[제7차 한중일YMCA 평화포럼 (2017.12.16-20) Lecture 2]
“Ecumenical Leadership in the Present Day Milieu”
Max Ediger(Interfaith Cooperation Forum)
“The Core Components of Ecumenical Leadership for Building a Culture of Peace” or “Don’t Be Busy - Be Effective!”
I wish to start off with two short stories.
I have now been working with marginalized communities for slightly more than 50 years. During these years I have learned a lot about working for a peaceful society from slum people, peasant farmers, factory workers, refugees, soldiers involved in freedom movements, and men/women of the entertainment industry. One important lesson they taught me is that being busy is not the same as being effective. It is easy to be busy. We attend committee meetings, seminars, workshops, write statements, petitions, proposals as well as numerous reports, all of which take up much of our limited time. How much of this actually makes a difference in the lives of the most marginalized in our society. Very little they generally say. It is rare that the findings and statements of these meetings actually reach them or that their ideas are even sought out so they can participate in creating strategies for peace or preparing statements and petitions. They have little opportunity to learn from the “experts” and “professionals” who present important information in these busy meetings. The challenge the marginalized have given me is that they really do not care how busy I am, but they do care if my efforts make a positive difference for their lives and their struggles for peace. Being busy is much easier than being effective, but we are challenged to live a life that helps bring positive change to those who suffer the most. It is very important that we stop being so busy, and think more about how we can be most effective.
Some years back, I worked in the office of the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) when they were based in Hong Kong. Each staff member would take responsibility for a Wednesday morning chapel and we were free to share whatever we liked. One Wednesday morning I shared from Hebrews 1:1 about being surrounded by a cloud of witnesses. After my sharing was finished, the resident theologian approached me to inform me that I did not interpret that scripture correctly. Without thinking, I replied, “I am not a theologian so I have the right to misinterpret the Bible.” I’m not sure what he thought about that answer, but he never again challenged my chapel reflections.
I was not boasting that I can get by with misinterpreting the message of the Bible. Rather I wanted to say that the Bible does not just speak to theologians. It speaks to all of us regardless of our wealth, status or education, and it speaks to us in different ways depending on the realities we are living with at the moment. My life and work are strongly influenced by the New Testament. I seriously attempt to respond to the world around me in a way that reflects the Christ I worship. In this presentation I cannot always give a theological exegesis to my words or actions, but I want to assure you that the words of Christ, especially the Sermon on the Mount, greatly inspire all I do.
With that in mind, I will share with you ten components of ecumenical leadership for building a culture of peace. There are many more, but for this paper I will mention only ten. Also, as you will quickly notice, my bias is strongly with the marginalized.
Let me briefly give my definition of several important words which I will use throughout this presentation.
Peace – Peace is harmony, or stated more clearly, harmonious relationships between people and between people and their environment.
Injustice – Injustice is any act, physical, verbal or psychological that breaks this harmony.
Justice – Justice, often synonymous with righteousness, is the process of transforming injustices so right relationships can be restored. It requires true repentance and forgiveness and the commitment of both parties to work together to prevent such injustice from happening again. The most important focus of justice is restored relationships.
Don’t be a Peacemaker
After the 8/8/88 popular uprising in Burma and the ensuing violent military crackdown, thousands of students, workers and peasants fled to the Thai/Burma border to organize, and get military training so they could return to Rangoon as a liberating army. I, along with other peace-oriented people quickly began meeting with them to provide training in peacemaking to give them different alternatives for change. I was very committed to converting them from armed struggle to a process of peaceful transformation for their country. We gave them many peacemaking theories and practices. After three or four days together, I would ask them how they planned now to change their country through these peacemaking concepts. They were always silent. The theories were good, but they did not see how to make them practical in their situation. Slowly I began to realize that for them to develop effective strategies for nonviolent change, we needed to talk about things in a different way. In time our discussions moved away from peacemaking to justice. They could easily identify injustices they had experienced under the military and when we looked at creative ways to transform those injustices, they began to see more clearly practical choices for organizing and mobilizing without guns and violence. They became excited about what could be.
In John 14:27, Jesus tells his disciples, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you: not as the world gives you.” Perhaps Jesus meant that peace is a gift already given to us by God so we do not need to talk about peace building or peacemaking. Why build or make something that already exists as a gift from God?
The problem is that this peace, given by God, does not flow freely to everyone. It is blocked from reaching many by a variety of insidious injustices. Those injustices are like a dam preventing peace from flowing to the suffering and oppressed.
Amos 5:24 gives us a connecting picture. “Let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like an every-flowing stream.
Our challenge is to identify injustice and work to transform it so that justice/righteousness can course through the world like an every-flowing stream. Then peace can visit all people equally. Thus I prefer the word justpeace rather than peace building. Justice/righteousness comes before peace. “No Justice, No Peace. Know Justice, Know Peace.”
Sleep on the Floor
When I first moved to Thailand in the late 70s, I rented an old wooden row house that was furnished with only one chair and a very shaky coffee table. As I had very little money at that time, the only things I could purchase were some cheap grass mats and several Thai-styled pillows for sleeping. I had no other furniture for several years. It was a very simple life for me but it was also one of the most invigorating times. Labor leaders, slum folk and poor rural peasants came by to brainstorm and plan strategies. At night, when we finally got tired enough, we slept on those thin grass mats on the floor.
During that time I also became deeply involved with CCA/URM. When URM leaders came to Bangkok, they often stayed at my house rather than in a hotel. Status was not important. We were equals. Religious leaders and poor peasants met and shared the same floor space – sometimes five or six in a row. I consider this one of the really important educational times in my life as it was an opportunity for reflecting on my past experiences in Africa and Viet Nam and clarifying my vision for justpeace through this dialogue with others. I learned more during this time than in all my years in schools and universities and I am proud to say some of my best teachers were slum people, factory workers, poor rural farmers, refugees and those working in the entertainment sector.
Today, the only visitors sleeping on my floor are the occasional marginalized individual. The contact in my house between them and the ecumenical leaders no longer happens. This is regrettable. The voices of the oppressed and marginalized calling for justpeace may no longer be clearly heard and without their leadership justpeace is but an academic concept.
Hotel rooms, computers, cell phones and other modern “necessities” too often become a wall between those who are suffering and those who wish to help. Justpeace is not something that will trickle down from the top or even from the middle. It must emerge out of the struggles of the oppressed and we need to be there with them so we can hear their stories and respond to their needs.
In Mark 6:8 Jesus sends his disciples out to meet the people. He challenges them to take nothing for the journey except a staff – they have to leave their I-Phones and Mac Books behind. They are to take no bread, money or other “necessities.” It is in living a simple life with the people that they can most effectively share the message Jesus sends them out to proclaim.
We must simplify our lives. If we want to play an important role in the people’s movement for justpeace we have to be willing to sleep on the floors where they sleep. Sleeping on the floor gives opportunity for feeling a closer connection to the struggles of the people. Sleeping on a comfortable bed in a nice hotel makes the struggles of the oppressed seem far away and disconnected from our own existence.
Parableize
The parables of Jesus are some of the best teaching tools the Bible provides us. Jesus had very complicated and challenging messages to share with the people, many of whom perhaps could not read or write. He needed to translate these messages into stories that were part of the people’s daily lives. A fig tree, a wedding party, a coin, a lost lamb or a field of wheat ready for harvest all became the channel for sharing these important principles with those who gathered around him.
As ecumenical partners with the poor and oppressed we have important information to share so their struggle for justpeace can be focused and more effective. We must learn to speak in parables as Christ did, using events and items close to the life experiences of the marginalized. It is not always easy to take theological and academic messages to the people, but it can and must be done, and it can best be done through parables. Our task is not to lead the people’s struggle, but rather to support and enhance the struggle for justpeace the people are already carrying out and to do that we must parableize.
Get in the Mud
While living in Thailand I began a project on Pat Pong Street, one of the world’s most famous red light districts. Not everyone in the church supported me. Some were sure I had ulterior motives for working there and others thought this was no place for a Christian to be because the temptations were too many. I did not have any special training to work in this kind of situation, but I did feel called to be there. It was an opportunity to listen and learn from the men and women working there, as well as to challenge some of my own assumptions about them. It became clear to me that justpeace wasn’t about getting them to give up this profession, a profession most of them hated, but rather to work at transforming a society that does not honor and respect the poor and dispossessed, that does not offer equal education for young girls, that pushes peasants into deep poverty and that tends to marginalize anyone who is different. Unjust economic, political and ideological structures need to be transformed.
Like the lotus plant, Christ often stood in the mud because that is where His special people lived. Yet, he never became the mud. He mingled with sinners but never became the sinner. He did not condemn the tax collector, the woman found in adultery or even the Roman centurion. Rather he listened to their stories, healed their wounds, challenged them to transform and, in many cases, he protected them from the powerful religious leaders of the day.
The Buddha once said, “May we live like the lotus, at home in muddy water. While surrounded by mud, the lotus flower rises above it and remains pure.”
Be with the people in their places of pain and despair. Learn from them, listen deeply to them and let them give direction and leadership to the struggle for justpeace.
If we want to work for true justpeace, we have to be willing to go out into the mud of this world to bring hope, compassion and friendship to people who are so often misunderstood, condemned and marginalized by the broader society. Get in the mud!
Welcome Inconvenience
To escape from our lives of convenience, we have to take risks like the Samaritan did in Luke 10. While religious leaders avoided the wounded man lying prone and wounded beside the road, the Samaritan had compassion on him. It was a great risk for him. The Samaritan had no idea who this man might be: maybe a violent criminal, perhaps a transgender, or maybe an illegal alien. It was also a great inconvenience for him to pause his journey, carry the injured man to the inn, and to use some of his, possibly, very limited money to pay the expenses.
He took that risk, and thus today this parable encourages us to step out of our personal comfort zones, the comfort zones of our religious institutions and the comfort zones of our societies and take the risk of standing with those who are most oppressed so together we can work for justpeace. To do that, we have to sometimes be willing to stand against the normal ways of organizing our institutions and of planning our work. We have to stand as equals with the “lowest” in our societies, listening to their stories and offering them the help they need, even if our leaders, religious or political, are against it.
The risks of welcoming inconvenience can be very high, and we can see many examples in our societies of what happens to people who take those risks. But, as John F. Kennedy said, “There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.”
Don’t Look Down
Matthew 14 tells the story of frightened disciples riding out a severe storm in their small boat. Fearing the worst, they look out across the lake and see someone walking on the water toward them. When Peter hears that it is Jesus, he asks for proof – “Let me come to you on the water.” The invitation is given and he steps out of the boat and begins walking safely across the surface of the water toward Jesus. Then he looks down and, in great fear, sees the waves and swirling currents. At that moment he loses sight of Jesus and he begins to sink. He is only saved when Jesus takes his hand and walks him back to the boat.
My time working with CCA/URM gave me many valuable experiences. I especially appreciated the numerous meetings which URM organized, and which brought together people from sectors of society that were very negatively affected by development, militarization, etc. These meetings gave us occasion to hear the very emotional stories of their struggles for justice. Every meeting also involved one or two theologians who were noted for their involvement in the justpeace struggle. Each day we would have a Bible study by one of these theologians who would provide us with Biblical input related to the people’s struggles. These Bible studies gave us connections between our faith roots and the struggle to transform injustice. They related the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus to the very reason we were involved with the poor and oppressed. When our work became too difficult, the risks seemingly too high, and the mud too deep, we could look to these Biblical messages for strength and renewed energy.
As we work together with the marginalized for justpeace we can sometimes become overwhelmed by all the pain and injustice around us. Like Peter we must be willing to step out of the boat (our comfort zone). But if we look down we may begin to sink beneath the waves and currents swirling around us. We must constantly be rooting ourselves more deeply in our faith through Bible study and reflection so that we can always rise up and continue.
Don’t Look Up
We must admit that, even as INGOs and faith organizations, we live and work in a stratified world. This means that we have top-down structures to manage our programs. There are definitely other management options, but they require a long fight with funding partners, those in “leadership” and even with the marginalized who have been conditioned to believe they are not equal to those with high education, rank or status. Perhaps it is easier to go along with the status quo than it is to fight for an alternative.
The voices of the marginalized are too often muted by those who feel the structure is more important than the struggle and so they promote a clear ranking of participation – some full participation, some much less and others with none. The “qualified” are on top giving approval which then filters down to those doing the work. Actually this is another form of marginalization and can create a culture of dependency or even anger among the marginalized. We have to be ready to do some creative thinking outside the box to come up with new ways of organizing our efforts for justpeace which challenge the “normal/acceptable” ways that may control us now.
Effective work for justpeace requires that all sit around the table as equals, with approval coming as a voice of consensus from all regardless of status, faith, economic standing, or education level. Any system which relies on a top-down decision-making process will not result in a new peaceful society where all are respected equally. The way we live, work and organize ourselves now reflects the future society we are building and as Gandhi said, we must be the change we wish to see in the world.
We cannot look up to a hierarchical system to build a solid foundation for justpeace. Instead we should be looking out over a level table where all sectors of society from the most educated and expert to the most marginalized can sit as equals and provide their special knowledge, experiences and skills for the development of a vision for a world of justpeace.
In Mathew 20:28 Jesus made it clear to the disciples that he came to serve, not to be served, and I believe he was challenging us all to do the same. Servants do not have power in the house. Some dictionaries define “to serve” as “helpinginachievingorsatisfyinganeed.”
Native Americans dislike the pyramid type of organization. In fact, they also dislike a straight line. For them, real justice requires a circle where no one is more powerful than others. In this circle they seek for consensus.
“Poor and afflicted and oppressed people have faces, and we are required to look squarely into them. We can’t love what we won’t experience.” (Nancy Mairs)
Don’t look up to the “top” for guidance, for in new justpeace communities there should be no “top”. Instead, look out across the circle, listen deeply to the voices of the marginalized, share with them your special knowledge and skills and then together as a family, plan the strategies needed to bring about justpeace.
Stop Dreaming
All of us dream about a peaceful world – one without war, hunger, poverty, division or discrimination. These dreams are important, but they are not enough. They do not provide sufficient detail about what that peaceful world will look like to help us plan effective strategies for our work. Instead we may easily become reactive, spending our time trying to end wars, feed all the hungry or marching against discrimination. These are necessary activities that need to be done, but anti-war or anti-discrimination movements do not necessarily provide hope for a new, better and peaceful society.
The struggle for justpeace should not be fighting against things we do not like, but rather building positive alternatives which can replace those things we do not like. This is revolutionary thinking, and it is one of the important keys to ending injustice.
Revolutionary thinking helps us change our dreams into a vision of a justpeace world. A vision goes beyond a dream by providing a detailed drawing of what we want to build – like a detailed blueprint for construction of a building. We cannot start building on a dream unless that dream becomes a vision.
Through dialogue and deep listening with the marginalized, structural analysis can help identify the injustices of the present economic, political and ideological systems we live with. A vision for a new justpeace world would grow out of brainstorming how these injustices could be transformed and what they should be transformed into.
A vision must be translated into action. Joel A Barker has said, “Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.”
If we truly want to change the world, we need to stop dreaming and start creating a detailed vision for where we want to go.
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” Proverbs 29:18 (BRG Bible)
Be a Planter
Born in the late 1700s in the USA State of Massachusetts, John Chapman became a legend in American folk tales. According to the stories, he traveled around the Eastern States planting apple seeds and teaching local farmers how to care for them. People began calling him Johnny Appleseed and I grew up hearing tales and songs in honor of him. Many people give him credit for introducing apples to the eastern USA and parts of Canada. Basically he made the effort to plant the seeds which grew into trees, and even today we are benefiting from them.
How can we speak of servanthood if we stand as leaders over others? Our responsibility in the movement to build a true justpeace is not to act as leaders to that movement, but rather to faithfully plant seeds that will produce beautiful fruit in the future. Those seeds must be planted among the marginalized who can nurture the seeds and tend them so they produce an abundant harvest. It is a bottom-up approach to building justpeace.
As a planter we must plant for all – young and old, rich and poor, PHDs and illiterate peasants, powerful and powerless, those of faith and those who claim no faith. The planter sees all as equals - no one dominant and no one dominated, no one victimizing and no one victimized, no one with voice and no one voiceless. All are one.
To quell an argument in the church of Corinth which was splitting the congregation between those who saw Paul as their leader and others who saw Apollos as leader, Paul responds in frustration:
“Who do you think Paul is, anyway? Or Apollos, for that matter? Servants, both of us – servants who waited on you so you gradually learn to entrust your lives to our mutual Master. We each carried out our servant assignment. I planted the seeds, Apollos watered the plants, but God made you grow. It is not the one who plants or the one who waters who is at the center of this process but God, who makes things grow. Planting and watering are menial servant jobs at minimum wages. 1 Corinthians 3:5-9 (The Message)
We have been given the assignment to be planters of justpeace seeds – not leaders. Meetings like this will not be effective if they don’t result in the planting of seeds among the marginalized. We must trust the marginalized to provide leadership while, at the same time, providing them with information, ideas, knowledge, skills and encouragement that can nurture their vision of justpeace. Henri Nouwen suggested this when he said, “I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self…to enter into a deeper solidarity with the anguish underling all the glitter of success and bring the light of Jesus there.”
We must be the planters of seeds in a diverse garden where everyone works as equals, and those who are most marginalized are respected enough to be trusted with leadership. To truly do this, we must listen to them. The Chinese character for “listen” has several parts. The different parts say, “I give you my eyes. I give you my ears. I give you my heart. I give you my undivided attention.” This is deep listening and is perhaps the most important skill we need to master as we plant the seeds of justpeace.
Erase Good Intentions
During a meeting with Karen refugees along the Thai/Burma border in 1991, I used the word “victim” when talking about Internally Displaced People (IDP). Having fled their homes when the Burmese military attacked, they were hiding in the jungle without proper food, no medicines and no feeling of security. With good intentions I thought of them as victims.
One refugee responded very negatively at the term victim. “They are not victims,” he said very emphatically. “Hiding in the jungle is their way of struggling against the military. By hiding in the jungle they are saying that they will not be controlled or frightened by the heavily armed soldiers and that they will not run away to find safety in another country. They need us to support them in that struggle.”
Too much of the time out of good intentions we label the poor and oppressed as victims rather than star actors in their own drama to free themselves from subjugation. We have scholarly ideas of how the struggle for justpeace should be carried out and so we fail to recognize the people’s own movement because it is usually outside our own experience. At the same time, our “scholarly” strategies for justpeace are usually outside the experience of the marginalized, limiting their ability to participate fully.
Labeling people as victims (or even as poor and marginalized) can create a chasm between them and us. At the same time we need to always be aware that within our economic, political and ideological systems we are not all equal and certain labels help us remember that. Always be cautious when using labels even if done with good intentions because good intentions are not enough.
Bonus Component
In most every conflict, women and children suffer a lot. Perhaps it is better to say that women suffer the most because they will do everything they can to protect their children. If we are to work effectively for justpeace, we need recognize the immense suffering of women, and the strength and resilience they have to work for justpeace. They must sit at the round table with us and be involved in every step taken toward building a world of justpeace.
“People who have lived through a terrible conflict may be hungry and desperate, but they are not stupid. They often have very good ideas about how peace can evolve, and they need to be asked. That includes women. Most especially women.” (Lehmah Gbowee)7
DON’T BE BUSY. BE EFFECTIVE!
Don’t be a Peacemaker
Transform injustice so the gift of peace can flow freely to everyone.
Sleep on the Floor
Go out and meet the marginalized in the places they live and work. Take with you only a staff.
Parableize
Share the special knowledge and experiences you have through stories those living with injustice can most easily understand
Get in the Mud
Don’t be afraid to get muddy, but keep yourself like the lotus.
Welcome Inconvenience
Take the risk of stepping out of your comfort zone.
Don’t Look Down’
Get out of the boat, but keep your eyes on Christ for the strength and wisdom you need for this work.
Don’t Look Up
Instead of a top/down structure of managements, involve everyone as equals and focus on servanthood.
Stop Dreaming
Develop a very clear and detailed vision of the justpeace society that is to be built.
Be a Planter
Like Johnny Appleseed, be a planter of justpeace among those who are suffering the most in our societies.
Erase Good Intentions
Labels can either have positive or negative influence on people so use with caution because good intentions are not enough.
Bonus
We should actively give women and children leadership roles in every part of the movement for justpeace.
한중일평화포럼 자료집 보기 (강의원고 포함)
