Authors: Rev. Holly Jackson, Rev. Rebecca Shillingburg, John Kasander

Psalm 146; Amos 5:11-15, 21-24 (or Micah 6:1-8); Matthew 5:1-12; 1 Corinthians 1:18-31

Welcome 

Please welcome folks in your usual way, and then we invite you to play the short, introductory video (see below) from the Faith and Democracy 2024 Campaign explaining why we are here today and in this way.

Download Video 

Call to Worship (unison or responsive) 

One: How might God be speaking to us today?

People: Let us listen and discern.

One: What might Jesus want us to learn about justice, peace, and possibility?

People: Let us be open to the Holy One’s calling on our lives.

One: When the Holy Spirit empowers us to help build a world where all are cared for

and none go hungry, how will we respond?

People: We invite the Spirit to inspire us in this hour of worship and move us to

greater love and action for all of God’s creation.

Opening Prayer

Liturgist: Gracious and compassionate Creator, we are gathered here together to

worship you. We quiet our hearts and minds so that we may hear and respond to

your voice. Be enlivened in and among us. Live through us and within us as we

work towards the day when justice rolls down like an unstoppable river. Set within

our minds a vision of abundance and goodness for all. Let us become the

beloved community where all may live with dignity and in peace. You are great

and worthy of all praise. Amen.

Invitation to Confession 

One: We are made in God’s image. God wants us to flourish and grow. But there are

times when our light becomes dim, our hopes start to die, and we turn from love. We do

this as individuals, but we also do this as a collective. We struggle to live up God’s best

intentions for us. So let us be honest about our struggles and failings so that we can

receive and absorb God’s wondrous grace.

Prayer of Confession 

People: Holy One, we know that you want us to choose love, but instead we

choose greed. We know that you ask us to care for creation, but instead we

choose that which is cheap and easy. We know that you show us how to work for

the flourishing of all our neighbors, but instead we let division, judgment, and

fear get in the way. We hope for so much more for our communities, our nation,

our world, and ourselves. Forgive us when we choose anything less than love,

anything that doesn’t lead to justice, and anything that turns us away from you or

each other. Transform our indifference, apathy, and despair into action, gratitude,

and a renewed commitment to do the work to which you call us, knowing that when we falter, you will be there to once again pick us up, dust us off, and challenge us to live what we say we believe. Amen.

Assurance of Grace 

One: The everlasting mercy of God reminds us that we are worthy and we are loved.

What a joy to know that God trusts us to do the work of ministry. That God empowers us

to find joy in serving others. That God believes we are capable of amazing things. You

are forgiven and set free to begin again! Alleluia!

Prayers

Spirit of Life, God of many names, Source of all being, you are the ground of our being, the one in which we live and breathe and have our being.

We give thanks for your enduring love and faithfulness. You pull us beyond our notions of justice, calling us to look beyond circumstances and to see each person as your child. One breath from you rescues us from the wilderness of our lives and pulls us together to serve as your people.

Our hope is in you, the Creator, the one who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry, who opens the eyes of the blind. 

When we seek the security the world offers, your justice and righteousness push us to deeper places, reminding us that your compassion and justice are not of our making.

We pray for discernment as we seek the path forward in our country. Come to us in burning bushes when we aren't looking. Provide others to speak for us when we cannot speak. When we expect to find you in earthquakes and fire, remind us to listen to your gentle whispers. Calm the storms within and around us, so that we may hear your still speaking voice leading us in our journey together. 

Give us faith for the journey when we have no faith. Strengthen us when we are weak. Pick us up when we stumble and lift us up on eagles’ wings when we are weary.

Help us to live as people of faith, bound together by our faith in you. Move us out into the world to share your love and light with all we encounter. 

May our world be filled with your love and justice, sharing our abundance with all people. 

In your many names we pray. Amen. 

Invitation to Offering

Let us hear God’s call to justice and hope anew today. Our democracy is at stake and more fragile than we know. As a community, we are called to do the harvest work of getting out the vote to ensure that all people have a voice. Guide us in our work to create your just kin-dom here on earth. 

Blessing of the Offering

God of Justice, accept these offerings of our time and treasure. You call us to be repairers of the breach and to be the beloved community for all people. Use our hands and feet to create your beloved community of love and compassion. Use our donations to further your care for the most vulnerable. We offer our best for the healing of the world. Amen.

Benediction 

This work of Justice begins here, but it is not finished here. What we do here, what we declare here, cannot remain here. We must take it with us. 

We are called to be the light of the world, to be a people who make good trouble, to be midwives to a Kingdom that is trying desperately to be born. We must live into what we believe.

We must go forth from this place, so let’s go forth the right way.
Go bearing that light of God’s Justice wherever this life may take you.
Go with confidence that a better world is possible.
And most importantly, go knowing that God goes with you into this work and remains by your side no matter how dark the times might seem. 

In a season of such great uncertainty and doubt, on that much we can depend.

Amen.  

Call to Action

1. Check your Voter Registration status and make sure you have a plan to vote:

The good folks at Rock The Vote have created a very easy to use tool to check the status of your voter registration! Below you’ll find links to their tool for each state in our Central Atlantic Conference. Please take a moment to check here whether you’re registered appropriately, where your nearest polling place is, and invite your friends and loved ones to do the same.  

2. Join us in the Faith & Democracy 2024 Voter Education & Empowerment Initiative We are mobilizing local churches, clergy and justice leaders to educate and empower voters in states and local communities that have a history of voter suppression and low voter turn-out.

Working with our partners, Center for Common Ground (a non-partisan civic engagement organization), we call on you to join us in sending postcards to voters in contested states.

Is Postcarding effective, you may ask? Well, inquisitive reader, it is! Don’t take our word for it, read the Center for Common Ground Report!

Contact our State Action Networks in DC, MD, and VA to get involved in the effort. Our networks are already coordinating efforts in their states, and they are available to provide organizing and financial support.

3. Vote. And, Get-Out-The-Vote (GOTV).
Coming Soon to an inbox near you: a Faith & Democracy 2024 30 Days of GOTV Initiative Keep your eyes peeled!

4. Join in a Texting Campaign
We also recommend giving texting campaigns a try. If volunteer postcarding isn’t your speed, there’s certainly digital options at your disposal. If that sounds like it might be a winner for you and your community, check out the resources provided by When We All Vote to learn how you can get started! 

5. Prayer as Praxis 
Sometimes all you can do is pray. Sometimes that’s how election seasons are. If you find yourself in a place of uncertainty about the future, if you feel less than confident about where things are headed, praying about it is a good place to start! That tender and loving God of ours is always happy to listen and to offer us solace. You’d be surprised at how easily a direction, and hope, for the future can come into focus with God’s helping hand and listening ear. If you don’t have one, consider putting a group together in your congregation to pray together about whatever afflicts you in this season. 

6. Act Locally
Do you know if a Moms for Liberty is running for your school board on a book banning platform? You might want to check on that. Even if you feel as though your vote may not matter at the State or National level, your voice and your vote matter immensely in your local setting. Don’t be discouraged, you have the power to make a difference right where you live! There are issues in your community that you absolutely can move the needle on! We have a responsibility as compassionate and concerned members of our communities to know what those are, and to make our voices heard. A Just World starts with your corner of it.

Hymn and Song Suggestions

• Lift Every Voice and Sing (NCH #593)

• Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah AAHH #138
  (Guide me, O My Great Redeemer NCH #18)

• How Can I Keep From Singing (NCH #476)

• Called as Partners in Christ’s Service (NCH #495)

• This is My Song (NCH #591)

• Won’t You Let Me Be Your Servant (NCH #539)

Contemporary

• Again and Again by The Many:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIhZRsaXPB4

• https://www.convergencemp.com/topics/again-and-again.html

• Leaning In by Christopher Grundy: 

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rot5M9Kirhc

• https://www.convergencemp.com/top-ten-selling-songs-of-the-month/leaning-in.html
  

• In God’s Hands by Tracy Howe: 

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CxGA7wL0Jg

• https://www.convergencemp.com/songwriter/tracy-howe/in-god-s-hands.html
  

Sermon Prompts and Talking Points

Hebrew Bible – Amos 5:11-15, 21-24

Yale Divinity School’s Dr. Carolyn Sharp puts it very well to remind us that Amos’s famous “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” is not, “...a rousing call to believers to do good deeds. It is a roar of outrage.” We might better read “ever-flowing stream” as “perpetual torrent” and one which we should understand as sweeping away an unjust order of things. It is a far less inspiring and optimistic reading, but it bears taking a moment to let her reading sit with us. How often in our lives as we watch injustice heaped upon injustice have we wished for something to clean the slate? How good might it feel for some force beyond us to batter into rubble a crooked and corrupt status quo whose ever-growing body count never seems to end? This writer can only speak for themselves, but there are times it sounds like sweet relief to imagine that God might finally let it rip, so to speak, and take care of all the hard work for us. Oh that it were so simple. But alas, for us friends, it isn’t. Superman isn’t coming; we’ll have to save ourselves. But it is a helpful reminder that it is a healthy, even godly, response to injustice and hypocrisy to be outraged, even to be enraged. And it bears remembering that it is hypocrisy and infidelity that has driven God to this point in Amos’s telling. God sees a people in Israel who have lost sight of the forest for the trees. They are observant, they keep the festivals, they sing beautiful songs of praise and offer sacrifices to God’s glory, but they have forgotten the poor. Their worship and their work for justice have become detached from one another. It is not that God hates festivals per se, or songs and melodies of worship per se, but rather that these have become an end in themselves. We should take a step back and ask ourselves, have they become so for us as well? Your congregation may revel in a storied history of beautiful music and talented musicians who offer their talents to God’s glory, but what have you done for the beggars on your streets lately? Have they ever even been inside to hear that beautiful music? You may do great outreach, your congregation may be a known quantity in its local area, one folks may admire greatly, but for what? Do they have that reverence and respect because your congregation does justice? Or do they simply love kindness and walk humbly with their God to the exclusion of that justice? It’s a great thing to be pious, and this writer harbors a certain fondness for high liturgy, but Amos poses a poignant question to us: are those things sufficient by themselves? He does us the favor of answering for us as well: they are not. 

Certainly we should be proud of those things our congregations excel at, those things which they hold dear, but if those two categories do not also include taking pride in our work toward justice, if we don’t hold dear to us that struggle for an equitable world, then we have missed the forest for the trees as much as the Israel which we see denounced here for its conduct. A community of faith which takes seriously God’s directives keeps its ritual piety in balance with its justice work, placing as much importance on one as the other. How earnestly can we say we live up to that as the Church Universal? What about your church in particular? There’s no time like the present to give finding a better balance a try. 

On that note of seeing ourselves in the denunciations of Amos, what of the first few verses in this week’s reading from Amos 5:11-15, can we see our own society in that description? If we look at it honestly, do we see a society which tramples on the poor, which extracts hefty taxes from the already destitute? What about its officials, do they afflict the righteous? Do they take a bribe? Do they push aside the needy as a nuisance? Might we need to take seriously the invitation to seek good and not evil? Or to hate evil and to love good? Which is it that we truly love and seek at the moment as a people? If we would claim to love good, to seek it, what fruit has that loving or seeking borne lately? Might it be time for us to take this assessment of our conduct as truthful, and begin to more earnestly pursue establishing justice? How might we go about it? We don’t have to have a perfect answer or a platform for change ready to share with the wider world, but we cannot be paralyzed by that lack of direction either. It is a course we will have to chart together. But we can’t hope to make any progress toward our destination, toward The Kingdom as lived reality, without moving. We cannot allow fear of the consequences of having a conscience and acting on it hold us in place. The way things are is unacceptable to God and on that basis, if no other one, it should be unacceptable to us as well. Now that we see it for what it is we cannot look away and return to the comforting routine of ritual separated from action, or of piety separated from community care. We have a moment right now as a people to decide on a new direction, so let’s pick one together. Any course charted with The Kingdom as its destination, and which sees justice as the engine driving us toward it, is better than the one on which we find ourselves now.  

Additional resources on this week’s Hebrew Bible readings can be found here 

New Testament – Matthew 5:1-12

We need to spend a moment here to consider a deeper reading of the Beatitudes if you’ll indulge it. Too often the Beatitudes are over-spiritualized and “righteousness” is read as referring to moral or spiritual purity and uprightness. The word used here for righteousness needs to be understood in its context. We should take a moment and turn to Dr. Jillian Engelhardt of Texas Christian University, a Matthew scholar, for an explanation: “Righteousness in the Hebrew Bible (for example, Isaiah 51) refers to a total societal restructuring that includes the equitable distribution of resources.” As she explains, verse 6 then is better read as referring to those who hunger and thirst for better, truly equitable and universally sufficient way of living where none are left behind. The tenor of several of Christ’s “Blessed Are…” statements change rather drastically when read in that light. Verse 10 no longer refers only to Christian martyrs persecuted for attempting to live a life of spiritual uprightness, but rather to those persecuted for pursuing temporal justice. In brief, to his audience Christ is saying, if you long to see the Roman way that keeps you hungry gone, you are blessed. And if they should harm you or abuse for working toward that better future, you are blessed as well. How different might our churches be if we understood ourselves as blessed for seeking justice and equity, blessed even for suffering because we do so, rather than seeking empty piety and a spiritualism separated from the matters of this world? How different would our churches be if we took verse 11 to heart and accepted that persecution comes with prophetic practice? If our churches truly afflicted the comfortable and comforted the afflicted we would suffer penalties. That we don’t right now might be a clue that we are not as prophetic, not as committed to the pursuit of righteousness in the Hebrew Bible sense as we might like to believe. 

Taking a moment to return to Dr. Engelhardt’s commentary, verse 5’s “meek” who will inherit the Earth deserve a moment’s consideration and contextualization as well. Who are the meek? What characterizes them? Dr. Engelhardt sees here a reference to Psalm 37:11 where the meek are, “...those who are abused by the wicked who seem only to prosper.” That is quite a bold statement on Christ’s part when read as a promise of the earth itself to its downtrodden, abused, and poor inhabitants. It is not the soft spoken and gentle, as has often been preached, but the people at the margins, the bottom rung on the ladder, the folks in steerage here on Spaceship Earth. Though they may have nothing now, in The Kingdom, it will all be theirs. That is quite a bit more profound and provocative than a reading which gives inheritance of the Earth to the soft-spoken and mild-mannered. 

And finally, I would like to narrow in on Dr. Engelhardt’s discussion of who we ought to understand verse 9’s “peacemakers” to be. The Romans were famous for, as we hear in the words of Tacitus, “Making a desert and calling it peace.” Roman soldiers and officials would arrive to lands they sought to conquer claiming to be peacemakers. Theirs was a peace made by domination, by absolute conquest; peace as defined by the absence of conflict, rather than by universal flourishing. Christ is advocating for a particular kind of peacemaking, one that emphasizes justice and which is free of coercion. As we find ourselves in a time of conflict, we would do well to remember that a peace extracted from a people annihilated is not the sort of peace we should seek. 

This is not of course to say that this is the only acceptable reading of Matthew’s verses at the beginning of chapter 5. It is however a reading that could stand to issue forth from our pulpits in this season. Our fellow pilgrims on the journey could stand to be reminded that Christ is as concerned with our material reality as our disembodied spiritual one. They could stand to be reminded that God sees not just the poor in spirit, but the poor in general, and blesses them. In fact, he goes so far as to offer the earth on which they stand to them as an inheritance. They could stand to be reminded that Christ does not advocate for us to be in the world but disinterested in what happens in it, or to the people with whom we share it. We could stand to say that while things may seem dire, apocalyptic even on occasion, that we don’t have to wait for the eschaton to see things made right in the world. Justice, Righteousness in the sense Isaiah uses it in Chapter 51, is something we can help to bring into fullness in this world. We can start doing it any time we choose. And if we should be persecuted for it, God’s blessing comes with that persecution. Blessing accompanies the punishment for doing what we know to be right, even if the powerful may disagree. We could stand to remind people that Christ blesses a rulebreaker, blesses a troublesome do-gooder, not in spite of their rule breaking, but because of it.    

Additional resources and commentaries on this reading can be found here

The Issues at Hand

This is a general election year, and it would be the height of understatement to say there are some things at stake in November. All elections matter, it’s important to make your voice heard every time, but particularly when the stakes are so high. Right or wrong, this election has become a referendum on the future direction of this country politically, socially, and economically. Who we will be and what it is we’ll do for quite some time seems set to be decided.

The outcome of this year’s elections, national, state and local, will determine whether people will continue to experience the increasingly dire consequences of white supremacy, racism, homophobia, misogyny, militarism, xenophobia, corporate statism, anti-democratic and burgeoning fascist policy, or receive the justice they deserve and so desperately need.  

We live presently in a world of wars and rumors of wars, of violence at home and abroad, of widespread poverty and privation, of rank and rampant injustice wrought on our siblings in the Divine Family, and we’ve been asked for our thoughts. If we have been asked for feedback, we should provide it. We should declare our, “this far and no furthers” we should make clear our red lines, and dare to propose the bold, and uncommon as the sentiment may be from our political class, idea that it can be better than this. That we can be better than this. That we can do better than this. That if we’re to have a government, and if it is going to claim to represent us, that we insist it care for the least among us, that it welcome all people, as Christ would, to these shores, that it seek to make peace where it has sown, or permitted others to sow, conflict, and that those who seek to lead do so for our collective benefit, and not for the benefit of an ever shrinking body of wealthy interests.   

We’re a lucky people, we get to do and say all of that through a democratic process. We get to say it at the ballot box in the hopes that we don’t have to say it in the streets. But we do actually have to say it at the ballot box, folks. That doesn’t mean it will be easy though. Voter suppression as we know is rampant. One of the most effective ways to fight voter suppression and attempts by government institutions to limit people’s participation in the electoral process is to register voters, educate voters about election year issues, empower them with information on how to participate in the process, encourage and motivate them to go to the polls and vote, and support them in making sure they can cast their vote. We can do this. We are called to do this. And, there are no laws preventing us from doing this. So, shouldn’t we? 

Quotes, Video Links, and Excerpts

Let God's Voice Speak Through Your Vote 

“Did you know that in the Bible the word for "vote" and the word for "voice" are the same word? … We need to use our vote and let God speak through our votes!

Vote for justice and let God speak through our votes. Vote for love and let God speak through our votes. Vote for health care and let God speak through our votes. Vote for justice and truth and let God speak through our votes.

It’s time for America to hear righteousness speak. To hear love speak. To hear truth speak. Your vote is not just political. It's theological. God gave it to you!

— Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, Co-Chair of the Poor People’s Campaign and President of Repairers of the Breach, youtu.be/9n2xiYl4IeQ

Since We Are . . .

“We may not have chosen to live in such times, but since we are here, let us live our lives in such ways that our descendants will remember us with gratitude. And they will give thanks that we gave our last full measure that they might have life and have it more abundantly; and have a life that is worth having.”

— Rev. Dr. Stephen G. Ray Jr., former 13th President of Chicago Theological Seminary and the Immediate Past President of the Society for the Study of Black Religion, youtu.be/oKAVl-SM7aQ

Why the Faith & Democracy 2024 Campaign? 

To answer the question bluntly, have you looked outside lately? Things are not well in this country, friends. Ours is a world riven by conflict, beset by violence, and filled to bursting with suffering and anguish of all kinds. Many of the youngest among us struggle to imagine that there is a bright future ahead. Or, for that matter, that there is a future for them at all. The ten hottest years ever recorded are the last ten years we’ve lived. Despite this fact, CO2 Emissions last year were the highest they have ever been since we began recording them. There is a crisis, but you wouldn’t know it from the way governments behave.

Did you know that there are 44 million people in this country facing hunger every day? Did you know that 1 in 5 children in America are among them? There is a crisis, but you wouldn’t know it from the way governments behave.

Did you know gun violence finally overtook car accidents as the leading cause of death for children? Did you know there have been more than 600 mass shootings annually every year since 2020? There is a crisis, but you wouldn’t know it from the way governments behave.  

I want to stress, this is a narrowly focused snapshot of the situation. But it’s difficult not to sympathize with the hopelessness of those young people and their belief that there is no future for them with facts like that. Leaving out altogether the matter of LGBTQ+ rights which, make no mistake, are under threat. Or a woman’s right to choose which, make no mistake, is under threat. Or the ongoing genocide our government is facilitating in the Gaza Strip. Or the drums of war being pounded in the region more broadly as a result. Ours is a world on fire, it isn’t alarmist to say so. And in times like ours, our voices matter. We should demand that they be heard.

In light of all this, the more pertinent question seems to be, why not the Faith & Democracy 2024 Campaign? What better time than now? What better people than us? We are the people we have been waiting for and it is well past time for us to act! It has been time, for a long time, to say enough is enough. It is time for us to push for, to advocate for, to insist upon, change and a more just and equitable shared life for all of God’s people.  Your vote gives you the power to do that. The ballot box is where we get to declare what matters to us, what is intolerable to us, and to dictate to governments how we expect them to behave and respond to the manifest crises we see around us through who we place in leadership. Never forget, in a democracy your leaders should represent your will. 

Our communities have a voice, they have the power to move the needle and to push and encourage folks who feel themselves to be powerless to assert their inherent human worth and dignity by insisting upon their right to be heard and counted. Our convictions, our commitment to the belief that a better world can exist, our trust that God not only calls us to speak for, and alongside, the voiceless, but also stands by us while we do, matters. Better is possible, a bright future can be found hiding just over the horizon, but only if we act. Better can begin here if we’ll let God use us to bring it to life.

______________________________________

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”
– Margaret Mead 

“A church that doesn’t provoke any crisis, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed, what gospel is that? Very nice, pious considerations that don’t bother anyone – that is the way many would like the preaching to be.

Those churches that avoid every thorny matter so as not to be harassed, so as not to have conflicts and difficulties, do not light up the world they live in.”
– St. Oscar Romero

“Coronavirus has made the mighty kneel and brought the world to a halt like nothing else could. Our minds are still racing back and forth, longing for a return to “normality", trying to stitch our future to our past and refusing to acknowledge the rupture. But the rupture exists. And in the midst of this terrible despair, it offers us a chance to rethink the doomsday machine we have built for ourselves. Nothing could be worse than a return to normality. 

Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. 

We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”

— Arundhati Roy, “The Pandemic Is a Portal,” Financial Times, April 3, 2020

We Are the Ones We’ve been Waiting for - Adapted from Alice Walker

It is the worst of times. It is the best of times… 

It is the worst of times because it feels as though the very Earth is being stolen from us, by us; the land and air poisoned, the animals disappeared, humans degraded and misguided. War and oppression are everywhere. 

It is the best of times because we have entered a period, if we can bring ourselves to pay attention, of great clarity as to cause and effect . . . 

It is as if ancient graves, hidden deep in the shadows of the psyche and the earth, are breaking open of their own accord.

Unwilling to be silent any longer. Incapable of silence.

No leader or people of any country will be safe from these upheavals that lead to exposure, no matter how much the news is managed or how long people’s grievances have been kept quiet . . . It is an awesome era in which to live.

It was the poet June Jordan who wrote "We are the ones we have been waiting for." We are the ones we’ve been waiting for because we are able to see what is happening with a much greater awareness than our parents or grandparents, our ancestors, could see.

This does not mean we believe, having seen the greater truth of how all oppression is connected, how pervasive and unrelenting, that we can "fix" things. 

But some of us are not content to have a gap in opportunity and income that drives a wedge between rich and poor. Not willing to ignore brutalized children. Not willing to let segregation and discrimination destroy our society. Not willing to disappear into our flower gardens, cul-de-sacs, or the illusion of independence.

We have wanted all our lives to know that Earth, who has somehow obtained human beings as her custodians, was also capable of creating humans who could minister to her needs, and the needs of her creation.

We are the ones.

Defining: Equity, Equality and Justice

By Nikki Erdmann

Even though Equity and Equality sound similar, the differences between them matter. Societal structures place people of certain status such as race or socioeconomic status at differing points of advantage or disadvantage with structural barriers. 

What is Equity?

Equity is not only dividing resources fairly and equally, but also factoring in differences amongst people. Differences such as race and socioeconomic status that would require different support to ensure the same opportunity of success. This can be shown in the image below by the different height of the ladders. The boy on the right has a taller ladder because the tree is higher on his side. Whereas the other boy has a shorter ladder because he has a shorter distance to reach to gather apples. They have different sized ladders to make sure they are both able to pick the apples.

What is Equality?

Equality is dividing resources equally but does not factor differences in need and ability. Everybody is given the exact same quantity of resources. As seen in the image, both boys are given the same size ladder not factoring in differences of access –  leading to one boy not able to access the apples.

What is Justice?

Justice is long-term equity. It looks to create equity in systems as well as individuals. “Justice can take equity one step further by fixing the systems in a way that leads to long-term, sustainable, equitable access for generations to come.” As seen in the image, both boys are given the same size ladder but instead of giving them different sized ladders, they give added supports to ensure both are able to access the apples.

“The route to achieving equity will not be accomplished through treating everyone equally. It will be achieved by treating everyone equitably, or justly according to their circumstances.”

Sources:

1. What’s the difference between equity and equality? Mental Floss. (2020, June 11).

2. World Health Organization. (2011, June 8). Equity. World Health Organization. 

3. Karen Krigger, MD (2021, January 29). Medical news.

Published: May 27, 2021 Edited: August 5, 2021

Ubuntu: Joy in Interconnection 

“Ultimately our greatest joy is when we seek to do good for others. …It’s how we are made. I mean we are wired to be compassionate. …We are wired to be caring for the other and generous to one another. ...We depend on the other in order for us to be fully who we are. I didn’t know that I was going to come so soon to the concept that we have at home, the concept of Ubuntu. It says: A person is a person through other persons.

… Unfortunately, in our world we tend to be blind to our connection until times of great disaster. We find we start caring about people in Timbuktu, whom we’ve never met and we’re probably never going to meet this side of death. And yet we pour out our hearts. We give resources to help them because we realize that we are bound up together. We are bound up and can be human only together.”

— Archbishop Desmond Tutu, The Book of Joy, page 60.

In a real sense, all life is interrelated. All [people] are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, Tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be,

and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.

This is the interrelated structure of reality.

– Martin Luther King, Jr, in his sermon at The Riverside Church in NY, 8/8/6

The Necessity of Good Trouble

“You must find a way to get in the way and get in good trouble, necessary trouble. … You have a moral obligation, a mission and a mandate, when you leave here, to go out and seek justice for all. You can do it. You must do it.”

— Rep. John Lewis, addressing the graduates of Bates College, Sunday, May 29, 2016