Hungry

Isaiah 58:6-12

Isn't this the fast I choose: releasing wicked restraints, untying the ropes of a yoke, setting free the mistreated, and breaking every yoke? Isn't it sharing your bread with the hungry and bringing the homeless poor into your house, covering the naked when you see them, and not hiding from your own family? Then your light will break out like he dawn, and you will be healed quickly. Your own righteousness will walk before you, and the Lord’s glory will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and God will say, “I’m here.” If you remove the yoke from among you, the finger-pointing, the wicked speech; if you open your heart to the hungry, and provide abundantly for those who are afflicted, your light will shine in the darkness, and your gloom will be like the noon. The Lord will guide you continually and provide for you, even in parched places. He will rescue your bones. You will be like a watered garden, like a spring of water that won’t run dry. They will rebuild ancient ruins on your account; the foundations of generations past you will restore. You will be called Mender of Broken Walls, Restorer of Livable Streets.

Matthew 25:44

“Then they will reply, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and didn't do anything to help you?'" Then he will answer, ‘I assure you that when you haven’t done it for one of the least of these, you haven’t done it for me.’"

My brother put up a blog post earlier this week that was quite prophetic. He is a missionary serving in Albany, NY with the Albany United Methodist Society (AUMS). His post covered a growing crisis that AUMS is struggling to meet; the overwhelming number of hungry people in the U.S. Our government is currently embroiled in a budget crisis, where debt and spending are high. The argument is over what will be cut, to stem the rising debt and bring the government back to economic solvency. What was on the cutting room of the House this past week was the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). SNAP provides a maximum of $6.57 per day in food for individuals who make less than $1,211 a month (though the average for 2012 was $4.45 per day).

(For comparison one McDonald's Big Mac meal costs an average of $6.64 in the U.S.)

The House voted last week to cut $40 Billion out of the SNAP program. This change doesn't just affect the amount of SNAP benefits that are available to each individual, but also means that nearly 4 million American's who are currently benefiting from SNAP will be kicked out of the program. As my brother rightly points out, Non-profits, NGOs and religious organizations account for 1/24th of the total assistance currently provided to the hungry in the U.S. alone. As a nation we spent over $81 Billion in 2012 feeding the hungry and all non-government support accounted for only $4 Billion of that total. There are currently over 47.7 million people who benefit from SNAP nationally. 76% of SNAP households have children, elderly adults, or at least one person with a disability. Last year, SNAP accounted for less than 0.6% of the total GDP. However, for every dollar spent on SNAP, there is an estimated $1.79 return to the economy. On average people use SNAP for 9 months. This means that SNAP functions as a true safety net. People who cannot afford to eat are caught by the net and are stabilized enough so that they can make whatever change is necessary for them to live at or above subsistence.

"Over the past decade, the percentage of [SNAP] households with earned income has increased from 27 percent to 30 percent, whereas the share of households with unearned income has declined from 79 percent to 60 percent." This means that more and more SNAP recipients primary source of income is from a low paying job, where fewer and fewer are relying on unearned assistance such as child support, SSI, or unemployment. However, "the percentage of households with zero gross income has grown from 7 percent in fiscal year 1990 to 20 percent in fiscal year 2010. Similarly, the percentage of households with zero net income, after all applicable deductions, has doubled from 19 percent to 38 percent during the same time period." -USDA

Why am I writing this? Because there are very real people whose ability to survive is on the line. Last Sunday we talked about which societal practices truly scandalize God. Chief among them is neglect of the poor and the vulnerable. Our bible has a lot to say about those practices and with 79% of SNAP recipient households having children, elderly adults, or disabled persons, I think this more than qualifies.

Next month, my wife and I will be taking the SNAP challenge, one month of living off of the average equivalent SNAP food allowance for a two person household. I'll catalog our experience here. If you have any doubts about the difficulties faced by those benefiting from SNAP, I would encourage you to do the same. If you too believe that this scandalizes God, I would encourage you to talk to your congressional representatives and tell them.

The Pieces Left Over

This past week we held a celebration of the life and connection of our church in my backyard.
We made plans for food, games, seating.
We invited our friends, neighbors, and community to celebrate with us.
I spent a good amount of time preparing our home for the gathering, making sure that we could have a good flow of people in and out of the house if necessary, ensuring the bathrooms were clean and well stocked, and prepping the lawn for a big tent
and tables
and chairs
and feet.

What I hadn't anticipated was that the weather would drop 30 degrees the night before and everybody would have to bring out their jackets and blankets. But even still, our turn out was good, there was more than enough food for everyone and after all of the cleanup I still had time to put my feet up before passing out for the night.

I have found that I am eternally grateful for the responsiveness of dedicated people. When I first came in to this church I put this event on our calendar to usher in a new season. I knew that as I put it on the calendar the church had gathered for their church picnic only a month prior. I was worried that we would suffer from an over abundance of cookout related events and that there wouldn't be any enthusiasm for more.

What I found instead was a church willing to go back to it again. And as I prepared coffee in the kitchen, I looked out the window and saw a familiar sight:

Jesus said to his disciples, “Make them sit down in groups of about fifty each.” They did so and made them all sit down. And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. And all ate and were filled. What was left over was gathered up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.

The sharing of a meal is a sign to the world of who is included and who isn't. Meals play a huge role in the Gospel of Luke, they reveal to us the willingness of Christ to bring all people together to the table. So fitting it was to see some old friends, those who once broke bread together under the same roof, reunite and join together with new faces, new lives to be touched, transformed and loved.

Jan Richardson says that "It is part of the miracle: how Jesus, with such intention, cares for the fragments following the feast. He sees the abundance that persists, the feast that remains within the fragments."

When I looked out my window I saw long standing church members sitting down on property that they help maintain, that they labored over, that they helped build brick by brick, that they prepared for my wife and I before we came. They were joined by neighbors, some new, some that they remembered from way back when, some that had walked away long ago.

When I believed there was scarcity in our preparation, God found abundance. Where I believed that this was simply a community gathering, God saw the broken pieces that we leave through our lives and began to pick them up. Our churches share deep roots with their communities. Some of those roots will lead to greater growth through careful nurturing. Others may have been damaged along the way and are in need of Christ's patience to collect the broken pieces for replanting. But all are invited, all are gathered in, and all may find welcome rest here among the family of God.

Dear Philemon

Philemon

"Therefore, though I have enough confidence in Christ to command you to do the right thing, I would rather appeal to you through love. I, Paul—an old man, and now also a prisoner for Christ Jesus— appeal to you for my child Onesimus. I became his father in the faith during my time in prison. He was useless to you before, but now he is useful to both of us. I’m sending him back to you, which is like sending you my own heart."

I've long struggled with Philemon, the shortest "book" in the bible, a personal letter between Paul and Philemon. It's a letter that is difficult to make sense of, mostly due to the nature of its writing. Paul is writing to Philemon on behalf of Philemon's slave, Onesimus. Paul appeals to Philemon's status as a Christian, as someone who has demonstrated their ability to "refresh the hearts of the saints," to give care to fellow Christians. Paul encourages Philemon, reminding him of what a great guy he is and what great authority Paul has but chooses not to use.

There is so much that I want Paul to say to Philemon, but he doesn't. I want Paul to tell Philemon that his treatment of Onesimus determines the very outcome of his relationship with God. I want Paul to tell Philemon that his salvation relies on how far he lets the love of Christ transform his life. I want Paul to tell Philemon that slavery, the system that has supported the growth of nearly every empire in history, is antithetical to the Gospel. However, I find Paul's exhortation silent, sheepish, appealing when I so want Paul to be loud, bold, and sharp.

I struggle with this passage because I think of how many people have laid down their lives to make the world a more just place. In particular I think of those who have laid down their lives for others out of their faithfulness to the kingdom of God. I think of people in the past 100 years like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dorothy Day, Oscar Romero, Mother Theresa, Desmond Tutu, and Nelson Mandela. None who have laid down their lives for the sake of justice have been apologetic in their approach (this is primarily why some of them literally lost their lives). I think of people like Martin Luther King Jr. in his letter from a Birmingham jail. In this letter, like Paul, he too writes to fellow Christians, fellow preachers, those who have a pulpit and are responsible for the refreshing of the saints. Some of the most memorable quotes of Dr. King come from this letter: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," "We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny." At times Dr. King's letter is cordial but there is a tone in his letter that speaks to the harmful choices and beliefs of the clergy he writes.

My favorite quote from this letter is not one of the more famous ones, but consists of two paragraphs toward the end that addresses the tone Dr. King truly has taken with his fellow clergy:

"Never before have I written so long a letter. I'm afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when he is alone in a narrow jail cell, other than write long letters, think long thoughts and pray long prayers?
If I have said anything in this letter that overstates the truth and indicates an unreasonable impatience, I beg you to forgive me. If I have said anything that understates the truth and indicates my having a patience that allows me to settle for anything less than brotherhood, I beg God to forgive me."

It is that last paragraph that elevates Dr. King's position from one of morality to salvation. It is this last paragraph wherein Dr. King makes clear that the intent of this letter is not cordiality, or gentleness. This is a matter of the soul, where lives are at stake. To ask for anything less than absolute equality, as brothers and sisters, equality as children of God, would be to sin against God, would be antithetical to the saving grace of Jesus Christ. 

I'm so frustrated with Paul in his letter to Philemon because I want him to be clear that Onesimus' value is inherently derived from the will of God, that in Christ all are equal, all are of sacred worth. Paul spends so much time easing Philemon into the notion that this is the correct way of thinking that he leaves too much room for ambiguity. Perhaps I am more frustrated with never knowing Philemon's response. Does Philemon do the right thing? I would like to believe that Onesimus arrives at Philemon's home and Philemon drops to his knees, asks forgiveness and embraces Onesimus as a brother, as a fellow child of God. But I know the radical nature of this request. This one lesson that Paul attempts to gently teach would break down the very foundations of the Roman empire, would subvert every teaching from Roman philosophical thinking and would entirely reverse the social norms of his culture.

We find evidence of this subversion when we look at what Romans thought of the early church. The early church was derided by Roman authorities and thinkers because it was primarily made up of the poor, women, and slaves. The message of grace, equality and salvation spoke to the hearts of those who were "divinely" ordered at the bottom. 

Perhaps I'm being too harsh. After all, Paul gave his own life for the kingdom and this message, though gentle, is quite radical. I suspect that Paul gave no thought to the long reaching consequences of his words, that they would be considered scripture, or that they would be read in instruction across thousands of years.

Paul concludes his letter saying, "Confident of your obedience, I am writing to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say."

I hope that Paul is right. I hope that we, as the church, would seek greater justice and reconciliation beyond what Paul has said. I hope that we will continue to recognize and uplift the brokenness of our world, those who bare crosses among us, whose lives are denied their inherent sacred worth. I pray that in our pursuit of a more just world, a world that more closely resembles the kingdom of God, that we never understate the truth, or indicate that we have patience that allows us to settle for anything less than all as beloved children of God. For if we do, I beg God to forgive us.