From Charity to Solidarity, Wk 1

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Join our church in dreaming together this spring about a more profound, more connecting, more sustainable way to address economic suffering and struggle in our country. Vince sets the table for this ongoing project teaching us about the God of Solidarity, who calls us toward the same mindset.

(Illustration by Lauren Rolwing for The Southeast Center For Cooperative Development)

SPEAKER NOTES

From Charity to Solidarity (wk 1)

Some stats I want to start with today…

• According to Religionandjustice.org, in the Roman Empire at the time of Jesus, ::the wealthiest 1%:: of the population controlled 16% of all wealth; in the United States today, the 1% control 40%.

  • The ratio of CEO to avg worker salary continues to grow, and was ::398:1:: in 2021!

• The poverty line is set at ::$31,200/year:: for a family of four…

  • There are over 41 million Americans living in poverty according to census data
  • But think about that… can you survive on $31,000 as an individual in a city like Chicago? That’s $2600/month?
  • There are millions more of us who are not officially considered poor, but who are functionally poor,
  • Yet, because the official stats don’t show it, the priority level is lowered, and we hear messages that poverty is decreasing

• Several research studies indicate that at least ::60%:: of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck

  • and this is not explained by poor money management,
  • it’s because cost of living keeps going up but avg worker wages aren’t keeping pace
  • Since 1970, ::average wages:: for Americans have gone up 80%, but the Consumer Price Index has gone up 500% in that time!
  • According to the National Center for Education Statistics, since 1970, the ::average in-state tuition:: and fees for one year at a public university has gone up 2580% (!)
  • And then, of course, the federal minimum wage remains $7.25/hr, and only four states have a minimum wage of at least $15
    • With food servers and folx in the gig economy or Uber-style economy having the least protection of all.
  • This is not about money management… This is about money distribution.

• Sociologist Matthew Desmond, the author of Evicted and Poverty, by America, ::says this:::

  > “In 2020, we spent $53 billion on direct housing assistance to the needy, through public housing, Section 8 vouchers. We spent *$193 billion* on homeowner tax subsidies.”

  • Desmond points out the cultural damage of public housing being called welfare while homeowner subsidies is called tax breaks —
    • That language furthers the marginalization of the poor, who are perceived to be “taking advantage of the system”
    • But who is really taking advantage of the system more? It’s not the poor, it’s the already-affluent — by over triple the amount!
    • And this is where things can get challenging and uncomfortable… I became a homeowner in 2019… so I’m part of that $193 billion
    • However, Desmond explains, the vast majority of that $193 billion goes to the wealthiest Americans (which is very much not me)
  • Again, this is a distribution of wealth issue.
    • The wealthiest 1% of the population are not paying their fair share
    • And ALL of the 99% of people who have to work for a living suffer and struggle as a result

• What are your personal experiences that put stories behind all of these statistics?

  • I was talking this week with someone in the church who is a renter,
    • about how dehumanizing it feels to be a tenant in a building run not by someone whose door you can knock on or phone number you can call, but by some 10 step removed management company with God-awful online forms and voicemail services, probably hired by some rich 1% investor who owns 12 different properties like it, and isn’t locally invested in your neighborhood’s flourishing at all
  • Or is it a story about healthcare?
    • The premiums for my entire family to have health insurance are nearly $2000 a month, BUT when I injured my knee the other week the first thing that runs through my mind is “crap, I hope my friends can safely get me in a car and to the ER, because my co-pay for an ambulance is still outrageous.”
    • What a dehumanizing reality! I’m in some of the worst physical pain of my life. And I’m worried about how much this will cost my family.
    • Why? Because the way money is distributed in this country means my ridiculously expensive insurance doesn’t actually provide insurance at all for my lived reality.
    • Think about that — we use the word insurance, meant to imply “relief”, “not to worry”... but all it feels like it provides me is anxiety.
  • If you’re a person of color, or your body is differently abled, or your parents didn’t go to college like mine, or you’re in the gig-economy,
    • chances are your stories are way worse than mine,
    • because of the systemic injustices that affect you disproportionately ::stats off →::

Charity

• For those of good will, the suffering and struggle that these statistics and stories reveal feel morally appalling,
  • We feel we must do something.
  • And there are so many of good will! Thank God! I’m positive that includes our entire BLC community, and the vast majority of people in the world.
• The “do something” that we most readily think of in 21st century American life is charity
  • Essentially, we can define charity as:
  • those with more money give money to support those with less
  • charitable organizations receive the money of the affluent and then use that money to address the problems of the not-affluent
• And there are so many good examples of this accomplishing a lot to address suffering and struggle.
  • There are some shady and incompetent and naval-gazing charities, yes,
  • But there are some amazing charities doing amazing things.
  • Part of BLC, this church, can be captured by this definition of “charity”
    • Those who are able to give donate to support this church, so that it can provide completely free to all: communal bonds and pastoral care and space to rest and connect with God and grow personally.
      • Can you imagine if pastoral care had a paywall?
      • Like: If you’d like to meet with your pastor for longer than 30 minutes to talk about the death of your father or your wounds from a community that hurt you, you’ll have to join our premium membership.
      • But we don’t have to do that — because of charity!
    • Or one of our biggest annual neighboring efforts — packing neighboring bags to give out to unhoused neighbors — is an awesome effort of charity
      • People give to our church’s neighboring fund
      • With that, we purchase and assemble these care kits
      • To be given to those in our city most neglected
  • So I have positive feelings toward charity!
• BUT, nonetheless, our series we’re beginning today is encouraging us — as a church and as individuals — to make a move
  • From a charity mind-set to solidarity mind-set
  • I believe this move can mean a more profound and connecting and sustainable way to address the suffering and struggle
    • that all these stats indicate,
    • and that so many of our own life stories corroborate.
  • To explain more about what a Solidarity mind-set means, I want to first talk about God,
    • because we are a church, and so of course that’s my starting point.
    • No, seriously, I want to talk about God because I want to demonstrate how, from the specific Christian perspective we’re drawn to here at BLC, solidarity is absolutely core to our most ultimate concerns — to the meaning of life, purpose, hope, the essence of God

Theological basis for something else: solidarity

• In the Bible, scholars believe that maybe the earliest recorded poetry we have about Jesus is a passage in Philippians.

  • One of the letters of St. Paul, who wrote many of the letters that make up the New Testament of the Bible.
  • He records the poem in Philippians 2
  • But scholars believe it’s not his original work; he appears to be quoting something he assumes his readers are already familiar with
  • So this is like ground zero of beliefs that begin to form around Jesus’ story in the wake of his ministry
    • This is before any of the Gospels are written
    • Because Paul’s letters were written before any of the four Gospels.
    • Bibles put the Gospels first in the New Testament.
    • But Paul didn’t have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John when he was writing — their authors had his writings.
  • So this poem, if it’s even earlier than Paul, as foundational as it gets for the early Jesus followers

• Here’s the ::passage:: (you’ll notice a couple phrases in [brackets] — those are translation choices by people translating the Bible to english that I’ll explain after)

  5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

  > 6 Who, [because] he existed in the form of God,
  
  > did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
  
  > 7 rather, he [gave of himself]
  
  > by taking the very form of a servant,
  
  > being made in human likeness.
  
  > 8 And being found in appearance as a man,
  
  > he humbled himself
  
  > by becoming obedient to death—
  
  > even death on a cross!

• So that second translation choice [gave of himself]

  • You may have heard quoted or have a Bible in your home that says “emptied himself” or “made himself nothing”
    • instead of “gave of himself”
    • all three are reasonable translation choices for the Greek word here: “kenosis”
  • I like “gave of himself” the most for our Modern context, because it avoids a distracting trigger for those of us highly attuned to mental health that “emptied himself” or “made himself nothing” might carry
    • We’re not talking about being co-dependent or the worst examples of never standing up for your own needs because you always put others first…
    • We’re talking about the most beautiful, loving, mature versions of “giving of yourself” — that is a good thing, a beautiful thing

• The “because” translation choice that starts this is what’s most important to talk about though

  • You may have heard quoted or have a Bible at home that says “although he existed in the form of God”
  • With the way the original Greek language works, either “although” or “because” are a reasonable translation choice
  • That’s tough because they’re kind of opposites, but that’s how Greek works.
  • So we have to make a choice based on our larger context: although or because?

• Here’s why I don’t like “although”

  • If we say “although Jesus was in the form of God, he didn’t take advantage of that, and gave of himself”,
    • it suggests Jesus is an interruption of usual God-behavior
    • Like: God has every right to do whatever God wants and take advantage of God's God-ness,
    • BUT, in the instance of Jesus, God graciously makes the choice to come down to us and not be a controlling tyrant, to lay that right down, and be kind to us
  • Now, if that’s the way God works, and that’s the choice God makes, I guess I can see some merit in why people would worship that God — for choosing to not be awful

• BUT look what this says if we choose “because” instead — it’s SO MUCH more beautiful and magnetic to me

  • “Because Jesus was in the form of God, he didn't take advantage of that, and gave of himself”
    • This says: the true essence of a true god is self-giving presence and nearness, NOT removed, all-controlling tyrannical power
    • There is no right to such dominance or obliterating of human freedom and flourishing for a truly good God
    • A truly good God could never entertain the possibility!
  • A so much more trustworthy picture of God!

• I am most compelled by scholars who suggest this poem Paul is quoting was about distinguishing Jesus’ God from the Greco-Roman gods

  • and from the Roman Caesars, who would present themselves as Living Gods, “sons of God” (a name the early Jesus communities used subversively for Jesus!)
  • Those gods are up in the sky, dominating and mighty, tinkering with things using top-down power, demanding we give to them
  • But Jesus’ true God is close, self-giving, is about humility, bottom-up power, for the good of all, and the participation of all.
  • The true God doesn’t determine or allow suffering or struggle. The true God is experiencing them alongside us.
  • Even if doing so puts Jesus’ life in danger.
  • The true God's essence is to be with us in solidarity

• And there’s our word: solidarity

  • Solidarity is addressing needs NOT as one from outside a struggle or suffering, or high above it
  • BUT as one from inside a struggle or suffering.
    • As one who has skin in the game.
    • As one who can’t just leave when it gets too hard.
  • The Greco-Roman imagination of a benevolent God can be charitable — giving from afar, from outside, top-down
    • but a charitable God doesn’t have skin in the game
    • a charitable God could choose to use their God-ness for their own advantage
  • Jesus’ God is more than charitable… Jesus’ God, the true God, is a God of solidarity

• And, to use Paul’s words, “In our relationships with one another, we are called to have the same mindset” ::scripture off::

A Solidarity Economy

• Indigenous Australian artist, activist, and academic Lilla Watson helps us to contrast this solidarity mindset with a charity mindset when ::she says:::

  "If you have come here to help me you are wasting your time, but if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."

• To address the sufferings and struggles I began us considering today from a solidarity mindset ::quote off::

  • Means getting in touch with the way we are inside those sufferings and struggles.
  • We are caught up in them. Even if we're not currently experiencing them personally. They are not other people’s problems, that we help with from the outside, they are our problems! We're there too. In solidarity.
  • And the God of the universe is there in solidarity with us too.
  • My wife has a t-shirt that says “It doesn’t have to happen to you for it to matter to you.” That’s solidarity.

• I am becoming increasingly convinced that the greatest need for the solidarity mindset of Jesus in America today is economic solidarity

  • So much of our country’s energy is absorbed by the discussion of relational repair between republicans and democrats,
  • and I’m not saying “forget that”;
  • but what I am saying is that what feels like a way higher priority is relational repair between the middle class and the poor and working class.
  • Because, together, if the middle-class saw itself in solidarity with the working class and poor, that’s 99% of the population (!) — all the people who have to work for a living
  • If there was solidarity, cooperation, unity, a one-ness of purpose, think of what could be accomplished with such strength in numbers!

• The fact is: those of us who are middle class have far more in common with the working class and poor than we do with the elite of society

  • Middle class bank accounts are different from the poor and working class by thousands of dollars, but from the 1% by millions of dollars

• But it benefits the 1% to peddle propaganda that keeps the middle-class resistant to aligning itself with the poor and working class

  • I think ::this famous cartoon:: captures it well
    • I also found someone on reddit who said “I ::fixed:: the famous cartoon to make it a more accurate of wealth inequality”
  • Doesn’t that capture it?
  • Racialized propaganda
    • We’re both white, so you should side with me
  • Or the language games that we play, like I mentioned with welfare vs tax breaks —
    • homeowners are clever for getting their “tax break”
    • but the poor are “charity cases”, who we are helping out of the goodness of our hearts

• Do you see how that challenges solidarity?

  • It encourages the middle class to elevate themselves above the working class and poor
  • THIS is what those of us who are middle-class must be on our guard against.
  • To have the mindset of Christ in our relationships with one another is to see the BS this cartoon is pointing out. ::cartoon off::

Examples of solidarity

• So what are some examples of economic solidarity?
• Part of the reason for this series is: that’s an open question.
  • I don’t have all the answers.
  • I have a call from the God of solidarity to have the same mindset in us.
  • How exactly do we do that? Let’s dream together!
• But, for the last seven months I’ve been part of a cohort of clergy and other Christian leaders from around the country run by Vanderbilt University
  • Called “Solidarity Circles”
  • With the goal of helping churches follow the God of solidarity to contribute to building a solidarity economy
  • So I’ve got a head start on the “what are some examples?” question
  • And here’s some things I’ve learned…
• I’ve made a ::2x2 matrix::
  • Informal to Formal
  • Micro to Macro
• A group of co-workers who all lookout for one another
  • Most of us spend over six hours a day in our workplaces, so this is often the best place to start looking where to bulid solidarity
  • Doesn’t have to be formal at all, but just checking in on one another
  • Especially those below you,
  • And especially if you’re in a situation where it feels like you have an antagonistic manager
• But things like this can be more formal like a regular small group
  • And sometimes that’s best to formalize them
• The most macro version of such a thing is a union
  • With lots of organization
  • And often that’s called for
  • But there are lots of smaller, less formal versions of solidarity other than unions
• Meal train is a great example of the most micro thing you can do
  • Just a little formal organization and someone is taken care of
  • This church has just done this for our family!
• Mutual aid groups & Time banks are larger efforts that require organization, but are still relatively informal
  • They get people in solidarity with one another by swapping services and goods without having to rely on the Market that can price people out, and that is so much more individualistic, rather than community-oriented
• And then co-ops and b-corps
  • these are ways people can run businesses in America, that are focused on more things than just profit for owners or shareholders ::matrix off::

Practical: pitch small group

• So that’s a start…
• But we need many of our voices and experiences to make this shift as a church and as individuals from a charity mindset to solidarity mindset.
• So I’m going to be leading a small group
  • It will start on April 27 ::qr code::
  • Then will continue according to the schedules of who is most invested in the group
  • This group will begin discussion-oriented
  • But it will end action-oriented
• Because the goal is:
  • We want it to be true that: when people get connected to BLC, they not only experience benefits to them or their family personally, they experience themselves invited into a big story of solidarity building, bottom-up power building, that is making our country and world more economically just. ::qr code off::
  • So I’m going to be pushing us in this group,
    • Not to bite off more than we can chew or to burn out
    • I hate burnout! Remember I preached on it for two months?
  • No, I’m going to push us to get really clear on actual practical efforts of solidarity, that people in our church can participate in
  • So we can with clarity and a strategic plan identify what is a next step for BLC in our move from a charity mindset to solidarity mindset

Let me pray for us…