Brooke De Jong is the author of this post and the Program Assistant for Hunger Education with ELCA World Hunger. Previous to this position she worked managing grants from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for a housing agency in Chicago, IL. 

The work towards economic and racial justice has never been easy. Making long-term sustainable and transformative changes is even harder. This is especially true in the areas of housing and homelessness. According to the latest Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) data collected in January 2019, Chicago alone had 5,290 people without homes. But what is more concerning is that 1,026 or 19% of persons without homes in Chicago were white but 4,674 or 88% persons without homes in Chicago were people of color.

As we emerged from the holidays and rolled into the new year, news broke that HUD is proposing to repeal a 2015 fair housing rule, or the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule, that could make this disparity worse.

What is the proposed change and why does it matter?

The proposal to repeal of the 2015 AFFH rule repeals a definition of fair housing that actively sought to reverse the effects of housing segregation and changes the definition of fair housing to “advancing fair housing choice within the program participant’s control or influence.” Under Secretary Ben Carson, HUD would now define fair housing as the ability to choose one’s housing and end proactive measures that sought to reverse the effects of housing segregation. Without the proper tools, training and financial support, many communities will not be able to continue the hard but important work towards ending housing segregation.

Housing segregation is a serious problem in the United States. In short, where someone lives is important. Where someone lives determines the quality of education, jobs, medical care, access to supportive services, food quality and more. Ultimately where some lives can impact a person’s ability to thrive. In segregated communities, like that of Chicago, often what happens is a concentration of the above items in more white and affluent areas and a decreased density of these crucial services in areas that have higher rates of poverty and large populations of people of color. Housing segregation has many devastating effects but the most sinister is the ability of housing segregation to create a never-ending cycle of poverty. If we  are serious about our mission to create a just world where all are fed, ending housing segregation is an important piece of the puzzle.

What is the “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” Rule?

Let’s start first with what a rule is, why we have them and how they come about. Rules are created and used by United States government agencies, like HUD, to help staff and related programs effectively interpret and implement laws passed by congress. Often, laws passed by Congress leave a lot of room for the agency to determine how to put a law into practice. So, rules are created to guide the work of the agency, evaluate its grant programs and to prioritize spending.

In the case of the AFFH rule, the US Congress has passed several laws that govern how HUD does its work and spends its money. All of these major laws contain language directing HUD to prevent discrimination in its housing programs and create programs that actively implement fair housing practices. While the laws are clear that housing discrimination is illegal, it is not clear from these laws how HUD is supposed to go about developing fair housing programs. Therefore, it is up to every administration and HUD secretary to define what these affirmative sections of our housing laws look like in practice.

In the case of the 2015 AFFH rule implemented by then-HUD Secretary Julian Castro and the Obama administration, this looked like taking proactive steps to reverse the effects of decades of housing segregation created by redlining, discriminatory and predatory mortgage lending practices, and community disinvestment. This involved defining fair housing as:

taking meaningful actions that, taken together, address significant disparities in housing needs and in access to opportunity, replacing segregated living patterns with truly integrated and balanced living patterns, transforming racially and ethnically concentrated areas of poverty into areas of opportunity, and fostering and maintaining compliance with civil rights and fair housing laws creating new sophisticated mapping and data tools for communities requiring extensive reporting on systemic housing segregation.

When this definition went into effect in 2015 as part of the AFFH rule, HUD had a new mandate: create new mapping tools and training programs to help communities understand the effects of systemic segregation and begin evaluating grant programs based on how effective they were at reversing systemic segregation. Communities and housing authorities that did well were awarded more money and others who failed to meet the new standards would see their funding cut or the program would find themselves under HUD monitoring.

Why would HUD propose this change?

HUD is proposing this change because it says, among other things, the 2015 rule is too burdensome on communities and programs.

As a former HUD grants administrator, I can see why HUD might be choosing to repeal such a complex rule. Because the thought of a regulation change still makes me feel a deep sense of dread. It is difficult to convey the amount of work and stress that comes with managing HUD grants. But I think it is important to try in order to better grasp and evaluate HUD’s stated reasoning for this rule change.

Many housing agencies administering HUD programs and funding, including the one worked at, are greatly understaffed and underfunded. As the grants manager, it is your responsibility to know HUD rules and regulations inside and out and make sure staff are following them. The bills and regulations that govern a single type of HUD funding can number into the thousands of pages. A violation of those regulations can result in loss of funding and mass eviction of those your agency serves.

Changes in how data is collected and how HUD defines different terms, both of which are part of this proposed rule change, can affect your ability to house people. In short, working on HUD grants and implementing rule changes means the lives of the most vulnerable depend on you doing your job well. That is a heavy burden that many grant administrators and other HUD program administrators carry.

Nevertheless, this burden is one I often carried with pride. The work my agency did to provide housing and supportive services to the most vulnerable populations in Chicago, was a direct result of the funding I was able to secure and manage. HUD rules like the AFFH rule, which it is proposing to repeal, made sure we were making long-term transformative and sustainable changes in the communities we served. That made a difference to me when I was up until 2 am trying to make grant submission deadlines.

In Summary

It is true the 2015 rule did place a heavy burden on HUD programs and administrators. Many programs reported to HUD that the current AFFH process required lengthy report submissions ranging from 200 to 800 pages. Many communities also had to hire outside contractors and spend vital funds on the completion of these reports. It is important and right that HUD should listen to their feedback.

However, HUD also needs to take a look at themselves. HUD never completed the mapping tools and training it promised these communities. These mapping tools and training would have been vital to the success of the 2015 AFFH rule.

So, if something is not working or is difficult and you have not made the proper investment, you don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. In other words, despite some of the failures and difficulties of this 2015 AFFH rule, HUD should not ignore or give up on its mandate to make a positive impact on communities in the realm of fair housing and housing segregation. And HUD certainly should not give up on this mandate because it failed to provide the adequate funding and support these communities and programs needed.

This post comes from ELCA World Hunger’s weekly email list, “Sermon Starters.” For this week, Rev. Angela Khabeb of Holy Trinity Church in Minneapolis, shares with us her reflections on forgiveness and how we are called to make this gift more than an act, but a lifestyle as followers in Christ.

If you’d like to receive posts like these ahead of the liturgical calendar, please subscribe to ELCA World Hunger Sermon Starters by clicking on the link, or email us at hunger@elca.org.

Here is a recent review of the resource from Vernita Kennan of the Saint Paul Area Synod:

“I receive the ELCA World Hunger Sermon Starters each week from the ELCA and find it is a helpful way for me to look ahead and “preach my own sermon” in preparation of what I will hear next Sunday at my home church, Incarnation Lutheran…You needn’t be a rostered person in the ELCA to find them inspirational.”

February 24, 2019 – Seventh Sunday after Epiphany

Luke 6:27-38

We continue this week with the Sermon on the Plain. We hear Jesus proclaiming a new way. “Turn the other cheek, go the second mile, love your enemies.” Unfortunately, this passage has been misused in some religious circles.

Please allow me this commercial break…

If someone is in an abusive situation, they are not required to stay and risk their life and/or the lives of their children. There are times when it is best to forgive from a distance. We can continue to love the person but if the relationship is physically, verbally, emotionally, or economically abusive, the most loving and faith-filled response we can have is to practice self-care. When we try to enforce forgiveness like it is a law and not an act of God’s love and grace, all of humanity is in jeopardy.

We’ve heard these passages many times before. But for the original hearers, these words were earth-shattering. Jesus’ words were radical. More to the point, his life was radical. After all, Jesus constantly challenged the status quo. He repeatedly broadened the center so that those on the margins of society would be included.  He challenged the religious leaders of the day and caused so much political upheaval that he received the death penalty.

Jesus was revolutionary in ways that people never expected. Even today, Jesus enters our lives in unexpected ways and I love it. After all, Christianity should not be comfortable for us. The Gospel should not be like our favorite pair of jeans or a pair of old shoes or a worn-out sweater that we drag out this time of year. Certainly, we find comfort in God’s word. But we don’t need to have a hold on the Gospel because Jesus does not belong to us. Rather, the Gospel needs to have a hold on us because we belong to Jesus. Otherwise we are just nominal Christians playing church. We create our own brand of Jesus that suits our needs and pets our egos. We manipulate Jesus into whatever makes us feel safe, or superior, or righteous. So, what is the earth-shattering news we need to hear?

You see, the life changing power of the Gospel message has the greatest impact on our lives when it is destabilizing. Whenever we are challenged to redefine or examine who we understand Jesus to be, we grow. Whenever we challenge what it means to be a Christian in our world today, we grow.

In the Sermon on the Plain, Jesus is encouraging his followers to abandon business as usual. Through his sermon, Jesus turns the accepted societal norms inside-out. This is Good News because even when we dishonor God by our actions or inactions, God still seeks after us. Now, for the life of me I cannot figure out why. But Jesus chooses to use us as the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Jesus chooses us even though we are broken, selfish, and woefully imperfect. Jesus chooses us to broaden the center in our own communities so that all God’s people have a seat at the table. Jesus uses us to increase God’s healing and hope in the world. Is this the earth-shattering news for us?

Genesis 45:3-11, 15

It’s hard to ignore the theme of forgiveness in this week’s lessons—and believe me, I tried. Yes, the story of Joseph is a powerful illustration of love and forgiveness overcoming hatred and bitterness. But even as I encounter this undeniable witness to the hidden hand of God, I find myself distracted by many questions.

Firstly, what does true forgiveness look like for us? What happens to trust? Is it wise for me to trust this person again if they had deliberately betrayed me? What if the best I can do is just be cordial to them? Isn’t that enough? Isn’t it enough for me to simply not hate the sight of them? Let’s face it, forgiveness is hard. There’s no “forgiveness switch” on our hearts that we can simply click on or off when we need more or less of it. I’ve been wondering if forgiveness is like love. You know, when you give away love it multiplies and comes back to you.

Sometimes it seems, in our country, we are more concerned with punishment than we are with peace. We seem more concerned with revenge than reconciliation. We find it easier to fight than to forgive. No wonder some of us find it difficult to accept God’s extravagant gift of love. Even when we are receptive to God’s mercy and forgiveness, we may yet be reluctant to give mercy and forgiveness to others. Maybe we feel that we are giving away our power when we forgive. Maybe we are simply afraid of being hurt again and use our grudges to keep us safe. But, at the end of the day, ministry involves risk.

It can feel like a risk to forgive. But what exactly are we risking? Our power, position, politics, morals, self-constructed ideas of who we are and how others should perceive us seem to be potential risk-factors to forgiveness. But on the other side of forgiveness, on the other side of the tension and resistance we often experience when confronted with someone who has “wronged” us, we find relationship. We find a leveling and sharing of power, we find mutual respect and dignity, and we find the Holy ground that lives between us all. If hunger and poverty are symptoms of deeply broken relationships around the world, forgiveness could be our first-step on the path to living lives of abundance and sharing.

Forgiveness is not necessarily an event, but rather a lifestyle. God doesn’t expect us to forgive perfectly every time. But God is encouraging us to live our lives with forgiveness as our North Star. In doing so, we honor God and we help heal the body of Christ. C.S. Lewis illustrates forgiveness as part of our baptismal identity as Christians:

“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”

This is both gift and challenge.

To be clear, forgiveness cannot erase pain or eliminate the need for justice. But forgiveness is God’s gift to us. The Holy Spirit empowers us to share that gift with others. Fortunately, forgiveness, like most things, gets easier with practice. The more we remain open to the Spirit, the more able we are to forgive. Forgiveness can be extremely difficult, but it is possible. In fact, God makes all things possible for us. This is good news.

Children Sermon

Forgiveness seems to be an overarching theme in this week’s lessons. Forgiveness is an important concept that might be difficult for children to grasp. We learn to say we’re sorry but that does not always lead to forgiveness. Have you ever heard a child offer an angry “sorry!” because her mother told her she had to apologize?  It happens with my kids on occasion.

So, it might be a good idea to ask the children to help you describe forgiveness. This way you can gauge the understanding of the group. Invite the children to share examples of times when they needed to receive forgiveness or times when they needed to forgive someone (be prepared to share your own examples if need be).

For an object lesson, bring two items–something rather heavy and something rather light. A brick and a feather would work well and pretty easy to get. Grudges are heavy like this brick (or rock or concrete paver–probably less than $1 at your local hardware store). Forgiveness is light like this feather (or cotton ball or stuffing from a pillow). You could get a sturdy backpack and put several heavy objects in it and invite a child or two to try and carry it. Ask who would rather carry the heavy bag or the cotton ball all day.

Remind them of the words about forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer. Say it out loud, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” Encourage the children (and adults) to listen for those words later in worship. Remind them that Jesus helps us forgive and forgiveness brings joy.

As Reformation Sunday approaches and the winter months ensue, do you find yourself already daydreaming about summer? ELCA World Hunger would like to encourage that habit by offering a sneak peek into ELCA World Hunger’s newest VBS program, “Who is My Neighbor?”

Based on the Good Samaritan story, “Who is My Neighbor?” engages participants in a week of fun, laughter and play while learning about how we are called by God to love and care for our neighbors within our communities and around the world.

Each day focuses on a different character from the Good Samaritan story, with Day 1 introducing the main character—the lawyer who asks Jesus the question, “Who is my neighbor?”

This full, five-day curriculum will be free and available in print or through download. You’ll find skits, family time, games, snacks, crafts and stories that will help participants explore what it means to be a neighbor in Christ by learning about neighbors in six parts of the globe!

Please enjoy this Day 1 sample and be on the lookout for the full “Who is My Neighbor?” VBS curriculum to be available in mid-November!

We pray that the children in your VBS will see the ways God has blessed them and their neighbors—and the role they can play in God’s promise of a just world where all are fed.

Learn

If you’d like to learn more about other resources that ELCA World Hunger offers to congregations,  please visit www.elca.org/Resources/ELCA-World-Hunger.

Give

Gifts to ELCA World Hunger are acts of love towards our neighbors living with hunger and poverty both here and around the world. Together, we are creatively and courageously working toward a just world where all are fed.

Give now

Connect

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Advent is a season of hope and expectation. It is a season in which we “prepare the way of the Lord” (Mark 1:3). Advent candles, wreaths and calendars are joined with as-yet unfinished nativity scenes to mark our preparations for the birth of Jesus Christ. This year, ELCA World Hunger’s Advent Study celebrates this season with reflections focused on the preparation of the people of God for the work of the new year – the work of feeding, clothing, accompanying and advocating with our neighbors for a just world in which all are fed.

The four sessions of this Advent Study and the accompanying Advent calendar are based on the Scripture readings for each week of Advent. Each week includes a meditation on the theme, reflection questions, a prayer and hymn suggestions.

May you, your family and your community be blessed this season to see the important role the people of God are called to play in God’s transformation of the world – as individuals, as families and as the church together.

We begin at the end, and we will end at the beginning. What an odd way to go through Advent! We enter this season of expectation of Jesus’ birth and the advent of his ministry, only to start by hearing the words of Jesus describing the end of days. In a few weeks, we will celebrate the beginning of Jesus’ incarnate life among us.

We begin at the end, and we will end at the beginning.

The heavy thumb of Roman rule, high taxes and widespread vulnerability to poverty were all part of everyday life in first century Palestine. The people among whom Jesus would be born were eager for the Messiah who would deliver them. And there was no shortage of “false messiahs” (Mark 13:22) claiming to offer salvation. Some promised military victory over the Romans. Others claimed gifts of magical power and prophesied re-taking the temple.

And yet, here, in the Gospel of Mark, the true Messiah comes offering a very different story. The people of God will not ride triumphantly into Jerusalem – they will “flee to the mountains” (13:14). They will not re-take Jerusalem and its temple – “all will be thrown down” (13:2b).

But “after that suffering” (13:24)…

In the end…

Of all the Gospels, Mark is perhaps the most honest about suffering. Facing persecution at the hands of Rome, early Christians needed a message that was honest about suffering. More than that, they needed to know that God was honest about their suffering. In Mark, Jesus does not hold back in naming that suffering. The Messiah is born into suffering. The people will face suffering. He himself will suffer.

This wasn’t a newsflash to first century Jews any more than it is to the millions of people today for whom suffering is a mournful part of life – those who know the pangs of food insecurity, those who long for clean water, those who grieve the loss of their homes or their jobs. The idea that suffering is a part of life is sadly nothing new to so many of us. But Jesus makes clear two things that transform how we understand suffering. First, God knows our suffering. And, second – God rejects it.

The “great buildings” (13:2) in Jerusalem, which occasioned the beginning of Jesus’ long speech in Mark 13, were not merely beautiful examples of architecture. They were symbols of the powers and principalities that maintained systems of oppression and marginalization and would eventually carry Jesus to the cross. They seem imperishable, unshakable, overwhelming.

But the world is about to turn. And those walls are coming down.

Advent is a season of hope and expectation, but with Jesus’ exhortation in Mark 13:33 (“Beware, keep alert”), we move from “Advent as anticipation” to “Advent as active alert.” As we await the birth of the Messiah, let Advent be a season not of patience but impatience, not of passivity but activity, seeking out those places where God is already at work undoing systems of suffering and living in the daring confidence founded on faith in the promised end of suffering, sin and death.

Reflection questions

1. How has God been present with you in your suffering?
2. Where do you see suffering in the world today? How are people of faith actively working to end it?
3. As people of faith who believe God rejects suffering, how are we called to respond to suffering in the world?
4. What is the difference between patient anticipation and being on “active alert” during Advent?

Prayer

Loving God, in your incarnation, you took on to yourself our humanity and our suffering. Be present with us today as we face the pain of hunger, thirst, war, disease and neglect. Keep fresh in our hearts your promise of an end to suffering and an eternity of well-being with you. Send us out among our neighbors, that we may share with them your promise and share with you in the transformation of our world. In the name of your son, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Hymn suggestions

Canticle of the Turning ELW 723

The People Walk (Un pueblo que camina) ELW 706

Each Winter as the Year Grows Older ELW 252

To download this entire study, or to see some of our other congregational resources, please visit www.elca.org/Resources/ELCA-World-Hunger.

Large, multinational corporations controlling prices and driving down wages, masses of people too poor to afford basic goods, an economy that favors the wealthy, politicians and church leaders at the mercy of banks….1517 was quite a year!  So much has changed, so much remains the same.

Many people remember Martin Luther’s sharp critique of the abusive practices of the church, but few of us are as familiar with Luther’s equally sharp critique of the abusive economy of his day, an economy that made a few people wealthy and a lot of people poor.

At the 2015 “Forgotten Luther” conference in Washington, DC, theologians and historians shared this little-known side of Luther’s teachings.  The presenters described Luther’s critique of monopolies, price gouging, and greed. They showed the clear economic teachings in Luther’s Catechisms and the political side of his theology. They also shared Luther’s insistence that the church be part of the solution to injustice, a heritage that can still be seen today in the many ways Lutherans respond to poverty and hunger 500 years later.

ELCA World Hunger is proud to offer for free videos of each presentation from this important conference, as well as video interviews with each of the presenters. You can find all of the videos on the ELCA’s Vimeo channel at https://vimeo.com/album/4043021. The presentations were also collected into a short book, complete with discussion questions and other contributions from the conference organizers. You can purchase the book for only $15 from Lutheran University Press at http://www.lutheranupress.org/Books/Forgotten_Luther.

Here on the ELCA World Hunger blog this month, we will feature some highlights from this collection of resources.

In this final excerpt from the video series, Dr. Jon Pahl of the Lutheran School of Theology at Philadelphia contrasts the devastating consequences of self-serving greed with the joy that can be found in working together toward a world in which all are fed – and how congregations, organizations, and partnerships can get us there. Find this video and more at https://vimeo.com/album/4043021.

Large, multinational corporations controlling prices and driving down wages, masses of people too poor to afford basic goods, an economy that favors the wealthy, politicians and church leaders at the mercy of banks….1517 was quite a year!  So much has changed, so much remains the same.

Many people remember Martin Luther’s sharp critique of the abusive practices of the church, but few of us are as familiar with Luther’s equally sharp critique of the abusive economy of his day, an economy that made a few people wealthy and a lot of people poor.

At the 2015 “Forgotten Luther” conference in Washington, DC, theologians and historians shared this little-known side of Luther’s teachings.  The presenters described Luther’s critique of monopolies, price gouging, and greed. They showed the clear economic teachings in Luther’s Catechisms and the political side of his theology. They also shared Luther’s insistence that the church be part of the solution to injustice, a heritage that can still be seen today in the many ways Lutherans respond to poverty and hunger 500 years later.

ELCA World Hunger is proud to offer for free videos of each presentation from this important conference, as well as video interviews with each of the presenters. You can find all of the videos on the ELCA’s Vimeo channel at https://vimeo.com/album/4043021. The presentations were also collected into a short book, complete with discussion questions and other contributions from the conference organizers. You can purchase the book for only $15 from Lutheran University Press at http://www.lutheranupress.org/Books/Forgotten_Luther.

Here on the ELCA World Hunger blog this month, we will feature some highlights from this collection of resources.

In this interview, Dr. Cynthia Moe-Lobeda from Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary talks about her personal journey as an advocate for justice and the importance of seeing the well-being of the neighbor, including economic well-being, as a matter of faith. Find this video and more at https://vimeo.com/album/4043021.

Large, multinational corporations controlling prices and driving down wages, masses of people too poor to afford basic goods, an economy that favors the wealthy, politicians and church leaders at the mercy of banks….1517 was quite a year!  So much has changed, so much remains the same.

Many people remember Martin Luther’s sharp critique of the abusive practices of the church, but few of us are as familiar with Luther’s equally sharp critique of the abusive economy of his day, an economy that made a few people wealthy and a lot of people poor.

At the 2015 “Forgotten Luther” conference in Washington, DC, theologians and historians shared this little-known side of Luther’s teachings.  The presenters described Luther’s critique of monopolies, price gouging, and greed. They showed the clear economic teachings in Luther’s Catechisms and the political side of his theology. They also shared Luther’s insistence that the church be part of the solution to injustice, a heritage that can still be seen today in the many ways Lutherans respond to poverty and hunger 500 years later.

ELCA World Hunger is proud to offer for free videos of each presentation from this important conference, as well as video interviews with each of the presenters. You can find all of the videos on the ELCA’s Vimeo channel at https://vimeo.com/album/4043021. The presentations were also collected into a short book, complete with discussion questions and other contributions from the conference organizers. You can purchase the book for only $15 from Lutheran University Press at http://www.lutheranupress.org/Books/Forgotten_Luther.

Here on the ELCA World Hunger blog this month, we will feature some highlights from this collection of resources.

In this interview, Dr. Samuel Torvend of Pacific Lutheran University talks about justification and justice, the experiences that shaped his own perspective, and how to reconcile Luther’s conservative positions with the Reformer’s progressive call for economic justice. Find this video and more at https://vimeo.com/album/4043021.