There is a new ministry starting up in our congregation - a food pantry for folks in the school district. We live about 10 miles from a larger town that has a food pantry. It serves the entire county, but as always, there are those that fall through the cracks. So a group of folks in our congregation got together and are starting a food pantry, aptly named "Grace's Table." I say aptly because our congregation's name is Grace Lutheran.
As we were first getting started, plenty of people stepped up to offer advice and ideas. One piece of advice was offered repeatedly by almost everyone. "You will have to do something to make sure that you screen people so that they don't cheat the system or try to get food if they do not really need it. We can't have people abusing the system. WE have to make sure that the people coming to the pantry really deserve the food."
The organizers and I all agreed. No screening, no one turned away. That doesn't sit well some people. They are convinced that we (the congregation) will be taken advantage of. I have given some thought to that understanding of helping our neighbor. I keep coming back to that apt name - GRACE'S Table.
When I think of God's grace, I never think of it as being in short supply. Grace is the relationship that God enters into with us through the waters of baptism. The relationship is initiated by God because of Jesus' death and resurrection. Now we can abuse and take advantage of that relationship. We can ignore, reject, and take it for granted. We can repeatedly walk into the same pattern of sin over and over again and sometimes we will do it intentionally because we know we are forgiven. Martyr and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer refers to that as "cheap grace."
But from God's end of the relationship, the grace is always there waiting for our response. We may ignore the relationship and take advantage of the grace God extends to us, but God is a relentless God. God continues in the relationship. Nowhere in scripture do we hear that God sent his only Son into the world to save ONLY those who were not going to abuse the relationship of grace or try to cheat the system. Nowhere does scripture tell us that God offers the relationship of grace to ONLY the deserving. No God offers us the relationship of grace through Jesus to ALL, never takes it back, never suggests that we need to earn it or deserve it. In fact, St. Paul is very clear that it was while we were still sinners that Christ died for us. In other words, God comes to us in grace when we are most undeserving, playing no favorites, keeping no score of the number of times we take advantage of the relationship or fall short on our end. God's grace is abundant and unchanging. The relationship is begun in Christ not because we deserve it, but exactly because we could never deserve it or earn it apart from Christ.
So I think that if God's grace keeps no count of sins, but instead is abundant and unchanging, based not on our deserving, but on God's mercy and love, then Grace's Table ought to operate under similar principles.
Will someone take advantage? Possibly. But I'll let them answer for that when their day to face God comes. In the meantime, the folks at Grace's Table know what it means to receive what we do not deserve with no fear of it ever being taken away no matter how many times we fall short. So they have chosen to to do the best they can to let Grace's Table mirror God's grace - abundantly giving without making judgments about who is deserving or not.
I think they just may be on to something here! Grace's Table: Food Pantry and More - a place where the hungry are fed; plain and simple.
It what ways does your life reflect the abundance of God's grace?
Come to the table of mercy ... Grace: abundant and unchanging
Blessings -
PK
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Soulful Slowdowns.
We sat in a circle in a small, sunny room at a nearby retreat center. Five of us whose lives had reached the point where we felt so in need of a respite that we actually payed $25 and scheduled a formal "Summer Sabbath Day." The facilitator was speaking briefly, reading from some article she had found in Christianity Today about a new 'sickness' that is infecting society. I admit that I felt frustrated - she was cutting into my sabbath time. I started to check out, but then I mentally chastised myself for being so impatient and began to listen better. That was when her words landed on me like a hammer.
"Do you find yourself speeding through the day; multi-tasking in order to get everything accomplished? When you attempt to schedule a meeting or event, do you look at your calendar and not know whether to laugh or cry? Do you experience sunset fatigue - the desire to do nothing but sit after the end of the day, energy depleted, compassion expended, ability to engage in meaningful relationships with your loved ones non-existent? Are you surrounded by clutter - your office, your, home, your mind? You probably have hurried sickness."
I would like to say that it is a bunch of b.s. that some psychologist or somebody made up, but she was describing my life. And I FELT sick - physically, spiritually, and emotionally. That was what had prompted me to pay $25 to come here this day when I really had no time to do so (or so I thought) to take a sabbath day. The looks on the faces and the gently nodding of the heads of those around me assured me that I was not alone.
The thing is, I think we were the lucking ones. We had the opportunity to get away for a day and breathe. And someone to affirm that we were doing a good thing by caring for ourselves. I think very few people get those luxuries.
But I do think that more people than I would have imagined suffer from hurry sickness and do not even realize it or imagine any alternative.
One of the most common symptoms of hurry sickness is clutter. Let me tell you, there is a LOT of clutter in our lives.
Our congregation had a rummage sale this past weekend, a fund-raising event for a food pantry we are getting started. I was amazed by the amount of stuff that filled our fellowship hall. I was even more amazed on Sunday morning when I walked into the fellowship hall before worship. The fellowship hall looked like we were getting ready to have a rummage sale, not having just finished one. "How," I thought to myself, "could we have sold enough stuff to raise over $600 and STILL have a fellowship hall full of stuff?" It took several women in the congregation and the better part of an afternoon to clear out the leftovers.
The 'after' version of that fellowship hall, has been nagging at me. All of that stuff that was cluttering up our fellowship hall, where did it come from? And if one family no longer needed it, but it didn't sell in the rummage sale, then was it really necessary in the first place? How much unnecessary clutter is there in all of our lives?
If clutter is one of the most common symptoms of hurry sickness, then one of the most deadly symptoms of hurry sickness is superficiality in relationships. Too busy, too tired to engage in meaningful relationships - especially with the ones who love us and need us the most, and whom we most need we can actually lose our capacity for love - the deep connectedness that is rooted in God's love for us.
As I reflect on my own life and listen to the tales of the lives of those around me, I know this to be so. I hear of families who are continually on the move split in three directions, flipping a coin to see which parent takes which child where. Shared meals are almost non-existent.
I am not sure what we are doing to ourselves or why, but I left the retreat center that day convinced of two things.
1) I need to slow down - every day.
2) I need to nurture relationships with those I love. It takes time - and I need to MAKE time to make it happen.
2) I need a sabbath day - a day set apart to nurture my relationship with God, because if I do not do this, then the first two are utterly impossible.
Because I believe that hurry sickness is neither a cultural phenomena nor a bunch of psychological hooha. It is a significant spiritual sickness. It is all things in life conspiring to separate us from God and love. Some would call it the devil. Whatever you want to call it, there are forces at work in this world keeping us from focusing on the most important and essential things - a relationship with God and relationships with others that grow out the first. Without those two things, life isn't really living at all.
There is only one cure for hurry sickness - SLOW DOWN. It can be difficult. It can be emotionally painful and we tend not to do well with that. But in the end - it is soul-restoring and life-giving. That is something we could all use.
"Be still and know that I am God." says Psalm 46. Jesus says, "I came that they might have life and have it abundantly." The two are not disconnected, my friends. One tends to lead to the other.
Try a soulful slowdown. Experience the healing that happens.
I am trying to schedule a sabbath day at the retreat center once a month as a result of my revelation. It won't cure everything, but it is a start. And we have to start somewhere.
Where and when will your soulful slowdown begin?
Peace -
PK (+)
"Do you find yourself speeding through the day; multi-tasking in order to get everything accomplished? When you attempt to schedule a meeting or event, do you look at your calendar and not know whether to laugh or cry? Do you experience sunset fatigue - the desire to do nothing but sit after the end of the day, energy depleted, compassion expended, ability to engage in meaningful relationships with your loved ones non-existent? Are you surrounded by clutter - your office, your, home, your mind? You probably have hurried sickness."
I would like to say that it is a bunch of b.s. that some psychologist or somebody made up, but she was describing my life. And I FELT sick - physically, spiritually, and emotionally. That was what had prompted me to pay $25 to come here this day when I really had no time to do so (or so I thought) to take a sabbath day. The looks on the faces and the gently nodding of the heads of those around me assured me that I was not alone.
The thing is, I think we were the lucking ones. We had the opportunity to get away for a day and breathe. And someone to affirm that we were doing a good thing by caring for ourselves. I think very few people get those luxuries.
But I do think that more people than I would have imagined suffer from hurry sickness and do not even realize it or imagine any alternative.
One of the most common symptoms of hurry sickness is clutter. Let me tell you, there is a LOT of clutter in our lives.
Our congregation had a rummage sale this past weekend, a fund-raising event for a food pantry we are getting started. I was amazed by the amount of stuff that filled our fellowship hall. I was even more amazed on Sunday morning when I walked into the fellowship hall before worship. The fellowship hall looked like we were getting ready to have a rummage sale, not having just finished one. "How," I thought to myself, "could we have sold enough stuff to raise over $600 and STILL have a fellowship hall full of stuff?" It took several women in the congregation and the better part of an afternoon to clear out the leftovers.
The 'after' version of that fellowship hall, has been nagging at me. All of that stuff that was cluttering up our fellowship hall, where did it come from? And if one family no longer needed it, but it didn't sell in the rummage sale, then was it really necessary in the first place? How much unnecessary clutter is there in all of our lives?
If clutter is one of the most common symptoms of hurry sickness, then one of the most deadly symptoms of hurry sickness is superficiality in relationships. Too busy, too tired to engage in meaningful relationships - especially with the ones who love us and need us the most, and whom we most need we can actually lose our capacity for love - the deep connectedness that is rooted in God's love for us.
As I reflect on my own life and listen to the tales of the lives of those around me, I know this to be so. I hear of families who are continually on the move split in three directions, flipping a coin to see which parent takes which child where. Shared meals are almost non-existent.
I am not sure what we are doing to ourselves or why, but I left the retreat center that day convinced of two things.
1) I need to slow down - every day.
2) I need to nurture relationships with those I love. It takes time - and I need to MAKE time to make it happen.
2) I need a sabbath day - a day set apart to nurture my relationship with God, because if I do not do this, then the first two are utterly impossible.
Because I believe that hurry sickness is neither a cultural phenomena nor a bunch of psychological hooha. It is a significant spiritual sickness. It is all things in life conspiring to separate us from God and love. Some would call it the devil. Whatever you want to call it, there are forces at work in this world keeping us from focusing on the most important and essential things - a relationship with God and relationships with others that grow out the first. Without those two things, life isn't really living at all.
There is only one cure for hurry sickness - SLOW DOWN. It can be difficult. It can be emotionally painful and we tend not to do well with that. But in the end - it is soul-restoring and life-giving. That is something we could all use.
"Be still and know that I am God." says Psalm 46. Jesus says, "I came that they might have life and have it abundantly." The two are not disconnected, my friends. One tends to lead to the other.
Try a soulful slowdown. Experience the healing that happens.
I am trying to schedule a sabbath day at the retreat center once a month as a result of my revelation. It won't cure everything, but it is a start. And we have to start somewhere.
Where and when will your soulful slowdown begin?
Peace -
PK (+)
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