| Living with less |
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| Tuesday, 20 May 2008 00:00 |
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Sarah White
In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians (Ch. 5), we hear Paul describe this as God’s mission of reconciliation, with everything old passing away and everything becoming new. God’s agent of reconciliation, Jesus Christ, entrusts this message of reconciliation to all who identify as Christian. Back in 2004, while nursing my newborn second child, I was overwhelmed by a sense that God was calling me to join the struggle to overcome extreme poverty in our world. This dire situation facing our world is an affront to God’s vision for wholeness, and as I took sight of my own baby, I knew that I must act. But how? Deeply troubled, I asked God, “What could I ever do to change this desperate and tragic situation?” At God’s initiative an idea was born and was given a name then and there in the middle of the night — Lent Event. Amazingly, at the time of receiving this vision, I was not a well-churched person. In fact, I was not quite sure what Lent was. All I knew was that God was calling me to start a movement called Lent Event where people would be encouraged to give up a non–essential item during Lent and to take the money that would otherwise have been spent on that luxury to put towards overcoming poverty. It wouldn’t be so much about giving more, but living with less, so that others might have an opportunity to live at all. I had been involved in the church for only a couple of years. A welcome few moments of stillness and support, through a monthly outreach and childcare program, had been my entryway into the community of faith. Energised and inspired by this vision from God, I approached my Minister to tell him of my experience. Preparing to describe a late-night encounter with God was somewhat nerve-racking but I knew that I had to risk whatever embarrassment or humiliation I might have encountered to share what God had entrusted to me. Thankfully, the Minister was very affirming and open to the idea that God was wishing to do new thing with us, and that Lent Event would be one way in which God might draw us closer to His purposes. He was able to articulate the depth of the Lenten journey, towards the centre of God’s reconciliatory action at Easter. Lent is not a diversion from our normal patterns and practices of faith, but a sharpening, a focusing of them. By getting involved in Lent Event we would be achieving what God has always wanted to do with us and with the Creation — to bring us all home, to save whatever is lost in us and to restore whatever is broken. From these critical first moments we established a Lent Event Council and negotiated a partnership with Uniting Church Overseas Aid. The partnership would enable the vision to grow and for funds to reach projects and make a difference in impoverished communities. More than that, though, the relationships developed mean this is not just about charity, but the connection between all who are created in the image of God. In three years $500k has been raised by people from across the Uniting Church entering into the Lent Event experience. But the money raised is a by-product of what God wants us to do. Though the causes of extreme poverty are many and complicated, we are all responsible both for our complicity in the systems that perpetuate poverty and for the choices we make in response to this global catastrophe. Poverty exists because of our brokenness as individuals and communities and overcoming it requires the reconciling and resurrecting power of God in Christ. Unpack the issues...
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Lent Event begins with a dream in the heart of God: to seek and save whatever is lost and to restore whatever is broken. 
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