Recently in hunger Category

I learned about diffusion and effusion in High School chemisty.

Don't go away - this is actually pretty easy to understand. Note that I have taken Chemistry three times (once in High School twice in college) and have never completed it. If I can get this, anyone can.

Basically, diffusion means that the random movement of particles leads to them being evenly distributed within a container. This is why there is breathable oxygen everywhere and carbon dioxide doesn't stay built up around our bodies - the gases diffuse throughout the atmosphere.

Here's an easy-to-understand video:



Diffusion is natural. It's different from gravity, however, in that it doesn't concentrate mass: it distributes it.

Imagine if the random movement of food distributed it evenly across the world.

Imagine if the random movement of wealth distributed it evenly across the world, so everyone had enough for clothing and shelter.

Could diffusion be the natural solution to suffering?

I hear a lot of arguments based on what's natural and what's not. So I thought I'd examine a few natural things.

I think greed is natural. It has a parallel in physics: gravity.

The more mass a body has, the greater its gravity and its inertia. As gravity increases, so does the tendency of things to become attached to the body, and the harder it is for things to leave the body.

Consider the Earth. Unless an object is moving pretty quickly, coming near the Earth means the object is likely to be ensnared by the Earth's gravity. And getting an object off the earth is no simple feat either: consider the size of the rockets needed to launch missions to the moon and other planets.

Or consider a black hole. This is an object so dense, with such strong gravity, that it can trap even light.

And so it is with greed. The more one has, the more one attracts and, by benefit of how much one already has, the easier it is to acquire more. And it is very difficult to relinquish whatever it is we have amassed.

But nearly every massive body has a danger: the more massive one is, the greater its pull toward even more massive bodies. This is why the moon orbits the Earth, and the Earth orbits the sun, and the sun orbits the center of the Milky Way galaxy. And in the center of the galaxy? Most likely a massive black hole.

Black holes teach us something about greed, too. In order to continue to exist, they must continue to swallow things or, the current theory is, they will evaporate through radiation theorized by Stephen Hawking. Of course, very massive black hole take a long time to evaporate, but still, their lives depend on consumption.

Capitalism serves greed. Capitalism - not to be confused with free enterprise - is the valuing of capital, or wealth. In capitalism, merely having wealth is a means to acquiring wealth - one need not labor at all. For all the complaints about the poor being lazy, one cannot be much more lazy than amassing more wealth simply for having much wealth already.

But greed is natural and so too sloth, just as gravity and inertia are natural.

But not everything that is natural is beneficial.

This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.

 - Ezekiel 16:49, New Revised Standard Version

As Christmas approaches, we see images of the infant Jesus everywhere. We hear and read "Jesus is the reason for the season". And why not? Who doesn't love a cute baby who never cries:

"The little Lord Jesus no crying he makes" - Away in a Manger

"Holy Infant so tender and mild" - Silent Night

There are some, like my friends and former classmates Tom Ryberg and David Weasley, who take issue with this idea of a silent infant, but that's an argument for another time. My point here is that we like the idea of a quiet, peaceful baby, and how much better if it's the Son of God!

We also observe Good Friday, which people like my professor and friend Ted Jennings consider the most important Holy Day in the Christian Calendar. This marks the suffering and death of Jesus. I won't go so far as to say Christians like this image (although some do seem to have an affection for the sacrifice), but it's one with which we've grown somewhat comfortable.

We do celebrate Easter, although not with the commercial fervor with which we mark the traditional birthday of Jesus. And why not? A risen Son of God is something to celebrate indeed.

Most of us don't mark the ascension of Jesus. Do you know when it is? I had to look it up. It's forty days after Easter.

What do all these ideas of Jesus have in common? They're non-threatening.

Baby Jesus doesn't speak (and, to many minds, doesn't even cry) and is lying in a manger - no worries there. Dying Jesus is nailed to a cross - He can't come after you.

The Risen Jesus does walk and talk, but doesn't hang around long. He makes a brief appearance with Mary of Magdala (and various other people depending on which Gospel you're reading) in Matthew 28, Mark 16, and John 20. He shows up on the road to Emmaus in Mark 16 and Luke 24, but doesn't stay for the whole walk. And he makes a brief dinner appearance in Luke 24 and John 20. This is a Jesus who won't bother you for long

Of course, we have the ascended Jesus now, who is safely in Heaven, far away from us.

And we do sometimes talk about Jesus' ministry, but usually we talk about the miracles.

We don't, however, want to be confronted by the social activist Jesus. We certainly don't observe a holiday for social activist Jesus.

Social activist Jesus shakes up the social order. He tells a rich young man to sell his possessions and give the proceeds to the poor. That makes us anxious, because we (and I am definitely including myself here) aren't really excited about giving up our security and comfort to help others.

And when Jesus performs miracles, there's usually another aspect that's missed.

Sure, there's the turning water into wine at Cana, but that's just being a good Jewish boy and obeying his mom. And there's walking on water, and telling people where to catch fish. There's also plucking a coin out of the mouth of a fish, but that starts to look like contemporary illusionists.

But Jesus performs healing miracles, and what a lot of people miss is that these miracles usually change the status of a person in society.

Afflicted by demons? Demons driven out and person is back among society. Could we do the same for the mentally ill?

Deaf or blind? Healed and the person is back among the townspeople. Could we also remove barriers that hold back those without hearing or sight?

Unclean due to leprosy or hemorrhage? Healed and the person is touchable again. Can we reach out with human touch to people with AIDS and other diseases?

One of my favorites is the paralyzed man at Capernaum (Matthew 9:1-8, Mark 2:1-12, Luke 5:17-26). The place is so packed that no one else can get in, so the man's friends cut a hole in the roof and lower him in to Jesus. Here Jesus shows what he's up to, and it's where people really get upset: Jesus tells the man "your sins are forgiven". The religious leaders are aghast - no one can forgive sin but God.

But what are we really talking about here?

Remember that Jesus was asked, regarding the man born blind, whose sin was the cause - the man's or his parents. In first century Palestine, many believed that physical issues were due to sin. But sin also kept people out of society. When Jesus said "your sins are forgiven", he was overruling the judgment that the man must be kept out of society because he was paralyzed.

After the leaders took such offense, Jesus healed the man's paralysis - not so much so that the man could walk (which was good) or so he could reenter society (which Jesus had already conferred on him), but because society could not get the idea that a paralyzed man belonged in society.

So what is social activist Jesus about? He threatens the status quo. He works toward dismantling  the social structures that keep people in their places. He redistributes wealth and power from those who have much to those who have little.

I want a social activist Jesus holiday. Let's pick a date and start working on the celebration.

So Glenn Beck says that Social Justice is the equivalent of Nazism and Socialism. Of course, Nazism and Socialism are about as alike as drought and rain, but we'll leave that alone. And Beck tells his viewers to leave their churches if they say anything about Social Justice.

So what's a church to do? Charity only, without calling for change in the system?

On the surface, that seems ok. We'll give to the poor to help them out, but we don't want any changes to our financial and social systems. Yet it is our systems that create and maintain poverty. Charity does not erase poverty, it merely treats the symptom.

Imagine a person who could not walk to where the food was. You could bring food to the person, but that person would have to eat again. The person becomes reliant on charity for survival.

What would Jesus do?

Sure, we have the parable of the sheep and the goats, where Jesus speaks about visiting the sick and imprisoned, feeding the hungry, and clothing the naked, but is that all Jesus calls us to?

Did Jesus bring the man crippled from birth a loaf of bread and a fish? Did Jesus hand the paralytic a meal?

Of course not. Jesus healed people and restored them to community. Jesus made people whole in body and social status.

And was Jesus content with treating prostitutes, tax collectors, Samaritans, and others as unclean sinners to stay on the outside of society?

Of course not. Jesus ate with them and even said they would be getting into heaven before the (self) righteous.

Charity without change is a formula for continued dependence and subjugation. That is unethical, unjust, and unChristian. (It's also economically foolish, because it means keeping a class of people dependent on you.)

So I say:

If you belong to a church that offers charity but does not work for change, run as fast as you can and leave that church. It is not a church of Jesus Christ.

...our praise band, "Inspiration!", is about to start the prelude for the service at the harvest festival in Forrest.. More later.

When the day began to wear away, the twelve came and said to Him, "Send the multitude away, that they may go into the surrounding towns and country, and lodge and get provisions; for we are in a deserted place here." But He said to them, "You give them something to eat."

And they said, "We have no more than five loaves and two fish, unless we go and buy food for all these people." For there were about five thousand men.

And He said to His disciples, "Make them sit down in groups of fifty."  And they did so, and made them all sit down. Then He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the multitude. So they all ate and were filled, and twelve baskets of the leftover fragments were taken up by them. - Luke 9:12-17

This miracle is the only one reported in all of the gospels. It's too bad that, with all the hungry people in the world today, that we can't repeat it now.

Or can we?

At 8:30AM today, I'll be rehearsing with my church's praise band. At 10:30, we'll be part of the service at the Harvest Festival in Forrest Illinois.

Three churches will come together to celebrate the harvest to which we all contributed. Two urban churches - * Grace Lutheran Church & School of Forest Park, IL and Plainfield Congregational United Church of Christ - sponsored acres of land tilled by members of St. Paul's Lutheran Church of Forrest Illinois. The harvest of corn will be sold at market rate, and the money raised will be used in a growing project in Africa. The United States Agency for International Development will match the money raised. So from the modest contributions of two churches and the labor of a third, sustainable agriculture will be developed so that people can feed themselves.

This is the work of Foods Resource Bank. 15 Mainline Christian denominations participate in reproducing this miracle of feeding the multitude.

I'd go on, but I have a celebration to prepare for.

Jesus said to them:

"You give them something to eat."