On March 7th and 8th I was in Ottawa with other faith leaders, urging the government to adopt the recent recommendations of a multi-party parliamentary committee report entitled Federal Poverty Reduction Plan: Working in Partnership Towards Reducing Poverty in Canada. We were also promoting the Dignity for All campaign and speaking to the urgent challenge of poverty both in Canada and internationally.

We first met as a group of leaders while preparing together in Winnipeg last June for the G8/G20 Summit. Our focus then and now is on encouraging Canada to meet its commitment to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals on care for the earth (and reducing global warming), on peace (and reducing militarism), and on poverty (reducing the growing gap between rich and poor.)

We met with delegations from all federal parties in the House of Commons, many of whom encouraged us to “raise a ruckus” about the government’s deeply disappointing response to the parliamentary committee recommendations. A number of MPs spoke about the good work of United Church congregations within their constituencies – and also issued a challenge. One said, for example, “These folks are caring well for their community – and they need to be activists… I received more letters in one month about same-sex marriage than I’ve received about poverty in six and a half years.”

So we as people of faith have been challenged. As faith leaders we have issued a declaration and are going to continue our work.

In addition to moderating a very well attended public event on Monday evening, I was asked to speak on a Tuesday morning panel before we heard from the MPs representing the parliamentary committee. My assignment was to speak from the Christian perspective, particularly about The United Church of Canada’s theology and approach, alongside a representative of the Salvation Army and representatives of the Hindu and Jewish communities. Since I was asked afterward to share my words more broadly, I decided to post them here, addressing Women's Day, Lent, and Parliament:

I’ve been asked to speak as a Christian, and particularly as a leader of The United Church of Canada, about how my particular tradition has informed my own thinking and response to poverty.

Since today represents the centenary celebration of International Women’s Day, how could I not begin with Nellie McClung? Canada owes a great deal to Nellie McClung who, as a woman of deep Christian faith, helped win the vote for Canadian women. As a member of the Famous Five, she also campaigned for the right of women to be considered “persons,” thereby entitling women to sit in the Senate. It’s sobering to consider that McClung’s achievements are still young – not yet 100 years hold. Human rights are never to be taken for granted.

McClung embodied values that have characterized Canada, and the social convictions of my church, for decades – a collective commitment to social programs that strengthen the web of community and a confidence in our government’s capacity to do the right thing.

Charlotte Gray writes that McClung inherited her father’s Methodism, including a belief that a dynamic faith could change society. She also absorbed her mother’s ironclad Presbyterian sense of right and wrong.

As a mother, McClung said, “The woman who really loves her own children…is the woman that wants to see other people’s children get their chance too.” Strong maternal instincts, she decided, should be channelled into social reforms that would improve conditions for all children. She listed slum conditions, malnourishment, child labour, and drunkenness as the obvious targets of women’s organizations. In her own words, she was “determined to stir the deep waters of complacency.”

As a granddaughter of Methodists and Presbyterians myself, as a daughter of The United Church of Canada, and as a mother who wants for my children and others what Nellie wanted, I join my church in stirring the deep waters of complacency.

Like Nellie, I follow Jesus Christ. When asked about the greatest commandment, Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind, and you shall love your neighbour as yourself.”

This love becomes the measure of our lives: love for our own children and for all children, especially those struggling in poverty, those who have been pushed to the edges of our society. In Canada these include Aboriginal peoples, women, lone parents, unattached individuals, seniors, persons with diabilities, visible minorities, recent immigrants, and other emerging groups such as the working poor.

Jesus spent his time with those who were marginalized. He stood in solidarity with the poor, and it cost him his life. The spirit of the living Christ lives on in the church – his friends who remain committed to love and to justice. The spirit of the living Christ lives on in our response to Christ’s call for compassion, and we are confident that we are not alone. United Church members join gladly with people of faith from many diverse traditions in this commitment to justice and compassion. We have a long and well-rooted commitment to interchurch and interfaith efforts, investing in the abundance of what is accomplished in community. We invest gladly, for instance, in the Canadian Council of Churches, KAIROS, and other collaborative organizations.

Love helps us understand that in an interdependent world, none of us can prosper and be secure when some of us live in misery and desperation. Unless we pay attention to those living in poverty, here and around the world, our future prosperity is in jeopardy. To quote Martin Luther King Jr., “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”

The United Church of Canada contributes to this "garment of destiny" with threads of faith and with policies that address economic justice, poverty, and wealth. Over many years we have advocated for initiatives that we view as elements of a moral economy – an economy focused on the common good. We stand for increased social assistance, a guaranteed annual income, a national program of full employment, a national poverty reduction strategy, and reform of the income tax system, among other measures.

We also stand with the poor of other countries, advocating for the Tobin Tax or Currency Transaction Tax, for Fair Trade, socially responsible investment, and the cancellation of international debt for the world’s most impoverished countries.

Sometimes when we promote such policies we are challenged to mind our own business, stick to prayer, and not concern ourselves with the ways of the world. But our policies arise from our faith and cannot be separated from them. Because of our faith we have pressed for all sorts of social advances that today are givens: universal education, legal birth control, the social safety net.

There’s a rabbinical story about Honi the Circle Drawer. One day, when he was very old, he was spotted planting a carob tree. A passerby asked him why he was planting a tree under whose shade he could not sit, whose fruit he would never eat. Honi responded that he was planting the tree for future generations that they might benefit from it.

Planting a tree is an act of faith, an act of hope, and yes, an economic activity. We commit ourselves to work that we hope will bear fruit for our grandchildren, helping to create a moral economic life based on principles of love, justice, and sustainability.

What trees are we planting today? What fruit will they bear? Speaking for The United Church of Canada, we question the wisdom of spending $6 billion for corporate tax cuts, an estimated $13 billion for new prisons, and $16 billion* for fighter jets. The fruits of this spending, in our view, will not improve our capacity to bridge the gap between rich and poor. Rather, they will tend to further increase the gap.

(*News reports since this presentation was given have revised this estimate to approximately $30 billion.)

Tomorrow Christians begin the daily demands of the season of Lent, contemplating how Jesus was tempted by the ways in which greatness is too often measured, ways that too often lead to death. Jesus chose to glorify life, to remain true to God’s love for the world, and we are witnesses to his call to be community for one another.

As Bruce introduced this morning he spoke about the idea of having "enough" for all. Jesus told us that he came that we might know life in abundance. When we focus on scarcity we tend to create the conditions that lead to greater scarcity, such as hoarding. When we pay attention to abundance we create the conditions for abundance and for sharing. I believe that this is what we’re doing here today, and what we’re about here today.

I give the final word to Nellie McClung. She said, “In Canada we are developing a pattern of life, and I know something about one block of that pattern. I know it for I helped to make it, and I can say that now, without any pretence of modesty or danger of arrogance, for I know that we who make the patterns are not important but the pattern is.”

May we make an economic pattern that ensures abundant life for all!