Welcome 2012

The Christmas wrapping paper is in the recycling box along with New Year's champagne bottles. Resolutions have been made, left-overs finished off and London has just been ravaged by an apocalyptic rain storm. Yep, 2012 is here and we are looking forward to a new and exciting year for Justice Matters.

Join us as usual on the third Wednesday in the month to "learn to do right, seek justice and defend the oppressed." eat with us from 7pm or join us at 8pm for the main event.

If you are looking for something else to fill you January, you might also be interested in this play about sex trafficking that a friend of Justice Matters is co-directing.

See you on the 18th...

Shedding light on sex trafficking

A friend of Justice Matters is co-directing a play this January. She describes it as a powerful and delicate take on one girl's journey from darkness to recovery, told in poetry, physical theatre and song. Anyone interested in going?

The birds, only the birds can see

Two stories intertwine with each other until they become one. 

The first story is told in the present. The play begins with a poem, it echoes into the past, where bells of truth make sounds that resonate to the heart. It may be disturbing and real, but the journey for Lilly is about to end. For those who are watching, the journey has just begun. 

Lilly unexpectedly finds herself in a poetry class. Maybe, just maybe, by finding a way to tell her story, it might release her from the past. Jason her teacher, a cold hearted man makes it all uncomfortable. Only the best are selected for the exam and she’s not one of them. Despite the rejection, Lilly has a choice, whether to give up and leave the course, or to fight? 

As the poem is being told, we jump to the second story, which is the past. Lilly’s wish is to be a dancer, an unexpected stranger arrives just in time. Thinking he’s about to change her life for the better, he takes her to a house to be sex trafficked. Lilly is beaten up and forced to give services to men. Unable to go anywhere through fear of being killed, her only hope is to find comfort in drugs. 

Too much of a wish, can destroy a dream. 

9 - 22 January 2012

7.45pm
Tickets: £12

Box office: 0208 932 4747
londontheatre@googlemail.com

Find out more via Facebook or by contacting the theatre.

For your diaries

Just a quick post flagging up two upcoming events to put in your diaries. 

Firstly, as trailed at the Water and Sanitation gathering the other week, we are collaborating with Synergy, the young adult community at St Barnabas to hold a joint discussion looking at the pros and cons of pacifism and non-violence (especially within a faith context). The meeting will be on the 30th November (that's next Wednesday) at the Elephant Pub in Finchley from 7:30pm and will be similar to the recent informal gathering at Catcher in the Rye - an opportunity to meet other people and wrestle with a topic over a few drinks. The Facebook event is here, if you are interested and on FB.

Secondly, our main session in December will be a week earlier than usual due to Christmas, so come along on the14th December for a festive celebration of Justice Matters' first year, featuring live music from the very talented Tanya Cristina. As usual, meet from 7pm for food and networking, 7:45 for the main session. The Facebook event page is here.

Hope to see you at one of the gatherings!

November update

Last Wednesday we had our first informal gathering of Justice Matters - a discussion of the Occupy protest camp and the way St Paul's Cathedral responded to it. This was an experiment for us, an effort to build more regular get togethers into our pattern with a view to encouraging a deeper sense of community and participation among members outside the monthly formal sessions. We had a good turnout and some interesting discussion. We anticipate to book in more of these less structured get togethers over the coming months, sharing ideas and our lives over a drink or two, so get yourself along to one soon.

Next week is out main event for November, and we are very excited about it. We have not one but two guest speakers joining us for the evening to talk on the subject of water and sanitation in the developing world. Tim Pegg spent two years working with MedAir first in Afghanistan and then Madagascar, delivering water and sanitation projects to people in extreme need. He's going to tell us some stories from that experience, and then Ali from WaterAid will talk to us about how we can get involved in this important area of need.

I'm sure you'll agree that sounds pretty good, so do come along - you could even bring a friend or two. If you're on Facebook, the event page is here. As usual, join us from 7pm for food. The talks will kick off at 7:45. See you there...

Autumn re-launch

This Wednesday we held our second open invitation Justice Matters gathering at Coffee Republic in North Finchley. Members were invited to arrive from 7pm to share food and conversation before the meeting proper began and a good number took up this offer. Once the plates had been cleared and the coffee mugs drained, attention turned to the formal part of the gathering.

At our first open gathering at the start of the summer we had changed those present with making a pledge - to identify one small, achievable thing they could do that would make a difference. Pledges had included showing kindness to a neighbour, signing up for a charity's information newsletter and giving a homeless person something to eat. Naturally, we wanted to find out how people had got on with this task, so the first item was to discuss and share stories of what had happened. Of course, there were some newcomers, so they too were invited to share anything they had done over the summer which had made a difference, pledge or no pledge. Needless to say, our wonderful friends and members had been very diligent in rising to this challenge and there were several encouraging stories shared.

All stories being told, Victoria and Sam moved on to present the Justice Matters manifesto. This manifesto is a simple document that outlines the founding members vision for the community, followed by the values and characteristics that we feel the community should embody. After that, there is a brief explanation of what kind of things the community will do - our offer to members - and finally those things what we would ask of members. You can read the full document and learn more about our vision for Justice Matters elsewhere on this blog.

(You will notice that some words have been highlighted in bold italic in this post. These words represent our community rhythm, inspired by our vision statement. They will inform the flavour of our gatherings and this session had been deliberately crafted to include a taste of all of them. In case you were wondering...)

Next up was an interview with Hannah Knight from the Besom in Barnet on the subject of seeking justice through volunteering. Hannah explained what the Besom in Barnet does ("provides a bridge between those who want to give time, money, things or skills, and those in need") and her experience of getting involved in volunteering. One of the ways that Besom delivers on its ambition to bridge resources with need is to organise ad hoc projects where a number of people get together on a Saturday to undertake a project - clearing a garden, decorating a flat, etc. Since one of the things we have committed to as a community is to undertake practical action, we have pencilled in a few dates when Justice Matters will be helping Besom to deliver one of these projects. We hope you can join us.

The final element of the evening was an invitation for those present to read and sign a select number a petitions and campaign postcards at the Defend station and to write a hope or prayer for the community and peg it to the light net on the Plead station. That being done, it was time to grab another drink (too late for coffee if I wanted to get any sleep - I learnt that from last time!) and chat some more before heading for home.

We had a great evening and we hope you did too. The plan is to meet at 7pm every third Wednesday of the month unless otherwise advertised, so see you next time!

PS - Despite abstaining from coffee at 9pm, I still didn't get much sleep...!

The Justice Matters Manifesto

Vision and Values

Members of this community will be characterised as individuals who are compelled to act in the face of injustice. The issues and causes about which we are passionate may be varied but we all share a common purpose – to “learn to do right, seek justice, encourage the oppressed, defend the cause of the fatherless [and] plead the case of the widow.” (Isaiah 1:17).

In addition, the community will manifest the following values:

• Unashamedly Christian, accessible to all
• A welcoming place to meet like-minded people
• Engendering a culture of generosity – with our time, money and energy
• Driven by love for people not projects or politics
• Respect and support for an individual’s ability to be the change they want to see
• Members looking out for each other’s wellbeing.

Our community rhythm
Leading on from that vision, our gatherings will be flavoured by one of the following five themes:

• Seek: Rolling up our sleeves and making a practical difference
• Learn: Training, guest speakers and discussion
• Encourage: Sharing stories and experiences
• Defend: Advocacy, campaigning and lobbying
• Plead: Prayer, petition and intercession

What we’ll do

• Equip existing activists – including practical skills, learning about issues and exploring the spiritual foundations of justice
• Undertake practical expressions of justice as individuals and as a community – for example volunteering, going on a march, filling in postcards; we may occasionally send out members (individually or as teams) to undertake larger projects
• Network newcomers to develop real relationships that exist beyond the confines of the meetings
• Highlight opportunities for getting involved to help members who don’t know where to start
• Pray for the world, our country, our community and each other
• Champion social justice within the congregation of St Barnabas Church, Finchley and beyond
• Eat together

Members agree to

• Meeting as a full community regularly in a neutral public setting (Coffee Republic)
• Making a practical difference once a month (ie. volunteering / working in third sector)
• Supporting other members by attending or providing practical help for one-off events
• In addition, established members agree to take on some leadership functions (e.g. arriving early to welcome, organising an event about a specific passion, arranging a social, setting up and packing away, attending occasional planning meetings).

Blessed are the peace makers

Captain Kirk and the cult of just warfare

The thing about the original series of Star Trek is that, regardless which sector of the galaxy they were exploring, or which homogeneous planet they landed upon, it always ended in a scrap - usually between Captain Kirk and a bloke in fairly unconvincing make-up on an equally unconvincing set. Looking around at the current crop of summer blockbusters, its clear to see that this model - the good guy overcoming evil by force of arms - remains a central theme in our culture. From Bond to Batman, Iron Man to Avatar, the forces of good invariably prevail through a combination of righteous valour, luck and vastly superior weaponry.

Let’s face it: in our culture, good guys with guns are cool. Under fire and outgunned, they always prevail and the forces of evil - whether alien robots, international criminals or rogue scientists - are brought low.

This idea of heroic combat is not limited to the silver screen - in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and elsewhere we can see real men and women taking up arms to fight injustice. Just like in the movies, our media has painted a black and white world full of good guys and villains for us to cheer for and jeer at in turn. As a consequence of this narrative, in recent months we have seen Americans gleefully celebrating the assassination of Osama Bin Laden while NATO forces are bombing Libya for the protection of civilians. Indeed, we even find ourselves pondering whether assassinating Gaddafi isn’t perhaps the best way to end the stalemate and suffering in Libya?

Wrestling with pacifism

As a man, I have to admit that military hardware and martial heroes like Bond are strangely alluring. As a student of history, I am aware of many occasions when not standing up in the face of injustice would seem not to be not only counter-intuitive but unforgivably negligent. We need only think of the Second World War, or the Rwandan Genocide. However, the problem with this whole narrative of Just Warfare and martial heroism is that it lies in direct contradiction to Jesus’ teaching on peace and justice. As such I find myself wrestling with pacifism and increasingly identifying myself within that school.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus proclaims: “Blessed are the peace makers, for they shall be called Children of God.” (Matthew 5:9) It’s just one sentence among many now familiar and powerful phrases. Its quickly read and passed over, but it’s worth spending some time considering more closely.

Sermon on the Mount in context

The Sermon on the Mount was delivered in a context of imperial subjugation by Rome and domestic political unrest. There is some disagreement about how significant the Roman presence was in first century Palestine, but it is clear that Jerusalem - once a great centre of influence - was now little more than a backwater town on the fringes of civilisation. While some Jews were happy to keep their heads down and make do, others were less than satisfied with the status quo.

Banditry was common in hinterlands and border regions where government authority was ambiguous, where peasant gangs reacted to their lack of opportunities and influence by ransacking the homes of the wealthy out of spite. Often the leaders of these bandit gangs would portray themselves as a kind of royalty, wearing purple robes and stolen crowns - the Godfathers of Galilee.

Another group responded to Roman rule with

more organised insurrections. The most famous of these movements was the Zealots. The Zealots staged several violent revolts including one around 4 B.C. in Sepphoris, the Capital of the Galilee and home of the wealthy elite, only four kilometres from Nazareth. The revolt was crushed by the Romans; hundreds of people were crucified or sold into slavery. Since Nazareth was a thoroughly peasant village, it is likely that at least some Nazarenes were sympathetic to the revolt and perhaps even participants with the Zealots. This event would certainly have been a traumatic part of the collective memory of those listening to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.

A third brand of resistance was apocalyptic prophesy. Charismatic, prophetic individuals attracted followers by using symbolism from Jewish liberation history to preach the imminence of the restoration of Israel by divine action. One such prophet lead his followers from the wilderness to Jerusalem where he promised that by marching around the city, God would act on their behalf and overthrow the Roman occupation of Jerusalem. The prophet sought to re-enact the people of Israel's journey from slavery to freedom and Joshua's triumph over Jericho to provoke similar divine action on behalf of first-century Jews living under occupation.

Among the crowd it is possible that each of these types of people were represented and indeed most will have expected Jesus himself to fall into the final category - the apocalyptic prophet preaching doom to the Romans and puppet regime. However, the message that Jesus brought - blessed be the peacemakers - rejects violent action (whether by man or God) and challenges his listeners to embrace a different path.

In this teaching and others, Jesus challenges us all to adopt a response to conflict that is more constructive and ultimately more difficult than taking up arms. In his own life, he responded to persecution and violence with love and self-sacrifice that perplexed, frustrated and transformed the lives of his enemies (as well as costing him his own). We have convinced ourselves that fighting evil with force is a righteous response to injustice - that we are the good guys standing against the evils of the world, but we should remember that Jesus never said "Greater love has no man than this: to kill those who oppress others”.

A creative response to conflict

Responding to aggression with peace sounds mad, especially in light of the injustice we see on the news every day, but it is perhaps not as foolhardy as it first seems. The illusionist Derren Brown - a man with a particular insight into the human character - tells an interesting story in which he confounded a violent aggressor.

"A couple of years ago I was walking back from a hotel at three in the morning. A guy came up to me looking for a fight. Rather than playing the authority game he was trying to set up, I said to him 'the wall outside my house is four foot high' to confuse him. His eyes glazed over and all the adrenaline left him. He was still on the verge of hitting me but then I said 'but when I was in Spain, the walls were really, really low.'

"What I did induced a state of complete confusion and in that state you're desperate for something to make sense so that you come out of it. He burst into tears and I ended up giving him advice on how to cope with his girlfriend - they'd had a fight."

Now I’m not arguing that Derren Brown is a perfect role model, but this story illustrates that when Jesus promotes a non-violent path, it doesn’t mean we have to tolerate violence or to ignore it, but rather we should find ways to respond to it creatively.

Peace

Whatever our intention, however well meaning we may be, we cannot make peace through conflict. At best, tensions are suppressed, but they remain unresolved, waiting. Ultimately, even the best intentioned violence only ever leads to more violence.

However, not doing anything is no a response either. Well meaning words and platitudes are equally unhelpful - especially to those suffering. As the Derren Brown story illustrates, to be true peace makers is to embrace our creativity and confound evil with love.

The United Nations

Last summer, Victoria and I visited the UN in New York. Throughout the building are provocative quotes and statistics about the state of the world and the work of the UN. One of the quotes that stood out was from Eleanor Roosevelt, who said: “It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.” Another observed that “Like war, peace must be waged.”

In light of these rousing statements, it was distressing to learn that the total annual UN peace keeping budget is less than 0.5% of all global military expenditure.

It was former American President and General Dwight D Eisenhower who lamented the rise of military spending at the expense of tackling injustice in more creative ways. In his final speech as president he reminded the world that: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in a final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed – those who are cold and not clothed.”

Eisenhower was right that there are better things to spend our resources on that weapons or war, better ways to bring justice than with the sword and semi-automatic. Spending more on peace keeping isn’t the answer however, since it still conforms to the idea of meeting violence with violence, or at least the threat of violence.

No, the role Jesus challenges us to embrace is not that of peace keepers, but peace makers - an active, creative posture. But what on earth does that mean? How do we rise to this challenge? Must we wander into conflict zones with face paints and footballs?

Life as it should be

The truth is that we can be peace makers wherever we are. Although so far we have been considering peace in terms of the absence of armed conflict, the Hebrew word for peace - SHALOM - is not limited in this way, but rather refers to things being ‘as they should be’. As Radiohead might put it, peace, shalom, means everything in its right place.

This is not a new commission that Jesus presents to his audience. Being peace makers - shalom makers - was a role that God entrusted to Adam when he charged him to tend the Garden of Eden in Genesis. Being a good steward of creation is to cultivate Shalom - to bring harmony, balance. Later in Genesis, Abraham and his family were charged with modelling Shalom - life as it should be - to the nations.

In light of this legacy, Jesus’ encouragement to be peace makers becomes more accessible - if still challenging. To be a peace maker is to bring shalom, which means to bring healing and wholeness, to lives, people, the world. To bring shalom means deliberately looking for the shattered, the hungry, the lost, the down-trodden, and to act in such a way as to bring change.... to feed, to liberate, to raise up. Therefore, when Jesus calls us to be "peacemakers," He is calling us to be the ones to bring healing and wholeness to a broken world.

Justice Matters

Being a peace maker therefore is to do more than talk the talk. But where to start?

Since January this year a small group of friends have been gathering in coffee shops and homes around Finchley to wrestle with this very question. Out of this small gathering of activists, optimists and ordinary radicals has grown Justice Matters - a new community for people seeking to make a difference, an effort to start doing something - however small our individual contributions may be.

Justice Matters held its first public gathering before the summer. We had 25 people join us to

discuss the social justice issues close to their heart - from poverty to sexual violence against women, water and sanitation to political oppression. The theme of the evening - aside from being an opportunity to meet some like-minded people - was to encourage one another that our individual efforts to be peace makers are not lone acts of delusional hope in an ocean of darkness, but rather form vibrant sparks in an incandescent network of shalom bringers. Together we can - together we are - making a difference.

Making even the slightest dent into these global problems may seem impossible, but the worst thing we can do is not act because the task seems too great. Even one step for the better is worth taking: Every hungry person fed and watered, every woman rescued from sex trafficking, every older person granted dignity, every tribesman given economic independence, every child immunised against a preventable disease - each of these is a victory for shalom.

When he calls us to be peace makers, Jesus reminds us that the Kingdom of God is more than well-meant words and a warm glow inside. Rather it is a call to action. In the Church we can be guilty of thinking that praying against injustice is enough. Certainly, prayer is vital - we cannot achieve real change in our own strength, but as Shane Claiborne writes in the book Follow Me to Freedom:

“When we pray for the hungry, let’s remember to feed them. When we pray for the unborn, let’s welcome single mothers and adopt abandoned children. When we give thanks for creation, let’s plant a garden and buy locally grown fruit and vegetables. When we remember the poor, let’s reinvest our money in micro-lending programs. When we pray for peace, let’s beat our swords into ploughshares and turn military budgets into programs of social uplift. When we pray for an end to crime, let’s visit those in prison. When we pray for lost souls, let’s be gracious to the souls who’ve done us wrong.”

 

Don't worry if you feel small and that you have only a little to give. As the environmental activist Julia Butterfly Hill says: “The question is not, ‘Can you make a difference?’ You already do make a difference. It’s just a question of what kind of difference you want to make."