Cruciform Discipleship: How to Sacrifice for the Climate

A discipleship of climate action involves sacrifice. And your Friday Nudge is to make some soup - recipe included

Friday Nudge: Make Some Soup

Hi friends.

Margi Prideaux, PhD

, writer of

Radically Local

said on Substack Notes earlier this week that because she spends her time writing about the climate collapse, she loves to see her feed fill up with pictures of gardens and other growing things.

She and I agreed that we need to see growth and growing wisdom in our downtime, since we spend our time thinking and writing about collapse.

Maybe that’s why my posts on social media about my gardening and especially about my cooking are so popular. We need what feeds us, literally and metaphorically, to help us deal with what is trying to destroy us.

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With that in mind, your Friday Nudge is to make some soup. Here is one of my favourite recipes, because I can use whatever veggies I have on hand. The key to this soup is its unique flavour profile: cinnamon and turmeric. Enjoy, and please let me know if you make it!

Rev. Jessica’s Traveller’s Soup

Serves 4 (I always double what’s below so that I have leftovers)

Ingredients:

3 Tbs olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

2 stalks of celery, chopped

2 medium-large potatoes OR: 1 large sweet potato/small squash (you can mix this up. The key is something starchy or fleshy)

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp smoked paprika

1 tsp dried basil

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/8-1/4 tsp cayenne - depends on how much spice you can tolerate. Me, not much.

1 tsp salt

1 bay leaf (who am I kidding? I never add just one!)

4 cups water or stock (I usually add water plus veggie broth powder)

2 tomatoes, chopped (I use whatever I have, sometimes it’s leftover canned diced tomatoes)

2 sweet peppers, seeded and chopped (Choose your colours. I don’t like green peppers, but maybe you do. Make one of them red, yellow or orange, at least. Otherwise it’s too bitter)

1 large tin of chickpeas, drained. (You could try another light bean, like pinto, black eyed peas, or navy beans.)

1 Tbs soy sauce or tamari (I forgot this in the picture, but it was still delicious!)

Instructions:

1. In a large soup pot over medium heat, heat the olive oil and sauté the onions, celery and potato until softened.

2. Add the garlic, spices and salt. Cook for a couple of minutes.

3. Add the bay leaf and water/stock. Bring to a boil quickly, then immediately reduce to a simmer. Partially cover and cook for 15 minutes.

4. Add tomatoes, peppers and chickpeas, bring back to a quick boil, then simmer for 10 minutes.

5. Stir in the soy or tamari, taste and adjust the seasoning as desired.

Note: if that’s more peppers than you want, especially if you double it (when do I have 4 peppers on hand?), then feel free to add fewer (if you just use one, I suggest using a red, yellow or orange pepper) or add whatever else you need to use up. Carrots, kale, fennel…you get the idea.

Serve and enjoy! It’s delicious with sourdough bread. I promise.

Did you make this soup? What did you use?

Cruciform Discipleship: How to Sacrifice for the Climate

Discipleship is cruciform; it is discipleship shaped in the form of the cross. This means that it takes the shape of the life and ministry of Jesus, not only in what he did while he was alive, but within the shadow and context of the cross. This might seem like an obvious, self-evident thing to point out. Isn’t the whole point of discipleship to follow the way of Jesus?

Yes, it is. By saying that discipleship is cruciform, I am suggesting that discipleship, especially a discipleship of climate action, needs to follow the way of Jesus, and Jesus himself, all the way to the cross. Our discipleship should be challenging enough to ourselves and to the wider world that the cross, the sacrifice, persecution and suffering that Jesus endured are what we risk as we follow the way of Jesus.

McFague describes discipleship as cruciform living, and defines it this way: “The cruciform way of Christ means making sacrifices so that others might live.”^⁠¹ Cruciform living is action in the world modelled on the life, ministry and death of Jesus of Nazareth. We can’t claim to follow the way of Jesus unless that includes his death. Jesus’ life and ministry only make sense in the shadow of the cross. Of course, we do not live in first-century Palestine, and so our understanding of how to follow Jesus in our time and place is to be interpreted in the current context of global ecological devastation and poverty. Discipleship as cruciform, or cruciform living, is a low Christology. This means our discipleship is based on how Jesus lived in his Earthly life, rather than focused on his divine nature.

A discipleship that is cruciform looks at the call to climate action beyond its ethical demand. This is about more than just doing the ‘right thing’ in our time and place; instead, it revolves around the command from Jesus to love our neighbours, both our human and other-than-human neighbours in the natural world.

A cruciform discipleship is predicated on the idea of sacrifice.

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