Gentrification and Crime - a Perspective

As a church living in the boundaries of Oakland, we seek to address the divisions that exist when people 'who don't belong together' live in the same community.

I was struck by this thoughtful perspective on KQED this morning. Love to hear your comments -- or better yet, go on the KQED website and share your thoughts!

Protesters Unite in Egypt

Here's a photo from http://www.good.is/ showing Christians protecting Muslims as they pray in Egypt. What are your thoughts on this? How can we bring this kind of love to our streets in Oakland? Any ideas?

http://www.good.is/post/protesters-are-awesome-look-at-this-beautiful-photo-of-christians-protecting-praying-muslims-in-egypt/

Where is the church?

Great article sent in by Kathy Dwyer.... 'Where is the church?'

Dr. Barbara is the Executive Administrator for C. H. Mason Bible College with four campuses - Oakland, Stockton, Vallejo and Sacramento, CA. These colleges offer undergraduate and graduate accredited degrees. Spring registration starts February 1st. Her many contributions make the world a better place for all of us.
For more information: www.eastbaytheologicalseminary.org
or 800-277-2340

Dr. Barbara says:

"Where Is The Church?

My heart is sadden as I sit and question the loss of a 16 year young man who felt the need to take his own life and a community workerreferred to as 'the community Dad' become the victim of a senseless homicide. We must take time to ask the question again - Why the violence - both self inflected and that perpetrated on others? Have we created a climate of hopelessness, despair and frustration or the sense of helplessness and the lack of self worth?

We have to take responsibility for our own actions we are sure, but we can't look at these incidents in isolation. We are all products of our environment whether positive or negative to a certain extent. The destruction of family structure, the lack of boundaries, knowing the difference between self esteem and self worth. Many people esteem their feelings, wants and needs above everyone and anyone, but do not know their self worth, in the fact that they will jeopardize and even forfeit hey lives for a can of beer or a pair of shoes.

We as a people must join forces to communicate and educate ourselves and our children in how to prevent the actions and reactions to situations that are plaguing our neighborhoods and therefore our lives. My question is where is the 'church'. Are we connected to our neighborhoods, youth outside of our churches? Are able to do more than just pray? The real problem is that many of the same people perpetrating the crimes or even the victims of the crimes are our family and members of our congregation. We can no longer stand silent on the issues, with over 200 churches in the city of Richmond and 400 in the city of Oakland; we have to be on the front line to protect our families, neighborhoods and schools. How can we have good neighborhoods if people who know what is good aren't helping to shape our neighborhoods? If houses of worship understood their calling, things would change for the better. Getting involved is simply another way to worship God and love people.

The main challenges for churches are to:
1) understand their freedoms and their mandate - 'Thou shall love thy neighboras thyself' - Gal. 5:14
2) overcome fear or complacency
3) learn how to use their resources effectively to influence community, state and nation.

Join us as we explore this topic each month."

Dr. Barbara J Williams ThD

Article for Sunday's Potluck Discussion

How OCC Eats

A Reflection on our Beliefs and Practice of Eating at OCC

Food: Our City and Our Moment

Food matters in our city. It matters in ways that we think carefully about and it matters in ways that we don’t want to think about. The East Bay is home to some of the most forward thinking on food. From Alice Waters[1] and Michael Pollan[2] to the Slow Food Movement[3], the Locavore movement[4], and proliferation of Farmer’s Markets, there is greater attention given to how we eat, what we eat and where we get our food from. People are realizing that food matters to who we are.

Conversely, there is the other side of food. Large swathes of Oakland have liquor stores on every corner and not a supermarket for miles. The cost and availability of groceries along with the availability of unhealthy, even poisonous alternatives means that many in our city are unable to sustain even a basic healthy diet. “In the flatlands, where the median household income is $32,000, there’s an average of one supermarket per 93,126 residents, according to a 2009 report by the Hope Collaborative. The same report found that in the Oakland Hills, where the median household income is over $58,000, there’s an average of one supermarket per 13,778 residents.”[5]

Childhood obesity and other health problems also plague the city. While local schools in the OUSD are working to provide healthier lunches, Alameda County Food Bank is experiencing its lowest stocks in years. Food for many families is one more source of stress.

We can also say briefly, since the point is obvious, that food is a deep identifier of culture and economic status. Simply imagine the acceptability of walking into certain environments with a Starbucks Frappuccino™ in a paper cup or with an extra large McDonald’s ice tea. Caloric differences aside[6], we all sense the cultural judgments each would convey.

In many ways, food in Oakland is a ‘Tale of Two Cities’. And when it comes to food, it is the best of times and the worst of times. Food, like money, education and crime, divides our city. What would the gospel say about this?

Before we answer that question, we must also say that food is the great unifier – and that matters too. We all eat. But more than that, food is a common language. A table is a table. A meal is a meal. An invitation to share a meal is, in most cases, an honor. Even as we look through a diverse socio-economic lens on food, we remember also that food is not a grand idea, but an everyday reality. Whether it’s a table for one, or a crowded kitchen, it’s around food that we most powerfully experience family and friendship as well as loneliness. We may eat Top Ramen or the latest experiment from Epicurious.com, but it’s around food that we taste and feel the mundane repetition and glorious variety of life. A microwave meal, a drive-thru or a slowcooker says a lot about the busyness of our life. With food we show love to our children, learn wisdom from our parents, and open our lives to friends and strangers. With food we tell the story of our culture. Food tells people who we are. Food is not just nutrition or diet – it is an expression of our lives – our pace, our wealth, our relationships and our commitments.

But food brings us together in other ways. One of the most common ways we interact with people of a different economic level than ourselves is through food. A beggar asks for a handout. A waiter asks for the customers’ order. A street vendor hands the pedestrian a burrito. Speaking culturally, many of us have loved an ethnic cuisine before we have loved someone of that ethnicity. So, it is also true to say that food can unite. And what does the gospel say about this?

Our Gospel: The Connection Between God and Gut

Broadly speaking, a deep physicality pervades Scripture. Our spirits are deeply connected to our bodies, each affecting the other. The world we touch, taste and smell is a reminder of a good God. This connection is only strengthened by the appearance of Jesus, the Son of God in the flesh. Scripture embraces the goodness of creation, including food and the process of growing, cooking and eating. It is, in God’s own word, good.

Yet even as we see the positive connection between real food and real spirit, we must also take with seriousness the potentially negative correlation. Physical hunger can crush a person’s spirit. Rejection from the table can translate to real spiritual despair. Paul, in his discussion of meat offered to idols in 1 Corinthians 8-10 is able to say: “Food will not commend us to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do.” (8:8) But if food is eaten in a way that shames or discourages a brother… this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died. Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ.” (8:11) In short, Paul can say “whether you eat or drink… do it all to the glory of God.”

IN SHORT: Who we eat with and how we eat matters to God. It is never neutral.

Specifically, I see 4 major threads in Scripture that help us see the connection between food and the gospel of God. 1.The dependence of the people of God on the provision of God in the wilderness (see Genesis and Exodus) 2. the legal redistribution of food for the sake of justice and joy in the law of the OT (see Deut 26 esp. and Isaiah 58) 3. Jesus use of food as a ministry tool (Luke 19), a teaching moment, a kingdom parable (Luke 14), and supreme image of his relationship with his people ( Lord’s Supper) 4 The role of food in the NT church as a signifier of unity and gospel living. (1 Cor 11 and Acts 13)

In these threads I see 4 principles that we as a church can address and apply.

1. Eating should be joyful and builds community: Food should be a cause for celebration. It is nourishing and delightful. In Genesis we hear that the plants in the garden are pleasant to the sight and good for food. The OT tithe was really a feast for everyone. Jesus clearly loves a party and sometimes invites himself over to dinner! Jesus cooks for his disciples to celebrate his resurrection and becomes known in the ‘breaking of the bread’.

2. Eating is a reminder of our dependence on God and on each other: Deuteronomy 26:5-15 teaches the necessity of remembering and generosity. A strong theme throughout the Old Testament is the tendency of humans to forget our dependence on God when things are going well for us. Our dependence is a unifying reality which binds rich and poor together – we simply need to acknowledge. The Old Testament remedy to this chronic forgetfulness is a regular feast with a liturgy ‘A wandering Aramean was my father…’ and an invitation to all the community to share in it.

Who We Eat With Is More Important than How Well We Eat: Jesus makes this explicit and implicit in his ministry. In Luke for example there are 19 instances of Jesus sharing food. In Luke 14 he speaks specifically about the need to invite everyone into the feast. Radical hospitality is close to the heart of God. We are judged by who comes to our table. And the wedding feast of the lamb in Revelation 19 is notable for its diverse guest list.

Food is a Crucial Way to Express Justice: Hunger is a spiritual. Connected here is the way hunger brings shame, and hospitality brings honor. To invite the hungry to your table is to honor them. To let the hungry go unfed is to shame them. And those who insult the poor insult God. We cannot claim to love the hungry unless we feed them. We cannot claim to have fellowship without table fellowship.

Practice: How a Value become a Virtue

Values are just opinions unless we have the shared strength to live out those opinions. That’s what virtue is.

So, how then, should we live? As a church of people who ‘don’t belong together, gathered around Jesus’ how do we approach food? Can we say that we are truly gathered together, if we are not gathered around food? Can we truly say that we belong, if we don’t sit around the same table? Moreover, as a church of people who exist for the sake of the people who don’t belong, how do we extend belonging through a shared meal? How do we extend joyful eating to the hungry?

How do we share table fellowship? In a church where people have differing cultural expectations of food and differing resources (some – more time, some – more money, others – more skill) how do we come together? How does food become a strengthening of our fellowship and joy together? How do we use the strength of our food values to help us do it?

How do we offer food to the city? Do we give money, give food, serve food, or share meals? Each of these steps is closer to the poor than the next – from handout to hospitality. How close do we want to come to those in need? What values can we draw on to sustainably care for the hungry.

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[1] Waters’ work and philosophy is based on the principle that access to sustainable, fresh, and seasonal food is a right, not a privilege, and believes that the food system needs to be “good, clean, and fair”. Waters also serves as a public policy advocate on the national level for school lunch reform and universal access to healthy, organic foods, and the impact of her organic and healthy food revolution is typified by Michelle Obama’s White House organic vegetable garden.

[2] Pollan is the author of In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto and other books and articles. His main theses are that we should return to eating foods that our grandparents would recognize; We should shop around the perimeter of the supermarket where fruit and fresh foods are kept, rather than the middle, frozen or processed food sections; Finally and most bluntly: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

[3] The Wall Street Journal highlighted urban farming in Oakland in its article on the Slow Food Movement in the US. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121926371492857735.html.

[4] See http://oaklandlocal.com/tags/locavore

[5] See http://oaklandnorth.net/few-food-choices/

[6] Or not. A Chocolate Triple Thick® Shake (21 fl oz cup) is 770 cal. A Venti White Chocolate Blended Creme Frappuccino with whip will get you 760 cal. – so, there’s that.

Vitamin Angels Video

This is the organization Josh talked about tonight-

Vitamin Angels: Be an Angel from Vitamin Angels on Vimeo.

What does it mean to love the city?

Interesting view of 'loving the city' from an African American perspective. It challenged me on some approaches. Anthony Bradley is a thoughtful Reformed pastor in NY. Love to hear your feedback. Here is his conclusion:

"As such, one would expect that on Sunday a church that's really "loving the city" making claims about "renewing the city," and so on, would have pews filled with single black and Latino adults, single moms, pregnant women, ex-cons, neighborhood children, substance abusing addicts, HIV/AIDS patients, the unemployed, and so on, in addition to those elites who have the opposite providence in order to transfer human capital and demonstrate solidarity with those who are disadvantaged."

http://bradley.chattablogs.com/archives/2011/01/on-loving-2-ver.html

One pretty awesome fruit man

My daughter, Sadie, goes to daycare in the mornings when I'm at work. I'm a teacher in East Oakland, so I drop her off at a family daycare nearby the school. This family has 3 daughters that attend/have attended the school I work at.

A few weeks ago as I was coming to pick up Sadie, a big truck was blocking the driveway to the family daycare. When I went inside to pick up Sadie, I asked about the truck. Sadie's daycare provider explained that the man comes by every Monday or Tuesday to sell fruit to some of the families in the neighborhood. I was intrigued (of course!), so on my way back out to the car, I peeked in the the back of the truck. The man had shelves of vegetables and fruits in baskets in the bed of the truck. He had a hanging scale, and was chatting with a relative of the family that Sadie stays with.

I was so excited about this fruit truck. I loved to imagine the relationship the seller builds with the neighborhood and with the families he interacts with. I became excited thinking about the needs this fruit man was meeting- he was bringing healthy foods to those too old or busy to venture out. I don't much about how this fruit man operates, but I'm assuming he's made a name for himself in the Latino community in East Oakland. This fruit truck is addressing the need to bring healthy, affordable fruits and vegetables into this fairly isolated East Oakland neighborhood- and that's pretty awesome!

How can we do this as a church? What needs do you see in our community? How can we reach out in love to those who are isolated or in need? What are some creative ways (like this fruit truck!) that we can collectively meet those needs? Any thoughts?  

The photo is from this website: http://www.upfromthedirt.com/bulk.html This is the first time I heard of this project- but it sounds neat.