You may remember, the week before Christmas, Pope Francis condemned the Israeli military’s murder of two women, one 84 years old, who were sheltering in Holy Family Church in Gaza City. They were shot by a sniper leaving the church. The Pope called the murder of these innocent Christian women by the Israeli military, “terrorism”. Kat and I prayed for them and their families when we found out. On Saturday, we met Cami, one of the people we prayed for. Nahida Anton and Samar Anton were Cami’s family.

It was Cami’s 84-year-old aunty Nahida who walked outside the doors of the church into the courtyard to go to the convent when she was shot in the stomach by an Israeli sniper. What threat was this grandmother and beloved elder? What justification is there for looking down a high powered telescope getting a clear look at an elderly woman and deciding to pull the trigger?

It was Cami’s cousin Samar who ran from the church to embrace her elderly mother who lay in an expanding pool of blood when she too was targeted by the sniper. How can you look at a defenceless woman running towards an elderly woman lifeless on the ground and decided to again pull the trigger?

That image, of these two Christian women, a daughter seeking to embrace her murdered mother like her mother held her as a baby, on the grounds of a place of worship, now slumped over each other’s bodies, I cannot shake.

I must not shake.
It must shake us all.
Shake us from our apathy.
Shake us from our indifference.
Shake us from inaction.

This is not just Cami’s aunty.
This is not just Cami’s cousin.
These are our sisters in Christ!
These are human beings!!!

This is the church, the living stones, flesh and blood, being targeted alongside every soul in Gaza.

Our sister Samar served as a volunteer cook for the poor and hungry at Sisters of Mother Teresa House. Our 84-year-old sister Nahida was a beloved grandmother, not just to her own grandchildren, but to the whole community of Holy Family Church where they worshipped Christ and served him by serving those in need. Not just the Christian community, but they saw Christ in every hungry child, every suffering soul.

You might not be able to fathom the murder of 30,000 souls in Gaza.

You don’t have to.

Just hold these two women, your sisters in Christ, in your heart.

They are not numbers.
They are not statistics.

Say their names,
Nahida Anton.
Samar Anton.

They are your sisters.

They are witnesses to Christ, or in New Testament Greek, “martyrs”. Their lives testify to the truth.

Are we listening?

God save us from not being shaken.
Save us from the devil’s indifference.
Deliver us from the evil of apathy.
while people are being murdered en masse.

Let all God’s people say,
Amen.

Bible Verse – Isaiah 42:1-4

Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen one in whom I delight;
I will put my Spirit on him,
and he will bring justice to the nations.
He will not shout or cry out,
or raise his voice in the streets.
A bruised reed he will not break,
and a smouldering wick he will not snuff out.
In faithfulness he will bring forth justice;
he will not falter or be discouraged
till he establishes justice on earth.
In his teaching the islands will put their hope.

Transcript

Lent is the season where we’re again immersed in this strange reality. Resurrection Hope is summed up in Christ and Him crucified.

Imagine for a moment your city has been leveled by one of the most powerful nations on Earth. You’ve watched as most people you know have been killed or carried off. Age, disability, vulnerability were not considerations as they carried out their orders and killed comprehensively. Everything smells like burning. And there is no water to wash away the taste of death. Underneath the rubble of what once was your life, horrifically, are your loved ones. In the dust and the disease and the trauma, a word is being spoken. Not a word of certainty, predicting a future. Not a campaigning word, pushing forward a certain reform. But a vulnerable poem, cutting through the numbness and the nihilism and the noise.

This is the context that most Hebrew Bible scholars situate the prophet in Isaiah 42. After the Babylonian
invasion, armed only with this vulnerable vision that cannot be bandaged in prose, a prophet speaks.

Weaponised hatred would be understandable. Revenge fantasies seem inevitable. Yet, like water in the wilderness, the prophet’s poem speaks of a vulnerable power that will never forsake the vulnerable. The power of a non-violent suffering servant, not an authoritarian strong man.

Here is the surprise of a suffering servant as Savior and a justice that will defend every life but refuses to take life.
Listen.

Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights.
I put my Spirit upon him.
He will bring forth justice to the nations.
He will not cry, or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the streets.
a bruised reed he will not break.
a dimly burning wick he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice.
He will not grow faint or be crushed
until he has established justice in the Earth.
and the coastlands wait for his teaching

Friends, surprisingly, the prophet’s poetry does not mirror the surrounding brutality, nor escape into an otherworldly fantasy of neutrality. But there is talk of tenderness and intimacy in the Creator’s delight. Where some spirituality see forgiveness as the end of what the Savior brings rather than the beginning, the prophet sees the suffering servant’s job as bringing forth justice. Not justice as an optional extra for those so inclined by personality or necessity. Justice is the suffering servant’s purpose, vocation, and calling.

Please don’t miss the how. This is not a mendacious justice where your enemy is hungry and you engage in
the war crime of deliberate starvation, blocking off food after bombing.

No, the reason why this side of the resurrection the early Christians evoked the poems of the suffering servant when meditating on the crucified one is because Jesus brings a justice that breaks no bruised reeds. Jesus brings a justice that extinguishes no vulnerable candles.

Did you catch it? A Jesus-like justice rejects a way of working where those considered damaged goods are expendable for the greater good. A Jesus-like justice will have nothing to do with the extinguishing of the vulnerable smoldering light of those who others merely see as expendable.

A Jesus-like justice is not just for us, but for all of us. No one left out because everybody is made in the image of God. Jesus brings a justice that has no collateral damage. Jesus brings a justice that does not run on ‘us and them’, a justice where no life is worth more than any other, no child worth less than any who are suffering. Jesus brings a justice that doesn’t justify the bombing of children for any political or ideological or eschatological end.

Our hope is not sitting at the table with the lamb and the wolf and thinking that our role as Christians is to say grace before the strong devour the weak for dinner. Our hope is that us, bruised reeds, us candles, that only just hold on to a little light would be welcomed into a new world that doesn’t need more victims to bring justice.

Our hope is not a pious neutrality where we calculate when it will be too costly to protest against the bruising of those particular reeds. Our hope is not assessing whether the issue is popular enough to stand against the extinguishing of those smoldering wicks. No, our hope is to unashamedly put our bodies where Christ is, with those who are suffering.

This is why this Lent many of us are walking a peace pilgrimage the length of Gaza, knowing our hope is just putting one foot in front of the other as we around the world pray with our feet that the longed-for tidal wave of justice can finally rise up, and hope and history rhyme. We’re seeking to repent of the silence by taking up our cross and praying for an end to the killing and the oppression, so a Jesus-like justice would finally dawn. Because every Palestinian child is as precious to God as every Israeli child.

I do not do so simply because I qualify for Israeli citizenship, and I feel like I must do something. I do not do so simply because I worked in the region and my friends are crying out and I must answer. I do not do so simply because my nation is selling weapons that are killing children, and as a citizen, I have to respond. I don’t even do so because the incredibly moving, non-violent witness of our Palestinian sisters and brothers in Christ. Ultimately, I do so because I have been baptised in the Spirit of my suffering servant, a Savior who didn’t hide in neutrality but loved me and gave himself for me. A suffering servant who didn’t calculate, am I worth speaking up for? But set his face like flint towards Calvary.

This Lent may we be found trusting in resurrection and taking up our cross. This Lent may we realize with Daniel Berrigan that if we’re gonna follow Jesus, we better look good on wood. This Lent may we be found in the hope of Christ as he stands with the bruised reeds and smoldering wicks bringing a Jesus-shaped justice in resurrection power.

Amen.

Reflection Questions

What darkness and pain are you aware of in your community, in creation, or the world? What might
Jesus-shaped justice look like here?

What surprising hope do you find in the image of Jesus as the suffering servant faithfully bringing forth justice to the nations?

This Lent, how can we be living out our hope in Christ?

Prayer

Lord and Saviour Jesus.
As our hearts break by a world marred by conflict and injustice, may we find hope in you. A hope that is never realised through retaliation or violence, but triumphs through mercy, love, and compassion.

Pour Your Spirit upon us, that we might embody this ‘Jesus-shaped justice’ in our daily lives. Strengthen our resolve to follow in the footsteps of Christ, to not break a bruised reed or snuff out a smoldering wick, but to uplift the downtrodden and bring forth justice with patience and faithfulness.

As the early Christians found hope in Jesus, let us too cling to the resurrected Christ, committing ourselves to be peacemakers and bearers of Your divine justice. In the midst of suffering, may our actions reflect Your love and bring hope to those who despair.

Amen.

Reflection shared by Jarrod McKenna

Jarrod McKenna is passionate about God’s nonviolent-love becoming our experience of prayer and program for transformation. Jarrod is the co-host of the popular InVerse Podcast, served as the Nonviolent Social Change Advisor for World Vision (Middle East/Eastern Europe) and as a Former National Director of Common Grace. Jarrod pastors with Steeple Church in Melbourne and is a co-founder of the global peace pilgrimages for Gaza.

Connect with Jarrod McKenna

https://jarrodmckenna.com

https://jarrodmckenna.com/inverse-podcast

I have spent my adult life dedicated to welcoming asylum seekers and refugees. I was arrested as part of #ExtinctionRebellion because by 2050 over 1 billion people face becoming climate refugees if we don’t act now. That, and because I believe Jesus is risen from the grave.

If Christmas is the season to be jolly, maybe—if the Gospels are anything to go by—Easter is the season for Christians to go to jail. Nonviolently, in imitation of Christ, of course. Why?

According to the Ecological Threats Register of 2020 produced by the Institute for Economics and Peace:

1. One hundred and forty-one countries are exposed to at least one ecological threat, with 19 countries facing four or more threats.

2. 6.4 billion people live in countries which are exposed to medium to high ecological threats.

3. Of the 157 countries covered in the Ecological Threats Register, 34 percent will face catastrophic water stress and 22 percent catastrophic food insecurity by 2050. A catastrophic threat would result in substantial displacement of people or substantial increase in undernourishment.

4. Flooding is the most common ecological threat affecting 60 percent of the countries covered in the report, followed by water stress, which will impact 43 percent of the countries by 2040.

5. Ten of the 19 countries with the highest exposure to ecological threats are among the 40 least peaceful nations on the Global Peace Index.

6. And I have already stated, an estimated 1.2 billion people are at risk of displacement by 2050.

That is unless we can dramatically pull our societies back from this suicidal reality. As Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said the night before his assassination 53 years ago to the day, “Our choice is no longer between violence and nonviolence. Our choice is nonviolence or nonexistence.”

Watch the full sermon here. 

People supporting survivors, I see you too. Thanks for standing with us when we can feel so alone.

On days when your deepest trauma is international news, what do you do?

How to support survivors

Before I share advice for fellow survivors (we are addressing trauma so please be aware of possible triggers), I want to address friends, partners, journalists, pastors, or just empathetic souls seeking the healing of our world. Here are three suggestions to contribute to that healing — and not the harm.

1. Remember we are here
   Don’t write your articles without us. Be aware “hot takes” burn those of us for whom this is not abstract. It’s hard to express how isolated we can feel, not just as victims of abuse but as victims in the one community we should have been most safe — the church.It’s not just the trauma of what happened and where it happened; it’s the trauma of well-meaning Bible-quoting fools who engage in theologies of cover up, backlash, and blame of victims. It’s also the trauma of police interviews and legal systems where we are put on trial as if we have committed the crime(s). These layers of harm are complicated and often compounding of each other.Please don’t talk about us; listen to us. This is your opportunity to be the church in loving solidarity and to reverse, just a little, some of the wrong. We are here. Just be here with us.
2. Don’t use the “F” word
   If you haven’t stood with the victims, you don’t get to talk of forgiveness.Yes, forgiveness is central to the gospel. But that’s our freedom, our liberation. If you wait, if you share in our anger and grief, if you enter into Sheol with us, if you seek justice, if you defend and take up the cause of survivors, we will welcome you as we lead in that costly deliverance that is forgiveness. Only then will the definition of forgiveness be clearly heard as healing justice.But if your understanding of forgiveness does not bring an end to the harm, it’s not forgiveness. It’s just more harm. Too much has been taken from us. Don’t take that as well.Don’t set timelines. We know forgiveness is a process. We need you to know that it’s a process of liberation. Forgiveness is central to the gospel in that resurrection power flows from the Forgiving Victim; it is never forced upon victims. Forgiveness is never saying “it doesn’t matter.” Forgiveness insists it matters more than you can imagine. Forgiveness has nothing to do with forgetting. Forgiveness is remembering in ways that liberate. Forgiveness is where we recover a sense of self that is deeper than what we suffered. To state the obvious, forgiveness never means allowing others to be harmed again. Forgiveness is a way of being that means our lives no longer revolve around what they did. It’s our freedom. It’s our liberation into a power that is greater than the pain.But if you have not stood with us, advocated with us, cared more for the truth than for harmony, well, from your mouth forgiveness will just be another “F” word.
3. Never teach mercy without justice
   At moments such as these, the clarity of a gospel perspective needs to come from survivors of clerical abuse — never at the cost of them. If a so called “gospel perspective” is not good news for those abused, it’s no gospel at all.People who talk of mercy without justice are advocating injustice, not mercy. People who talk of justice without mercy are advocating vengeance, not justice. Injustice and vengeance will not heal me. We need healing justice, not sentimentality or outrage. Be committed to the truth regardless of what it costs. Stand with the victims despite the consequences. Oppose anything that would dehumanize. Be aware that dealing with the police, the press, and the legal proceedings can often dehumanize. Abandon all theologies that compound and not confront dehumanization. For those who are interested in more on this, please see “Survival as Theology.”

Suggestions for survivors

Now, for other survivors, here are five things that you may find helpful when the headlines are filled with what you talk about in therapy.

1. Listen
   What can you hear? Can you hear birds? How many? What kind? What are they saying? Can you hear your breathing? Can you hear the cries of your heart? Can you hear that “still small voice?” What are you needing to welcome healing today?
2. Remember you get to choose
   You don’t have to engage today, or you can.
   You don’t have to watch the news today, or you can.
   You don’t have to read the opinion pieces today, or you can.
   You don’t have to share your story today, or you can.
   You don’t have to look at social media today, or you can. (I rarely find it healing.)Honor all that happens for you today by deciding what you need. Not sure? Return to the birds of the air. What can you hear? What does your heart need? Let the birds minister to you, and take back your choices.
3. Look to others
   You are not alone. Days like today can feel particularly lonely. You are probably a good friend to others. There are people who are willing to be a good friend to you. It might take saying, “Hey, I need to share something heavy, have you got time?” Some friends have four legs and will minister to you as they are taken for a walk. Some friends have two legs and are also up for a walk. Find a safe person or people who doesn’t want to fix you, diagnose you, or silence you but can just be with you. (If you feel you don’t have anyone, know you can message me.)Find people who understand it’s not just the abuse but the trauma of faith institutions conspiring against the light. Find who can hear how hard it is to count the cost, to take up your cross and expose the evil, reporting the crime(s) only to be met with weaponized Bible verses that blame those being crucified. Find a safe place to share the reality of what it was like preparing for the court process and the sentencing. Find someone it’s safe to swear in prayer with.
4. Seek solidarity
   If you choose, you can hear the witness of others, and help their voices be heard. Consider their courage. Give thanks for your own courage and the courage of others.Let me say it in case you haven’t heard it today, you are incredible. What you have walked through and yet you’re still open to loving others is a miracle. Give thanks for still being here, still kicking at the darkness until it bleeds daylight, and still choosing to allow healing in. Remember how incredible it is that you put a stop to this evil despite the incredible costs. Remember you are not alone. Know that the depth through which you’ve walked through this horror is the depth of hope you offer to others currently in the valley.
5. “And I took back what he stole from me”
   For survivors who are Christians, the added complications of institutions stealing what is most dear is a kind of devastation that is hard to put into words. If it’s helpful hearing another express their journey to take back what was stolen, here’s a link to mine. I share this in the hope that you would know that you are not alone and there is more healing to come.

I give thanks to the One who overthrows all Pharaohs and their armies: Your love (not the horror) endures forever.

Amen.

This week, our “aerial sit-in” has been one of many actions dramatizing this reality. The reality that if something is not done immediately, more men will die on Manus. So my prayer is that this article might be an altar call.

My prayer is that as you read these words you may have your “come to Jesus” moment. I know that phrase is used as a metaphor, but my prayer is genuine. With everything in me, I pray that these words might bring us to Jesus.

Which brings me to one more prayer — that you would take action for these men on Manus. This week. There simply is no more time.

READ: #LoveMakesAWay: Aerial Sit-in for Asylum Refugees

I know you may have objections. I’ve heard some this week:

Why are you mixing Jesus and justice?

Do you think living with refugees at First Home Project means you can’t see things objectively anymore?

What about Romans 13?

As an evangelist, why don’t you just stick to the “Sinner’s Prayer”?

And now, before the altar call, here are a few of my answers.

1. Why are you mixing Jesus and justice?”

Because the Bible does.

God’s Messiah and the messianic age of justice, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit are inseparable (Romans 14:17). We cannot separate Christ, his cross, resurrection, and ascension from the coming of God’s kingdom.

They are the coming of the kingdom.

In the words of N.T. Wright, “Either Jesus is Lord of all or he’s not Lord at all.” If your gospel isn’t good news to everything, it’s not the gospel. With Christmas just around the corner and Advent approaching, we are about to sing,

No more let sin and sorrow grow
Nor thorns infest the ground:
He comes to make his blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as the curse is found.

If your understanding of the curse is wider than your apprehension of God’s grace, we need to have a Bible study.

Let me be clear, the gospel is good news to the captives on Manus.

Rev. Dr. Geoff Broughton heard this objection to his leadership, “What are ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ doing crossing-over into issues of human rights?” The answer is the gospel of Jesus Christ rights every wrong.

2. Do you think living with refugees at First Home Project means you can’t see things objectively anymore?

Yes, living at First Home Project with refugees has unquestionably altered my perception, but this has only been part of my conversion. Living daily with people who spent four years on Manus means that more and more I see this through their eyes. Your neighbors interrupting the news stories from Manus to say, “That is Adam. He loves the Lord Jesus. Let us pray for him,” changes the way you watch the news.

You could say I’ve had an interesting week. On Sunday I was praised in the newspapers for showing compassion to refugees, by Wednesday I was being slammed for asking for justice for refugees. I thought of the witness of Helder Camera as he said, “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.” Discipleship of Jesus calls us to do both.

And discipleship of Christ Jesus means we don’t have a neutral claim on the truth. As politically incorrect as it may be, our Lord says, “I am the way, the truth and the life”. (John 14:6) Truth for the baptized is not objective, it’s relational. A relationship with Jesus means we must be found where he is found, partying with who he partied with: the lost, the last, the least of these. The persecuted church, who in part are found on Manus, offer us a way of seeing the world that calls us to conversion. We must live Christ’s way, proclaim him as the truth, and live his life.

3. What about Romans 13?

A number of people have written this on my Facebook page this week. The best answer I’ve heard came from a friend who is a worship leader (and though it’s none of your business, a conservative voter) who, after being arrested in the second #LoveMakesAWay action, was asked the same question. Her response went something like this,

“Um, you mean Romans 13? The same Romans 13 that was written by the Apostle Paul who went to jail repeatedly and had his head chopped off by the authorities for proclaiming the gospel? I think he models for us what submitting to authority means.”

And I think the kids would call that a “mic drop.”

We must never forget that Hitler loved to quote Romans 13 to keep the church docile. We must also never forget that our resistance to the powers must look like Romans 12 and the remainder of Romans 13. In short, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:21)

Yet I want you to hold me accountable, if I ever start “hitting and splitting” instead of “staying and praying,” please bring up that I’m not submitting to the authorities.

4. As an evangelist, why don’t you just stick to the “Sinner’s Prayer”?

The “Sinners’ Prayer” is not in the Bible. (Well, unless you are in a hotel room and pick up a Gideon’s Bible. God bless the Gideons.) Don’t get me wrong, I always give an opportunity to respond to the gospel, but any altar call must lead to believing, repenting, and being baptized (Matt. 28:19-20, Rom. 6:1-18, Acts 2:38-41, Acts 10:48, Acts 16:31-33, Acts 22:16, 1 Cor. 12:13, Col. 2:12, Gal. 3:27, Eph. 4:4-6… I could go on). I really think the church’s slowness to respond to the “least of these,” including our brothers on Manus, is a failure to take our baptism in Christ seriously.

Let me explain, variations of the Sinner’s Prayer arose in the Great Awakenings. Evangelists were helping people make faith personal and (don’t miss this!) signing them up to a political campaign that was in keeping with gospel proclamation. I’m not making this up. Charles Finney, an innovator of the use of the Sinner’s Prayer was giving people the opportunity to make faith in Christ personal AND practical for “the least of these.” Finney was literally signing you up to end slavery when you came down the front. If you weren’t willing to sign up for the abolitionist movement, he would turn you away because you hadn’t put your faith in Jesus! And yes, refugees, as “strangers,” are explicitly mentioned in Matthew 25:35 as Christ in camouflage as the poor.

Only in our hyper-individualistic culture(s) can the Sinners’ Prayer become a magic incantation to avoid hell rather than putting us on the journey toward baptism, being immersed in Christ, and God’s kingdom agenda. Finney was never replacing baptism with the Sinner’s Prayer, he was calling people back to it.

The early Christians did not pray the Sinner’s Prayer as isolated individuals to become Christians. They prayed the Lord’s Prayer as communities in response to the grace of God. They responded to the gospel by becoming part of a people through the waters of baptism. More than just a personal prayer, baptism was a political changing of allegiances. Nationalism, patriotism, racism, class, violence, lust, and greed no longer name us. In baptism we were given a new name. We died to those powers, and were raised in the name of the Triune God (Matt. 28:19, Gal. 3:26-29) to walk as Jesus walked (1 John 2:6).

This is what the men on Manus need, the church to live into our baptism. Forget the politics or right or left – we need the politics of grace that is our baptism.

We have Christians in Australia responding to those on Manus as Australians, when we need Australians who respond as Christians.

Only then will we witness the redemption of the nations.

Baptism is where the early church was immersed in the narrative of God’s liberating-love. They were immersed in the reality of repentance, forgiveness of sins, God’s community, and the seal of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). For the early church, baptism was being birthed anew into God’s new world (Jn. 3:3-5, 1 Pet. 1:3, Titus 3:5). They died to their old self, formed in the patterns of the kingdoms of this world, and were raised with Christ into the nonviolent redemptive patterns of discipleship (Rom. 6:3-11, Col. 2:12).

They didn’t merely invite Jesus into their heart as their “personal Lord and Savior” — they responded to Jesus’ invitation to God’s heart for all of creation. Baptism was not merely an outward sign of an inner reality; it was a personal appropriation of the outward coming of the Kingdom of God. They pledged allegiance to Christ as cosmic Lord and Savior of all creation (1 Peter 3:21). As evangelists, we are commissioned to call the world into a community that prays the Lord ’s Prayer and allows the Holy Spirit to move us into action. We are baptized into a community that witnesses to the kingdom coming on earth (Matt. 6:9-13).

As the church, we must act to show that God’s kingdom wants to come to Manus.

An Altar Call

So, with every head bowed and eye closed,

Do you accept Jesus’ invitation to God’s heart for the world, especially these men on Manus? Do you give your life to be baptized into Christ, dying to your old self, and rising with Christ? Will you take action this week with our brothers on Manus and join us in declaring that #LoveMakesAWay?

Join here: http://lovemakesaway.org.au/

“What we want to pray for is real human beings, real people… so much pain, children in detention.” -Brian Houston

I believe prayer is the most powerful form of protest.

So last night when one of the most powerful Christian leaders in the world, Pastor Brian Houston, called his International Hillsong movement to stand in prayer for some of the most powerless people in the world, the thousands of children in detention here in Australia, I was moved to tears.

Why? Because it means we’ve won.

It’s not a question of if, but when.

Freedom will come for children in detention and refugees. We are promised, God makes a way when there is no way. So when the church starts praying for God to make a way, the gates of hell cannot prevail against God’s people compelled into action for the least of these.

This was not a political statement.

This was a prophetic statement.

My friend, Pastor Donna Crouch’s heart is not one motivated by politics. Donna’s heart and leadership is one moved by the Spirit of God. When she says, “There are 1, 100 children in offshore detention. It’s crazy. These are children. They are just like our kids.” That’s a heart that dares to beat for what breaks the heart of God.

For these Christian leaders this is not about right or left. This is about right and wrong. Hillsong, instead of being dragged into politics, has instead declared the prophetic: these people matter to God! These desperate people, God created. These forgotten people, Christ died for. These most vulnerable people, the Holy Spirit is working in. Instead of choosing a political side, Pastor Brian chose the prophetic path of prayer for the powerless.

Related: Before Getting Arrested…#LoveMakesAWay

As the great 20^th Century theologian and Nazi resister, Karl Barth put it “prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.”

By praying the way they did, Hillsong chose to stand in the prophetic stream of the best of the evangelical and Pentecostal traditions. That great British Evangelical leader John Stott reminds us,

“Whenever God’s people have been effective as salt and light in the community, there has been less social decay and more social uplift. In the United States, for example, after the early nineteenth century awakening associated with Charles G. Finney, born-again Christians were in the forefront of every major social reform in America. They spearheaded the abolitionist movement, the temperance movement, the peace movement and the early feminist movement.”

What we saw at Hillsong last night, what we are seeing in the Love Makes A Way movement, is God’s people responding to a move of God: to demand the dignity that God desires for all of his children. John Stott reminds us this is the early history of Evangelicalism, and Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Grey reminds us it is the roots of Pentecostalism. Last night Hillsong reminded us that this is our prophetic future and called us in prayer to pull forward this promise into the present.  So I leave you with Pastor Donna’s prayer for you to share in as we pull down Heaven, and pull forward God’s future of freedom for all:

We want you to use us.
We want you to work through the church…
to truly reflect who you are,
And how you work Father.
May Lord this next chapter begin,
In your Mighty Name.
Amen and Amen.

Article by: Father Chris Bedding, Peter Barney, and Jarrod McKenna

On Monday a nun was arrested. That’s right, a nun. She was one of a crowd of Christian leaders who engaged in nonviolent sit-ins at the electorate offices of Bill Shorten and Tony Abbott. This is the latest #LoveMakesAWay action protesting indefinite imprisonment of children in our immigration detention centres. When nuns are cranky at this bipartisan brutality, it’s fair to say something is gravely wrong.

It was a candid moment with the BBC. Malcolm Turnbull let slip what a lot of decent Australians are thinking, not just placard-waving radicals with witty twitter handles, but families with mortgages who ferry their kids to weekend sport. “I don’t think any of us are entirely comfortable with any policies relating to border protection, ” he said. Malcolm is a team player, so he’s never going to come right out and say it. But nuns will. Desperate people are coming to us seeking safety from persecution, and the way we treat them is wrong.

There’s a long history of nonviolent protest in Christianity, but the average church leader doesn’t actually break the law in this country. Australian Christianity has typically been a religion for the Prefect class – a good way to get a scholarship and be recruited by the right firm. There’s even a new breed of Christian trying to convince people that they are cool. But all the celtic cross tattoos and nasal piercings in the world can’t hide the fact that Christianity is daggy.

Take Father Chris for example. Every Sunday he gets up and goes to church. And its not even one of those hip churches where absurdly attractive pop-singer types croon away on stage while the audience mentally scans the surrounding throng, categorising people based on their eligibility for marriage.

Related: When Immigration Takes a Human Face

Jarrod McKenna has dreadlocks and drives a Prius. Wil Anderson said, “While I’m not a believer, Jarrod is the kind of god-botherer I enjoyed being bothered by.” But nobody is buying it. All the self-conscious beards in the world can’t cover for the fact that his favourite activities are Bible studies. He’s wearing a cardigan and skinny jeans, but he’s wearing them to a prayer meeting.

Peter Barney is a pastor at a megachurch. His kids are unimpressed. His wife makes all his clothing choices. Dag.

It doesn’t matter how many ironic piano accordions are added to the worship band, even the funky churches are lame. Totez lame. Dagginess is our secret weapon, and we are not afraid to use it.

When a rabble of reverends and a pack of pastors start provoking politicians, you’ve got to ask two questions. Firstly, was there too much alliteration in the preceding sentence? Secondly, what has got us all riled up?

Well, there’s no doubting that Christians love kids. (That was the cue for some wag to make an entirely original joke about pedophile priests). Churches let babies in before they have even proven their net benefit to the organisation. There’s plenty of kids who will go to bed tonight with a full tummy and a warm bed because Christians have helped out. (That was the cue for an armchair philosopher to quip that you can be ‘good without God’. Get it out of your system now, folks, there’s work to do). We seem to have this inexplicable concern for children who have never so much as vomited on our shoe.

The thought of more than a thousand little blighters locked up by our own government is just the thing to make us get up off our pew. We didn’t start with sit-ins of course. We’re far too polite. There have been letters and discreet conversations, petitions and talkfests, research projects, rallies in the streets and sermons. We’ve fed and clothed and housed asylum seekers that few care about, and we’ve argued for more foreign aid and better regional partnerships. We’ve offered our facilities and homes to provide a more humane living environment, and we’ve harnessed our media machine to advocate for common decency. For more than a decade, since the dehumanising began, we’ve been on the case. We actually enjoy this work, that’s how daggy we are. Yet political leaders of every stripe have laughed and have not given us so much as an “amen”.

That was unwise. Because now we’re all fired up. Cranky Christians aren’t going to burn your office down. We’re going to come and sit in it and pray. And awkwardly sing. And we’ll be super polite and thank the staff as the police take us away. Then we’ll show up to court in mismatched suits and make friends with the bailiffs. If you fine us, we’ll pay on time. And we’ll pray like crazy, and so will a thousand women named Doreen.

Also by Jarrod: Easter Made Me Do It! On Scapegoats,  Asylum Seekers and Being Arrested

Oh, and we’re tenacious. We persist in believing in the resurrection, even when Richard Dawkins tells us we’re idiots. So this is child’s play for us. Once we latch on to something, we don’t let go until you kill us. And for every one of us you kill, a dozen dags rise up in our place.

God told us to “let my people go” from Immigration Detention Centres. So that’s what we’re going to do. Even though our government is saying ‘no way’ we believe that Love Makes A Way.

So our advice is to let the kids out now. Because we are powered by the Holy Spirit, and egg sandwiches cut into quarters. We have an infinite supply of both, and we are not giving up.

***

Father Chris Bedding is Rector of the Anglican Parish of Darlington-Bellevue
@frchrisbedding

Peter Barney is Children’s Pastor at Riverview Church.
@peterdbarney

Jarrod McKenna is Teaching Pastor at WestCity Church of Christ and founder of First Home Project.
@jarrodmckenna

They will all face court on 28 May for participating in the Perth #LoveMakesAWay nonviolent sit-in at the electorate office of Julie Bishop MP.

“It’s good people like him that makes us realise what’s possible and how we can go on.”  Van Badham’s said to me an hour ago as we discussed Martin Luther King’s close friend, speech writer and strategist, Dr. Vincent Harding.

I’ve just learnt that ‘Uncle Vincent’, as he insisted I call him, has died at 82.

We had been talking of World Vision Australia bringing him to Down Under.

We had talked of me visiting with him again when I’m next speaking in the U.S. in July.

But now, he’s gone.

Instead he is hearing those words he talked about God saying to us, “Well done good and faithful servant.”

Clayborne Carson speaks for all of us when he says “greatly saddened by the passing of Vincent Harding.”

On the phone to Van I naturally started to talk of Uncle Vincent as we discussed the incredible success of the #LoveMakesAWay nonviolent movement here in Australia. It felt natural to transition from speaking of Christian leaders participating in sit-ins at both the Australian Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader’s offices, to speaking of everything Uncle Vincent taught me, and how that’s shaped our trainings and the movement. Uncle Vincent thought it was natural too. Uncle Vincent said the fight for Immigration Reform (or Refugee Rights as we call it in Australia) is a natural continuation of the Freedom Movement. “Dr. King would be right there with you if he was still with us.” Uncle Vincent would say.

Uncle Vincent taught me a song that has since become an anthem for a new generation as I shared it with the End Poverty Movement here in Australia. In fact, as Christian leaders, including the past denominational leader of the Uniting Church of Australia, were carried out by police, they were greeted by Christians singing the songs that Uncle Vincent taught me.

Yes, Uncle Vincent our minds are still stayed on freedom. Because as you taught me “Jesus means freedom.”

But now, our good brother is gone to join that great cloud of witnesses, our ancestors.

So I leave you with the exact words Uncle Vincent said to a group of us as we joined him across the road from 16^th St. Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. In the shadow of this spiritual sanctuary, a sanctuary that was bombed in an act of white supremacist terrorism claiming the lives of four precious children while they were in Sunday school, Uncle Vincent said these words,

“We must remember those who went before us to remind us that we are connected. Part of that connection lays a great obligation on us. And part of that connection, also offers us tremendous power, and possibility for us.”

That connection, that obligation, that power and that possibility we carry into the #LoveMakesAWay movement Uncle Vincent. Thank you for your kindness to me.

_______    ______   ______

To hear a generation of young Australian activists interview Uncle Vincent with Joanna Shank for the Iconocast Podcast, click here: http://www.jesusradicals.com/the-iconocast-vincent-harding-episode-46/

Our #LoveMakesAWay nonviolent direct action movement has not only gone national, it’s gone viral. Over 20 Christian leaders have participated so far to dramatize this horrific reality that morally cannot be ignored: there are over 1, 000 children being detained indefinitely by the Australian government because they are seeking asylum.

Yet you’d be wrong to think we church leaders just woke up some morning and decided, ‘Today’s a good day to be arrested.’ As well as prayer and serious discernment, Martin Luther King’s “Steps of Nonviolence” involve 4 previous steps before nonviolent direct action. Dr. King’s Steps are as follows:

• Step 1: Gather Information

Learn all you can about the problems you see in your community through the media, social and civic organizations, and by talking to the people involved.

• Step 2: Educate Others

Armed with your new knowledge, it is your duty to help those around you, such as your neighbors, relatives, friends and co-workers, better understand the problems facing society. Build a team of people devoted to finding solutions. Be sure to include those who will be directly affected by your work.

• Step 3: Remain Committed

Accept that you will face many obstacles and challenges as you and your team try to change society. Agree to encourage and inspire one another along the journey.

• Step 4: Peacefully Negotiate

Talk with both sides. go to the people in your community who are in trouble and who are deeply hurt by society’s ills. Also go to those people who are contributing to the breakdown of a peaceful society. Use humor, intelligence and grace to lead to solutions that benefit the greater good.

• Step 5: Take Action Peacefully

This step is often used when negotiation fails to produce results, or when people need to draw broader attention to a problem. it can include tactics such as peaceful demonstrations, letter-writing and petition campaign.

• Step 6: Reconcile

Keep all actions and negotiations peaceful and constructive. Agree to disagree with some people and with some groups as you work to improve society. Show all involved the benefits of changing, not what they will give up by changing.

Steve Chong’s Kirkplace Presbyterian Church have just put up these 3 short videos of what many of us Christian leaders involved in #LoveMakesAWay have done for the last decade, steps 1 to 4. As we engage in step 5 we will continue practicing the previous steps. I’d encourage you in particular to watch my mate Greg Lake’s video. Greg is a former Immigration Department leader who managed a number of immigration detention centres, including Nauru, Christmas Island and Curtin. Greg resigned from Immigration in April 2013 after examining whether his role in managing detention centres was something that aligned with his Christian faith. We now work together to see these people set free. He’s a wonderful guy.

Steps 1-4 for Jarrod:

Steps 1-4 for Greg:

Question and Answer:

Please continue to pray. Not only as we engage in stage 5, but as we practice all six steps. Most of all pray for release for the captives, that these people may go free.

There are 1, 138 children in offshore indefinite detention. We intend to stay and pray in Morrison’s office until we receive an answer as to when they will be released. I guess that’s a tweetable sized summary of why I and other committed Christians were arrested while praying in the office of professing Christian and Australian Immigration Minister, Scott Morrison.

We have yet to receive an answer from the Minister. We did, however, make some new friends with the arresting police officers, including the sergeant who, upon releasing us, said in a loud voice, “You’re the nicest group of crims we’ve ever had here, and you’re welcome back any time.” Thanks Sarge!

For the longer explanation as to why this Lenten season I found myself behind bars, thereby participating in that long Christian tradition of nonviolent civil disobedience, I can’t help but talk of Jesus. In particular I want to contemplate, from this side of the Resurrection, Christ’s Passion. Albeit with the help of Homer. Not Homer of The Odyssey fame. Homer of the “Nacho-Nacho-Man” and “You don’t make friends with Salad” fame. To quote Homer Simpson: “Oh my God, I got so swept up in the scapegoating and fun of Proposition 24 [an immigration deportation bill] I never stopped to think it might affect somebody I might care about.”

Homer’s concept of being “swept up in the scapegoating” – or, as anthropologist Rene Girard puts it, the “scapegoat mechanism” – provides a helpful way of explaining why we as Christian leaders were arrested, and why more plan to “go and do likewise.”

According to Hans Urs von Balthasar, “disguised under the disfigurement of an ugly crucifixion and death, Christ upon the cross is paradoxically the clearest revelation of who God is.” Christ’s murder upon the cross is likewise the unmasking of our society’s ugly, evil and illogical desire for scapegoats. Easter reveals God overcoming evil with the power of nonviolent love, seen most clearly at Calvary.

That is why we conducted the prayer vigil in the nonviolent, loving manner we did – a manner that was praised by the public, protesters and even the police arresting us, because our battle is not against flesh and blood, like brother Scott Morrison and his staff.

Easter reveals the violent shape of our society’s scapegoat mechanisms that crucify the vulnerable. That is why we willingly accepted that we would be arrested, not willing to leave without an answer to why 1, 138 children were being indefinitely detained. In so doing, our prayer was that we might witness to the unmasking of the principalities and powers that animate what we all know, but our society lives like it isn’t happening: the irrational and barbaric indefinite imprisonment of some of the world’s most vulnerable people and their children whose only “crime” is fleeing death.

The How: “Think of the children!”

During last week’s Q & A, the new Australian Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson called for an end to children in detention. While the Commissioner held up a hand-drawn picture from a child in detention, a familiar meme of Helen Lovejoy (yes, Reverend Lovejoy’s self-righteous wife from The Simpsons) pleading, “Won’t somebody please think of the children?!” was shared on Twitter.

Given that it’s Lent, before drawing direct parallels between The Simpsons and the current Australian political situation, consider first the parallels with Christ’s Passion. In his brilliant new book A Farewell to Mars, Brian Zahnd spells out how the “religion of blame” and the “politics of power” collaborated to crucify God. History may be dictated by the victors, but “the God of history” (to use Martin Luther King Jr.’s phrase) is revealed at Calvary to be found among the victims, as the forgiving victim. For those of us who love Jesus and want to follow him, the insight that religion and politics collaborated to kill God should be no small thing. So, with “Easter eyes” – eyes, that is, sensitive to these dynamics – watch this pseudo Passion play where Mayor Quimby will be our Pilate, Helen Lovejoy our Caiaphas and Moe will voice the cries of “Crucify!” from the mob, exposing the “how” of scapegoat dynamics: I give you “Much Apu About Nothing.”

Related: Civil Disobedience and Discipleship to Jesus

Mayor Quimby’s response to the bear (singular) is something equivalent to “Operation Sovereign Bear-Free Boarders, ” which is in full swing by the following week in the hope of returning Springfield to a state of tranquillity. Until, that is, the angry mob returns because of the tax increases due to the cost associated with policies addressing their irrational fear. (As an aside, given that it costs the Australian tax payer $4 billion a year to jail asylum seekers indefinitely, I’m surprised there aren’t similar such protests purely on economic grounds, even if you don’t particularly care for ethics, human rights or … well, other humans. If only these desperate people fleeing war were as easy to feel for as our West Australian sharks. But I digress.)

The angry mob yells outside Mayor Quimby’s office, “Down with taxes! Down with taxes!” and again, for the second time, Helen Lovejoy is heard yelling, “Won’t somebody please think of the children!” Like Caiaphas, the Reverend’s wife functions as an embodiment of the mob’s popular sentiment, only now she is blessing the need to blame with shrill and sanctimonious indignation – all expressed, of course, out of concern for “the children.” “Do you not realise it is better that someone else gets it than our town fall apart?”

And Mayor Quimby, blessed with the realpolitik of Pilate, senses the mob’s irrationality:

Mayor Quimby: “Are those morons getting dumber or just louder?”

Office Staff: [Pauses for a moment while checking clipboard.] “Dumber, sir.”

Mayor Quimby: “They want the bear patrol but they won’t pay taxes for it. This is a situation that calls for real leadership.”

[Opens the door to his office to address the angry mob.]

Mayor Quimby: “People, your taxes are high because of illegal immigrants!!! That’s right, illegal immigrants. We need to get rid of them.”

True, a shared identity organised around a common irrational fear of the “other” may win votes, but it also makes the most intelligent who are whipped up in the scapegoating mechanism as dumb as the glue of hatred that holds a community together. The “glue of hate” falsely holds a mythical “us” together against the “monstrous them”. Nazi Germany’s appreciation of Wagner’s symphonies, Wittgenstein’s philosophy and higher educational excellence still provided no room for what theologian James Alison would call “the Intelligence of the Victim.”

In keeping with the realpolitik of Pilate, truth becomes relativised and the desire to maintain power becomes absolute, no doubt justified with the rationale of “for the greater good” or with the sanction of the cult of a Zeus-like – certainly not not Christ-like – God. (We should not pretend that the Islamophobia of supposedly “Christian” far right political parties, like Rise Up Australia, is not animated by the same diabolical dynamic that fuelled the anti-Semitism of European “Christendom.”)

Stopping just short of yelling “Crucify! Crucify!” Moe is intoxicated, not with his tavern’s booze, but with the promise of peace and belonging that will come to the town with the scapegoating of a new “monstrous other.” Moe yells from the mob, on behalf of the mob:

Moe: “Immigants! [sic] I knew it was them! Even when it was the bears, I knew it was them.”

Moe’s mispronunciation and fervour for someone (other than himself) to be scapegoated might be bound up with what is revealed later in the episode, that Moe himself is an immigrant. Moe has confirmed Kierkegaard’s conviction that to love a neighbour is self-denial, but to love the crowd is merely to seek to gain power and worldly advantage at the cost of others. “The crowd is untruth, ” Kierkegaard sharply summarises.

With “Easter eyes, ” we can see unmasked this collaboration between the religion of victimisation and the politics of violence. It is now, finally, in this context we hear the final cry from our Caiaphas; Helen Lovejoy:

Helen Lovejoy: “Won’t somebody please think of the children!?!”

“Won’t somebody please think of the children” in the religious litany of blame translates as “stop thinking, and fear for your own children as we round up the children of those we have made into monsters.” And the how of the scapegoat mechanism is complete.

The Why: Ursula Le Guin and don’t think of the children

But why? If this episode of The Simpsons illustrates how the scapegoat mechanism works, Ursula Le Guin’s haunting short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” speaks to the why. Le Guin’s short story is only seven pages long, the first six of which sound like a script for Australian tourism’s next campaign. It describes a bright towering city by the sea with “not naive and happy children” and “mature, intelligent, passionate adults” who celebrate “the victory of life.” Le Guin even stops the reader from thinking of Omelas as too puritanical by inviting us to “add an orgy … if it would help, ” harm-free drugs or beer for the more modest tastes.

But then, in the final pages, Le Guin brings you into the dark secret that seems to hold this utopia together. In a dark cellar there is a child – an “it” stripped of its name. But why? Le Guin writes;

“They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas. Some of them have come to see it, others are content merely to know it is there. They all know that it has to be there. Some of them understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvest and the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child’s abominable misery.”

As Rene Girard puts it, “All the rancours scattered at random among the divergent individuals, all the differing antagonisms, now converge on an isolated and unique figure, the surrogate victim.” Australia’s dark secret is that there are offshore cellars with over 1, 000 children locked up. But even though we know this, to talk about it or do anything about it would threaten our utopia, our Springfield, our Omelas.

This is why we were arrested in Morrison’s office: in Slavoj Zizek’s words, “This is the paradox of public space: even if everyone knows an unpleasant fact, saying it in public changes everything.” As ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we choose to say something. We choose to believe in an Australia that is possible without these cellars. We choose to do so because of Easter.

The Easter alternative

So that’s the bad news, how the scapegoat mechanism works. Why it is such an effective cause of social cohesion, both managing internal competition and its threat of escalating violence. And while that is illuminating, it’s totally depressing. We can now see clearly that the scapegoats are those we blame to keep us in the dark about what has shaped us – namely, the systems that demand victims. All of this is done to keep us “safe, ” to maintain “order, ” to protect “us, ” to restore “peace” and to insure the next election “win.”

Is there any good news? Is there an alternative? How might we be saved from a way of life that demands the sacrifice of the vulnerable? I think Brian Zahnd is on the right track:

“If nations can’t hate and scapegoat their enemies, how can they cohere? If societies can’t project blame onto a hated ‘other’, how can they keep from turning on themselves? Jesus’ answer is as simple as it is revolutionary: Instead of an arrangement around hate and violence, the world is now to be arranged around love and forgiveness. The fear of our enemy and the pain of being wronged is not to be transferred through blame, but dispelled through forgiveness. Unity is not to be built around the practice of scapegoating a hated victim, but around the practice of loving your neighbour as yourself – even if your neighbour is your enemy. Jesus is trying to lead humanity into the deep truth that there is no ‘them’, there is only us.”

With “Easter eyes, ” we can see that the message of the Passion of Jesus is not that some deity, like the scapegoat mechanism itself, takes out its rage on an innocent victim so he doesn’t have to take it out on all of us, eternally. Frankly, that sort of “god” needs to invite Jesus into his heart. That sort of “god” is a diabolical lie in Christian drag, reversing the Gospel by making it the same old bad news while concealing that Jesus is victorious over all evil, the scapegoat mechanism included. God doesn’t demand blood. We do.

Also by Jarrod: Holy Week is a Good Time to Get Arrested with Jesus

In Jesus, God is not just on the side of the scapegoated, God is scapegoated as “the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world.” The Lamb of God is not offered to God by us, but is God offered to us as the sacrifice to end all sacrifices. God is reconciling the world to Godself, through Christ, by knowingly submitting to the scapegoat mechanism, exposing all blasphemous systems that promise order, safety, peace, protection and salvation at the cost of victims.

In the Resurrection, we are all confronted with the grace of our Creator in the forgiving victim who sends with the Holy Spirit hope of a new world where no more blood needs to be shed. And no more asylum seekers need to be indefinitely detained. As Michael Hardin puts it, “The fact remains that as long as we imprison the innocent, and do so in the name of justice, we find ourselves amongst the persecutory mob. We can either side with the persecutors or we can, with the woman at the Cross, side with the victim.”

The Easter event exposes our national facade behind which we hide the bodies of the vulnerable, scapegoated as monsters. Easter also announces a real alternative: grace. First we must confront the facade woven with the fabric of fear, and knitted together by the politics of power. Then we must embody the alternative. Easter means I can no longer remain silent over what is happening to asylum seekers. It is my conviction that Christian faith should look like Christ, not his crucifiers.

Easter is the reason I was arrested.

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared at ABC Religion and Ethics