Why not? He used the word "weed" in the parable. You want a precise meaning? Aside from your usual trashing of the United Church, military chaplains and anyone or anything who disagree with your particular world view?

Graeme - could you give me some references or explanations that show people in the US are being arrested for feeding the poor.  I'm not questioning that it might be so - but I would like to find out more about it.   It's been a few years since I visited the states but when I was in Florida the church I attended had an active food bank to provide food for the poor.   I know it was a drop in the bucket but they didn't seem to be afraid of being arrested.  Has that changed in recent years?

And you refer to 'Christian' countries.  I don't think most western countries (with the exception of the US) self identify as Christian.   And I know many churches where the clergy and the people actively work for peace.   I remember sitting in a church in Florida in the winter after 9/11 and hearing the sermon against going to war against Afghanstan and the congregation lining up to sign a letter of protest.  I have since heard many sermons in Canada, and known many individuals connected with the church working for peace and condemning our involvement in the wars.  

And yes, today I preached about 'weeds'.   I preached against judging people - including people of different races, religions and cultures - as worthless weeds.  I encouraged them to try to see the love of God in their own lives and in each and every person - even those who might otherwise be considered weeds.   I'm sorry if a sermon based on both the Old and New Testament scriptures and related to today's world did not meet with your approval.

Hi Graeme,

I preached from Romans this morning.  No weeds.

Grace and peace to you.

John

The Florida police campaign against over feeding the poor has been covered in International Clearing House several times in the last few weeks. (You can find ICH on google.)

Apparently, Florida recently passed a law limiting the number of people  (to a very small number) who could be fed in a public place - like a park. The police have been enforcing it with vigour, often sending a dozen or more officers to arrest the scofflaws.

 I certainly have no objection to a sermon about our responsibilities to others.           

What I object to is the common treatment of such a topic in the abstract. I can, sometimes,  see the problem of doing so from the pulpit.     But that is valid only if there are discussion groups later  (led by someone who knows how to lead such a group) to use the abstraction to look at our world and our role in it.  And if that means reorganizing the service to accommodate such groups, so be it.    

We live in a world of extraordinary violence and greed. I believe it was the New York Times that recently ran an article  on   how cruel it is ( to suggest senior execs should be limited to half a million a  year. According to the article, it is impossible to live in New York on that little.     (New York is a leader in the wage gap, with most residents living on something less than 40,000 a year.) We are watching a Congress that is defending the right of the rich to be undertaxed, and insist the poor have to bear the burden of a recession that the poor did not cause.

And such attitudes are almost as strong in Canada.

I admit to a bias. I grew up in a society like that, one in which the rich had nothing but contempt for the poor - and let us know it.

I am disappointed to see churches that don't offend some people who need offending.  

The sermon I heard today asked us to recognize that we are both the wheat and weeds, and that accepting and saying yes to the presence of good and evil in ourselves as well as  in the other is the first step to the kind of spiritual growth than can resist evil. Not exactly topical in the sense of current events, but powerful.  

The great thing about my own church is that we meet in small groups (without trained leaders but we do just fine) to visit and re-visit scriptures and sermons, and that's when we help one another connect the teachings to our lives and our world.  That's actually where most of the spiritual growth occurs.  We don't expect the Sunday morning sermon or service to do it all for us.

That sounds good. But you need at least a few people in the discussion who are not simply getting their news from the local papers. There are very few sources of reliable and reasonably full information available anywhere in the world. What  can happen, then, in a discussion group, is merely reinforcement of prejudices with a spiritual prop.

Many of the world's greediest and most destructive people are observant Christians. I can see people like that coming out of a discussion with the assurance that God is on their side.

As well, as a speaker, and one who was also in the pulpit from time to time, I know that messages are most effective when they are placed in the real world that the audience lives in.

I also know it takes some skill to do this because we are a heavily propagandized people. It's always hard for all of us to see what's really there. Instead, we see what we're told to see, and/or what we want to see.

graeme - you realize I'm sure that the UCC is made up of many, many small congregations - some have only a dozen families and an average attendance of less than 20 people meeting in a one room church - and while most now have electricity, some don't have plumbing and are heated with a wood stove in the middle of the room.   I'm sure these congregations have the resources to have a qualified facilitator lead their discussions.

I'm with Graeme on this one.  The Orlando ordinance is a city's way of keeping the poor hidden because if people don't see them the problem doesn't exist.  I also found it discouraging that the Mayor of Orlando referred to one member of Food Not Bombs, the group that is in the centre of this, as a "Food Terrorist".

The word "terrorist" has been reduced to being applied to anyone who disagrees with a governmental agency and as such has been neutered of any power.

Police arrest 5 more activists for feeding homeless

Man Labeled Food Terrorist For Feeding The Poor

It is no surprise that this would happen in Orlanda, a city built on fantasy and fairy tales but we are blind if we do not realize that similar assaults on the poor are occurring through out this rich continent.

Again I am with Graeme on this one.  I didn't grow up in a society where rich had contempt for the poor; I grew up in one where we all helped each other and poor was a relative term.  I do remember the first time the outside world's contempt was directed at me.  It was when a young city imported teacher told my mother that I was hanging around with students that were "not my social class", which even as an 11 year old I found ridiculously presumptuous but more importantly I remember my mother, usually so meek and mild, standing up, taking my hand and saying to the teacher "my daughter chooses her own friends".

As Graeme said, sometimes people need offending particularly by the meek and mild.

The numbers of poor are rising, noticeable in the US but the problem exists here in Canada - we just do a better job at hiding it.  Even if the numbers were not rising it is appalling that in such rich countries the problem exists at all.

Wages for the majority of workers in both countries have not just stagnated but are on the decline.  Pension plans designed to protect our elderly from poverty are under attack.  Voices that speak out against these practices are silenced, ridiculed or labelled "terrorists".  Those responsible for the running of industry are not held accountable for their incompetence, but instead are handsomly rewarded or bailed out.  We punish the lowest for the sins of the highest.

The weeds have overtaken the garden and there doesn't appear to be any one willing to get dirty and pull them out at the roots.

LB

------------------------------------

The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other.  It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the rest of the world by the rich.  Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied...but written off as trash.  The twentieth-century consumer economy has produced the first culture for which a beggar is a reminder of nothing. 

      John Berger

Denial is great within the groups of authority ...

When working I often heard: "Don' tell me that I don't wish to hear bad news about my brilliant plan to accumulate wealth!"

Of course in church I've often heard people tell me they don't wish to hear anything omi-nous ... that's like Noetic Science (omi; all ... Nous; mind, often disbelieved) ... all-functioning soul ... where thinking occurs everywhere but at the centre of intellect ... where centripedal forces gather emotional creatures ... the centrifugal forces a blown away by the process as Light Aries ... just a spin of word?

If you disbelieved in the soul of God (all-that-is) would the mind vanish into imaginary Zoe an? Look up Zoe and "an" in a dictionary ... a grand exercise for something that isn't ... missing line'que ... or is that just aesthetic?

What ever happened to Classic Satyr? It was buried in the Rape of Lucrece ... the deeply recessive mind! You don't see many of eM today just a lot of expressed emotions. You'd think something would come of all that nothing Ness! A grand hunger to know in a secret social order? Socialism is banned in the West by popular ignorance ... commonly a metaphor for not wishing to know ... near to Love ... an mindless state when pure ... as we arrive here ...

Is that odd or what ... just alien?

Weeds are perfectly good plants growing in a spot we don't want them.  We talked about being the weed, refusing to allow people to become homogenous us/them folks refusing to allow difference or messed-up plans.  We talked about Jesus being a weed in the garden of Rome, or even the temple.  We talked about a culture of love being a weed in a world where competition and greed are the nice, calm field of wheat.

I too saw the stories about people being punished for feeding the poor.   And in Toronto, a Food bank can't pay its bills next month.  And Africa... 

Graeme - was your original point that the Church is ignoring the discomfort of naming the weeds, and so perpetuating the myth that we nice comfy pewsitters are the wheat?  You are not wrong in some cases, I'm sure, but I know many ministers who don't shy away from it.  What I see is inaction after that.

I hear despair in your posts, me too - looking around at what seems to be a world imploding, when we have so many answers to our problems.  I'm very frustrated these days.

Heh,

Unless you can express it in nonsense no authority can understand you cannot survive---S Freud!

So write a nonsensical journal and attack what much of the world thinks as good GUise ... denial of business that makes a few rich ... most would like to be in that place and deny the consequences of one man left standing as a god!

Imagine what happened to such as far row ... Pharaoh in a gibe 'n myth no longer exists either ... like he was just a vapour's th'aught ... but somehow left his peer amid us the hard gemstone of the mind ... can't be cut ... or we can't seem to cut it with its weird fixations ... on doing what it wants without intelligence! The greater part ... well that's authori-tarian ... like Wii'Ds ... small primordial desires grown all outa shape ...

Some symbiosis required ... between imaginary Zoe'ns of the soul ...

Thank you Muskoka for posting the link.  Some of us are quite computer illiterate and have to be spoon fed - but once I read this article, and Graeme's references to the situation where people can be arrested for feeding the poor, I am shocked and ashamed.   Ashamed that for three years (although not recently) I vacationed in Florida.   Seven years ago I visited Disney World with my (then) seven year old granddaughter.  I hoped to go with my grandson sometime in the next few years. 

The last year I was in Florida, I was reading the book "Nickeled and Dimed in America" and I became away of the poor people working in the motel industry and living in shanty towns down unpaved roads, just outside the high-rise hotels and condos lining the beaches.   The nearby Presbyterian church had a food bank.  Each Sunday pleas went out for people to drop off food - several times through the week it passed out boxes.  No objections that I was aware of.   Now it seems this might be against the law. 

A country that claims to be Christian should follow the master who said that we need to feed the hungry - not deny them food.  And ideally there should be government policies that help the poor and destitute so that they don't have to rely on charity.  

My differences with Graeme is that he seems to blame the churches - yes the churches should be doing more - but it is the government that has the power in this situation. 

I don't have a problem with an ordinance that says you can't feed large groups in a public park.

that isn't the purpose of a park.  Let alone the issues of food contamination, handwashing, bathroom facilities, rodent infestations of large amounts of garbage.

Parks in toronto require permits for large gatherings. 
I had a family reunion in High park years ago.  About 50 people and it was a huge amount of data including food issues, waste disposal, noise, exact area of park we could be in ( all areas are labeled with numbers) a cost for the permit, a time limit for the permit.........

Now if the rules say you can't feed people in a church basement that has an industril kitchen, or in a community center with an industrial kitchen , or a food bank......  that is a different story.

there was a similar issue a few years ago when youth set up a tent camp in a Toronto park. 

You are right Lastpointe in that we don't know the whole picture from this one article.  But it does back up what Graeme is saying about laws against feeding the poor.   I just need more connections.  I'd love to see a program (like "60 Minutes") devote some time to this on TV.   I do know that the way to deal with the poor and hungry is not to deny them food or shelter, or to drive them out of our cities with no plan in place for where they can go.   I wonder how many of these people are displaced persons from New Orleans who were never given the help they needed after the hurricane.  And how many are people who had their homes repossessed by banks that benefited by the big government bailouts but who didn't pass those benefits on to the average joe.     This seems to be a bigger issue than I know how to deal with - but I think that when the majority of the people see something as wrong they can put pressures on the governments to have it reversed - or they can try to reverse their governments. 

.

seeler - I don't mean you need any sort of card-carrying discussion leader - only that leading a discussion group requires some, minimal akills and knowledge. A minister would certainly have that.  Perhaps dicussion leading is more of a mindset. I saw many university teachers who couldn't do it - mostly because they were so concerned with pumping out their own knowledge - and producing clones of their own, great selves..

Curiously, synagogues in Montreal would often call me in to do this. And they wanted serious discussion. Churches called rarely - and they wanted light entertainment.

I heard the same sermon - and the older I get the more sense it makes.

 Once one sees - really sees - the log in our own eye (bit of a mixed metaphor there, but never mind) one can develop some compassion for the "evil doer".

It enables us to condemn the behaviour, but not the intrinsic worth of the person.

We all have a tendency to write the script of life with ourselves as heroes and heroines - a tendency that we should guard against if we believe, as I do, that we are all connected.

it seems to me that the culture of Churches is one that thinks differences in opinions means division and fighting and can never see learning.

Outside of a discussion group lead by a student minister for a summer (in which curiously and by accident all of the participants were either autistic, or parents of autistic kids) all of the discussion groups (on subjects such as First Nations, Sudan ) lead to me feeling hopeless, and separated from the community.  The main differences (other than the autistic link, was that the group led by the student meet regularly with more or less the same people. This I believed lead to a better ability of the participants to listen, and less fear in sharing honest opinions.

Seeler, here is a more in-depth article, interesting from the point it is written by the UK's Daily Mail

Please don't feed the homeless: Good Samaritans ARRESTED and facing jail... for handing out food

Want more, heres a link to a google search - Orlando Do Not Feed the Poor Law

What is telling when doing a Google search is that no mainstream North American news source picked up on the story and the reason for that I think is obvious, it is because no one cares about the poor.

The same occurs with the New Orleans rebuild,  According to the latest Greater New Orleans Data Center, close to 80% of the city is back overall. But in the poorest neighborhoods, the numbers are much lower. In the Lower 9th Ward, only 19% of the residents have come home.  (Reuters)  These are the people with no insurance,  no resources and still no homes.

The mainstream doesn't want to see news stories about the poor anymore than they want to see them in their parks or on their streets because the sight of them reminds everyone of the failure of our current system.  The sight of masses of poor may create a twinge of conscious in the consumer masses and some might say 'I don't really need that 90" tv' and that would be bad for business.

Homelessness can be caused by any number of events, one of the major contributors is health.  In the US even routine health problems can lead to job loss and catastrophic medical bills,

but lets not get smug, it happens here in Canada.  Canada's working poor live one pay cheque away from living on the streets, most do not have additional health plans and many do not get sick leave.  It is very easy to fall through cracks if you don't have any support.

So we hide, shame and blame the poor to permit a society where the most vulnerable are not protected and the most powerful are not made accountable for their contribution to the plight of their fellow humans.

LB

---------------------------------------

Please Use Your Liberty to Promote Ours.

     Aung San Suu Kyi

One can seldom see history as it is being made...

Historians are always wrong...

Yes, always.

Many wrote about war from the viewpoint of a catapult-maker.

Contra all this  this negativism:

I believe we are at the cutting edge of a transformation (Wheeler's 'communication is everything') --

For the first time in the history of the planet everyone can communicate with everyone.

Instantly. Language, and culture barriers will implode and are imploding and the shake-up of the world is going undoubtedly going to shake up the world.

When "Choose -- get along or die" Becomes a universal truth, universally understood,

the right choice will be made.

My Latin is terrible, but et in terra pox hominebus   bona voluntatis.

(I used to sing it at midnight Christmas eve at the Catholic church...

On earth peace good will toward men

and

On earth peace to men of good will.

-------

or

Graham is correct and the world is gong to hell in a hand basket

(I figure if you are going to be wrong, you might as well be a wrong optimist.

Pessimists call that being blind

Cheers!

LB, I did a Google news search for "Orlando Feed The Poor Law" and the first result was a New York Times article from June 30, 2011:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/01/us/01orlando.html

The New York Times is pretty mainstream, I would say, so it hasn't been completely ignored by the mainstream media.

That, of course, does not negate the fact that there has been little coverage of this. I hear lastpointe's comments about why, perhaps, this should not be allowed in a public park, but it seems to me that restricting such activities to churches, etc., is in fact a way of sweeping the problem under the rug; keeping it out of view. Once you have crowds of homeless people gathering in a park to be fed, you suddenly have a problem you can't deny or overlook, and it makes us uncomfortable. It reminds me of something similar in Toronto several years ago (sorry, no citation, just memory) I believe when Mel Lastman was mayor. There were proposals that homeless people should be arrested. Justification was that they'd be safer spending the night in a prison cell than on the streets but one Councillor said something that I thought was the real reason. Again, not an exact quote, but something along the lines of "they sleep on the sidewalks and sometimes people have to step over them and it looks terrible for the tourists" or something like that. The real concern wasn't for the poor and homeless; it was for the city's image.

We prefer to avoid and/or ignore the unpleasant aspects of our society. Keeping the problem behind the doors of a church or a food bank or a mission rather than in your face in a park is a way of doing that. I have spoken in church about a couple of encounters with people begging on the streets or sleeping on the sidewalks in our quite small city. Most of the congregation are shocked to hear that it happens here. It's not that none of our people do anything to help. We volunteer in food banks and help run a community dinner for the poor, etc. But even so in general I doubt that most people are really aware of the extent of the problem. 

Rev Davis, thank you for the article and such are the difficulties with a Google search when the use of the word "Not" can eliminate a result and my impatience at not going beyond the first page of results.

Perhaps it is just my cynicism on the subject but I wonder if the NYTimes would have been motivated to write the article if there had been no cyber attack on Orlando's web sites.  I guess I should be like the poor and be grateful for the crumbs that fall from the table.

As an aside, it should be noted that the 2006 ordinance was struck down by a Federal court in 2008 only to be reinstated in April of this year  by the 11th Circuit of Appeals.

Huffington Post

LB

----------------------------------

"If the spirit of God draws number twenty-six to me, how can I tell God, ' no'," Pastor Brian Nichols of the FVCG said earlier this year. "How can I choose between God's will and the City of Orlando's ordinance?"

      American Civil Liberties Union

Agreed, LB, they were more interested in the cyber-attacks than in the actual law, but at least there was some coverage. Not enough, though.

I would just like to thank graeme for setting forth this topic.  

I agree with graeme's views on this entirely.   Like Orlando, the City of Sacramento, too,  has by-laws on the books since 2008 designed to stop individuals from providing aid to the homeless and to hustle the homeless to the margins (or, more properly,  to oppress them so they move even deeper into the margins).

It would appear that these sorts of by-laws are ubiquitous in the U. S.  Certainly, there is a long history of chasing "itinerants" over the county line.

I have just excerpted a little snippet of the article. The author tried to provide shelter to the homeless on his own property in an isolated and run down section of town and the article is a story of the trouble he found ...

Homeless in Sacramento:

By William T. Vollmann

"We decided to erect two semi-permanent shelters. Mark put up a sign that read safe ground.

​

Safe Ground is a movement to protect the homeless in their itinerancy. It  was  formed  in  2008  in  response  to Sacramento City Ordinance 12.52, which makes it illegal to sleep even in one’s own backyard for more than one night at a time. The law specifies: “It is not intended by this section to prohibit overnight camping on private residential property by friends or family  of  the  property  owner,  so  long  as the owner consents and the overnight camping is limited to not more than one consecutive night.”

Dwayne at the homelessness forum writes about his experiences in Sacramento ... 

#1    06-24-2010, 10:22 AM

Dwayne  Senior Member   Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Sacramento Posts: 182

Sleepless car living in sacramento Well il say this i didnt ever thought my front seat would be my living room and the back of my suv would be my bedroom and the outside elements my escape to keep it moving to find another place to sleep and eat ..the challenge of doing it be wonders us all until your face with the ultimate choice of having to do it wether you like it or not ..specialy if that choice puts you in that position ..and the old story rings true ...there is always a bridge some where to sleep under ..if your not smart you can loose your vehicle and find yourself in a real worse spot ..walmart was the king of car and rv camp spots until in some cities posted no camping ..also the park and ride sites was a hit as well where the commuter would park ..know days everything is fenced up and you have code enforcement thru the city riding around spotting locations were the homeless and car campers are ..its like a shell game or cat in mouse ..as each camper moves every other day .. and the car campers got smart with having bicycles for in town erands .. and yes everybody knows everybody ..if your knew on the scene you can find yourself alone parking in a spot you didnt know about ...so far ive been in my truck almost a year now ...not to say i like it ..i had to plan out a system of always on the move of attack because the city is always trying to be ahead of you ..it got so bad ..they had tow trucks towing some car dwellers vehicles away ...one guy was sleeping in his car and the repo man hitched the car up with him sleeping in it ..lol driving him and the car to the yard ...and then theres the Rv campers...the septic tanks of waste on those vehicles can wreak havoc if not dumped in the right place ..and one guy emptied his tank and the city code enforcement went berserk so i say be prepared for this adventure ..of living out of your vehicle between the summers and the winters ..there is always something lurkin with the laws of attack on folks living in there vehicles and lets not forget the skunks .. oh yes they come out late at night like rats searching for food and yes i seen some dwellers get sprayed ..on there tires and under neath there vehicles ..ca has really cracked down the alley ways or lighted all empty warehouse buildings have private security ..or fenced ..its no joke ..but anyway i had to drop my rant on this subject ..and i see more and more folks end up living in there vehicles due the foreclosures and job loss ..koa camp ground sites are full ..homeless advocate programs are full or under funded ..the so call tent city had to go ..which sparked a waved of mess thru out the media and in the sacramento region as one lady put it at the salvation army services ...go back were you came from ...we have no services for you ..lol

 It puts me in mind of Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" ...

I hear, too, they had another big dust storm down in Arizona yesterday.  There is a serious drought on and temperatures are hitting record highs.  Crops are failing.  Gives you reason to pause and think ...

I preached this Sunday on wheat and weeds. I spoke on how God works in weed and in wheat.  That we like being wheat and thinking we are the good stuff, the pure... but that every person has wheat and weed.... how we also do not listen about waiting until the harvest and letting the Farmer sort it out.

We cannot even tend our own yards but....

My service made use of milkweed (a weed that creation is at work in re: monarchs) as well as how we can plant "flowers" that are invasive things that take over and choke out everything else....

I also mentioned our lovely attempts at weeding. I mentioned burning heretics and dropping bombs with the attitude "kill 'em all and let God sort them out". I mentioned our wheat fixation and a past of forced conversions and the US military investigating Josh Llano, a chaplain (himself Southern Baptist) who withheld shower water from soldiers unless they listened to a sermon and consented to being baptized. I spoke how our faith once thought burning people alive helped them escape hell and that Mr. Llano may worry about "gnashing of teeth"... That telling our stories means also addressing when they have been told and acted upon and it was not so pretty.

I spoke that the interpretation of the parable may have been a church addition and how it has shaped our history. How would Jesus feel about what was done in His name? (ie burning heretics)

I said we like playing God. We like judging. We like piling things in neat little tidy groups of good and bad, weed and wheat, right and wrong...

I spoke about the laws re: feeding the poor in the park in Florida as well as Elden Painter, the panhandler on Greene Avenue in Montreal. The panhandler who does not ask anyone for money, because that he says is "rude". He simply says good morning or have a nice day.... the city that keeps fining him for vagrancy. Problem is, the more vagrancy fines he receives, the more money he needs from passersbys... He is considered a weed when he is simply a person with disability payments that do not stretch the month... It tied in well with the petition to address poverty that sits on the table in the back

I spoke about Jesus and his friends being considered weeds. I ran a list of names of weeds Martin Luther King Jr, Gandhi, Dalai Lama, Nelson Mendella....

I spoke how Jesus ministered to weeds and helped them find the wheat inside. Without need for spoken words, they knew I was told I was a weed.

Side note: Had I known the news out of Saskatoon earlier I would have made mention of it, as the wheat is seen where weeds once were... (Delegates attending the biennial convention of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada have voted to allow gays and lesbians to become ministers as well as allow ministers to marry or bless same-sex unions)

I read a quote from Augustine's sermon on the topic of weeds and wheat and said I disagreed that a weed will always be a weed. I talked about lives turned around (the Minute for Mission re: ex- convicts really drove that home) I spoke about finding wheat in NA and AA meetings and Weight Watchers.... anywhere people acknowledged their own weeds.

We would do well to weed our own yards..., but going into anothers.... not so much so.

One last thing ... then I'll shut up.  Here is a link to a news story which details the kinds of treatment meted out to the poor in Sacramento ... This has been going on since at least 2008 (when the recession began).

http://www.examiner.com/vegan-in-sacramento/homeless-of-sacramento-sue-for-confiscation-of-diabetic-medical-monitors

I'm sure if Jesus had seen hungry people in an Orlando park, he would have passed them by rather than risk leaving litter on the grass - especially if it was on the Sabbath.

It is true that we live in a world of violence and greed, and that those forces seem to have the upper hand, especially these days.   But in just a few minutes of surfing I found that the United Church of Christ has spear-headed a multi-faith campaign to try to protect federal programs for the poor from budget cuts.  Each day for 18 months a different faith group will camp out and pray on the lawn of Capitol Hill.   

I also read about a UCC congregation in Florida in a county that has NO social services.  It is the churches, and community organizations, that fill in the gaps - and while they are collecting and distributing food and clothes, they are also writing letters to congress to try to change the system.

As well - check out berserk's thread here on Mike Slaughter, and see what is happening with social justice in the evangelical church.   It's not just about  traditional marriage and abortion anymore.

....for what it's worth, just wanted to point out a few candles shining in the darkness....

With a global economic depression on the horizon, there will soon be great numbers of unemployed and homeless people. What to do about and for them will become a burning social issue.

I am greatly in favour of a third sector of employment: the voluntary sector. The volunteers would be paid a minimal living wage, and this wage would be paid by civic, provincial, and federal governments on a triple share. The employers, however, would be the civic governments because they are most likely to employ the voluntary sector for the most urgent local need and in the most gainful manner.

Nothing happens in a vacuum. An editor once told me,  "every body of a story has arms seek them".

So, I think, "for a law to be contemplated or put in place, there has to be someone doing what they want to make or have made illegal"
 

(Often, we only find what we are looking for. I am sure if I searched "idiot Christians in Orlando" I could find tons. Instead, I searched "helping Orlando's poor" , this was the first thing Google ranked.)

The article is about First Baptist in Orlando

"Orlando Church Raises Unprecedented $5.6 Million Dollars to Aid Poor and Homeless Families."

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/orlando-church-raises-unprecedented-5-6-million-to-aid-orlandos-poor-and-homeless-families/

Typing in the word "mission" with "Orlando" helped me find Orlando Union Rescue Mission, one of Central Florida's oldest and largest homlesse service providers. Wonder when they answered the call? They have been operational since 1948. They offer not just a bed and food, but a haircut, a manicure....

Then there is Miles of Help Through Christ

http://milesofhelpthroughchrist.com/

Read how this inter-denominational movement started through a Facebook post

http://milesofhelpthroughchrist.com/about_us.html

Type in "food is a right" with "Orlando" and find Orlando Food Not Bombs

http://orlandofoodnotbombs.org/

People, everyday folks, are feeding the poor.

Yes, some will look at scarcity and how bad it is... without hope...they see the weeds....

Some will look at seeds scattered and abundance, grace and hope....flowers blossoming in drainage ditches and a harvest...wheat.

There is a strange preference in the U. S for dilettantism and informal charitable solutions to poverty and deprivation.  There is a lot of giving by individuals through charity but the flip side is that as a society there is an unwillingness to "do the needful" and set up stable  tax supported programs to help the poor and the homeless.  At that point, the majority of the U. S. populace (at least the voting populace) have shown over and over that they are unwilling or unable to bring themselves to do collectively that which they profess to be willing and able to do privately.  The private charitable works seem impressive but the niggardly role allowed to the public sector belies the initial impression of generosity such giving initially inspires.

qwerty,

I believe even Tommy Douglas voiced the concern that if private citizens and churches took care of the poor the government would free free to wash their hands ,"they are already cared for". Social welfare runs the risk of the government saying "done" and passing it over. Those in social welfare are well aware that has happened... and the US is not alone and Canada is not immune.

Food banks and homeless shelters were to be stop gap, temporary measures....

We see how that worked....

That is why some answer the call to social welfare and others to social welfare & social justice and others to social justice.

I deliver food bank food each week and work in getting donations, but I also work in pushing the government back and I make sure people hear stories from the likes of Persistent Poverty: Voices From the Margins - Jamie Swift, Brice Balmer and Mira Dineen so that they too push their government to not allow them to wash their hands of it.

This thought will stay with me...............

I still have  weeds in my field.

Question.

If, hypothetically,  I was to rid my field entirely of weeds, would I lose compassion for those whose fields are heavily weeded?

Has Christ lost the United Church?

I TOLD them there would be consequences for the UCoC 'getting in touch with their roots' by building labyrinths.

Christ could get lost in his own backyard.

So it's not wonder that, per SunWarrior, Christians now worship a Corporatized G_d, business, science, and dead matter.

(is it too late for a Culture transplant?)

Thanks to Diana and others for lighting a candle. It is important.

But I find myself in agreement with qwerty that we live in an economic system that is essentially anti-Christian. We can and should offer help to the needy as individuals and as congregations.

But it's not enough, never will be.

We now live under a system we call a capitalist democracy. but it is neither. The reality is that the very wealthy own the governments, and control capitalism to enrich only themselves iin a sort of blend of feudalism and fascism.

We have to come to grips with that. Volunteerism can alleviate. It cannot come close to meeting the need.

Amen Graeme,

The volunteers are left without resources ... the wealthy man has taken eM with him as he wasted where there was no need only desire. Thus the expression; "tonight rich man your soul will be required of you" and there was none left to draw upon (druID?).

There's something omi Nous in the story (all thought; in the aboriginal understanding as Nous as the loupe of the mind coming around to thinking). Then are we not told by authority "not to think" for then we would be like physical gods ... greedy ... the devil on the other side of that space is a thinking being. Things are not as they seem in alternate reality ... that other dimension of soul ... one needs a lifetime to waken IT from the slumbering giant of emotional status ...

There are those that never get over it ... but you don't say that straight out ... not allowed here ... only in free verse of in heh's Torah ... IT bean a light version of truth as told in authoritative realm. Then we all know what authority does ...

Come to think of it I Corinthians 15:33 does a neat eKos (echo, Ego; a reflective thing?) ...

"Do not be deceived: Bad company corrupts good morals."

A person has to conceive of Moor-aL and A'B'D in ancient tongues ... like a divine or polar personality ... one of the page and one Eris 'n experience. It can bed Isis ... leave a poeL of thought ... dark'eh in the Roman sense ... Jinn heh's magi ...

Did you know that hair or Eire was an expression of sensation of the hed ... contrary to those of the heedless that go only by the book ... without a thought! How to corrupt a pure desire ... make it think ... what a Þaen ...  

Can an infinite word express a depth of thought and feeling? Hoo dah thought ...

PilgrimsProgress,

It is when we fail to remember that weeding is a constant process... when we think we have no weeds... when we have weeded all we can weed and really think that none could grow back.... that we get into trouble, isn't  it? A beautiful flower bed can become a weed bed in no time at all and fields grow over....

Where is AbPenny when we are talking about gardens and weeding?

PP, great question.    I also think that we sometimes presume our weeds are the same and require the same treatment.  We all know that one considers a weed, others consider a thing of beauty.  

thanks folks for this thread.

graeme,

I would agree that what we can do as individuals and as churches requires more. The government must be held accountable. So too have many people agreed....

The measure of a society is found in how they treat their weakest and most helpless citizens. ~James Carter)

The greatness of a nation can be judged by how they treat their animals. (He also used "weakest members")~ Gandhi

Our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members.~Pearl S. Buck My Several Worlds

The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer

A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.
~Samuel Johnson, Boswell: Life of Johnson

The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.~John E. E. Dalberg, Lord Acton, The History of Freedom in Antiquity
 

"...the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life; the sick, the needy and the handicapped. " ~ Last Speech of Hubert H. Humphrey

Since before Jesus, religious people have sought to hold their government accountable.

It is why I started a petition. Not an online one, but an ink to paper one. Many of our congregations are "snow birds". I want them to register their voices with the city of Orlando and the state of Florida as well as the Disney Corp. and Universal Studios.... There are lovely places in Florida that are NOT Orlando... We count on those IN Orlando to pressure Orlando officials...

I am urging others to do the same. I have contacted not just "the church folks". I have contacted our local RV park (where "snow birds" camp in summers) as well as the motorcycle club (yes bikers, who travel and do tons of volunteer work and fundraising) as well as many other organizations.

The point is voicing it, putting pressure on for change, and letting them know it may hurt where they care-in the wallet...

Anyone have other ideas? Anyone want to start a Facebook  page or find out if one exists to let us all go and stand up and be counted?

I agree that we need to live our faith. We also have to walk the walk, not just talk the talk....

excellent idea. We should all support that.

If that was the case, then I think you'd have more weeding to do!  

SG - I have a letter-writing ministry through my church - KAIROS,  AI, UCC initiatives,

mostly.  I have found that most people will not write their own letters or even send copies

of the letters on their own, but they are very happy to add their name to a signatures list.  

​So I take care of the writing and the mailing, speak to the issue during worship, and

​then let people sign.  Anyway, we've been talking about how to extend that ministry

​to other churches in our city - having a contact person who would print out the letter and

​collect signatures,  etc.     If there's a way - through Facebook or any other way - that

​people all over who are doing similar things - writing letters/petitions, or who just want to

share information - I think that would be great.  We recently sent a letter to the

​"Harper Government" asking them to respect the rights of the Lubicon Cree 

​people and to negotiate a rapid and fair settlement;  we collected about 60

signatures - if people in UCCs across the country could have access to that, then

​how many more names could we add, and how much more awareness could we 

​raise?  

A Facebook page would be accessible - I don't know if you can attach pdfs on FB?And/or a database on Wondercafe?  Or the United Church website?

Personally, I have always found that when I step up saying "Why isn't anyone else doing something?" and thinking I have to -  I immediately make contact with others who already ARE or who want to.

So, after reading and posting here yesterday... coming up with a petition... posting here about petitions and pressure....I make contact with someone who sends me info about a Pensecola priest.

I learned about Rev. Nathan Monk, who they call "Father Nathan".

You can read about him in this news article

http://inweekly.net/wordpress/?p=5045

“The criminalization of public service to the poor is to criminalize poverty itself,” said the Rev. Nathan Monk. “The continued efforts of the City of Orlando to prevent distribution of food to the poor is a violation of the constitution at its highest form. To prevent one human from reaching out to help another human in need is contrary to the decency we have all been taught from our youth.”

AMEN!

I was pointed in the direction of a Facebook page, two actually- one in English and one in Spanish. I would have never accessed them on my own as I would have looked for "poor" or "park" along with "Orlando" and "protest"...

The Facebook site is No Starvation in Orlando. It currently only has 112 members...

If a Facebook page about the cost of cheese and a glut of people joining that facebook group/page actually pressured the lowering of the cost of cheese... can we change laws? You are damned right we can!

Twitter, join a Facebook protest... do something other than saying "why doesn't anyone else do something?"

Why don't you do something?

Then tell us what so we can do it too....

.....I think I will!....

I've got a Facebook group page in process, called Social Justice and Action.   I'm Facebook-challenged, so will get help from my teens, and then am going away for 3 weeks......but I will post back when I've got something up and running.

how come kids know that, and we don't?

kids' brains are just different......so the FB thing is a bust so far, but I've created a website that will hopefully be a clearinghouse for people to submit and download letters and educational material.  I'm still in the process of getting it up and running, but I think it might work.  What I need to do is use FB to direct people to it.  In the meantime....dinner isn't going to make itself and I have a suitcase saying pack me - so I will come back and hopefully start a new thread with a link to the site later int he summer......and we'll see what happens.  Can't hurt to try!!  

Not to worry, Diana - I'm only speaking hypothetically - no sooner do I remove a weed another seems to take it's place.

The point I was trying to make was that it is in having weeds we have the capacity to have compassion for those whose fields are heavily weeded.

In that sense, a healthy field is one that contains at least a few weeds. These weeds contain the seeds of our common humanity and thus compassion.

Without them. it would be all too easy to separate the "good" from the "bad".

All goodness resides with me - all evil resides with the other. (classic projection).

Which, IMO, is what happens far too often not only in conflict on the world stage - but also within our own families.

Toronto also has objections to feeding the homeless on the street.  Here's the story of a pastor Rev. David Burrows   who is doing it.

Quote:

Like Burrows, Connolly and Whelan are critical of the city’s Streets to Homes program, saying that in the past they’ve had run-ins with outreach workers who’ve tried to prevent them from handing out food.

“They don’t like us feeding people . . . but they have their service, and this is our service,” says Connolly, a feisty 74-year-old woman.

Phil Brown, general manager of Toronto’s Shelter, Support and Housing department, which operates Streets to Homes, admits the work those like Burrows, Connolly and Whelan are doing is problematic for his program.

“One of the challenges we face sometimes is there are still some groups, unrelated to the city who may be helping people stay out, when we’re trying to get (the homeless) to come in. We classify that service as survival support to help people stay on the street. We don’t fund those anymore.

“Our goal is to help people off the street into homes, give someone the safety, security and dignity of a home above all else. The last thing we want to do is help someone stay outside,” Brown adds.

Started in 2005, officials say Streets to Homes has helped more than 2,400 people get the assistance needed to move into permanent housing — with 91 per cent remaining in their homes.

Burrows says he’s skeptical of those figures because he believes many homeless men are hard to keep housed.

“Some guys are (addicted to crack) and alcoholics, and don’t house easily. They get into a place and next thing two months later, four months later, they’re kicked out again,” Burrows argues.

Full story here:

http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1018871--rector-finds-his-own-way-to-feed-homeless