What Is the Heart of RSWR?
From its beginning in 1967 the basic idea of RSWR has been wealth redistribution. In 1967 we called it “right sharing”. Today, we also understand it as Jubilee justice or Sabbath economics, recalling the Biblical teaching of Sabbath and Jubilee. We believe God is calling Quakers and other persons of faith in the United States to this practice.
Luke 4:18-19 (echoing Isaiah 61:1-2) tells us:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Walter Brueggemann¹ has shortened Luke’s account of Jubilee justice to the following:
You find out what belongs to whom and give it back.
“Giving it back” is wealth redistribution. RSWR’s distinguishing feature is in the practice of redistribution as a grant (gift) of capital, which is then owned and used by women’s self-help groups to support the implementation of small-scale, income-generating businesses. Most micro-enterprise endeavors make capital available via loans, which must be paid back by the poor to the original owner of the capital. RSWR understands that God calls us to Jubilee justice, wealth redistribution, in the grants which continue to be redistributed. Our partners who receive the grant are women’s self-help groups who hold and manage the funds in common, making loans to members to implement small-scale, income-generating businesses. Each member must repay her loan, with interest, so that the original gift will continue to flow and grow within the community..
The heart of RSWR, then, is a partnership. One member of the partnership is Quakers and other persons of faith seeking to live more justly, providing capital to help support micro-enterprises, and experiencing jubilee justice. The other member of the partnership are women’s self-help groups who, with the guidance of local non-governmental organizations and by their participation in the self-help group and the micro-credit project, are living Sabbath economics in their own community.
What do these experiments and these women teach us? That the Jubilee can be a real, practical way of life that liberates us all into God’s shared abundance.
¹ “Voices of the Night—Against Justice” in Act Justly, Love Tenderly, Walk Humbly: An Agenda for Ministers. 1986
