Rhanee leading a group in Adelaide
A Path to Change As we move through a year of huge struggles and challenges, how might we be part of bringing healing, hope and justice to a broken world? Words Jess Bee
“The beatitudes cause us to rethink the world – to refigure what’s important and valuable”
4
This year, our world has been flung into a greater vortex of pain, injustice and oppression than some of us have ever experienced. And for many of us, our eyes have been opened to ongoing struggles and challenges. So, how do those of us who follow Jesus respond with love, peace and justice? One way is to demand change – the desire for transformation, so that we and others are happier, freer, kinder; more peaceful, more aware, more concerned with justice; so that the oppressed are set free, the lost are found, and so everyone is treated equally. We often look to others for change – but the Bible asks us to first make this journey ourselves.
Interact_3_2020_MK5_PRESS.indd 4
LOOKING INWARDS The Ninefold Path resources reflect this desire to see change and restoration in a world full of imbalance and inequality. The invitation to see things differently is captured in Jesus’ opening to the Sermon on the Mount: the beatitudes. Mark Scandrette, part of the NINE BEATS Collective and co-author of the Ninefold Path Notebook says: “The beatitudes … give a table of contents for the areas of human experience that Jesus is addressing through his life and message … he’s naming the illusions or distortions that keep us captive, and [he is] calling us back to what’s most real and true, and inviting us in to a new way of life.”1 The beatitudes
20/08/2020 18:14
