Gospel Reading: Luke 6:17-27
- It’s late Epiphany season, and the lectionary takes us with Jesus into Galilee, where he is traveling from town to town, healing and teaching, accompanied now by a group of disciples who have chosen to follow him.
- People came to be healed, cleansed, cured of whatever brokenness they were carrying.
- And then, he transitions into teaching and preaching, in a way that seems to flow organically from the fact that he had spent the day touching people with broken bodies and souls;
- The Beatitudes give us the impression that Jesus was partial in his regard for the poor.
- Although he was able to look with love on everyone he encountered, he focused his attention more on the poor, the sick, and outcast
- And the Church has tried to mirror that behavior in how we treat the poor and persecuted,
- we have a spotty history with that…
- The Church has filled a lot of hungry bellies, and housed a lot of homeless
- But sometimes our outreach has been ignorant and prejudiced as far as how and who we serve.
- Still, because of teachings like the beatitudes, Christians at least know that serving the poor and oppressed is part of our covenant as God’s people
- One of the ways local churches do this is through the Pastor’s Discretionary Fund:
- At Lyndale, this is called the Jubilee Fund.
- There are different ways to use this fund.
- Since I’ve been at Lyndale, I’ve trying something that I’ve done in other churches over the years
- I keep a few gifts cards from Aldi and a gas station for occasions when a stranger calls or drops by the church asking for help.
- So recently, a man called the church asking for help with gas because he and his girlfriend and 2 dogs had come up from Chicago on the promise of a job and a place to live, and when they got here, discovered the deal did not materialize
- It was cold that night and they were unable to find emergency shelter because of the 2 dogs.
- In the process of arranging to get them a gas card, I suggested that they might need to find an alternative situation for the dogs, since the shelters they contacted didn’t accept pets
- And I even did a Google search and found a fostering kennels that takes pets temporarily, as respite care; so I texted them about it.
- But I got a furious text back, saying he had owned his dogs for 6 years and how dare I suggest he give up them up.
- I realized I had touched a nerve in someone who was already at the height of anxiety, and I tried to text back and explain that I didn’t mean they should give the dogs up permanently…but he didn’t write back.
- And the next day, when we had arranged to meet, he didn’t show up.
- Meanwhile, I happened to have a meeting with Allan, who worked for Hennepin County in housing and knows everything about housing issues!
- He explained that there actually are shelters now that are open to people who bring: partners, pets and property
- These shelters can house family groups with different genders; and pets; and they have storage if you need to bring stuff with you.
- If you can get one of those limited spaces, you can keep your loved ones and treasures close as you go through difficult times.
- So that was an education for me!
- But at that point, I put the man from Chicago in the back of my mind, figuring I wouldn’t hear from him again.
- But a few days later, he contacted me again and we were able to meet so I could give him a gas card.
- And when we met in person, things went much better.
- He was calmer, and could explain more about his life in Chicago.
- He has a job there, and wants to go back; but it was taking him so long to save enough for his own place that it’s straining his relationship with the relatives who are hosting him.
- The dogs are still a non-negotiable, but he admitted they present a challenge for housing.
- I was able to tell him what Allan told me, about how some shelters may accept partners, pets and property. Maybe there was a place like that in Chicago?
- But most important, I was able to look him in the eye, listen to his story and pray with him.
- Instead of ending our relationship with an angry text, we could exchange a moment of shared humanity
- And for me, I got to learn, first hand, one person’s story of what it is like to be homeless
- And when we met in person, things went much better.
- The gift card idea that I use is far from perfect.
- You could say it’s a kind of tokenism
- At its worst, it can be used to make a person go away because they make me uncomfortable or take too much of my time.
- These encounters sometimes feel transactional;
- sometimes I feel that I’m the one being used,
- I’m sure I’ve been lied to by people who were desperate for help;
- But I’ve chosen this approach in some churches because it seems better than just saying “No”,
- or just handing people a list of other places to go for help,
- or spending my whole afternoon delivering groceries to someone I’ve never met (which I used to do sometimes).
- The Pastor’s discretionary Fund puts the pastor in the position of needing to make awkward decisions about who and how to help people in the community with the small amounts of money entrusted to us.
- It gets complicated when what the person really needs is health care, or a few month’s back rent payments.
- The choices your pastors make in these situations could be criticized by anyone who might handle them differently.
- Every option is fraught with moral ambiguity.
- What I want you to know is that, over the years, I’ve come to see these transactions as something more like “continuing education” for me, instead of just a handout to a stranger.
- Whenever I have even 5 minutes to listen to the story of a person for whom a $25 gift card is important, I learn something new.
- In one church, we got these kinds of visitors maybe once a week, and because it was so frequent, I taught myself a spiritual practice: as I was walking out to the foyer to greet the visitor, I would remind myself that Christ had come in the building with that person.
- Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of
- opening cans of soup for a mom with hungry children,
- hearing the story of a destitute potato farmer,
- and walking a homeless, undocumented man with dementia from one safe place to another after he got kicked out of the Salvation Army.
- Each of these people have taught me a tiny nugget about what it means to be poor in America.
- There is really very little that a small church can do to alleviate poverty in the world
- In the realm of real inequities, our charity is a drop in the bucket
- Which is why our society has made policies that attempt to distribute resources to the poor, the sick, the hungry and persecuted.
- Our social safety net is far from perfect. But it is something that Christians and other people with even the smallest compassion gene support
- It’s a shock to see things like USAID and Refugee resettlement programs threatened.
- These programs are kind of like my measly little gift cards, they are far from perfect.
- The total amount of aid we offer through USAID is less than 1% of our Gross National Product.
- And there’s institutional greed and self-serving motives in some of these programs
- But despite its imperfections and puny size, USAID has done amazing things, including preventing the worldwide spread of diseases, disaster assistance and promoting democratic reforms around the world
- And, like our little gift cards, the programs funded make us aware of what is happening on the ground for real people, because we have stationed workers around the world to watch and alert us to global issues that require nations to work together.
- Right now, we are seeing USAID funds frozen, promises broken, critical health care stopped and food resources rotting in warehouses.
- But this is not who we are as a nation,
- The time will come when leaders see the negative consequences of turning our backs on suffering people around the world
- We can still use our voices as people of faith to warn policy makers about the dangers of isolationism and greed.
- And we need to do this; one commentator I read guessed that most Americans will not pay much attention to the loss of US AID amid all the other swirling crises.
- But I’m praying that, after this madness passes, leaders will come to their senses, and eventually we will learn that responsibility for the needs of our neighbors is inextricably linked to our own future well-being as a nation.
- Until that day, we can keep practicing our small expressions of compassion,
- This morning we heard how FoodShare hands out groceries from our gathering space almost every week.
- Your Reparations gifts, Housing Fund, Jubilee Fund and special offerings to the Wider UCC.
- And we need to keep listening and learning about the reasons come to our door looking for help.
Recent Comments