Lent 2001 Resources

Litany of Stones

Index: Hebron: Litany of Stones Who will roll away the stone? Chiapas: Prayer/Litany from Vigil at Nestle's Factory for Economic Justice Who Will Roll Away the Stone of Economic Injustice? Action Suggestions Colombia Colombia: Who will roll away the stone of the lies of imperialism? Litany: Who will roll away the stone of the lies of imperialism? Scripture reading: Matthew 27:59-60, 62-64a, 65-66 Prayer for a New Society: Additional resources: Suggestions for reflection and action:

Some in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, order your disciples to stop." Jesus answered, "I tell you, if these were silent, then the stones would shout out." (Adapted from Luke 19:39-40)

They said to each other, "Who will roll away the stone?" (Adapted from Mark 16:2-3)

Who will roll away the stone?

As Christians throughout the world enter the Lenten wilderness this year 2001, it seems that we still do not know "the things that make for peace" (Luke 19:41). There is bloodshed and strife around the world, and the temptation to quell it with pax Romano (the military order of Rome), forgetting how to seek Pax Christi (the peace of Christ).

We invite you to enter the wilderness with Israelis, Palestinians, and internationals who have joined together trying to find that elusive peace. This prayer calendar is for those who find themselves in the deepest part of the wilderness, and for those willing to risk their lives by crossing barriers and entering that wilderness.

Holy week this year coincides with Passover. Easter and passover are both about liberation. Palestinians are looking for liberation from occupation, and from imprisonment that those under curfew and closure have endured since the end of September 2000. As we pray on Holy Saturday about those families affected by the closure, we remember that the Palestinian lands have been divided into 197 non-contiguous pieces which can be enclosed at will by checkpoints and heavy boulders closing the access roads. The heavy stones are blocking all hopes of peace and justice.

Israelis are also looking for liberation from the occupation they have imposed and from the hatred it has engendered against them. Both seek liberation from the fear that siezed them, mostly fear from "the other". Road blocks designed by soldiers to keep "the other" out have become instruments of imprisonment and killing. They also prevent Israelis and Palestinians from knowing "the other."

There are guards at these roadblocks, just as there were stationed at the tomb of Jesus. These borders are the points of clashes between Israelis and Palestinians. Are there disciples willing to take up the cross of non-violence? Are there Israelis, Palestinians and internationals willing to go to these borders, risking their lives just to reach out for "the other." If enough of them do, can the violence of the borders become non-violent pieces of holy ground? Will they found, as the disciples did, that the stone had already been rolled away?

We pray this Lenten season for those who are crossing borders and rolling away stones. We pray for their continued safety and courage. Pray that each of us may know how to answer our own call to discipleship. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.

Chiapas

Prayer and vigil for economic justice

Held at the Nestlé’s,
Chiapa de Corzo, Chiapas, Mexico
March 13, 2001

[Silence while candles are lit.]

Scripture Readings

Call to conversion

We stand today before the gate of this factory, praying for a just economy. We call on the managers of this plant and the directors of the corporation who are far away to hear the words of the prophet and the gospel. We think that transnational corporations such as Nestlé have succumbed to the temptation that Luke writes of: the desire to have power over all the kingdoms of this world. Nestlé’s actions in the international coffee market contributed to a fall in coffee prices that has caused the small coffee producers and their families in Chiapas to suffer. The stockholders of the company become rich, while the workers in this plant earn low wages. As Christians, we need to speak against an economic system that gives priority to profits over people.

Indigenous people in Chiapas and all of Mexico are calling for a respect for their rights and traditions. The gospel calls us to free the oppressed. As Christians who want to help bring in God’s reign of justice and peace, we challenge those who have positions of power in a global economic system to heed those calls. Let us pray.

Litany

Leader:  Dear Lord, be with us who are gathered here. And be in the heart of each person who is connected with this corporation: the managers, the executives, the workers, the coffee producers.
All:  Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
L:  We recognize our complicity in a global economy that values profits over people, that celebrates a rise in the stock market while producers of coffee in Mexico suffer hunger.
We pray for forgiveness for our participation in the violent and unjust structures of this system..
All:  Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer
L:  From the arrogance of power
All: Deliver us.
L:  From the poverty of violence
All:  Deliver us.
L:  From the tyranny of greed
All:  Deliver us.
L:  From the ugliness of racism
All:  Deliver us.
L:  From the politics of hypocrisy
All:  Deliver us.
L:  From the seduction of wealth
All:  Deliver us.
L:  From the addiction of control
All:  Deliver us.
L:  From the avarice of imperialism
All:  Deliver us.
L:  From the despair of fatalism
All:  Deliver us.
L:  From the violence of apathy
All:  Deliver us.
L:  Deliver us, O God.
All:  Guide our feet into the ways of peace.
L:  In humility, we ask
All:  Hear our prayer. Grant us peace. Amen.

Ritual of coffee pouring

[Worship leader or assistant pours coffee onto the ground.]

Prayer

Dear Lord, this coffee that we pour into the ground represents the sweat and labors of thousands of poor coffee farmers in Chiapas. We see that the fruit of their labors is not valued in the marketplace of the world economy. In your grace, O Lord, liberate us from these systems of domination. Let us help to bring in your reign: an economy of grace in which debts are forgiven, prisoners are freed, and all have sufficient food. Amen.

Who Will Roll Away the Stone of Economic Injustice?

A Litany of Repentance

Note: This litany was written by the CPT team in Chiapas after reflecting on the growing economic violence the people there are experiencing. Most people they work with are indigenous coffee farmers who struggle to make a living wage.

Coffee growers carry their coffee harvest for the day to their temporary homes away from paramilitary surveillances.

Scripture Reading: Mark 16:1-7

Reader:  As we reflect on the Gospel reading, what are the "stones" that stand in the way of us seeing the Risen Jesus? What rocks are there in our lives and communities that prevent us from seeing truly that Jesus is alive among us, what boulders stand in the way of us living fully in the Resurrection? One such "stone" stands seemingly immovable before us, each day growing menacingly larger-economic injustice. Who will roll away this stone?

Leader:  What will it take for we Christians living in North America to see that we are daily participating in an economic system of evokes violence?

People:  Have mercy upon us, O God, according to Your loving kindness; according to the multitude of Your tender mercies; blot out our transgressions. (Psalm 51:1)

Leader:  We acknowledge that we are intertwined in a global economy that places profit over people, one that revels in a sudden stock increase while coffee farmers in Mexico are malnourished, an economy that continually beckons with the song of "more...more... more!"

People:  Wash us thoroughly from our iniquity, and cleanse us from our sin. For we acknowledge our transgressions, and our sin is always before us. (Psalm 51:2-3)

Leader:  We keep seeing ourselves as Israel in bondage when we are Egypt holding God's people in slavery by our greed and hard-hearted ness. We enslave our brothers and sisters in Mexico, Haiti, Colombia, and other countries who toil to support our affluent lifestyle.

All:  Against You, God, You only, have we sinned, and done this evil in You light-that you may be found just when you speak, and blameless when You judge. By the grace of your Holy Spirit, God, break us free from the systems of domination and sin of which we're a part.

Closing Hymn: You Are the Salt of the Earth (Hymnal, A Worship Book, #226)

Chiapas: who will roll away the stone ... Of economic injustice?

"What happens if I can't make it up this hill?" CPTer William Payne had just spent a day helping Jose, a coffee farmer living in a refugee camp in the highlands of Chiapas, harvest his crop. He asked the question half-jokingly as the two hiked back to camp. "I guess you stay here," said Jose. "I'm not sure if he realized that it was a joke," Payne relates. "But the two-hour hike is no joke in Jose's life. To get to his coffee bushes he must first climb down from the refugee camp to the distant valley below. After a full day's work he usually needs to carry coffee back up that steep incline, on his back."

Background

For the past two years, CPTers in Chiapas, Mexico have spent their time working with people in refugee camps in the highland county of Chenalho. Here, over 10,000 people have fled their homes within the past three years because of threats of military or paramilitary violence. Most of the displaced people are farmers with small coffee plots, and coffee has been the major source of a cash income for the families.

Lack of easy access to their coffee bushes makes farming particularly difficult right now. Normally the farmers would maintain a regular routine of pruning their bushes and the needed shade trees, as well as removing the underbrush and using it to create organic fertilizer. Because some of the refugees live far from their fields and paramilitary threats still exist, now the farmers are only able to do the bare minimum field work, and therefore the yields are down significantly.

Added to the hardship, this year the international market has brought coffee prices to $.68 per pound down from $1.08 their lowest point in years. Thousands of coffee producers are new refugees from this economic violence, fleeing Chiapas in the hope of finding work in the cities or as agricultural laborers in the United States. The CPT team knows of young men from Chenalho who have left the displaced camps for Mexico City. Nevertheless, when we asked Mariano, one of the leaders of the camps' year-old coffee cooperative, if he saw a future for the children there as coffee farmers, he answered unhesitatingly, "Yes!"

Economics are inextricably tied to the conflict in Chiapas. When the Zapatistas captured world attention by resorting to arms on January 1, 1994, among the things they were protesting was economic globalization epitomized by the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on that date. Now in the political arena, the Zapatista platform emphasizes a respect for a plurality of traditions and culture, and for autonomous indigenous rights. The economic initiative proposed by new Mexican President Vicente Fox, which emphasizes increased foreign investment in Chiapas, will be tested at the negotiating table soon when native representatives from Chiapas arrive in Mexico City to resume the long promised negotiations.

Action Suggestions

• Public witness. The CPT Chiapas team plans several non-violent public witnesses confronting economic violence during Lent, with the first action scheduled for Ash Wednesday, February 28. The actions will include a vigil in front of a transnational corporation; traveling to Mexico City Abejas representatives and Zapatistas to set the stage for indigenous rights and economic development; cleaning houses that were abandoned when the Mexican Army invaded a community in the jungle to silence voices calling for economic and social justice. Consider a public witness in your own community that would draw attention to international economic justice issues, perhaps in connection with the Zapatista march (February 25-March 11) or with meetings of international financial leaders that will be in the news in the coming weeks. (The World Economic Forum is meeting in Cancun, Mexico, February 26-27, and the Free Trade Association of the Americas meets in Quebec City, Quebec, April 20-22.)



• Pray. Set aside a time at least once a week during Lent to lift in prayer the coffee farmers displaced from communities in the highland county of Chenalho, Chiapas. You might light candles, symbolizing the many lives disrupted by physical and economic violence in Chiapas. Place beside the candles on your worship table a small pile of coffee beans or ground coffee to keep in mind the economic importance of this product to the displaced people, and a large stone to represent the impediments to justice inherent in the current world economic system. You may chose to fast at some level on this day as a spiritual discipline and in solidarity with the displaced families who suffer hunger. (See the Litany of Repentance, below.)



• Buy and drink Fair Trade coffee. In addition, consider concrete steps that could improve the lives of small coffee producers. If you are a coffee drinker, make an effort to buy only "Fair Trade" coffee during Lent. The "Fair Trade" market pays a price to coffee producers that more fairly compensates them for their labor, independent of the New York Stock Exchange prices. You can buy Fair Trade coffee under such labels as Equal Exchange (251 Revere St., Canton, MA 02021, phone 781-830-0303; see their website for stores in your community that sell it: www.equalexchange.com) and TransFair (web site: www.transfair.com).
  
  The people we work with in Chenalho don't yet have an international outlet for their coffee, but Cloudforest Initiatives markets fairly traded coffee from nearby communities also in the highlands of Chiapas. (Contact them at PO Box 40207, St. Paul, MN 55104; tel. 651-592-4143; webpage: www.cloudforest-Mexico.org; e-mail: cloudforest@hwpics.com.) If Fair Trade coffee seems inaccessible for you, consider fasting from coffee during Lent. Other Fair Trade action ideas: Contact supermarkets, coffee shops, your company cafeteria, and your church coffee-hour chairperson and ask that they sell or serve Fair Trade coffee.

Colombia: Who will roll away the stone of the lies of imperialism?

Habakkuk's Complaint:

Corn field in Putumayo indiscriminately sprayed with Roundup Ultra from the air in the US' "war on drugs" as part of Plan Colombia.

"They're just killing everyone off. They're going to do the whole country in," said our host, as we sat watching a video on the effects of fumigation in the Putumayo region of Colombia. The video showed entire corn, yucca, and plantain crops dried up, fish farms poisoned, and animals starving for lack of uncontaminated food and water.

This is a war against drugs, we are told. The guerrilla forces are narco-terrorists who grow, produce, and sell coca, becoming rich and make the U.S. ever increasingly-dependent on cocaine. They also kidnap rich people, are a threat to Colombia's political stability, frustrate transnational corporations' efforts to drill and mine, and commit 23% of Colombia's politically-motivated violence every year. We are told that the most effective way to counter these evils is to destroy coca at its source--the standing coca fields--thereby destroying the economic source of the guerrilla forces, and strengthen Colombian military forces against the insurgency.

The reality here is very different. There are large coca growing areas in the north of Colombia that are under paramilitary control, but it is first and especially the coca-growing areas in the south, under guerrilla control, that are designated for fumigation. The paramilitaries, who commit 75% of the political violence in the country, target social workers, church workers, schools, teachers, campesinos, Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities, and anyone who "might" sympathize with the guerrillas. Paramilitaries raid towns, commit massacres, rape, torture, evict people from their homes, burn down whole villages, displacing tens of thousands of people every year. The Colombian military allows, and often oversees the work of the paramilitaries, who claim to be defending the country against the guerrillas. Although Colombia is called the "oldest democracy" in Latin America, a small oligarchy, which has never been concerned with the poor majority, retains effective political and economic control and allows and encourages the political violence with impunity.

The Lord's Answer:

Behind the displacement of tens of thousands of people, whether through fumigation or armed violence, lies the real reason for this war--clearing the land to make way for the exploitation of resources. Colombia is one of the resource-richest countries in Latin America. Oil, gold, coal, uranium, lumber and water are in great abundance, and as far as trans-nationals are concerned, they are there for their taking. For the U.S., it is not only a matter of access to exploitation of resources, but the need to control the entire region by building up Colombia's military in case the region becomes too unstable.

"'Woe to him who piles up stolen goods and makes himself wealthy by extortion! How long must this go on?' Will not your debtors suddenly arise? Will they not wake up and make you tremble? Then you will become their victim. Because you have plundered many nations, the people who are left will plunder you. For you have shed man's blood; you have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them. Woe to him who builds his realm by unjust gain to set his nest on high, to escape the clutches of ruin! You have plotted the ruin of many peoples, shaming your own house and forfeiting your lifeThe violence you have done to Lebanon will overwhelm you, and your destruction of animals will terrify you. For you have shed man's blood; you have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them." (Hab. 2:5c-10, 17)

The passages from Habakkuk speak of the Babylonians, that powerful nation which overran the entire middle east at the time of Israel's exile. Yet, it speaks just as well for the United States of America today, a nation with the intent of controlling the resources of the entire world to sustain the gluttonous standard of living of the North. Though it is not the Canadian or U.S. military that actually carries out these acts of violence, it is Canadian military equipment and U.S. military personnel and money that trains and supplies Colombian soldiers in tactics of counterinsurgency.

While we in North America are led to believe that our governments' intentions in Colombia are good--i.e. eradicating the drug supply that plagues our societies--those who suffer under our governments' lust for military power and economic control know the real story: their loss of life and livelihood is a forced sacrifice for trans-national corporate wealth and the maintenance of consumptive lifestyles in the North. Who has the courage to roll away the stone and expose the truth?

Litany: Who will roll away the stone of the lies of imperialism?

Lent is a time for self-searching, confession and purification in preparation for the day of Resurrection. As believers in the risen Christ, we must search our own lives, acknowledging our willing obliviousness to the pain, suffering, and extreme poverty of the nations our governments invade through imposed economic policies and military aid. We must confess our complicity in the worship of wealth, especially in our own excessive consumption of resources. We must promote self-purification from participation in the systems that concentrate wealth in the hands of a few through physical and economic violence.

Scripture reading: Matthew 27:59-60, 62-64a, 65-66

Reader 1:  But you have planted wickedness, you have reaped evil, you have eaten the fruit of deception. (Hosea 10:13a)

Reader 2:  We denounce the lie that the U.S. involvement in the Colombian war is based on the concern for drug addiction in our own society.

People:  As Kingdom citizens, we recognize that the root of the evil of the Colombian war is the intent to concentrate wealth in the hands of a few.

Reader 1:  Woe to them who plan iniquity, to those who plot evil on their beds! At morning's light they carry it out because it is in their power to do it. They covet fields and seize them, and houses, and take them. They defraud a man of his home, a fellowman of his inheritance. (Micah 2: 1-2)

Reader 2:  We denounce the lie that the most effective way to counter the evil of drugs is to poison the land on which the poor depend for their very lives.

People:  As Kingdom citizens, we recognize that our greed for wealth requires the land of the poor and sets up a chain of oppression that culminates in and escalates armed conflict.

Reader 1:  Because you have depended on your own strength and on your many warriors, the roar of battle will rise against your people, so that all your fortresses will be devastated. (Hosea 10:13b-14)

Reader 2:  We denounce the lie that greater military force will bring an end to the deadly conflict in Colombia.

People:  As Kingdom citizens, we name militarism as a mechanism for concentrating and glorifying wealth in our society.

All:  Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips. Assyria cannot save us; we will not mount war horses. We will never again say "Our gods" to what our own hands have made, for in you the fatherless find compassion. (Hosea 14:2b-3)

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Prayer for a New Society:

Additional resources:

Let there be light, Lord God (Hymnal, A Worship Book, #371)
For the healing of the nations (Hymnal, A Worship Book, #367)
Lord whose love in humble service (Hymnal, A Worship Book, #369)

Suggestions for reflection and action:

• Fast for a day.
  

  Members of CPT Colombia will be fasting during Lent, calling for a stop to the fumigation and the support of armed violence. Choose a day this week and each week of Lent to join in this fast.

• Fast from using petroleum products.
  

  Oil is the main resource open to trans-nationals in Colombia. In the spirit of confession and purification choose a day or week to find alternative forms of transportation such as biking, walking, or public transportation when possible. Avoid buying plastics, and find ways to recycle throw-away plastic containers.

• Pray for those displaced by fumigation and paramilitary violence.



• Check out the web for the pictures and stories of people the CPT team has met, and pray for their health and security.



• Contact your government officials.



• Call for an end to the supplying of military equipment and training to Colombia that is only increasing the numbers of deaths and displaced through increased violence.