What Will You Do?

I confessed last Sunday that I am a wallflower. I am not wired to be a part of a crowd. I can take it or leave it.

I remember a fight with my mom when I was in elementary school. I was frustrated with my homework and social life. I said, “When I grow up, I’ll have a job where I won’t have to be connected to anyone or use math.” My mom calmly pointed out that wasn’t possible. How would I eat if I didn’t grow all of my own food? We’re dependent on farmers. If I wanted to play video games or watch TV, I’m dependent on the electronic companies, the game companies, the cable providers, the electric company, and all their workers. Everything I would possibly do, other people were involved.

Jesus said, “I have compassion for the crowd…” I’m more in the camp of our opening reflection which was a quote from Fredrik Backman. “The worst thing we know about other people is that we’re dependent upon them. That their actions affect our lives. Not just the people we choose, the people we like, but all the rest of them: the idiots.”[1]

When I was younger, I wanted to only be in the highly superior circles of white, Catholic jock-geeks who listened to Alternative music. The rest were idiots. That was not a compassionate stance. It is also a small circle. But I tried to maintain that circle for many years. Yet God kept breaking down my categories. Exposing me to other crowds. Humanizing the rest of the world when I would not have compassion for them. But thankfully God does have compassion for the crowds.

Jesus has compassion for the crowds, too. He sits the crowds down. He asks his disciples to feed the people gathered. But those disciples were thinking like me. “We’re not responsible for these people. We’re in a desert, Jesus! There’s no food here!” And Jesus says, “Well… what food do you have?”

And they have some. And Jesus takes that meager amount and shares it. And the crowds saw what happened. And they started sharing. And then there’s 7 baskets full of leftovers. Because Jesus started with compassion for the crowds.

It reminds me of another story by the preaching legend Fred Craddock.[2] He was stuck in Winnipeg, Canada, in the midst of an early October snowstorm that paralyzed the city. Everything was shut down and his host could not even make it to Fred’s hotel to pick him up for breakfast.

So, for breakfast, Fred found himself at a crowded bus depot café about two blocks from his hotel. As he entered, somebody scooted over and let him get in a booth. A big man with a greasy apron came over to the table and asked him what he wanted. Not knowing what the café served, Fred asked to see a menu.

“What’d ya want with a menu?” the man asked. “We have soup.”
“Then I’ll have soup,” he said. Just what he wanted–soup for breakfast.

The man brought the soup and Craddock says it was an unusual looking soup. It was grey, the color of a mouse. He did not know what was in it, but he took this spoon and tasted it. Awful! “I can’t eat this,” he thought. So he sat in that crowded café warming his hands around the bowl, railing against the world, stuck in Winnipeg.

Then, the door opened and someone yelled, “Close the door,” and she did. A woman came in. She was middle-aged, with a coat, but no covering for her head. Someone scooted over and let her in a booth. The big man with the greasy apron came over and the whole café heard this conversation:

“What’d ya want?”
“Bring me a glass of water,” she said.
The man brought the water, took out his tablet and repeated the question. “What’d ya want?”
“Just the water.”
“Lady, you gotta order something.”
“Just the water.”
The man’s voice started rising: “Lady, I’ve got paying customers here waiting for a place, now order!”
“Just the water.”
“You order something or you get out!”
“Can I stay and get warm?”
“Order or get out.”

So, she got up. The people at the table where she was seated got up, people around got up, the folks that let Fred sit at the table got up, Fred got up, and they all started moving towards the door.
“Ok,” the big man with the greasy apron said, “She can stay.” And everybody sat down. He even brought her a bowl of that soup.

Fred asked the man sitting next to him, “Who is she?”
“I never saw her before,” he said, “but if she ain’t welcome, ain’t nobody welcome.”

Then Craddock said, all you could hear was the sound of people eating that soup. “Well, if they can eat it, I can eat it,” he said. He picked up his spoon and started eating the soup. Fred reflected that “It was good soup. I ate all of that soup. It was strange soup. I don’t remember ever having it. As I left I remembered eating something that tasted like that before. That soup that day tasted like bread and wine. I wished that had happened in a church,” he said. “But sometimes it does. Maybe here, maybe this church, maybe…”

What would you have done?

I think I know because I have seen this happen time and time again. I think you would have stood up to leave that café with that woman. I know this because you have compassion for the crowds.

I wouldn’t know about CUPS Café, which gives meals for free. I wouldn’t know about the folks at Creative Housing. I wouldn’t know about Habitat for Humanity without the church. I wouldn’t know about the kids who gather at the library after school because they have no place to go. I wouldn’t know about our Garfield families that we feed.

I wouldn’t know them because I wouldn’t care to know them. They wouldn’t fit my small criteria of who constitutes who I should pay attention to. But I want to belong to a group that welcomes, loves, and serves them. I want to be part of a group that stands up when someone comes in out of the cold, looking for a warm place and if they are shown the door… that group that stands up to leave with that person and says, “If she ain’t welcome, ain’t nobody welcome.”

That’s not in me. But I want it to be. I want to have compassion for the crowds. I want to offer what I have. I don’t think it’s much. My time, my talent, my treasure. I don’t think it’ll be much what I have to offer. And yet for 3 years, we’ve had baskets of leftovers.

What I’m asking for on this stewardship Sunday is that you continue to teach me generosity. The last month, I was flooded with cards and emails for pastor appreciation month. Those cards are on display in my office to remind me that I am part of the crowd. That I’m learning compassion from you and with you and for you. For you and for all the crowds that we’re surrounded by. The crowds at CUPS, on our square, and in our neighbor churches and faith communities.

God will take care of our needs. We just have to be willing to give. We could be alone, detached, wallflowers. It is easier that way. But God’s vision for us is community.  Inclusion. Welcome. Hospitality. If she ain’t welcome, ain’t nobody welcome.

I used to think that worst thing we know about other people is that we’re dependent upon them. That their actions affect our lives. This was when I was a child. When I was a child, I thought like a child, I acted like a child but when I became an adult, I put away childish things and I found that the best thing we know about other people is that we’re dependent upon them. That their actions affect our lives.

What will you do? What will you do because of this? We could lament that we’re dependent on one another or we could celebrate it. What will you do? Will you keep your meager loaves and fish hidden because you don’t think it’s enough? Or will you share? What will you do?

Maybe this is hard to hear with all the noise from the election. The anxiety. The stress. I take heart in it. Historic voter turn out. That’s what it’s about: participation. So I’ll tell you what I’m going to do:

I will participate. I will pledge my tithe. I will continue to be involved with you, my crowd here on the square. I don’t know much, but I do know that when someone gives a little, others are inspired, and they give, too. And out of this giving, out of this work, the hungry are fed. The grieving are comforted. The wanderers find a home. The outcasts are welcome in from the cold and given soup.

And that soup. Well, it’s a strange sort of soup. It tastes like bread and wine. Amen.

Works Cited

[1] Fredrik Backman, Us vs You.

[2] Craddock’s amazing story found here: http://leiningers.com/eatalone.html

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