WAIT! What comes next? We don't know, and yet, we hope. South Durham Connections - the ministry born in collaboration - is starting Advent for All 2020, a series of messages and activities for everyone.
This week I was delighted to open up the Advent season with my beloveds at St. Philip Lutheran in Raleigh. There were two services: The Crossing at 9 am, where the message was short because we decorated a Jesse tree. You can watch that service here (the message starts at 31:00 but the Jesse tree part before is kind of cool.)
The later service had a longer message (no Jesse tree, though) and you can see the message here.
The lectionary texts for the day are:
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God of all times, even the bad ones, show us the hope that we can have because you are the God of love.
Greetings from South Durham Connections! Three years ago when I was your vicar, preaching regularly and wondering what God was doing, I had only a glimmer of what was to be.
Today, there is a little more than a glimmer, and I am wide-eyed at all that has come to pass in those three years, but I still do not know what is coming next!!
I can report that the Parktown Food Hub has become a pantry leader in Durham.
* That we now have a Vision Board of community members,
* An active Saturday gardening program,
* We have just hired a person to help specifically with our garden.
* We have been serving food to 10,000 people per month (that’s over 2200 families)
* We served hundreds of families every Thursday between the end of March and November 19 (because that’s when the weather has driven us inside)
* and on our last Thursday distribution of the year we had so many cars in the parking lot that we completely lost track of who came when… and yet… all were fed.
* That we now have a Vision Board of community members,
* An active Saturday gardening program,
* We have just hired a person to help specifically with our garden.
* We have been serving food to 10,000 people per month (that’s over 2200 families)
* We served hundreds of families every Thursday between the end of March and November 19 (because that’s when the weather has driven us inside)
* and on our last Thursday distribution of the year we had so many cars in the parking lot that we completely lost track of who came when… and yet… all were fed.
We were at the forefront of the McDougald Terrace displaced resident response and generated the idea that the city came to advocate: that churches or other groups adopt hotels to work with specific groups of displaced residents.
We have partnerships with so many groups that they barely fit on one page (in two columns!) and even then we keep discovering groups that we forgot to mention.
We started a (Lutheran) food pantry and mission, in a (United Methodist) borrowed space, using a (Muslim) neighborhood parking lot, and all because our food resourcing manager had been working with a (public school) pantry and living an astonishing faith that God will provide despite denominational politics - and always at the exactly right time.
I simply do not have enough superlatives to describe what happens every day in this community ministry that God has started and that God continues to carry in the palm of that loving, grace-filled hand.
Sometimes I have to remind myself that this is God’s, and not ours.
Sometimes I have to remind myself that this is God’s, and not ours.
Sometimes I have to remind myself that all those good things that are happening (and that this congregation has been a part of for such a long time) are not the reason for my hope.
I am keenly aware that it could all fall apart at any time.
And yet… when my mother-in-law had a massive stroke, and then died a week later, and I was gone for two weeks with virtually no notice… the work thrived and volunteers showed up.
When my hub partner and food sourcing manager Aja faced the prospect that her three middle-schoolers would be doing homeschool for the foreseeable future, and her life was turned upside down as she tried to manage everything… the work thrived and there was food.
It is all so remarkable, and so hopeful, and we are very aware that God brought us together so that our styles and priorities fit together like puzzle pieces – and the puzzle is a vision of a community that cares about all its citizens and no one goes hungry…
Our hope is not in ourselves though (no matter how perfectly we all fit.)
We honestly do not know what is going to happen next.
We do not know if it will be a good thing (beautiful weather and extra food on our last distribution before Thanksgiving)
or a not-so-good thing (a thunderstorm that blew away our tent and soaked three pallets of boxes containing fresh produce.)
If our hope came only from us, or from our track record, it would be hope of the “maybe it will and maybe it won’t” variety.
And yet, that is not our hope at all! Our hope is “I have absolutely no idea what will come next and I am absolutely certain that it will be an outrageously generous gift from God.”
Because even the thunderstorm turned out that way – when community members rushed over with a replacement tent and put it up; when other volunteers came to help distribute the food; and when we learned that we DO have limits and can arrange things so that we do not have to damage our own health and lives. We only need to do what we can do.
Because everything belongs to God, and God is faithful.
Today’s message is all about hope: there will be sorrow and pain and darkness, and everything will be shaken up… and THAT is when Jesus will return.
We do not get to know when it will happen, because that would remove the need for faith. That would remove the need for a faithful God. And so we do not know – we get the exceedingly great job of a God who loves us purely and perfectly and wants us to know it.
And then in the final verse: Jesus says “Keep Awake!” Not as in “don’t rest” or “don’t sleep” or “never relax” but in a smell the roses kind of way. Pay attention to what is happening around you. And not just the frightening, alarming stuff!
Notice the grace. Notice the people who come around seeking grace, and offer them prayer and hope.
Notice the ways that you have connected in different ways with the people in your household.
Notice how your body, mind, and spirit have adjusted to a slowed-down, less frantic pre-Christmas season.
Because in noticing, in staying awake, you will find God’s faithfulness, and in that faithfulness you will discover hope.
The hope that comes from a God who has never let us down, who has never been defeated by politics or weather, cruelty or war. Nothing we human beings have ever done have vanquished God’s faithfulness, and nothing ever will.
And so today I offer you hope. The hope of faith. The hope that comes because God is faithful.
I also invite you to participate in the South Durham Connections Advent for All. If you go to the South Durham Connections website (soduco.org) you can download a piece of an Advent puzzle each week along with a little bit about that week of Advent. The first one is up now.
Here’s how it works: Go here to download and print the .pdf document, read the information on the first page, then cut out and decorate the puzzle piece on the second page with your idea of what hope looks like. The “it’s going to work out great” kind of hope that comes from knowing a faithful God.
Then, when your puzzle piece is decorated, send a picture of it to the South Durham Connections email address (on page 1). We will put them up on the website and create a community of hope.
Each week we will add puzzle pieces until we get to Christmas and assemble the whole thing. A picture of what happens when a broken world has an infinitely faithful God.
It’s for everybody, and I hope you will consider joining us!
May God’s hope and peace, love and joy fill you in the coming month!
Amen
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