“Radically Ordinary”: Working out of love to restore hope

Last week, Chandra, Kathryn and I attended “Radically Ordinary: An evening with Shane Claiborne” at a downtown church in Ottawa. The sanctuary was packed with people of all ages representing a wide variety of churches and faith backgrounds.

A very dynamic speaker and co-founder of The Simple Way, a Philadelphia based movement promoting community living and care for one another, Shane challenged us to re-evaluate our own motives and actions in the mission of bringing love and hope to a broken world. Suffering is something most people try to avoid at all costs, but part of Shane’s challenge was for people to enter places of suffering and injustice to bring hope.

The coming of Christ into this broken world, followed by his death and resurrection, illustrate the need and importance of working to alleviate suffering. First, to follow the example of Christ, we too are called to reach those who suffer. Then the resurrection generates the hope of restoration of creation and the coming of the Kingdom of God, and our call to participate in this.

At the forefront of this movement or calling is the promotion of human dignity for all peoples. Above everything is the call and command to love God, and the second greatest command is to love others, recognizing our common identity as beings made in the image of God.

With these principles in mind Shane addressed two key areas, economic justice and care for creation. He applied this to the work of churches, communities, and individuals. CPJ would take it one step further and also apply it to the development of government policies that address these concerns in a way that emphasizes care for others and the world around us.

As a society consumed by greed and wealth, care for the poor is often ignored or put on the backburner. But as Shane pointed out, Scripture as well as principles of justice clearly state the importance of looking after all people, especially the poor or vulnerable within society.

In terms of creation care and environmental protection, Shane again pointed to the hope of restoration of creation found in the resurrection. Along with greed comes overconsumption. Creation care is about not being wasteful and only taking what we need for future generations, and living under the principle of restoration.

In all of this, Shane emphasized love – love for God and love for one another. He challenged everyone to take this back to our communities and places of work. These actions are ordinary because they are practical, and anyone can participate and incorporate them into everyday life. They are radical because they are so different from the attitudes and motivations in the world around us. But they have the power to really bring hope into a broken world.