Gethsemane Says Grace- A Call to Action
One of the personal joys I recieve from spear heading Gethsemane Says Grace is that I learn. Sometimes through conversion, sometimes through observance, always at the most unexpected times and places.
Last week, a representative from MCEF (Mechanicsville Church Emergency Fund) stopped by to deliver some names she had of people who could use the Thanksgiving meal from Gethsemane Says Grace. This lady was quite a character, loud, and really not afraid or hesitant to say things like they are. It was evident she didn’t march to the beat of another person’s drum, and so it was fun talking to her. What was unexpected and surprising was our conversation on church. She said that in the middle ages, churches were actually responsible for the well fare of all families within their certain geographic location. In other words, reguardless of these families involvement in the church, it was the churches job to take care of their community. Now, I’m not sure how valid or true this little fact is, but it diffinitely sounds true. (I’d love any reader in the know to validate this!) And, if for some reason it’s not true, why can’t it be true today? I think this is a timely though right now as election results poor in tonight and flood our tv sets. What if we didn’t have to rely on the government to create safety net programs to take care of the poor. What if the church took it upon themselves to do it? The church shares a divine call to spread the kingdom of God on earth. For citizens of this kingdom, to serve the poor and needy is to literally serve the king himself. (Matthew 25:31-46.) Maybe more people would be open to the gospel that frees us from sin if they saw the church doing something they could get behind, freeing people from poverty. Where no one cares, the church should care. Where no one will go out of their way to help, it should be natural for the church to help.
My young family ventured into Wal Mart last night. Not to big of a deal until you realize it was the first of the month, and our local Walmart also happens to be the closest Walmart to several housing projects in Richmond. This place was packed like interstate bumper to bumper, accept it was cart to cart. It was full of low income folks who had just recieved their government assistence, and were overloading their carts with groceries for the month. The check out lines were so packed that Christina and I devised a scheme. We split up our groceries into two seperate carts so that we could skip to the speedy check out lane, and wait in a shorter line. Jesus calls us to be shrewd as snakes right? Anyways, with all the people, all the overflowing carts, all the bad language and weird looks, it was quite an awkward night of grocery shopping.
But this all reminded me of something. There’s a lot of people in need, and this is not a pretty picture. We can’t shove under the rug the needs of the community, and call ourselves compassionate followers of Christ. The world is a dark place, full of desperate and needy people, and God has commissioned his church to give this dark world hope.
To feed 75 needy families sounds like an outrageous goal, but we can’t ignore the outrageous need. God, for whatever reason, has allowed us to have so much. Maybe that blessing also comes with great responsibility. We can bless so many on Tuesday, November 23. Will you join me?
