This resolution was written to help you put words into action and live in solidarity with the poor. We are inspired and directed by the Word of God. The Bible is the basis of the standards in this resolution.

We offer this as a tool for accountability and community, not as a legalistic requirement. Christ has freed us for joyful obedience. And from that freedom (not obligation or shame), we can extend his love.

His love was not distant, but up close and personal. Through the incarnation, Jesus took on flesh and moved into the neighborhood. Christians are called to put faith into action through this incarnational, real-world, on-the-ground love.

If you would like to join this community of love, please read through the resolution with care and sign your name at the end. Simple Charity will then walk with you to remind, support and exhort you as you practice liturgies of solidarity with the poor.

LITURGIES OF SOLIDARITY

James K. A. Smith writes in You Are What You Love that liturgies are “habit-forming, love-shaping rituals that get hold of our hearts and aim our loves” (p. 38). Liturgies are things that we do that “do something to us” (p. 46). Solidarity is a term common in Catholic social teaching. It’s a word of unity that says, “I see you. I won’t turn aside from your suffering or oppression. I am with you.” In solidarity, we “rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn” (Romans 12:15). This solidarity resolution calls Christians to practice liturgies of solidarity with people experiencing poverty and injustice.

Liturgies of solidarity have daily, weekly, monthly and yearly rhythms. They are acts of worship to God and with people. Liturgies of solidarity are how we see the image of God, marred by suffering, in the lives of the vulnerable and respond with love.

Six spiritual disciplines, derived from the teachings of Jesus, invite us into solidarity with the vulnerable: giving (Matthew 6:1-4), prayer (Matthew 6:5-15), fasting (Matthew 6:16-18), gratitude (Matthew 6:19-24), faith (Matthew 6:25-34), and service (Matthew 25:31-46). As acts of worship, each practice must be shaped by the essential Christian virtues of humility, community and love.

ESSENTIAL VIRTUES 

Humility

Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. 

Matthew 6:1

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says that we must be holy not just externally but also internally. In Jesus’s economy, a good act with a prideful motive is worthless. Practicing liturgies of solidarity with humility means that we do them first and foremost as acts of worship to God. We would do them even if no one else knew.

Community

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. 

Hebrews 10:24-25

Community and humility fit together like pieces of a puzzle. Living in solidarity with the poor begins with a mutual connection between all of God’s people all over the world. Rich or poor, near or far, we are all members of the communion of saints and the body of Christ. Without community and mutuality, we can begin to imagine ourselves as someone’s savior instead of Jesus. The virtue of community also calls us to practice solidarity with a worshiping church. A local expression of the body of Christ stirs us toward love and good works. We also exhort others not by saying, “Look at me: How well I am doing” but rather, “Look at Christ: How He lived and the words He spoke.” Jesus becomes our shared love and standard.

Love

If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 

1 Corinthians 13:3

Love is the genuine pursuit of the well-being of another. If we do not love the poor when we give, our generosity is spiritually bankrupt. God wants our hearts. There is also a two-way relationship between our hearts and our habits. Even when we do not feel love, prayer and fasting can produce the love that we long for. Practicing liturgies of solidarity through love means that we do them to seek the flourishing of the poor, not for some ulterior motive. The love of Christ is our example.