Jack Jezreel 4

My role in my own tradition is professional provocateur. I’m not bringing something that is widely embraced in the Catholic community. I wish to push and prod to a new understanding of Abundant Life, Eternal Life, zoenaionion.

Various movements have intensity that grows and fades. These experiences are born of emotionality and when they fade God seems to fade as well.

I believe the new birth is like actual birth. Those who have developed the ability to love broadly have a steadiness in their relationship with God.

Life goes up and down. The key is not to attach your experience with God.
The Jesuit prayer life is to teach a steady ongoing experience of life with God. All of us have desired to help people pray “deeper”. My experience is that loving broadly, even where it’s forbidden, seem to draw from a well of resources that are otherwise not available.

If we don’t preach the reign of God we short circuit the spiritual growth of our people and we short change our relationship with God.

When love gets large it tips naturally toward those in greatest need.

The good news is that being in need is not part of God’s will.

If God’s attention is turned away from the poor to the non-poor, the Holy Spirit’s gesture is to find a way out of their preoccupation, the way out of self absorption. The poor no longer stay poor and the rich meet the poor. It looks like communalism, not communism.

The promise is resurrection but you must go through Friday. But joy is ahead.

One of Eva Cassidy’s songs: “The only love you find on easy street is a dream”. Real love is born of sacrifice and testing.

Chris and his family have experienced the price that must be paid. Abundant life lived now that intersects with the eternal. When people experience this they say, “this is better than anything I’ve ever experienced”.

There are two postures when we think about caring for those in need.

There’s a guy in his backyard because he loves the yard. The yard tips to a creek and thee are ducks there. One day he puts his hoe down and sees what looks like a body. It is a body. He launches into a full gallop and pulls out a half drown bleeding woman. He nurses her for 2 months.

Month later there are two bodies. Carries them back to his house and nurses them for two months. The weeds are really tall.

He thinks I’m not looking up. He looks up and there are three bodies. Justice: What is going on up river?

Charity meets immediate needs. Justice deals with causes and solutions. Sometimes crises are temporary, but often they are systemic. A result of root causes.

Mercy or Charity
Takes one person.
Clear and short time frame.
Praised
Little analysis

Justice.
Lots
Long
Criticism
Much analysis


How many people does it take to do mercy? One.
What’s the time required for a charitable act? It’s limited and defined.
When people do charity, are they applauded or critiqued? Applauded

Justice takes many, takes a long time, and often brings criticism.

Why does it bring criticism?
I served in a soup kitchen when I was young. Many of our primary relationships were people on the street. We started seeing more people come who had full time jobs. Some had to choose between their utility bill and their lunch. One response would be to increase the number and work of soup kitchens. The other response is why does someone who works full-time or part-time have to eat at soup kitchens. So we began a living wage campaign which takes many people and a long time. There are some good reasons to avoid this and some political ones. No matter what, when you do justice work, someone’s ox will be gored.

We speak to the hearts of those who have money to care for those that don’t have it.

We tend to see what’s good for us and are blind to what is good for others.

In KY we have Home for the Innocents that got too big. They wanted to move to a place near the Catholic High School and the parents did not want it in fear of the parents of the children who might live there.

Questions:
Jesus: where your money is your heart will be also. The connection between mercy and justice is often that mercy begins to engage hearts and then justice follows from the logic of love.

Many work at a soup kitchen to make themselves feel better. They won’t look up in the eyes of those they serve. But the logic of love demands a response to the real needs of people, not just the immediate needs.

Two thirds of the homeless that we worked with were Viet Nam veterans who needed more than soup. Justice follows the logic of love to help address the deeper needs of people.

People do desperate things when they are desperate. People don’t

Separation of church and state. Jesus tradition sees a link between governance and religion.

The state cannot mandate church attendance. But church and state does not mean that people cannot take their values into their participation into the political process.

Almost always when influential people begin to seek justice, it almost always costs them something. The movie Blood Diamond portrays a system that will cost someone to break out of it.

What about labor and teacher unions that look like Egypt? The lifesaving station is not a story about the church alone, it is about all institutions and how they lose their original integrity and vision. This is why we always need prophets.

Another example, Catholic schools in this country were started to help poor kids. Catholic schools have become the schools of the elite.

Litmus test for churches: if you closed down would any of the poor around you care? If not, close down.

How much analysis do you need to do charity? Little Justice requires homework. In South Bend Indiana they have done much research on homelessness. Until you address 15 areas of a person’s life do you see a spike in getting people out of homelessness?

Justice includes contemplative prayer: gazing clear eyed at reality through the lens of faith and prayer. Don’t shut down because of pre-existing loyalties. As a community of prayer and discernment we make better decisions. More damage is done by one person than by men. That’s why you have the church to shave off our rough edges.

When I say church I don’t necessarily mean the church structure. In our work the biggest obstacle is the pastor. If the pastor is not interested nothing happens. We are beginning house churches or small communities of faith. These groups often implode because the have no mission. Our mission is the reign of God. Most groups are like the Moose club with different words. If groups don’t have a mission they are thin, in prayers and otherwise.

Mercy and Charity tends to cooperate with existing structures. Justice tends to work against existing structures.

DART, IAF, PICO, Gamaliel. Communities First These are community organizing groups. They start with the poor.

CLOUT in Louisville identifies basic needs. There are abandoned lots that draw rats and affect the surrounding properties. This group gathers people and momentum to shed light on these problems. Clout happens when people in the suburban rings get involved in solving the cities problems.

Who are the beneficiaries of an unjust system? Look at the tags on your clothes. It’s cheap because people aren’t paid well.

Bono is a prophet. Often prophets are muted because they indict “donors” who fund the current system. Prophets need to have a measure of independence.

Practical strategies:

What’s a good structure in a church to make social mission possible?

How do we get more people excited about the work we are doing?

Spiritual maturity produces an expanding heart. Bigger hearted means they learn how to love themselves, God and the world better. I can’t judge what their love of God looks like. What do they do with their life? Over time, I love in a place that I previously did not love. I care about people that I used to ignore.

Words can be deceiving. “My love has gotten bigger and bigger” but it has no verifiable proof. Self examination says where do I love this year that I have not loved before.

The word Martyr comes from the word witness in Greece. People went to dangerous places because love beckoned them there. The opposite of love is fear.

One version of Catholicism is that more sacraments are more holiness. This is not an adequate measure of love.

Some say “I’m loving my neighbour by telling them about Jesus.” Yes and no. You are loving your neighbour but that does not exhaust love.

How do you love the God you cannot see if you don’t’ love those you can: John

Transformation = conversion = spiritual grown = deeper communion.

We don’t change people, God does. If we can’t then what’s the point.
We can’t do transformation, but we can do formation. In the Catholic world we don’t talk about education anymore. We talk about formation. What’s the purpose of education, its formation?

What do you do for Formation? Sunday School, counselling, small groups. When you come to this there is a heightened possibility that you will grow. In the catholic tradition we have bingo, fish fry, and basketball. When people do these things, do they lead to transformation? Formation is what we can invite people too. We can’t do transformation. But we can create good soil for transformation. The job of the pastoral team is to identify if anyone is being changed by this experience. How many things in your church lead people to care about people that they did not care about before?

One of the richest soils for transformation (expanding heart) is crossing the tracks. Francis’ conversion began when he embraced a leper. “What before was unthinkable has become sweetness and light”. From that story, when we look people in the eyes it changes them. Osmotic: something is transferred by being close to it. When people get close to those in need, they see the scriptures through a different lens.

Hospices for babies in Haiti. In the majority of cases the babies die. Volunteers are invited to help. They go from crib to crib holding babies. Tactile stimulation increases health. My daughter mentioned that as she moved from crib to crib there was one baby who cried more when picked up. The child never stopped crying. She put the boy back to pick up others and felt the boy stiffen with regret. The prospect that the boy would get picked up again was bad, but all the other prospects were worse. Our daughter was fully evangelized in Haiti on that day. Everything Jesus said became true. She hears the gospel through the lens of that story. When Jesus talks about how precious the poor are she feels it in her gut. It changed her future.

Jesuit volunteer core. This year ten percent of the four thousand graduating from Notre Dame are making a two year service commitment. Every kid says this “Ruined for Life”. The experience changes everything about what they planned to do. Many of you have had this experience. You thought you were on track and then something happened and everything changed. You want people to say about your church, “because of that church, I got birthed out of the canal and my life has changed.”

Prison Fellowship brings people close to those who have needs. You are able to “see” them through first hand experience.

Built into your business plan, give people opportunities to “see” people in need. I have relationships with all sorts of service agencies. I ask them to choose someone to tell their story. Many have tears. Then we debrief. What did you hear? How did you feel? What are you going to do? What’s the connection between this and the scriptures?

Our work gets bigger and bigger because this is effective.

Seeds don’t grow by command. They grow because of the environment that they are put in. When we take people to the soil of people in need, they grow. Scripture can be a rich soil, but usually in conjunction with action. In wealthier contexts, you have to be deliberate to bring people out of their cushion to people in need.

Moving people from an episodic engagement with the poor to a lifestyle of the poor happens when the church champions it from the pulpit and in purpose.

We don’t do these things to be seen as Holy, we do them to put our self in graces way. God forms us by putting us in places with broken people.

Catholic charities can become so institutionalized that it is cut off from parishes.

Jack@justfaith.org

How do you build structures for Transformation?
Document called “Communities of Salt and Light” issued by the US catholic bishops talks about how to develop transformation in parishes. http://www.usccb.org/

Just Faith is a very demanding training curriculum 30 sessions of 2.5 hours a week. Two retreats. 4 border crossing experiences. Weekly prayer 12 books. It’s too hard for you. 15 videos. Guest speakers. At some point on some week the light goes on and the heart gets big. 18 to 99. People who go through it end up becoming leaders. These people become leaders.
The purpose is transformation.
We are adapting this for a broader faith community.

Most of the time I’m talking I’m twisting arms. It’s a gift to speak to those who ask good questions and want to hear what I have to say.