Song: Give It Away | A Daily email with small things to do |
Friends,
A quiet weekend with quilting, the pool, and games with friends. I'm overwhelmed with all there is to fix in the world, my community, and my life, so I'm working on how to figure out which things are *mine* to deal with.
Until I just wrote this, I didn't remember that part of the way to stay mentally healthy is remember that some things are for God to deal with. And that it feels like too much because it is too much.
Sometimes naming it is the most important step.
-Liz
Offer What Little You Have
We were cold, we were tired. We'd been on the tour bus an extra several hours--violence in some town required a detour. We'd been warned that lunch would be late, but at 3 pm it was feeling really late.
We were working hard to not complain. As college students, this was an amazing opportunity--a subsidized trip to the Holy Lands for our January term. Three weeks with archeologists, anthropologists, and biblical scholars, seeing sites we had always wanted to see. The group coalesced well, the chaperones (our professor and a local clergy couple) had planned the trip with the right balance of travel, learning, and downtime.
But today had not gone as planned from the minute we left our previous hotel. We'd changed the itinerary twice, once in negotiation with soldiers at a road block. And now we'd stopped at our third restaurant for lunch, only to find that this one, too was closed. We hadn't spent any time at interesting sites. Just hours and hours on the bus.
"Folks," pastor Charles offered, "It seems today is a muslim holiday. We aren't going to find a place that is open. And it's too cold for the street vendors. Your professor is finding a hotel that can serve us dinner, but until then we've only got what we brought with us."
"I bought oranges in Jaffa" came a voice from the back, followed quickly by a bag of oranges over the seat backs, working its way forward. "I bought some great chocolate," said someone else.
Soon pastor Charles had twelve oranges and three bars of chocolate. So he took the food, blessed it, and broke it into pieces, and sent the food back into the crowd of students. We opened our shopping bags and back packs, and talked excitedly about what we had to offer our seat mates, and the people in front and behind us, and we ate was offered. At the end we were satisfied, and there were bags of oranges and chocolate left over.
The question for today is what it is that we feel we don't have enough of. What makes us frustrated, annoyed, what leaves us wishing that God would step in and fulfill our needs? When we are afraid, and angry, and sad, and hungry, the gut reaction of our brain is simply to demand solutions.
In Matthew (14:13-21) the feeding of the 5000 happens just after Jesus has heard that his cousin John the Baptizer has been killed. He has to have felt overwhelmed by the loss, and at the same time threatened. The very human Jesus must have been deeply aware of the desperate situation of the Jewish people, and the oppressive, and unbeatable power of Rome. With all this in his heart, Jesus pulls away to a quiet place, only to be followed by the crowds. They also are desperate for answers about what to do to overcome the poverty in their lives.
Jesus response is quite simply: he felt compassion for them, and cured the sick. He probably taught. He put aside his own grief and frustration and did the next right thing: heal the person in front of him. When the day gets long and the disciples want to send the people away his response is simply to say "give them something to eat."
To be honest, the disciples sound just like me most of the time. They whine. "We have nothing but this little bit of not-enough food." They don't say it, and neither do I, but what both of us want is for the God-man among them to just fix it. Feed them for heaven's sake!
The story contains what is considered the basic commands of the eucharist: take, bless, break, and share.
It's not the answer I want in these times. I want magic solutions. But what we have instead is the offer that if we face the person nearest to us, provide healing and compassion, and then seek the next, and the next, these are the steps required. If we have a little bit of what we need, we must not hoard it, but rather to share it with others.
This story, the eucharistic story, is not really about bread and fish. It is about all of our resources. It is about responding to risk with more compassion than fear. It is about facing the oppression, the violence, and even the death around us by turning toward the people and offering what little we have.
With just the addition of a blessing, it will be enough.
What frustrations are your church talking about these days? What do we wish there was more of?
Reply to this email to let me know what's happening.
Okay, this is the Red Hot Chili Peppers music video, and it is .... weird. But the lyrics are perfect, so I include it for your consideration.
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