Sundry

Feeding the Hungry

Many of the world’s religions call their adherents into the practice of charity, particularly to feed the hungry. There is a second call to question why hunger exists in the world to begin with. It makes for a fine tension, between giving people fish and teaching them how to fish, where do you put your time and money?

On a Sunday afternoon in April, hundreds of people across different faith traditions (and of no tradition) came together to pack meals for Syrian Refugees. The event was hosted by the Children of Abraham, a local interfaith group, of which I am part. My part was to serve as the treasurer. Our plan was to first raise five thousand dollars to pay for the ingredients and supplies. This would allow us to make roughly 20,000 meals. We quickly discovered that our initial goal was too small, so we increased our goal to $7,500, making 30,000 meals.

That afternoon in the gym of the Greek Orthodox church, a Rabbi and a Methodist lay person helped form us into five tables like factory lines to prepare the packages. Some people scooped in the rice or the soy, others added the spices. It was measured and balanced and then sent off to a second line where the food was vacuum sealed and placed in a box.

There were 60 people per shift actively working in the assembly lines at any time. We were children and elders, white and middle-eastern, Secular people with Muslims, Jews, Christians, and UUs all working side by side in the lines. And we had to convince people to move out of the line after a 30-minute shift to let others in. It was a wildly successful event. (We had a parallel food drive for our local food pantry, which raised several barrels of non-perishable food.) Everyone who participated raved about what it meant to them.

In the end, we raised far more than the $7,500 we’d had as our goal. We raised over $12,000. The Children of Abraham planning team decided we would do three things with the excess money that would be in line with the intentions of the givers.

First, we decided to keep a portion as seed money to repeat this event in the fall. (Which we did, and it was just as successful half-a-year later.) Second, we donated funds to the shipping company that took the food to the refugee camps in Greece where many Syrians are waiting to learn where they will be settled. The company worked on donations only. So, we donated. And third, we decided to send some of the money to Jordan. When we started this our plan was to split the shipment between Greece and Jordan – both countries have many Syrian refugees waiting to be resettled.

We learned, however, that Jordan would prefer we just send the money so they could do the meal packaging there in Jordan which would stimulate the Jordanian economy as well as help the refugees. Not only would that help the refugees, it would help the Jordanians and we wouldn’t have to spend money on shipping the food. If our only goal was to feed the Syrian refugees, the Jordanian plan would be more efficient.

But feeding the refugees was not our only goal. We wanted to feed the hungry, but we also wanted to give people a chance to think globally and act locally, to have a direct experience of helping, to develop a connection of compassion across the need.

Charity alone will only ever alleviate the presenting need while never touching the system that perpetually creates that need. But with direct experiences of the need, we can reflect together about ways to change the harmful system as well.

Prayer for the struggle

Eternal Spirit, from whom all things come and to whom all things return.

All of us walk through this life with a share of joy and a share of sorrow.

No one among us is free from trials and difficulty.

Bend our compassion that we may remember to be gentle with all whom we meet.

We gather this hour in solidarity and compassion

for our world and those among us bowed down

by poverty and struggle to survive.

Our thoughts and prayers are with parents struggling to make sacrifices for their children,

and with children who suffer for the financial plight of their families.

Our thoughts and prayers are with those among us this day

and those beyond our church walls who cannot make a living,

with those sinking in debt,

with farmers who cannot sell what they produce,

and with the unemployed who yearn to work.

Each one of us experiences these or other troubles in life.

Help us to remember to be gentle with all whom we meet.

We join our voices with those who labor for justice;

we who band together to support people in need;

we who are postcard-signers,

email-senders, and

white-band-wearers.

May our voices remain respectful and loving,

may our voices never waiver from the witness of truth,

may our voices be heard.

May our leaders and government decision-makers

remember the wisdom to care for the common good,

to care for the disempowered.

We offer our gratitude for the many blessings we have:

the blessings of health and friendship,

the blessings of family and community,

of work and leisure,

of spring warmth and of music and

so much else that remains good and right.

For all that is not well in our world,

may we have the courage to face it,

the compassion to care about it,

and the boldness to work to change it.

This we ask in the name of all that is holy

My it be so.

Intimacy, Ultimacy, and Agency

People come to church for “Ultimacy and Intimacy” according to a great 20^th century theologian named James Luther Adams. These are basic spiritual needs for any person. A colleague writes about a time he heard Adams explain,

“they come to wrestle with life’s ultimate questions. Who am I? In what or in whom do I trust? In what community do I belong? And they came for a sense of intimacy, a safe place in which they could be accepted while making connections with others.” (John Morgan’s The Devotional Heart)

Occasionally, in prayers I write for worship, I will include the phrase “Deeper meaning and richer connection.” Intimacy is finding richer connection, and ultimacy is finding deeper meaning in our lives.

I regularly hear from visitors and long-time members reflecting on what led them to our congregations. A lot of times people will be seeking after exactly what James Luther Adams was talking about: “ultimacy and intimacy.” We may not say it such grand words, but pared down to the phrase “deeper meaning and richer connections,” the assertion seems to carry for most situations. People come seeking ultimacy and intimacy.

When I think about all this, however, I wonder if there might be a third component needed to round out the message, a third element to really cover what is drawing people and keeping people in faith communities such as ours. I suggest the third basic human need is agency. There is an element of activism in the central workings of most progressive religious communities.

This centrality of activism in our congregations is in response to a basic human need to make a difference in the world, a need to serve life is some way. For many liberal faith communities, it is to live our faith out loud in the world, to put our faith in action. Our search for meaning leads us to inspired actions in the world.

If you went outside and someone asked you – Hey, you just came out of the building, what is that place all about?’ and you answered saying “intimacy, ultimacy and agency,” that person would probably run the other way. But if you were to say, “richer connections, deeper meaning, and inspired action” – well, now you’re having a conversation. In a way, this can serve as a modern and communal salvation story: you can come into a community like this one for the three things your soul needs: connection, meaning, and a call to service.

For me and mine, I say social justice, inspired action, agency, working to heal the world – however you call it – is as central a reason for this congregation’s continued existence as intimacy and ultimacy. It is part of our work to build a better world, to co-create the beloved community. To truly seek intimacy and ultimacy, one would do well to be thoughtfully engaged, to be involved in actions that live out the commitments one has found through intimacy and ultimacy. To abstain entirely from justice work, from striving to heal the world and make it a better place, to say you are not going to muck around in that “justice-stuff” is a disservice to the faithful pursuit of a spiritual life. “Faith without works is dead.”