costing us more than we imagine.

Ironically, consumer culture was not supposed to have this kind of impact.  In the 1950’s the advent of new consumer products were supposed to make our lives easier – increase productivity so that we could spend less time working, and more time with family and friends.  It was supposed to help cultivate strong families and communities that were more connected.  But instead of the 20-hour work weeks that some envisioned, we choose to work harder so that we can consume more.  The innovations that were supposed to give us more time have made our lives busier than ever.  We are increasingly disconnected from our families, our neighbors, and the world around us.  And we are increasingly disconnected from God.

The dangers of consumerism go beyond the impact that it has on our relationships and our emotional and spiritual health.  Consumerism also creates environmental threats that are damaging our planet.  The amount of energy we use and the amount of waste that we produce is simply not sustainable.  As of 2004, almost 1.7 billion people belong to the ‘consumer class’ – defined as those whose diets contain a large amount of processed food, who have large houses, drive cars, and accumulate non-essential goods.  As the number of these kinds of ‘consumers’ around the world grows, our ability to avert environmental decay is severely threatened.

If we know that consumerism has negative consequences, why do we continue to consume?  Quite simply, it is because the messages of consumerism tell us to ignore anything outside of our immediate desires.  We are told that if we want something, we should get it.  Now.  We are no longer able to differentiate between needs and wants.  We are no longer able to wait for something.  We live in an instant world and are losing the ability to think about the long-term impacts of our choices.

Consumerism works on the principle of dissatisfaction.  Over the past decades, marketers have become quite proficient in creating new ‘needs’.  We can’t even comprehend how anyone could live without a TV (and cable package), a cell phone, a computer, air conditioning, and regular trips to Starbucks.  None of these things are inherently bad in and of themselves.  But the fact that we view them as essentials says something about the power of consumer culture to define needs.

Clearly, there are many good things that are made possible by the advances in technology and innovation that our consumer culture has produced – access to information, technology, and entertainment options that previous generations couldn’t even imagine.  We have made tremendous advances in healthcare and education.  And we have the ability to connect with others around the world.

But we should not underestimate the dark side of consumerism.  Because the pursuit of more has become so pervasive, we often lose the ability to understand how this pursuit can harm us and harm others.  For those of us who seek to follow Jesus, we often fail to grasp that the culture of consuming is often diametrically opposed to the Kingdom of God.

It is not a stretch to say that consumerism is a religion.  It gives us a god to worship (the almighty dollar), it gives us values (bigger, better, faster, more), it gives us rules to live by (work harder, buy more), and it even gives us holidays and rituals (Black Friday).  It is a system of belief that shapes how we think and act.

The ‘religion of consuming’ puts us at the center of the world.  Life is all about what I want.  Consuming moves us away from community and into isolated bubbles.  Consuming is about loving myself and has very little to do with loving others.  It tells us that nothing can make us happy except to buy the next new thing.  And as we have already begun to see, it leads to emptiness.
As Christians, we need to become more aware of the messages of materialism and how they contrast with the teachings of Jesus:

Jesus said that we are to love others
Consumerism says that we are to love stuff

Jesus says that those who would be great must serve the least
Consumerism says that those who would be great must crush their competition

Jesus says that we should not worry
Consumerism says that if we aren’t worried about getting ahead, we’ll be left behind

Jesus said that He came to give us life to the full
Consumerism says that ‘the good life’ comes to those who have the best products

So what are we to do?

The cure for consumerism comes in three parts: gratitude, simplicity, and generosity.  Gratitude recognizes that God is the provider of every good thing.  We recognize that we have been richly blessed, and that this blessing comes from God.  We thank God for the ways that he has provided for us, and as we do, we learn to trust that God will continue to provide for our needs.

The next step in the process is simplicity.  We learn to say no to things.  We recognize that contentment does not come from having more.  We don’t allow our possessions to own us.  We create space for relationship with God and with others.

The final step is generosity.  As we give to others, we find that we are incredibly blessed.  As we share our blessings with those who have very little, we find joy and peace that can never come from consuming.

Kingdom

Most of us read the Bible in fragments. We all have our favorite verses and passages that we come back to time and time again.  A typical sermon may explore a few verses, a daily devotional reading may involve a whole chapter, but rarely do we step back and get a sense of the whole arc of Scripture.  When we read the Bible in pieces, we miss out on the beautiful ways in which the Old Testament connects to the New Testament.  We miss out on some of the themes that weave throughout Scripture.  We miss out on the incredible story that God is telling us.

The Bible is a single story, a cohesive whole.  It has a plot, taking us from the creation of the world to the tragedy of the fall to God’s work to redeem His people and His creation.  It is a story about God’s love for those who are lost, about redemption that comes by following the way of Jesus, and about how God is making all things new.  It is a story about God’s people – and how they get to participate in the work that God is doing in the world.

If we step back and look at Scripture from this perspective, we begin to see some remarkable things.  We see that from Genesis through Revelation, from Abraham through Jesus and to the church, God is inviting people to be a part of His work in the world. We begin to understand what Jesus meant when he talked about the Kingdom of God, and we start to see the contours of what this Kingdom looks like.  We realize that Christian faith is about far more than a ‘personal relationship with God’ – it is about being people who are transformed by Jesus so that we can live in ways that reflect God’s Kingdom.

Let’s look at some examples that will help us connect the dots and see what this really means:
We begin all the way back at Genesis 12 - the story of God calling Abraham.  After we read about creation, the fall, and the flood, this is the point where God begins the incredible journey to bring redemption to the world.  It begins with a promise to one man named Abraham.  God tells Abraham that he and his descendents will be blessed.  But there is an important phrase that we often miss.  God says that Abraham will be a blessing to all nations (Genesis 12:2).

Here, at the very beginning of the story, we see an important theme.  God’s people are to be a blessing to the world.  God has revealed Himself to people so that these people can show the world what God is like.  God’s people are supposed to reflect God’s character.  God’s people are supposed to live in ways that reflect God’s Kingdom.  As missionary Lesslie Newbigin says, the church is to be a “sign, instrument, and foretaste of God’s Kingdom”.

What does this mean?  If we go to the very end of the story (the book of Revelation), we catch a glimpse of what God’s Kingdom is going to look like.  It will be a Kingdom of justice, there will be no suffering and sorrow, and God will reign in power.  It will be a place where we live in right relationship with God and with one another.  It is a Kingdom where everything works the way God intended – as it did before sin entered the world.

As we move ahead in the story, we come to the book of Leviticus.  In this book, God outlines the rules and laws that His people are to follow.  One of the most interesting is the ‘Year of Jubilee’.

During the Year of Jubilee (which happened once every 50 years), land was returned to its original owners.  If someone had lost their land, it was returned to them.  Slaves were set free, and debts were canceled.  This meant that it was impossible for one tribe or family to become increasingly wealthy at the expense of others.  Every 50 years, the playing field was leveled.  There were to be no rich and poor among God’s people.

We see these same themes repeated in the prophetic books of the Old Testament.  Isaiah 61 describes God’s Kingdom once again – a Kingdom where the poor are comforted, the prisoners are set free, and the blind see.  In Micah, God tells His people to ‘do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God’.  The prophet Amos condemns those who obtain wealth through oppression.  Through the prophets, God is reminding His people that they must live in a way that is different from the world.

Jesus reiterated many of these same themes.  In his first public sermon, Jesus quoted from the prophet Isaiah, reciting those beautiful verses that describe the Kingdom of God.  And then Jesus told his listeners, “Today, in your presence, this prophecy is fulfilled.”  Jesus embodied the Kingdom of God, caring for the poor, outcast, and downtrodden.  He showed us what the Kingdom of God looks like.  And through his death and resurrection, he has empowered us to live out God’s Kingdom in our own lives.

The early church did this.   The book of Acts describes how new Christians would sell everything that they had and live together in community.  It is reminiscent of the way that God called Israel to live – there were no rich and poor, just a community of people trying to live out their calling to ‘Love God and love your neighbor’.

The same can be true of us today.  In the midst of a consumer culture that tells us that we deserve everything that we can get, our job as Christians is to show the world glimpses of God’s beautiful coming Kingdom.  When we see injustice, we are to stand against it.  Where we see suffering, we are to help.  Where we see poverty, we are to give generously.  When our culture tells us to look out for ourselves, we choose to invest in others.

Our faith in Jesus is about far more than where we go when we die.  Of course, we rejoice that our faith in Jesus means that we will spend eternity with Him.  But we are also to think about how we are to live the years that we are here on earth.  We have an opportunity to escape the meaninglessness of our culture of consuming and live in a way that shows others the beauty of God’s Kingdom.

There is only one description of ‘Judgment Day’ in Scripture.  It is in Matthew 25.  In this passage, we see that it is those who have cared for the poor, who have loved and served the least that are called God’s children and are welcomed into God’s eternal Kingdom.  This does not mean that our salvation is based on works.  But it does mean that a natural outflow of our faith in Jesus should be a heart to care for the poor.

We were created to live in God’s story.  He has invited us to join Him in this remarkable thing that He is doing in the world.  He is inviting us to escape the petty worries that we have about what we will eat, drink, and wear.  He is telling us that life is about more than the pursuit of a bigger house or a nicer car.  He is inviting us to be a part of His movement in the world.  He is calling us to say no to the pursuit of wealth and comfort – for this story is far too small for us.  He is inviting us into the Big Story of the Kingdom of God.

Fair Trade

Our sense of fairness develops at a very young age.  From the time we are 3 or 4 years old, we want to make sure that we are treated fairly.  If our sibling gets a bigger piece of cake, we cry and complain about unfairness.  As we move into adulthood, we carry this keenly developed sense of fairness and justice.  We know when we haven’t been treated fairly.   We stand up for our family and friends when they have been put in an unjust situation.  We cheer for the underdog who stands up to those who have power.

But the truth is that we are surrounded by unfairness and injustice every day.  The reality is that the global economic system is unfair.  Those who have money and those who run large corporations have tremendous influence and are able to define the rules of the game.  Those who are poor have no voice.  Their choices are limited by other people and situations that are out of their control.

A textile worker in Indonesia has very few options.  She is forced to work 12-14 hours per day in an environment that is hot, dirty and dangerous. The company pays her pennies for each shirt she makes, which they sell in American stores for $30 or more.  She earns a couple of dollars a day, and is thankful for the job, because she has no other options.  If she did not work in the textile factory, she would have to scavenge or beg for food.

The textile factory is the best option that this woman has, but it is still not fair.  Fairness demands that she should have other options.  She should be able to work to support herself and earn a wage that enables her to live with dignity.   Justice says that a company should not earn large quarterly profits on the backs of workers like her.

None of us would consciously make consumer choices that cause pain and degradation to other human beings.  But unfortunately, many of the products that we buy are made in conditions like this.  Over the past decades, we have seen a ‘race to the bottom’ in the production of consumer goods.  Goods used to be produced in the United States, until lower labor costs in Latin America made it cheaper to produce there.  Countries like Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, and Singapore undercut the Latin American labor market, and today, China is the cheapest place to produce.  Businesses chase cheapness, even if it means that workers work in conditions that we would never tolerate for wages that are absurd. Our demand for the lowest prices is the reason that these oppressive environments exist.

We are well-intentioned, unwitting participants in the unjust systems and structures that cause harm to people.  We don’t want to believe that our choices are what lead people to work in horrible conditions.  But they do.  Because most of our products are produced so far away, it’s hard for us to see and understand the impact of our consumer choices.  We forget that those who produce the products that we buy are our neighbors and that Jesus calls us to love them.
Fair trade is a movement that helps to address the unfairness and injustice in economic systems.  On the most basic level, fair trade gives producers a fair price for the goods that they produce.  It allows them to earn what they deserve to earn.  It helps them support their families, and it helps them to build healthy communities.

If people like us are willing to stop the ‘race to the bottom’, it could literally transform the lives of millions of individuals, families, and communities.  A textile worker who earns $5 per day instead of $2 per day will be able to send her children to school, pay for medical care, and allow her to create a better future for herself and her family.  This is what fair trade does.
As followers of Jesus, we should be willing to sacrifice for the sake of others.  Perhaps we agree to pay 20% more for fair trade coffee or clothing.  Or maybe we agree to wait a couple of extra days to have fair trade products shipped to us, rather than the instant gratification of having something today.  We do these things because we know that small sacrifices can literally transform the lives of others.

Changing our spending habits is hard.  Because we are spent years saying ‘yes’ to consumer culture, it may seem that even small sacrifices are almost impossible for us to make.  Many of us are in debt and feel like we’re just barely making it.  We don’t know how or where to start.  The good news is that we don’t have to do this on our own.  Jesus told his disciples (right after talking to a rich young man) that, “with God, all things are possible”.  God is in the business of changing our hearts.  As we pray and seek to honor Him with our money, and as we talk with each other, we will find that we can change.   And as we do begin to change, we find freedom and joy – we are no longer slaves to the power of culture.  We are able to use our resources in ways that help others.

We may also be tempted to think that our individual actions are too small to make a difference. We forget that we are part of a community of millions of other believers.  We forget that we have the power to create markets.  Consumers are not powerless.  If people begin to demand fair trade products, corporations will have no choice but to deliver.  This is an issue where the church can truly be the church.  As singer and activist Bono said, “The church must become the conscience of the free market.”

If millions of Christians made simple choice about buying products like coffee, chocolate, clothing, and gifts through organizations like Trade as One, it could change the world.
At the beginning of this course, we looked at the life of a young man named Bauma.  Let’s imagine what his life might look like if he joined a coop of farmers that sells fair trade coffee to consumers in the US.

Five years ago, Bauma joined a cooperative in his little village.  The cooperative was connected with an organization that provides micro-loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries.  Bauma received a loan ($500) that helped him to purchase some coffee trees and simple irrigation equipment.  He went through a training program where he learned how to grow and harvest coffee beans.  It has been a lot of hard work over the past 5 years, and there have been many challenges.  Bauma has invested a lot into getting his coffee farm up and running.
Currently, Bauma produces 1200 pounds of coffee on his acre of land each year.  He earns $1.30 per pound when he sells it to the co-op.  About half of that money goes toward covering his costs.  When all is said and done, he earns $65 per month from his farming activities.  This doesn’t sound like much, but it has dramatically changed life for Bauma and his family.  He is able to pay the $2/month for 3 of his siblings to go to school.  He has been able to buy some rabbits and another goat to help supplement the family’s diet and provide additional income.  He is saving money and is looking to purchase additional land.  Bauma feels good about himself and about being able to provide for his family.   Once, his life seemed hopeless, but now he is filled with hope and dreams for a better future.  He is grateful for the people who buy the coffee that he produces.
Stories like Bauma’s are happening all over the world.  And when we see lives changed like this, we catch a glimpse of the Kingdom of God breaking into the world.