At this time of year we see seasons changing with the last bit of winter frost fading to the warm air of spring. The seasons of the church change as well from the somber time of Lent into the celebration of Easter. During the season of Lent Messiah Lutheran Church in Vancouver, Washington, decided to spend their weeks not only in worship, but educating their congregation about water.

“Stay Thirsty” was the name of the Wednesday evening sermon series for the season of Lent and each Sunday there was a children’s message about water. In the midst of abundance, Messiah Lutheran Church decided to talk about scarcity of a resource that we all depend on: clean water.

The first “Stay Thirsty” evening, the congregation put on their own Walk for Water. They set up three tracks going throughout the church with stops along the way to learn about waterborne diseases and the reality of water all around the world.

Each track lets you walk in the shoes of a real story, and simulate the difficulties of not having accessible water.

At Messiah there were a large number of people who wanted to participate, so the congregation provided various sizes of water containers to accommodate the inter-generational walk with participants as young as three.     

This first event provided a way for the whole congregation to get acquainted with the theme of “Water for the World”, and learn more about what the ELCA is doing around the world.

As a retired teacher, Hope Quinn took on the responsibility for writing and delivering the children’s messages each Sunday. Each week provided a different lesson on water, and a box for collecting coins to contribute to ELCA World Hunger’s water programs. “Water for the World” was the theme that was adopted and a wishing well was placed in the narthex to collect prayers of the congregation on a clothesline with a thermometer to gauge how much money they raised.

The first Sunday the theme was introduced with a simple question to the children, “When you want a drink of water at home, what do you do?”. The answer would be the same for many of us, that we simply go to our sinks and turn on the faucet. There might be a water filter involved, but nothing strenuous. Answers from the children prompted a conversation on how many people in the world do not have this same luxury, with an illustration from the Walk for Water video. The children were given coin boxes to collect money during the week and told about how their coins can help give people safe water to drink.

Wells were the next topic, and understanding what kind of well water is actually safe to drink. Quinn pointed out that well water can contain debris and other materials to make the water unsafe to drink. Porterville, California, is an area that relies on wells to provide water but due to drought their wells are running dry. Quinn lifted up that ELCA World Hunger is helping provide materials to aid the people of Porterville, which is only a two-day drive from Vancouver. After this children’s message many adults came up to Quinn saying that they had no idea that ELCA World Hunger worked domestically!

Women are usually the ones faced with the burden of gathering water for their families, and that was illustrated in the third week of Lent. Quinn asked for two girls to volunteer from the group to carry an empty bucket and an empty jug. The volunteers illustrated how difficult it is to carry the bucket instead of the jug and learned that with only two dollars from their Water for the World boxes they could buy one of the jugs! Also with only one dollar from their boxes they could provide 140 water purification tablets! The last Sunday showed what happens when an area gets clean water. Quinn showed a PowerPoint that illustrated the different components to getting clean water and what it meant for a community in India to gain access to clean water with the support of ELCA World Hunger.

Messiah wanted to show through education and giving that we really can make a difference by coming together as sisters and brothers in Christ. This congregation took a season to learn about the ELCA in the world, and at the end of their time they raised nearly $2,500!

Let us take a season, a Sunday, or just a moment to bear witness to what we as a church can do in the world, and how something as simple as clean water can make all the difference.

I recently visited a congregation that has been a very generous supporter of ELCA World Hunger for many years. They also have their own thriving anti-hunger ministries for their community. During an adult forum, I asked them, “Why do you do it? How does your faith motivate you to serve?” They gave a lot of different answers, but in general, there were two themes that came up: “This is work God invites or calls us to,” and “This is work God tells us we have to do.”

Which is it for you? Do you serve because God invites you to be part of this work? Or, do you serve your neighbor in obedience to God’s command? Are you called or commanded?

Lutherans have a great way of talking about this difference. We call it “law and gospel.” There are a lot of books and articles on this, but honestly, I think the best example of how Law and Gospel work is found on bus stops in my city during the winter. Chicago, for a Catholic city, is profoundly Lutheran when it comes to shoveling snow:

We Northerners know how frustrating it can be to trudge through knee-high snow. Chicago helpfully reminds us to keep sidewalks clear for pedestrians. But why should we do it? Take a closer look at the poster:

As the poster says, “It’s neighborly.” It’s just what you do to help each other. But if that doesn’t move you to grab a shovel, maybe a ticket will: “and it’s the law.”

Hopefully, most people will clear the sidewalk out of concern for others. But just in case some ruffian leaves the white stuff out front, the city will send a citation with a hefty fine to make sure it gets done.

This is a great example of what Lutherans mean by “Law and Gospel.” With the Gospel, the hope is that we will do what is right because we feel called to do it, out of gratitude for God’s love and out of our love for one another. But, if that doesn’t work, God commands it, too.

When it comes to serving the neighbor, Martin Luther left room for both:

“This demonstrates that we are children of God, caring and working for the well-being of others…”

That’s the gospel side. And appropriately, it comes from Luther’s treatise “Freedom of a Christian,” which is, ironically, all about the freedom we have in Christ. Luther’s main argument is that we serve because we feel called to it in gratitude for God’s grace. We were saved by a free gift, so we serve others freely.

But just in case:

“If your enemy needs you and you do not help him when you can it is the same as if you had stolen what belonged to him, for you owe him your help. St. Ambrose says, ‘Feed the hungry: if you do not feed him, then as far as you are concerned, you have killed him.’ ” – Treatise on Good Works (1520)

And thus the Law side. Just in case gratitude doesn’t move us, perhaps condemnation will.

Does our motivation matter? Think to the snow-shoveling sign. If I clear my sidewalk out of love for my neighbors, how good of a job will I do? When I was a kid, I used to clear the walks for our elderly neighbors, a really nice couple. I made sure their path was as wide as could be. Heck, there was grass showing at the edges. It was a labor of love to help them, a way of showing thanks for their kindness to me over the years.

What will that path look like if the sidewalk is cleared just to avoid a ticket? If you’ve ever walked down a sidewalk shoveled so poorly that your legs knock snow off the mounds at your sides, you might have an idea. Some of the paths in my neighborhood are about ten inches wide and as slick as a skating rink. But, at least they’re shoveled. No tickets today.

Love pushes us to go as far as we can, to encounter our limits and then to find ways to go beyond them. The gospel draws us into a life of faith that is consuming, energizing, and challenging. The Law, on the other hand, sets a minimum standard we have to meet. We look for clear, minimal expectations and do what we must to meet them (or, sometimes, find a loophole.)

Another interesting thing about snow-shoveling in Chicago: elderly and differently-abled people are still required by the law to clear their walks. How they are supposed to this isn’t exactly clear. But if they don’t, they get cited like the rest of us. That’s the way the Law works. The Law doesn’t help us follow it. It merely condemns us when we get it wrong.

The Gospel, on the other hand, invites us into relationships where we support each other. So, the “Lutheran” government of Chicago encourages people to help their neighbors if they know they can’t take care of their sidewalks. It encourages the sort of “gospel” activity where we go out of way to serve one another, not out of fear but out of love and concern. The Gospel lets everyone participate.

What motivates your ministry? Each of us has days when we need the Law to get us out of bed and back to the work of fighting hunger. But each of us also needs the Gospel to help us see God’s reconciling grace at work, creating something new in our midst, something all of us can be part of. How can we be continually reminded of both the Law and the Gospel in our service?

Ryan P. Cumming, Ph.D., is program director for hunger education with ELCA World Hunger.  He can be reached at Ryan.Cumming@ELCA.org.

The Results Are In!

As the professional football season winds to a close each winter, fans across the country start planning parties large and small, usually with an abundance of pre-game snacks and treats, for the Big Game.  Jersey-clad diehards and fair-weather fans alike break bread, or more likely, wings and nachos, as they cheer on their favorite teams.  Amid piles of chips, dips, and rib tips, it can be easy to forget that so many people around the world and here in the United States often struggle to fill their own plates, let alone the plates of families and friends visiting for the Game.

This year, ELCA Lutherans worked to change that.  Team Carolina and Team Denver took part in ELCA World Hunger’s “Big Game” Synod Challenge to raise awareness and dollars to support ELCA World Hunger’s work in nearly 60 countries, including the United States. And the results are in!

It wasn’t quite the thumping we saw on the field, but Team Denver edged out Team Carolina to win this friendly competition.  Together, the teams and their supporters raised over $70,000, with Team Denver bringing in $35,621 and Team Carolina following closely with $34,672. Together with a few gifts that came in after the competition, over $77,012 were raised for ELCA World Hunger!  These gifts will support food pantries, jobs programs, shelters, health clinics, agricultural programs and much, much more.

How Did They Do It?

The Rocky Mountain, North Carolina and South Carolina Synods shared photos, videos and social media posts to get the word out and gifts in.  (Check out the Team Carolina video here, and the Team Denver video here.)  Here is where donations came from:

Both teams took advantage of Team ELCA, a new online fundraising platform, that congregations, groups and individuals can use to support ELCA World Hunger.  By forming a team, you can invite friends, family and neighbors to join your efforts.  Team ELCA is a great way to draw others together in your event.  From birthdays to youth group overnights to synod-wide events like ELCA World Hunger’s Big Game Challenge, Team ELCA can be an important tool in expanding the reach of your efforts.  Learn more about Team ELCA with a handy tip sheet that can be found here (https://blogs.elca.org/worldhunger/files/2016/03/Team-ELCA-101-1.pdf).

Thank you to Team Denver and Team Carolina, and to everyone who joined in this tremendous effort!  Your support will help our church live out its call to be “church for the sake of the world” in communities facing hunger and poverty around the world.

(This post originally appeared as “Living Earth Reflection: When Water Becomes No Longer Safe” on the ELCA Advocacy blog. It was written by Rev. Jack Eggleston, Director for Evangelical Mission and Assistant to the Bishop for the Southeast Michigan Synod of the ELCA.  Flint, Michigan, is in the Southeast Michigan synod.)

People around me know that I drink a lot of water. Many years ago, Carl, a member of the congregation I served, told me of the health benefits of

drinking water. I drink at least 80 ounces of water a day. When I am tired, a glass of water refreshes my body and renews my energy. Nothing renews like the life-giving water Jesus offers (John 4), but safe water is one of our most basic needs.

Last fall, when refilling my water bottle at Salem Lutheran Church in Flint, Mich., numerous people told me they had concerns about the water and that I should use bottled water. I filled my water bottle from the faucet, but along the road found it discolored and did not taste right. Only later did I learn how dangerous the water is. Flint’s water is unsafe, toxic and a danger to health.

Water pipes are corroded throughout the city, and lead contamination in many homes and at Salem Lutheran Church far exceed safe limits. Lead harms the blood and can damage the brain. After extended exposure, it builds up in organs and bones, remaining years after exposure. All of this contamination could have been prevented. When people complained and physicians reported unsafe levels of lead, the concerns were dismissed. After 18 months, the water is still unsafe for consumption, cooking or even doing the dishes.

Flint is one of the more impoverished cities in America. Local General Motors employment fell from a high of 80,000 in 1978 to under 8,000 in 2010. More than 40 percent of the people of Flint live below the poverty line. The population has declined from a high of 196,000 in 1960 to just under 100,000 today. The city, under an emergency manager, decided to switch water sources and failed to adequately treat the water. The state of Michigan houses nearly one-fifth of the world’s fresh surface water. It is hard to comprehend unsafe water with such great water supplies nearby.

The long unheard cries of people in Flint remind me of the Israelites refusing to drink the water at Marah because it was bitter (Exodus 15). They complained to Moses, and he cried out to the Lord. The Lord and Moses made the water sweet. Every day, the water crisis in Flint touches me more deeply and reminds me that there are many water concerns throughout the world. Global warming is drying up lakes. The Aral Sea, once one of the world’s largest inland seas is mostly desert now, having receded by more than 75 percent in recent decades. Lake Chad in Africa has diminished by nearly 80 percent over the last 30 years due to global warming, reduced rain and water extraction.

Sharing God’s gifts and life-giving water with people in Flint

After visiting Salem Lutheran Church in Flint, Bishop Donald P. Kreiss and Robin McCants, assistant to the bishop for advocacy and urban ministry, both of the ELCA Southeast Michigan Synod, shared the expanding depths of the crisis with the synod and the ELCA. With some government support

and generous response from the synod, ELCA World Hunger, and people around the ELCA, Salem is now one of the largest distributors of fresh bottled water in the city. Claimed in baptism, refreshed by life-giving water from Jesus that gushes up to eternal life, members of the ELCA are sharing God’s gifts and life-giving water with people in Flint.

Flint will need water for a long time to come. Find out how you can help by visiting the Southeast Michigan Synod website at www.semisynod.com.

Congress is currently considering funding for resources to make the water in Flint safe to drink again. Find out more and take action by visiting the ELCA Advocacy Action Center.

This Sunday when I preach at Salem, I will bring cases of water and two of my own large drinking water bottles. When I return home I will refill them from my faucet and remember the people in Flint. I will be more attentive to ELCA blogs and advocacy requests. Jesus, who gives life-giving water, compels me to do this and to act.

Few experiences produce anxiety much like washing your hands in water that you know can poison you.  I’m watching a natural resource come natural hazard spill over my hands from a tap in Salem Lutheran Church (ELCA) in Flint, Michigan.  Like many other buildings and homes, the church has lead in its water — water it has used for drinking, cooking and baptizing infants.  Before my meeting with Pastor Monica Villarreal of Salem, I had stopped by a downtown coffeeshop for an iced tea, something I do far too often in my own city without batting an eye.  But here in Flint, even this simple act carries with it pit-of-the-gut worry.  It’s one thing to trust that your barista has put enough milk in your latte.  It’s quite another to trust her when she tells you the water is safe.

Flint bears all the marks of any number of Midwestern towns abandoned by manufacturing firms in search of cheap labor.  Liquor stores dot barren blocks.  Once-proud homes loom in disrepair from untended lots. Violent crime is a regular experience. And a river runs through it.  A river filled with bacteria and, now, so corrosive it can damage pipes and car parts.

In politics as in war, the first casualty is truth.  Finding reliable information on the water crisis is difficult, even from reputable news sources.  What we do know is this: people in power gambled with the lives of people in poverty and lost.  When residents complained about the water, state officials from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality responded with “aggressive dismissal, belittlement and attempts to discredit these efforts and the individuals involved,” insisting that the water was safe.

The first “strategic goal” of the MDEQ is to “protect public health.” They failed. Miserably.  But no apology  from state officials, no number of resignations will be enough.  Those officials get to go home and drink clean, cheap water from their taps.  The people of Flint are stuck paying for poison in their homes.  The state leadership in Michigan was as corrosive as the Flint River, eroding trust and sowing fear as quickly as the water they provided corroded pipes and spread lead.  This water was given to babies, infants, and children because people in power said it was safe.

My work with ELCA World Hunger has carried me to places of rural poverty in Iowa, drought-stricken neighborhoods in Central California, and the corrugated metal-covered homes of displaced people in Colombia in search of answers to the same two questions: Where is God? and Where is the Church?

As I sit in Pastor Villarreal’s office holding a bottle of murky brown water drawn from the taps at Salem Lutheran, she tells me about the deep pain resonating throughout her neighborhood.  She describes the guilt of parents who gave their children lead-filled water to drink, of the frustratingly slow state response, of the opportunistic lawyers and media now spilling into Flint.

But she also shows me a list of the congregations and individuals that have reached out to her with donations of time, money, water, and filters.  She describes a young girl who was so moved by what she learned about access to water at the ELCA Youth Gathering in 2015 that when she heard about Flint, she felt called to help.  I hear about churches working together to prepare truckloads of water to ship to Flint, plumbers and pipe-fitters offering their services pro bono.

Pastor Villarreal describes interfaith groups and ecumenical groups coming together to support the community, of Muslims, Methodists, Baptists, Lutherans, Catholics, and others in conversation and in partnership. Last week, ELCA World Hunger joined that list, by providing $5,000 to the Southeast Michigan Synod for Salem Lutheran Church.  This support will help Salem purchase bottled water to distribute to people in need.  It will also provide support to Salem’s food pantry, so that they can purchase food that meets the nutritional needs of people affected by lead.

And I have my answer.  We may not be eating bread and wine at an altar or singing hymns, but here, in this office, this is Church in its most basic form — a site of relief for those in need, a safe space to share dangerous stories of guilt and pain, and a place to unite to hold our leaders accountable when they fail to protect the well-being of all citizens.

Here, too, we are surrounded by weighty symbols — the brown water and corroded pipes that symbolize injustice, and the donated water from across the state and letters of support from all over the nation that symbolize a community committed to not let that injustice stand. The icons here represent a community of neighbors that transcend boundaries to accompany one another.

It is impossible to miss the sacramental volatility of water, that medium that gives life and takes life. It encapsulates the irony of living in the Great Lake State without clean water to drink. It symbolizes both the life-giving grace of the created world and the death-dealing abuses of power that come when we silence and marginalize our neighbors.  It is the touchpoint that knits together people across the spectrum of faiths and no-faith. It has become a rallying point for a community to come together.

Long after the media has left, Flint will still be dealing with this catastrophe.  The lead will still be in the pipes, and the chemicals and bacteria will still be in the river.  But people of faith and people of goodwill will still be here, too, to accompany one another and to hold government accountable.  ELCA World Hunger will continue to be present, too, and to accompany our brothers and sisters in the area with prayer, conversation and financial support.  As we learn more about the shape that this accompaniment will take, we will provide updates both here on the ELCA World Hunger blog and on social media.

What can you do to support Flint?

Pray – Include the people of Flint in your personal prayers and during worship with your congregation this Lenten season.

Advocate – This is a federal issue, and ELCA Advocacy recently released an advocacy alert related to the crisis.

Give – ELCA World Hunger will continue to support the community of Flint and Salem Lutheran Church through the long-term work that will be needed to find a “new normal” after this catatstrophe.  Prayerfully consider supporting this long-term work by making a gift to ELCA World Hunger.

Ryan P. Cumming, Ph.D., is the program director of hunger education for ELCA World Hunger.  He can be reached at Ryan.Cumming@ELCA.org.

(A version of this post previously appeared on the Huffington Post Impact blog – http://goo.gl/L3MtiH.)

New reports suggest climate change could push more than 100 million people into poverty in just the next 15 years.  “Climate change hits the poorest the hardest,” says World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, “and our challenge now is to protect tens of millions of people from falling into extreme poverty because of a changing climate.”

The impact is a “two-way street.” Climate change makes it harder for farmers to grow crops, on the one hand, and some farming practices, on the other hand, damage soil, pollute water supplies, and create harmful emissions. But change is happening in small farming communities around the world, especially in communities of faith.  Here are three ways poor communities around the globe are adapting to climate change with the support of ELCA World Hunger.

Cleaner Cooking

Ramoni Rani and her husband, Nor Uttam Hawlader, live in the village of Rajakhali in Bangladesh with their two sons. Like many Bangladeshi farmers, Ramoni and Nor use wood-burning stoves to cook food in their homes. The cost for fuel is steep, and the continued need for it threatens the country’s already-depleted forests. Ramoni, Nor and their children suffered from respiratory illnesses and eye problems because of the carbon emissions and smoke in their homes. In fact, a 2009 profile of Bangladesh from the World Health Organization found that indoor air pollution contributes to nearly 50,000 deaths every year.

“Bondhu chula,” a more efficient cookstove, was developed to combat some of these problems.  But many Bangladeshis have been reluctant to use them, mostly because they don’t know how.  Lutheran Health Care Bangladesh has stepped in by working with over 250 women to help them get familiar with the cookstoves and the positive impact they can have.  For Bangladeshis like Ramoni and Nor, efficient cooking in the home means better health and more money for themselves and a path away from deforestation for their rural community.

In this picture, a man holds biomass pellets similar to those that will be used in the project in Padhar.

Cleaner cooking also makes good economic sense for families in Padhar, India.  To address some of the problems older cookstoves create, Padhar Hospital is helping households get access to smokeless stoves that use biomass pellets. The program will not only train the people to use the stoves but will also help them turn their biomass into profit by providing it to a processing plant.  Since no such plant currently exists in Padhar, one will be built.  Thus the program will provide cleaner stoves, help residents earn income, and create jobs for people in Padhar, all while protecting the environment.

“Green-er” Coffee

Farmers in the Rachuonyo District of Homa Bay County in western Kenya know the daily realities of climate change.  They see it in the shortened periods of rainfall, prolonged dry seasons, and increased flooding that washes away valuable crops and seeds.

Most of the farmers in this region focus their attention and limited investment on subsistence farming, trying to grow enough food to feed their families but often not producing crops that they can use for income.  This leaves them with little savings to weather the kind of volatility that comes with climate change.  One bad season can mean a year of hunger for a smallholder farmer.

One group is working to change that.  Members of the smallholder famers’ collective group, APOKO, partnered with Lutheran World Relief (LWR) in 2014 to launch the Kinda Coffee project.  Farmers in the project learn how to maintain the nutrient levels in soil, prevent erosion and increase water retention at model demonstration plots.  This will not only help them increase their resilience to the droughts and flooding but will also help them protect the environment while earning a sustainable income.  Support for this project from ELCA World Hunger will continue into 2016 and will improve the quality of life for hundreds of households.

Smarter Farming

Thanks to the collective efforts of the last decade, over 90 percent of the world now has access to clean water.  Unfortunately, climate change threatens to undermine much of that progress. Longer, more intense droughts for farmers affect everything from what kinds of crops or animals they can raise to the yield they get from their fields.  When families are already teetering on the edge of poverty, these are serious risks.

But communities in Nicaragua and Bangladesh aren’t just waiting around for something to change.  They are adapting to the changes already sweeping their regions and doing what they can to steward their resources sustainably.

In Bangladesh, air pollution and deforestation aren’t the only problems.  The country faces huge disparities in access to safe water, and more work is needed to provide irrigation to the agriculture industry that employs nearly half of the labor force.  RDRS, a locally-run associate program of the Lutheran World Federation, is helping train farmers in Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD), a technique that can reduce by up to 30% the amount of water needed to grow rice.  As a result, they are able to preserve groundwater and reduce risk of contaminating their crops with unsafe water.  And some studies indicate that AWD can actually increase the yields from rice fields, so the process is a win-win.

With an abundance of water on the ground and under the ground, Nicaragua seems like a place where there is enough to go around.  But a 2014 drought – the worst in the country in 40 years – reduced crop yields by more than 70%.  In the area of Somotillo, most of the wells ran dry, and the people worry about another drought down the road.  “In this place,” Pastor Gerzan Alvarez of the Lutheran Church of Faith and Hope (ILFE) in Nicaragua says, “we’re only able to survive.”

With support from LWF and ELCA World Hunger, ILFE is taking steps to manage the crisis.  Since the drought, the community has improved wells in the area, led trainings in proper water usage and management, set up irrigation systems, and planted yard gardens.  Pastor Emperatriz Velasques of ILFE says now, “Each day we’re learning about nature’s behavior, and we need to keep on working and teaching so we can grow our crops with the little water we have and keep home gardens with water from our wells.  This way, we can provide food for the households.”

Policy changes that reduce emissions and change the way we relate to the environment are necessary, long-range solutions to a changing climate, and the recent agreements about climate change and hunger give some hope.  But there is also a lot we can learn from those on the margins, in local communities throughout the world.  In Bangladesh, India, Kenya, and Nicaragua, families are doing what they can to protect their environment and make themselves less vulnerable to the changes that are still to come.

Ryan P. Cumming, Ph.D., is program director of Hunger Education with ELCA World Hunger.  He can be reached at Ryan.Cumming@ELCA.org.

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Looking for Lenten activities for the home and the church? This is just one sample from 40 Days of Giving, a devotional flip calendar that features leaders in the ELCA reflecting on what it means to be Church in a hungry world. Accompanying this devotional is a six-week study guide that your congregation can use to dig deeper during this season of reflection, repentance and hope. Sign up at www.ELCA.org/40days. You can download the weekly sessions and other resources at http://www.ELCA.org/Resources/Campaign-for-the-ELCA.

“As we journey together through the time God has given us, may God give us

the grace of a welcoming heart and an overflowing love for the new neighbors

among us.”  – ELCA, A Social Message on Immigration, 1998.

Aware of the special challenges refugees, migrants, and displaced persons face, ELCA World Hunger has long supported companions and partners that work with people who have been forced to leave their homes for a variety of reasons.  Partners like Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) are critical actors in this work.

Within days after the terrorist attacks in France, governors throughout the United States proclaimed that they would no longer accept Syrian refugees.  As of November 18, 26 governors had issued such statements.  Legally, of course, governors cannot stop refugees, but they can make it very hard on them, by withholding state funds to help them resettle, by refusing to issue state identification, or by increasing the already rigorous screening process for certain refugees or immigrants.  On November 20, the House of Representatives voted to suspend the program allowing Syrian and Iraqi refugees into the United States.

This presents a good occasion for recalling some of the reasons Lutherans support this important work.  The Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) has issued a response to these developments, noting poignantly, “To close the door on resettling Syrian refugees would be nothing less than signing a death warrant for tens of thousands of families fleeing for their very lives.”  But there are other reasons Lutherans continue to accompany immigrants and refugees beyond the dire consequences many of them currently face.  (For some background to a Lutheran view on undocumented immigration, see this earlier post.)

#1 –Remembering who we were

Christian ethics, in general, and Lutheran ethics, in particular, begin with memory.  The Hebrew Scriptures tell a story of our ancient ancestors enslaved in Egypt.  They were strangers in a strange land, but God led them to freedom, and it is this action of God that lays the foundation of their own vocation toward strangers: “You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 10:19). The special concern for widows, strangers, and orphans in the Hebrew Scriptures is rooted in God’s care of the people when they were helpless and landless.

It isn’t an overstatement to say that, for Lutherans, the whole of the moral life is memory.  From a religious perspective, good works aren’t done out of blind obedience or to earn a spot in Heaven; for Lutherans, good works are done out of gratitude for the grace of God that saved us when we could not save ourselves. They are done in memory of God’s ways of acting toward us.  We were wandering spiritually, and God welcomed us, comforted us, and saved us.

Lutherans, too, can look at more recent history of our own displacement.  After World War II, nearly one in six Lutherans in the world was a refugee or a displaced person.  Some found permanent homes in Europe; others languished in camps.  Thanks to advocacy in part on their behalf, Congress passed the Displaced Persons Act of 1948, which opened the doors to wandering peoples.  Many displaced Lutherans found homes in the United States because this country opened its doors, even accepting those German Lutherans whose country had been at war with the US.  Once here, the National Lutheran Council and other faith-based agencies were critical in helping the refugees resettle.

Spiritually and historically, we are a wandering people whose lives have often depended on the hospitality of others.

#2 – Seeing who we are

As a white, straight, cisgender male, I cannot once recall being asked to speak for all white people, all cisgender men, or all straight people.  But I can recall numerous times when I have heard other people asked to speak for their entire race, their entire ethnic community, or their entire gender.  This is perhaps one of the most complex and pernicious elements of privilege.  My privilege lets me assume I will always be treated as an individual, rather than as merely a representative of an entire group.

As social media exploded with invective calling for the banning of all Syrian refugees because of the nationality of an alleged Paris terrorist, it was no surprise that my suggestion of increasing surveillance of all men went unheeded.  After all, men represent the vast majority of terrorists both foreign and domestic, men are overwhelmingly responsible for mass shootings in the United States, and men are far and away the perpetrators of violence in the home.  If we are serious about protecting communities from violence, perhaps we should start with policies that circumscribe the freedom of men.

Of course, that won’t happen, because men are still privileged the world over, so their gender is not lifted up as problematic in the same way that ethnicity or nationality might be. Those in the center have the privilege of being treated as individuals, while those on the margins are viewed merely as a group.  We saw a similar dynamic at work in regards to anti-Asian racism during World War II.  While German Americans and Italian Americans had numerous exemptions from internment that kept their population in camps very low, Japanese Americans had virtually no exemption from internment and were imprisoned with little question, despite the fact that all three countries of origin were at war with the United States.  Those of European descent were treated as individuals and separately interrogated, whereas those of Japanese descent were treated as a group, with few individual considerations.

For Lutherans, this type of discrimination is not merely problematic; it’s heretical. It is a denial of the foundational belief that humans are created in the image of God.  This doesn’t mean that we naively assume everyone is a good person.  Created in God’s image doesn’t mean “nice.”  It means that each and every human being is a creature with dignity, worthy of our care.  This transcending identity – image of God – is expressed through a variety of penultimate identities – racial, ethnic, sexual, gender, and many more. But our foundational identity as images of God grounds each in dignity. What makes a person worthy of our care, our hospitality, our protection?  Their very creation in the image of God. This is privilege that is universal.

This doesn’t mean we have to like everyone.  Nor does it mean we cannot punish persons when they do wrong. But it does mean we must respect their dignity, and doing so demands that we see what lies beneath their other identities, particularly when they differ from our own.  It means a willingness to hear their story, to let them speak, to see them as more than just a Syrian or just a Muslim or just a Christian. It demands an openness to seeing God through them. “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2).

#3 – Becoming whom we are called to be

It is natural to feel afraid after events like those of last week.  But, for Lutherans, fear cannot be what marks our behavior toward neighbors.  Lutherans believe that God has set us free from sin and death so that we can serve the neighbor confidently and boldly.  We have life so that we may serve our neighbors.  Presiding Bishop of the ELCA Elizabeth Eaton puts it well:

Even in the face of evil, we remain confident that the good news of Jesus Christ liberates us and gives us the freedom and courage to discover and boldly participate in what God is up to in this world…We are not naïve about possible new threats of terrorism, but denying refuge to thousands of desperate people is not who we are as Christians, nor will it guarantee our security.

Martin Luther was also clear on what courage in service of the neighbor means.  In 1527, Luther responded to the question of “whether one may flee from a deadly plague.” His response was straightforward:

A man who will not help or support others unless he can do so without affecting his safety or his property will never help his neighbor.

Life together involves calculated risk.  Lutherans are called to live in love of the neighbor, not in fear of the neighbor.  There is no truly “safe” service. Accompanying our neighbors means walking down dark roads, facing with them situations of violence and oppression and taking risks that things will not go as planned.  We do all this in awareness that a life lived in isolation and fear of one another is not a life worth living.

(Of course, it is necessary to point out here the rigorous screening process each refugee must go through before settling in the United States.  The process is lengthy and involves several agencies.  The recent fear of refugees is more reactionary than reasonable.)

So, faithful people will continue to accompany their displaced neighbors.  LIRS and other agencies will continue their important work, and ELCA World Hunger will continue to support it.  But this will get harder as irrational fear continues to snake through our communities.

You can help.  Be an advocate.  At the water cooler, in the classroom, during coffee hour, from the pulpit and around the table, remember who we are and whom we are called to be.  We Lutherans stand in a long line of people whose existence has depended on God continually loving them despite their failings, on a Messiah opening his arms to those who crucified him, and on a government extending welcome to fearful exiles displaced by tyranny.

We are a migrant people, saved by one whose first human experience was escaping violence with his mother and father (Matt. 2:13-15).

Ryan P. Cumming, Ph.D. is program director for Hunger Education with ELCA World Hunger.  He can be reached at Ryan.Cumming@ELCA.org.

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I wish I could say that all the advice I have received has been profound and meaningful.  But the best advice I received in the late 1980s (indeed, the only advice I can remember from that particular time period) is “hoverboards don’t go on water.”  Needless to say, I have yet to find occasion when that little nugget might be useful.  But there was a time when my hope was built on nothing less than floating over sidewalks, self-lacing sneakers wrapped ’round my feet, while dodging holograms from every sign and marquee.

Still, not everything in Back to the Future II was that far-fetched.  We have Google glass, for instance, and video conferencing, and long-deceased rock stars performing concerts as holograms.  (Thankfully, $50 Pepsi is still a ways off.)

Today, movie lovers across the country will celebrate the trilogy that gave us Doc Brown, flux capacitors and the hope for flying cars.  Much has changed since Marty McFly first climbed inside a Delorean, but much has remained the same.  Here are some quick stats to see how far we’ve come from 1985, when Back to the Future was first released, and how far we still have to go as a nation.

Poverty rate in the United States

1985 — 14%

2015 — 14.8%

Poverty threshold-family of four in the United States (adjusted to 2015 dollars)

1985 — $24,300.91

2015 — $24,250

Federal minimum wage (adjusted to 2015 dollars)

1985 – $7.41

2015 – 7.25

Median household income (adjusted to 2015 dollars):

1985 — $61,332.76

2015 – $53,657

Children’s (under age 18) poverty rate in the US:

1985 — 20.5%

2015 — 22%

Income inequality

1985 – The poorest 20% of all families received 4.8% of total income. The wealthiest 20% received 43.1% of all income.  The top 5% wealthiest Americans received 16.1% of all income

2015 – The poorest 20% of all families received 3.6% of total income last year. The wealthiest 20% received 48.9% of all income.  The top 5% wealthiest Americans received 20.8% of all income

*Inflation-adjusted dollars were calculated online through the Bureau of Labor Statistics COPI Inflation Calculator.

*Statistics for 2015 are drawn from the most up-to-date data available, which in many cases reflects 2014 numbers. 

Ryan P. Cumming is program director of hunger education for ELCA World Hunger.  He can be reached at Ryan.Cumming@ELCA.org.