The Angels of Los Angeles

IV.    Vows of Voluntary Sacrifice

“We freely offer up our appetites, wealth, and pride to relieve the suffering of the world, for the sake of our neighbors and God’s joy.”

15. I will accept with grace any suffering for myself resulting from my affirmations, rejections and witness; I will do all in my power to reduce the suffering in the world, including the suffering of victims and my adversaries in confrontation.

Reginald Denny and the LA Four

*Watching the live TV newscast in their homes, Titus Murphy and Terri Barnett, Lei Yuille, and Bobby Green saw the rock-wielding rioters rip the semi-truck driver from his cab. One man held the driver’s head to the ground with his foot while the others kicked at his body and hit him with a hammer and chunks of concrete. Reginald Denny was knocked unconscious by the blows to the head and one of the attackers pranced victoriously over Denny, flashing gang signs at the news copter.

Twenty years ago on the 29^th of April 1992, South Central and Southeast Los Angeles exploded in six-day riots killing 53 people and wounding thousands in wide spread violence and murder. The looting and arson cost nearly one billion dollars and destroyed over a thousand buildings. Long simmering anger over inequitable poverty, segregation, lack of educational and employment opportunities, police abuse, interracial violence  and unequal  services ignited into open rage in the poorest sections of L.A. the day the court acquitted four of black Rodney King’s white and Hispanic police assailants.

It was into this South Central inferno that Reginald Denny, a white truck driver, unwittingly drove. Seeing his brutalization by black youth on the live helicopter news feed, four separate African-American strangers sprang from their couches several miles away in the neighborhood to rush to Denny’s aid out at the intersection of Florence and Normandie.

Struggling With

III.    Vows of Nonviolent Witness

“We pledge to act in allegiance to God alone, and to resist injustice with goodness”

10. I will speak up in defense and protection of anyone, even enemies, who are attacked with violence of word or action, even at the risk of my own life.

(Isaac Beachy, Fellowship of Reconciliation Colombia)

Isaac discovered at least one very important thing from the San Jose de Apartado Peace Community in northwest Colombia: struggle for God’s shalom is not easy! In his February 2011 blog entry, Isaac admits: “When I first wrote the title to this blog [‘With the Struggle’] I had no idea what a struggle meant. Before, a struggle was an exciting story full of graffiti, marches, people power, powerful Spanish protest songs and was victorious. Struggling or being with a struggle seemed like an adventure to me... Now fully understanding the emotional and often physical cost of being in a struggle, I see it’s not something you do for fun.”

Slow Food and Fast(ing)

IV.    Vows of Voluntary Sacrifice

“We freely offer up our appetites, wealth, and pride to relieve the suffering of the world, for the sake of our neighbors and God’s joy.”

18. I will discipline my appetite for food through conscientious diet and periodic fasting, especially from meat and foods that impose exceptional burdens on God’s creation or my neighbors, and by refraining from intoxicants.

("Daily Bread" by knitting iris via Flickr)

Some may wonder what eating habits have to do with living in line with God’s shalom, but movements and cookbooks like More With Less (and now Simply in Season), alongside growing societal awareness of local, fresh, in-season, heirloom, organic, fair trade, hormone free, grass-fed, free-range, whole grain and so on, have drawn much clearer ethical lines between the things we grow, water, weed or purchase, transport, slice, cook, and ultimately put in our mouths. Much more apparent now are the interconnections of our overburdened ecosystems, links between our global, regional and local markets, and the dynamic correlation between the quality and content of our food and our daily health.

But there is more to today’s vow than simply re-connecting with our local farmers and eating fresh, tasty food or just refraining from excessive caffeine, sugars or fats for physical health sake alone. One significant, life-giving piece not prominent in the healthy and sustainable foods movements is attention to periodic fasts.  Sure, New Year’s resolutions and health magazines tout particular diets and portion control, but longstanding religious traditions—including Christian—have a distinctive contribution to make to our spiritual, physical, mental and relational health through the practice of fasting. It has been suggested that in an affluent society, fasting is a far larger sacrifice than giving a little of our money, in a consumptive culture of "more" it teaches us "enough."

Salty, Bright and Maligned?

IV.    Vows of Voluntary Sacrifice

“We freely offer up our appetites, wealth, and pride to relieve the suffering of the world, for the sake of our neighbors and God’s joy.”

15. I will accept with grace any suffering for myself resulting from my affirmations, rejections and witness; I will do all in my power to reduce the suffering in the world, including the suffering of victims and my adversaries in confrontation.

Salt and Light

Take a look at Matthew 5:10-16. Salty salt. That is what Jesus calls his followers. And he does so right after speaking on the blessedness of suffering ridicule, derision, exclusion, even violence as a result of our alignment with God’s just/righteous reign. I think it makes sense to talk about our saltiness and our persecution in the same breath. In a world with gaping wounds, the sting of our salt is going to cause some backlash! Or to shift the metaphor (as Jesus and his contemporaries so frequently do), in a world of bland narratives of accumulation and control, our flavorful stories of God’s abundance and freeing actions, while attractive to some, will be spit out by others as seemingly over the top, even bitterly over-salted.  And in Jesus’ next word picture, we are light. Ever shine a bright flashlight in someone’s eyes? Yeah, there’s a connection between being the light of the world and getting beat up on for it!