A Recipe for Justice

Most congregations love to eat together, as much as Jesus loved eating with his friends (and breaking all those food taboos about eating with women and outcasts and sinners.)  One thing I love about being an Associate Conference Minister is visiting the churches of my association and eating with them!  Oh the rich diversity of our big inclusive table!  Oh taste and see that the Lord is good!

My favorite food is seafood.  I’m a volunteer at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, whose mission statement is (very simply!) "to inspire conservation of the oceans."  Every year in May they offer a huge sold out weekend event, "Cooking for Solutions," with a famous chef and lots of local restaurants and seminars and demonstrations, all about cooking delicious food using only seafood from sustainable fisheries.  Great food, and helping to save the oceans.  Does it get any better?

I could call this column "Cooking for Justice." 

What ingredients do we need to build community and make a difference in the world?  I learned a simple recipe for inspiring leadership and justice from a recent gathering in Hayward.  Just follow these steps:

1) Take one of our UCC "firsts," Rev. Hector Lopez, first Latino ordained in the UCC, and now a retired Conference Minister from Central Pacific.
2) Stir in the idea of a Hector Lopez Endowment Fund for Latino and Latina seminarians.
3) Add in a big helping of money, from a generous church member, Dr. Peter Barbosa of First Congregational UCC, Oakland, who made a $50,000 matching grant to the Scholarship Fund.
4) Mix in Rev. Linda Jaramillo, Executive Minister for Justice and Witness Ministries at the national setting of the UCC, whom Hector Lopez mentored.
5) Invite her to preach at Eden UCC, Hayward this past month.
6) Fold in Rev. Arlene Nehring, pastor at Eden, who inspired her church to donate $500 to the fund that day.
7) Spice it up with the addition of NCNC Associate Conference Minister Drew Nettinga who staffs our Justice and Witness work here.
8) As a surprise, add in young Isabel from the Eden church whose grandmother is a friend of Jaramillo’s in Oregon.

Shake and bake this "heady and exasperating mix" (an early description of the UCC!) and voila! future leaders of our denomination who will feed us and be fed by this delicious recipe for seminary scholarships.

All this took place Feb. 21 when these ingredients came together, this picture was taken, and, Nehring reports, Dr. Barbosa’s gift meant the fund is nearly fully seeded.

Every ingredient in this recipe is part of our denomination’s work for human rights, and social, racial and economic justice.  When we mix this all together, these people and gifts and ideas and future leaders, we see a world where no one need go hungry in body or spirit. 

What are your church’s stories/recipes for justice?