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.