Changing Systems
Yesterday, we held our annual beautification day. Members of the community rolled up their sleeves to do work around the grounds and building at West Hill United Church. Gretta Vosper notes that beautification day falls close to May Day. In North America, we don’t mark May Day, but European countries have adopted it as an occasion to celebrate the labour movement. Organized labour arose as a response to an imbalance of power in the workplace. We tend to forget that workers once had to fight for the things we take for granted today – like the right to organize, minimum wage, and workplace safety legislation.
One way to look at the conflict between labour and management is through systems analysis. The labour movement was a way to address a dysfunctional human system. But the employment setting is just one of many contexts which can be viewed from a systems perspective. We deal with family, government … church. How do we introduce necessary change into dysfunctional systems? How do we maintain healthy systems?
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The Dream Is Yours
Today we conclude the Easter week services by revisiting the book by John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg, The Last Week. Gretta Vosper takes issue with Borg’s view that we can use the same words and rituals we’ve always used and merely assign new meanings to them. She believes that in order to tell the Easter story in the 21st century, it’s not good enough to quietly reinterpret it; we must be explicit about what we’re doing. Part way through the meditation, a visitor interrupts and walks out. Gretta doesn’t miss a beat, observing that, while many continue to depend on a traditional view of things, many more (including clergy) need something else.
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The Easter Dream
What does Easter mean for a minister who subscribes to a progressive agenda but still works within the church? Drawing on The Last Week by John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg, Gretta Vosper paints a picture of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem in the week preceding his trial and crucifixion. She begins with the big picture – the political, economic and religious climate of the region on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. The Romans engage in political oppression and economic exploitation, and use the local religious leaders to legitimize their abuse of power. From this point of view, Jesus looks a lot like an activist pulling a stunt to draw attention to injustice. Move ahead 2000 years and authors like Naomi Klein demonstrate how little things have changed. What Klein doesn’t track is the way that political and economic domination continues to use institutional religion to legitimate its abuse. Easter is not about making nice, or assenting to the status quo, or standing by while others suffer. Easter is a call to live into the dream of a better world.
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