Sweaty Conversations

     When Winston Churchill became Great Britain's prime minister during World War II, he told his constituents that he had little to offer them but "blood, sweat and tears." On this first anniversary of the violence at the American Capital Building on January 6, I wonder if we might offer each other something similar. After all, sweat may be among the best lubricants for good and meaningful conversations.

    So many things deeply divide Americans. It's not just that we don't see eye-to-eye with people whose perspectives on things like the pandemic, politics, race relations and climate change differ from ours. We scarcely even see people with whom we disagree. We have settled in hardened bunkers that serve to separate and protect us from anyone who doesn't largely agree with us. 

    When Americans speak to each other at all across our various divides, we often speak to caricatures of each other. When we talk to others, we sometimes struggle to be civil and respectful. We're often quicker to speak than to listen to people with whom we disagree.

    That's a reason why our church's food pantry has been such a gift. People from all walks of life are working together to provide food for our neighbors who are hungry. Both our volunteers  and participants are obviously racially diverse. I imagine that we're also socio-economically and politically diverse, though we're usually too busy to talk much about those things.

    Yet we're working together to love our neighbors who have material needs. People who are ethnically diverse are together unloading food from trucks, sorting donations, packing food into bags and distributing food to our neighbors who come to our pantry. Our neighbors who are needy are also, in turn, sharing some of the food they receive not just with their friends and neighbors, but also with our pantry.

    As we do so, we're being graced with opportunities to have meaningful conversations with each other. As we at least figuratively sweat together in service to our neighbors, we sometimes talk and listen to each other about important things. I think that's partly because when we're busy serving, we're focusing less on ourselves and our perspectives, and more on those for whom we're trying to care. We're so busy trying to serve people that we don't have time to try to change people. In that time and space, we're receiving the gift of chances to learn more about what people believe, why they believe what they believe and how we might better work together to more fully serve the most vulnerable members of our community.

    

    

A Parable

 The kingdom of God is like ...

    To what might we compare the kingdom of God? It's like a food pantry on a wintry afternoon. People from many walks of life and various backgrounds put out part of God's bounty at the edge of a church's parking lot. They have little more in common than a deep desire to be neighbors to their neighbors who are hungry.

    Those who receive the pantry's food also come from all sorts of backgrounds and walks of life. They have little more in common than a shared food insecurity. They come by car, bus and on foot. They come by themselves or in groups of three or four. They range in age from 2-82.

    No one turns away from this pantry any of those neighbors. The only questions asked are those designed to help the pantry understand its participants. Everyone receives some nourishing food, some of it as fresh as this morning's harvest. The pantry's food never completely runs out.

    Of course, this, like all parables is imperfect.Those who receive the food may eventually run out of it again. Not all who are hungry find their way to the pantry. Basic inequalities lock some people who are hungry in their hunger.

    That's one reason its organizers see this pantry as an appetizer of a time and place where pantries will go out of business once and for all. Of that time and place where hunger will die right alongside its partners that are suffering and death.

Orphaned

    Jesus said, 'I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.' John 14:18 

    In 2021 I became an orphan. Probably not in the way we often think. I was, after all, 63 years old when my father suddenly died on this past Easter afternoon. So I wasn't a child in the strictest sense of the word. But my dad's death that followed my mom's death years earlier left me without any parents.

    I have found being without parents to be rather strange. I have not lived with them for more than 40 years. Because we lived 650 miles apart I sometimes only saw my parents 3-4 times a year. As they aged, our roles sometimes reversed as I became more like a parent than child to them.

    But my parents knew me longer than anyone. They knew both my foibles and my gifts. My mom and dad emotionally supported  and faithfully encouraged me. My dad and I went to more ballgames and on more fishing outings than I can count. My dad and I talked on the phone nearly Sunday evening for many years. My parents were in some ways among my most solid human anchors.

    I am now the parent of not just three marvelous sons, but also three wonderful daughters-in-law as well as five incredible grandchildren. Few things give me more joy than being a husband, father, father-in-law and grandpa. Yet I wouldn't mind being my living parents' son for a while longer.

    While I was graced to be able to say goodbye to my mom, I never got that chance with my dad. Because he died little more than 12 hours after we learned he was sick, we were on the road to Grand Rapids, MI when he died. While I prayed with my dad as he was dying, he was unresponsive. While I told him I loved him and thanked God for him, I can't be at all certain he could hear me.

   I would not want my parents to come back to me. My mom and dad are, by God's amazing grace that they long ago received with their faith in Jesus Christ, in God's presence in the heavenly realm. To ask my dad to leave that splendor and glory for even just 3 minutes so I that I could say goodbye to him and tell him I love him would be beyond selfish. 

    Yet I still miss my dad and mom. Odd things and moments remind me of them. Thanksgiving without the cranberry relish my mom always prepared. Michigan's football team's victory over Ohio State this year that my dad and I had long anticipated and talked about. Our outdoor family Christmas party with our whole family.

    Yet I'm grateful to God that I'm not an orphan. When Jesus was preparing to leave his disciples, he told them, 'I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.' With Jesus' Spirit's help, I claim that promise. My parents have passed from life to Life. But since the Spirit has graciously come to me, I am not an orphan.