"A triple-braided cord is not easily broken," Ecclesiastes 4:12b
A single thread alone won't cover a naked man, but many threads woven together will provide a covering for the needy. This is a beautiful truth that I found myself thinking about in light of the recent debates about the panhandling ordinance in Spokane.
During our kid's portion of our Sunday church service Joe, one of our children's ministry directors held up a single thread and asked the kids what it was. After a few answers he said it was a blanket. Then he pulled out a handcrafted blanket and explained how each of us are a thread that God weaves together to provide comfort, protection and covering for one another.
As he shared these words, I thought of all the individual attempts to address social ills in our community and how a community of faith is particularly called and equipped to become such an extension of God's love, compassion and mercy. Everyone, together, the adults like Joe and the children like Zoe in the picture, living and working to be an inclusive and expressive community of good news talkers and doers. I truly believe that with God as the animator of our goodness, we can clothe and home those among us that need a family more than a handout.
I pray that weaving work will be faithfully accomplished for the sake of those among us who are experiencing the coldness of law and the detachment and distance of easy charity.
Sam Fletcher | Aug 30, 2012 | 12:12pm
Thanks for this post, Eric. I have a question: How does your faith community navigate the line between being a service provider and being a spiritual community?
PS you guys seem to have a thing about beards ;-)
Tracy Simmons | Aug 30, 2012 | 12:58pm
Great questions Sam! I imagine that’s a balance so many churches struggle with.
And, maybe you should try a beard. All the cool kids are growing them ;)
Sam | Aug 30, 2012 | 12:59pm
I used to have a rather majestic beard but I married a woman who detests them. :-)
Eric Blauer | Aug 30, 2012 | 1:00pm
Honestly it’s one of the hardest tensions in this life of service and formation.
When our family moved into the East Central neighborhood to begin a new church and explore life as mission, I didn’t really have an understanding of “service providing” and Christian ministry/mission. I simply thought of meeting needs as we discovered them. But I realized that the whole matter becomes quite more challenging when there are more needs than you can meet.
We’ve had to learn some lessons the hard way in our Missional path. Discovering roots & fruits is the name of the game here.
Everything is connected to something. My old paradigms no longer worked here. The poor were not just lazy. Blacks were not just hyper-sensitive to racism, unemployment wasn’t just lack of motivation, crime was not just related to drugs, on and on the lessons have come.
My politics have changed, my ecclesiology has been challenged, my missology has been pummeled and my theology has been messed with as well.
I’ve been smashed, reshaped, twisted around, turned upside down and pulled backwards through too many knot holes to count. It’s an experiment in so many ways, but it’s a sincere experiment. I find that for those willing to journey in it together, we get spiritually formed in Cristlikeness.
Being a service provider is a wording that reduces the dignity of all, both giver and receiver, in my opinion. Such language reduces us all to a commercial like relationship. I’m growing less interested in meeting needs and more captured by changed hearts and mended lives.
But I also realize that both seem to happen in a tricky dance together.
Eric Blauer | Aug 30, 2012 | 1:03pm
As for beards…
It’s a requirement for all our catechism candidates. Women have to give up shaving too, it makes for some earthy summer swim parties. jK jK ;)
Sam Fletcher | Aug 30, 2012 | 1:06pm
Thanks Eric! I know you’re doing really good work in your ministry and I appreciate your thoughtful response. In my small part to play in church ministry, this is a point that does come up rather frequently in our era of deep material, as well as spiritual, need in the communities within our diocese. It’s a constant struggle to find true calling in mission and often for churches it seems to be a processes of culling simultaneous charitable ministries performed by a small church, so as to focus and do well on one.
Joey T. | Aug 30, 2012 | 3:14pm
What a beautiful little girl in the picture! :D Great message, pastor. When I see someone begging downtown I usually refer them to the ugm, but often they don’t want to go there because they can’t drink or get high there..I guess that would be the perfect time to witness, and not much of a witness if you can’t help a hungry person out with some food…
Charity | Aug 31, 2012 | 3:22pm
Eric, I may be earthy, but I’m not going to stop shaving ;)
Sam, I’d like to address my own experience as a part of Eric’s congregation. It is a tension we learn to live with. The lines of right and wrong have become more and more blurred to me. I often struggle with forming a balance between whether my help is enabling someone or truly being of assistance. I think, for me personally as well as my husband (pictured), we have learned to trust God with what he’s given to us, and learn to give more freely and trust that God can take even our mistakes and make them into something beautiful and healing. I hope that makes sense.
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