The Power of Empty Hands

Hunter Farrell

The temptation is strong and will grow as your mission trip departure date approaches.The mere thought of traveling to and working in Third World communities is enough to get our anxiety working overtime: Will I be safe? Can I drink the water? Will I be able to handle the poverty? What will it be like to be the wealthiest person the community may have ever met (I, who have never considered myself wealthy in the least!)? How will I respond to people in need-to hungry children? How will the trip change me-in my understanding of how God works...in relationship to my modest “wealth”?

This internal anxiety, though uncomfortable, can be a God-given instrument of deep learning and personal change (precisely why I signed up for this trip, anyway!). It signals I’m crossing over, stepping onto that holy ground of encounter with people whose life assumptions are quite different from mine. And a faith which I hope to understand. It prepares my heart to receive the unexpected. And it reminds me that God is in charge of the trip from start to finish.

But as the anxiety grows, most short-term missionaries begin to stock up on “gifts”-
pens, candy, spiral notebooks, tooth brushes, etc. Well, maybe “gift” is the wrong word, if a gift is meant to symbolize the relationship between two people. In fact, the item I leave behind in the community tells the receiver little about who I am, and reveals clearly that I know little about him or her. Often, all it communicates is that I assume that the receiver needs it. (If I give a friend a toothbrush, I’m bound to get a strange look)

To truly meet a new friend, I have to set aside previously-held assumptions, my degrees and status, and my power, and receive the person for who they are. For a long, uncomfortable moment, my complete ignorance of the local language reduces me from a respected professional to a mere toddler, babbling phrase-book greetings to the raucous delight of the host community’s children. In a flash, I realize how accustomed I have become to my personal “accessories”-my status and specialized knowledge about al kinds of things that, suddenly, don’t seem very important. In a way, these are the things that make me who I am. Or do they? I blush, bowing my head under the weight of the revelation. Tears well up in my eyes. I smile. And the host community’s Welcome Committee somehow senses the moment, surges forward, and embraces me. All 34 adults and all 52 children-the little ones, repeatedly. (“I’ve never been hugged by 86 people in a row in my entire life!”, I complain later, beaming). The awkward yet powerful initial encounter set the stage for the whole week of work and transformed us into the impossible: friends.

This is why the mission pastor told us not to load ourselves down with “gift items”-we would have transformed the moment of powerful encounter into a “give-me” circus with kids yelling and grabbing to get more. Unknowingly, we would have flaunted our wealth and left powerful expectations for the next church group coming to this community. A proverb from western Ethiopia puts it this way: “We can only embrace with empty hands”.

Don’t get me wrong-to take a simple gift or two on a mission trip is a beautiful act. To give something that speaks of where I come from to that special new friend who teaches me something surprising about myself and about God. And we can set aside the rest of the clutter which really serves only to make us feel better about returning to our comfortable homes and hot showers.

I have to empty my hands to be able to receive from my new friends. I had no idea empty hands could be so powerful.

America's fairyland media

By George Monbiot


The U.S. media is disciplined by corporate America into promoting the Republican cause.

ON THURSDAY, the fairy king of fairyland will be recrowned. He was elected on a platform suspended in midair by the power of imagination. He is the leader of a band of men who walk through ghostly realms unvisited by reality. And he remains the most powerful person on earth.

How did this happen? How did a fantasy president from a world of make-believe come to govern a country whose power was built on hard-headed materialism? To find out, take a look at two squalid little stories which have been concluded over the past 10 days.

The first involves the broadcaster CBS. In September, its 60 Minutes programme ran an investigation into how George Bush avoided the Vietnam draft. It produced memos which appeared to show that his squadron commander in the Texas National Guard had been persuaded to "sugarcoat" his service record. The programme's allegations were immediately and convincingly refuted: Republicans were able to point to evidence suggesting the memos had been faked. Last week, following an inquiry into the programme, the producer was sacked, and three CBS executives were forced to resign.

The incident could not have been more helpful to Bush. Though there is no question that he managed to avoid serving in Vietnam, the collapse of CBS' story suggested that all the allegations made about his war record were false, and the issue dropped out of the news. CBS was furiously denounced by the rightwing pundits, with the result that between then and the election, hardly any broadcaster dared to criticise George Bush. Mary Mapes, the producer whom CBS fired, was the network's most effective investigative journalist: she was the person who helped bring the Abu Ghraib photos to public attention.

It's true, of course, that CBS should have taken more care. But I think it is safe to assume that if the network had instead broadcast unsustainable allegations about John Kerry, none of its executives would now be looking for work. How many people have lost their jobs, at CBS or anywhere else, for repeating bogus stories released by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth about Kerry's record in Vietnam? How many were sacked for misreporting the Jessica Lynch affair? Or for claiming that Saddam Hussein had an active nuclear weapons programme in 2003? Or that he was buying uranium from Niger, or using mobile biological weapons labs, or had a hand in 9/11?

You can say what you like in the U.S. media, as long as it helps a Republican president. But slip up once while questioning him, and you will be torn to shreds.

This is not the first time something like this has happened. In 1998, CNN made a programme which claimed that, during the Vietnam war, U.S. special forces dropped sarin gas on defectors who had fled to Laos. In this case, there was plenty of evidence to support the story. But after four weeks of furious denunciations, the network's owner, Ted Turner, publicly apologised in terms you would expect to hear during a show trial in North Korea: "I'll take my shirt off and beat myself bloody on the back." CNN had erred, he said, by broadcasting the allegations when "we didn't have evidence beyond a reasonable doubt." As the website wsws.org has pointed out, it's hard to think of a single investigative story — Watergate, the My Lai massacre, Britain's arms to Iraq scandal — that could have been proved at the time "beyond a reasonable doubt."

The other squalid little story broke three days before the CBS people were sacked. A U.S. newspaper discovered that Armstrong Williams, a television presenter who (among other jobs) had a weekly slot on a syndicated TV show called America's Black Forum, had secretly signed a $240,000 contract with the U.S. Department of Education. The contract required him "to regularly comment" on George Bush's education bill "during the course of his broadcasts" and to ensure that "Secretary Paige [the education secretary] and other department officials shall have the option of appearing from time to time as studio guests."

These stories, in other words, are illustrations of the ways in which the U.S. media is disciplined by corporate America. The role of the media corporations in the U.S. is similar to that of repressive state regimes elsewhere: they decide what the public will and won't be allowed to hear, and either punish or recruit those who insist on telling a different story. The journalists they employ do what most working under repressive regimes do: they internalise the censor's demands, and understand, before anyone has told them, what is permissible and what is not.

So, when they are faced with a choice between a fable which helps the Republicans, and a reality which hurts them, they choose the fable. As their fantasies accumulate, the story they tell about the world veers further and further from reality. Anyone who tries to bring the people back down to earth is denounced as a traitor and a fantasist. And anyone who seeks to become president must first learn to live in fairyland.

Poverty and Hunger

Poverty and Hunger: The Violence of Globalization

Choose Life (I King. 21: 1- 15)
Rev. Thomas John M.A., M.Div.


The fundamental conflict in the Bible is not between theists and atheist, but between those who worship the living God and those who worship the un-gods or false gods. The greatest threat that Christianity faces today is not atheism, nor Islam or Hinduism or any other religion, but it is the worship of Mammon, the God of wealth or profit. It is nothing but what we today label as globalization or market fundamentalism- enthronement of market as the sole arbiter, determiner and regulator of our life. It is this new religion of Mammon that sows seeds of death in the world today. It has emerged out of a new “Washington Consensus”- a consensus between the IMF, the World Bank and the US treasury about the “right” policies for developing countries. Globalization has become a religion unto itself with the IMF, WB and WTO, the unholy trinity, becoming its missionaries or high priests.

I would like to take you through the story that we find in 1King. 21: 1-15 as a way of understanding the basic conflict of cultures that we find in the Bible and the world today. “Naboth -- had a vineyard –- beside the palace of King Ahab”, the King of Israel. And Ahab wished to have that land turned into a vegetable garden as it was near his residence. He promised Naboth, “I will give you a better vineyard for it; or, if it seems good to you, I will give you its value in money.” Was this not a fair deal, that too by a ruler, a king? Naboth did not think that way. He refused the offer of the King; “The Lord forbid that I should give you my ancestral inheritance.” Definitely, for most of us, it would sound a very foolish response. That kind of sentiment has no value in such a highly mobile society where real estate is a thriving business. The smart and worldly-wise wife of Ahab, Jezebel came onto the scene. She met with the bureaucracy; she sent letters to the elders and the nobles- the ruling class; she also co-opted the religious fundamentalists. She painted the picture of Naboth as a communist. He was accused of cursing God and the King- an atheist and one who act against the nation- unpatriotic. The ruling class manipulated the legal-justice system and Naboth was executed and the land was given over to Ahab. I cannot find a better story to tell you of what is happening in the developing countries under the market regime. Names may change; the basic story remains the same.

The two main characters in the story are Naboth and Jezebel. They represent two cultures or worldviews. Naboth worships the living God of Yahweh while Jezebel worships the un-god of Baal- the god of fertility and wealth, the god of the market. Naboth refuses to submit to the culture and logic of the market and he paid the price for it.

Ahab wanted the vineyard to be turned into a vegetable garden. It is the luxury of the powerful and the rich that decide the economic priorities and developmental activities of the rest of the world. Their fantasies and luxuries have priority over the basic survival needs of people who own, live in and work on the land. Today, in India, it is simpler to get low-interest loans to buy a Mercedes Benz than to raise one for agricultural purposes or for education. As far as the Israelites were concerned, the cultivation of wine suited the soil and the ecosystem and it was labor intensive. It served to meet the basic livelihood needs of a large section of the people. Vine, vineyard and wine have indescribable spiritual meanings for Israelites. They represented their life and means of survival.

Today, in two-thirds of the world, small farmers are unable to make a livelihood out of their land. It is impossible to stay in business by competing with the powerful players in the global market- the agribusinesses. Small and Marginal farmers sell their land and migrate to big cities. The nature of agricultural activity also changes. The agribusiness companies use land to produce commercial crops that are unsuitable to the ecosystem, the land, and are often water intensive and labor saving. In the process the land becomes degraded. The farming operations of the agribusiness are geared to producing for a global market where the demands of the rich always get priority. Thus the food security of the people is compromised. Our rice fields are turned into shrimp farms, banana and Coco plantations, amusement parks and golf courses. In Mumbai, bowling alleys are coming up in large numbers in the lands once occupied by textile mills. While countless thousands of women queue up for water each morning in the slums of Mumbai, 24 Water parks, which use up 50 billion liters per day, operate for the entertainment of the rich. In Rajasthan, a desert region of India, there are plans to open more water parks and golf courses. A single golf course takes 1.8 to 2.3 million liters of water a day through out the season. Textile workers, hand loom weavers, agricultural workers and fish workers are all being displaced from their traditional occupations and means of livelihood due to competition from multinational companies. Thus, what we encounter today is a conflict of priorities- conflict between the luxury-needs of a minority and the survival needs of a majority.

Conflict between Two Worldviews

We find in this passage, the conflict between two worldviews: one that believes that everything can be valued or prized and can be bought or sold as per the market demands; that every thing can be turned into commodities. The second affirms that there are invaluable things in life and that not everything can be bought or sold. The deal that king Ahab strikes with Naboth would appear very reasonable and just to a modern mind. The deal is, “I will give you a better vineyard for it or if it seems good to you, I will give you its value in money”. This is the same language that the government and vested interests use in talking to those who are being displaced from their habitation by big dams, mines, tourism and other big projects. In their worldview, everything is exchangeable with “money” or with better substitutes. A market culture turns everything into commodities. Knowledge and the imparting of knowledge through education were never considered in our societies as something that could be bought or sold. Knowledge was considered to be public property. It was to be given away and it was in that process alone that it would abound to the good of all. Today, in most of the developing countries, governments are privatizing education, making it difficult for the poor to get quality education. In the tourism industry, the beauty of nature, our cultural heritages, and the bodies of our women are all for sale. In this process, religion also becomes commercialized. Everything has a price and everything can be bought or sold.

But for Naboth, land is not merely a means of livelihood but is part of his covenant with God. Israelites used to be landless nomads and slaves. It was Yahweh who liberated them from slavery and gifted them with a land. It was a gift from God. They could enjoy its fruits and not possess it for themselves. “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants” (Lev 25: 23). Naboth holds on to this worldview. Land was given to his forefathers by God to enjoy its fruits, to preserve it and not to exploit it or sell it to make profit. In other words, land is sacred. Is this not what the Chief Seattle also has to say to us, “We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of the land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy - and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his fathers' graves, and his children’s birthright is forgotten.”

Neo-colonialism and the Violence of the Ruling Class

Jezebel, as wife of the king, comes to wield enormous power over the governing structures. She is an extra-constitutional authority and also, a follower of a foreign culture that worships Baal- the present day god of the market. It is she who evolves a plan of action and dictates the nobles and the elders, “Proclaim a fast, and seat two scoundrels opposite him, and have them bring a charge against him saying, ‘You have cursed God and the King.’ Then take him out and stone him to death.” The elders and the nobles, the ruling class, submit without any reservation to the wishes of Jezebel. They did as she had directed. Jezebel, for us, represents the WB, the IMF and the WTO. No matter who gets elected to power, they become subservient to these powerful financial institutions. Bretton Woods have pushed several countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America into debt trap. Media and technology are also powerful tools in their hands to implement their hegemonic designs. States subvert their legal-justice systems to suppress and finish of the Naboths of this world and the people’s movements that support them. Thus we find a coming together of the Bretton Wood Institutions, the bureaucracy and the ruling classes in developing nations in order to fulfill the designs of global capital. They thwart democracy and the basic human rights of the majority of the poor in the developing nations of the world. This drama is being enacted all over the world. We develop theories of “clash of civilization”, accuse countries of having weapons of mass destruction, label them as “axis of evil”, in the name of God, national security, democracy and human rights, we terrorize and conquer people and nations with scant regard for any of these and all for the economic interests of a few. To cut the story short, they stoned Naboth to death. How many Naboths were killed in Laos, Congo, Angola, South Africa, Nicaragua Peru and El Salvador? How many Naboths are being killed today?

The Unholy Nexus of Religion, the Ruling Class and the Global Capital

Jezebel uses religion and religious institutions and practices to do away with Naboth and carry out her nefarious designs. It is a matter of grave concern that the political establishment in the US has hijacked Christianity to further their economic designs and hegemonic agenda. We have somehow identified this Mammonic culture with Christianity. Conservative Christianity, with their emphasis on an ahistorical, otherworldly, and individualistic piety, has become agents of global capital and its market culture. Gospel Crusades, Charismatic meetings, and Electronic evangelisms, directed primarily to countries in Latin and Central America, Asia and Africa are unfortunately becoming mechanisms to further a consumerist, success oriented and Mammon worshipping culture. The gospel demands have been diluted and a kind of glamorous Christianity devoid of the cross has been promoted. Naboth was accused of acting against God and the King and given the punishment for the same- stoned to death. The charge against Jesus, our Lord, was not any different. In Luke 23: 2 we read, “We found him perverting our nation, and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ a king.” Jesus bore the cross in defense of life and in defiance against all that destroys the integrity of creation. He gives us the choice: either to chose life or death, God or Mammon. Do we want to side with the culture of Naboth, which is life affirming or the culture of Jezebel, which is death dealing? It is in this choice and associated political decisions that we become followers of Christ.

Prayer:

O God, who in Jesus Christ, has opened before us, a way to eternal life in all its abundance, help us to see through the camouflages and discover the death dealing forces among us and give us the courage that your Son had in confronting those forces and stand up for life and pay its price. Help us to be always aware of our higher calling in Jesus Christ that transcends our narrow loyalties of nationalism and patriotism. We pray for all Naboths of this world, who had paid with their lives to preserve those things that are invaluable in our culture, civilization and the eco-system and the rights of our brothers and sisters to live a full and dignified life. Help us finally meet to rejoice in your eternal Kingdom of peace, justice and joy. We ask these in the name of our your Son Jesus Christ. Amen.