40 Days of Moral Action: Liturgical Resources for Christian Worship—Week One
WEEK 1 (Services on May 18–20)
Somebody is Hurting Our People and Its Gone on Far Too Long: Children, Women, and People with Disabilities in Poverty
This week’s theme is a familiar one to readers of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. We are reminded regularly that widows, orphans and the disabled are neglected when societies are not organized around the sharing of God’s abundant creation by all.
This week’s lectionary readings speak to our taking action together around God’s call to personal and social transformation in the remembering and reigniting of Pentecost. [View or download as a Google Doc]
Scripture notes:
a. Within the Roman Empire, differences of nationality and religion were used to keep a large territory under the control of a small force of Roman elites, who depended on things like language barriers to keep people from organizing against them. It is significant that at Pentecost those gathered crossed many lines of division and that with God’s grace they could understand each other, share stories together and think about the big changes God makes possible.
b. Today we are similarly kept apart from one another by many lines of division: nationality, language, race, religion, partisan politics and false moral narratives.
i. In 1968 when Martin Luther King envisioned the Poor People’s Campaign, he saw that the poor must come together across race, nationality and geography. In a planning meeting that brought together leaders from poor communities across the country he said, “We are assembled here together today with common problems, bringing together ethnic groups that maybe have not been together in this type of meeting in the past. I know I haven’t been in a meeting like this. And it has been one of my dreams that we would come together and realize our common problems. Power for poor people will really mean having the ability, the togetherness, the assertiveness, and the aggressiveness to make the power structure of this nation say yes when they may be desirous to say no. And it is my hope that we will get together, and be together, and really stand up to gain power for poor people—Black people, Mexican-Americans, American-Indians, Puerto Ricans, Appalachian Whites, all working together to solve the problem of poverty.”
ii. Speaking of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, Bishop Dr. William Barber says, “Fifty years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King called for a radical ‘revolution of values’ inviting a divided nation to stand against the evils of militarism, racism, and economic injustice. In the spirit of the Poor People’s Campaign of 1968, we are calling for a national moral revival and for fusion coalitions in every state to come together and advance a moral agenda. There is a need for moral analysis, articulation of a moral agenda, and moral activism that fuses the critique of systemic racism, poverty, and the war economy, and national morality in a way that enables organizing among black, brown and white people, especially in regions where great efforts have been made to keep them from forming alliances and standing together to change the political and social calculus.”
iii. In describing the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign to the staff of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, King spoke of the story of Pentecost, making reference to later in Acts 2:40, where it says that 3,000 people were added to their number. King connected their planned turnout of 3,000 poor people to occupy Washington, DC, to the sharing of the Good News at Pentecost, saying, “Aren’t we talking about three thousand?”
a. This scripture is an important one in the history of the Moral Mondays Movement in North Carolina. It was used as text for their first nonviolent, moral direct action in 2013.
b. As with the reading from Acts, Ezekiel speaks to the new life that grows from coming together. When we are surrounded by defeat and hope is lost, our bones dry up and separate. We are immobilized and powerless. But there are many of us in the valley. And when we hear the Word of God, when the Spirit is breathed into us, our bones can connect together and we can live.
c. We are told in so many ways today that we are hopeless to solve the problems of systemic racism, poverty, militarism and environmental devastation. But this message is a distorted moral narrative. It keeps us apart, dried up, hopeless and unable to hear the Word of God.
d. The video testimony of Claudia De la Cruz (also featured below) speaks to organizing the hope of the poor in the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival to bring to life a new consciousness and new morality in our nation.
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a. The building of a movement to transform the nation is not an easy task. And the steps before us are not entirely clear. Paul reminds us that the world is in painful labor for the transformed creation that is being born. When we take up leadership together to build movements for change—the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival and many others—we are among the “first fruits of the Spirit.”
b. It is not an easy task. We hope for something we cannot yet see. But if we could see it already—“hope that is seen is not hope”—it wouldn’t be big enough for what God has planned for us. It wouldn’t be big enough to meet the needs of all creation, to end the suffering that has gone on too long, and be the inbreaking of a world that meets the needs of all, beginning with women, children, the disabled and the poor.
c. With patience we wait for what we do not yet see (8:25), but that patience is not the same as passive inaction. We are called, as in Pentecost, to share stories with one another, to seek other leaders (“first fruits”), and to work for a world where the enmeshed evils of systemic racism, poverty, militarism and environmental devastation are defeated.
d. We know we are not sufficient for such a large task. But we also know we are not alone. “The Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” Together we are those saints. Our work ahead is painful and laborious, but we have faith that it is both necessary and possible.
Relevant facts:
- 51.9 percent of US children under the age of 18 (38.2 million children) are poor or low-income (using the Census’ Supplemental Poverty Measure and 200% of the federal poverty threshold).
- Using that same measure, 33.9 percent of White people, 60.3 percent of Black people, 65.1 percent of Latinx people and 41.1 percent of Asian people in the US are poor or low income.
- Women held in local jails are the fastest-growing segment of incarcerated people in the United States; the majority are Black or Latinx.
- 8 out of 10 poor families with children received AFDC benefits in 1979. In 2015 just over 2 in 10 poor families with children received TANF benefits. In 14 states the rate is less than 1 in 10.
- 2/3 of minimum wage earners are women (and today’s minimum wage—$7.25—is worth $4.00 less than 1968. If the 1968 minimum wage had kept pace with overall income growth, it would have been $21.16 in 2012).
- 10,002 people died in 2017 while waiting for a judge’s decision about their disability benefits application.
Video:
This video overview gives a sense of the spirit of the Campaign and how it is bringing people together across difference, breaking down barriers that keep us apart from one another, to become a fusion movement. The testimonies by people impacted by systemic racism, poverty, the war economy, environmental devastation and the distorted moral narrative are the dry bones coming together, speaking in a shared language, and becoming enfleshed by the Spirit as they share their testimony. The video is available here.
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- Rev. Claudia de la Cruz’s testimony during the release of The Souls of Poor Folk Audit gives witness to the hope of the poor coming together, witnessing both the injustice of poverty in a rich nation and the clarity and commitment of the leadership of the poor as part of a movement for the right to life. The video is available here.
Sample intercessions to add to prayers of petition:
- That women, youth, the disabled, and children in poverty become our priority as they are yours.
- That all children and youth have the right to education that grows their mind, spirit, and body.
- That we come together as the body of Christ, hearing each other across lines of division, testifying to the power of God in our lives and witnessing to God’s desire that there be an end to the long suffering of the people of God, particularly among women, children, people with disabilities and the poor.
Voices and testimonies:
“We have fought to protect our children from being snatched by the government that blames us, especially if we are single mothers, for our poverty, homelessness, the domestic violence many of us are victims of, and the poor health that results from them.” —Margaret Prescod, Every Mother Network
“I got Section 8 housing after my daughter was born, just before my organization began providing cold weather shelter to our homeless members. For 110 days last winter, [we] hosted about 20 people in our church — most of them millennials who caught a record trying to survive in a county with no good jobs, no decent affordable housing, horrible healthcare, and plenty of heroin. I stayed there through the nights while the threats continued to pour in. I stayed because my community stepped up to save my life, when the rest of society didn’t care whether I lived or died, and now it was my turn to protect my community.” —Mashyla Buckmaster, Chaplains on the Harbor
Children’s moment:
- Show images of children at the Poor People’s Campaign of 1968 and tell the story of them living with their families in Resurrection City. With older children you might ask if they remember what the word resurrection means and why they might name the encampment Resurrection City. With younger children you might ask them to name the things children need (food, toys, a bed, school, parents) and share how poor children themselves traveled to Washington, D.C. to tell people that they didn’t have the things they needed to live.
- In Sunday School children could make signs about the things kids need to live. The following Sunday they could share their creations and march them around.
Bible studies:
- “Women in the Movement” encourages discussion of the importance of women’s leadership. It uses Jesus’ anointing at Bethany in John 12 next to the leadership of the women of the National Welfare Rights Organization in the planning of the Poor People’s Campaign of 1968. It is available here.
- “A Revolution of Values” looks at the distinction between a “person oriented society” and a “thing oriented society” in conversation with Isaiah 58. It invites reflection on how a Poor People’s Campaign, in 1968 and today, challenges distorted moral narratives that do not move us towards being a “person oriented society.” It is available here.
Multifaith responsive reading: “Somebody is Hurting Our People” (forthcoming)
Music: “Somebody’s Hurting My People”
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Images:
Images 1 and 2 are from the Poor People’s Campaign of 1968. Image 3 is part of the JustSeeds poster project for the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. Images 5 and 6 are by Steve Pavey from Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival gatherings.
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