(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on April 22, 2018)
“People Think It’s the Food. It’s More than That.”
This past week, Lu invited me to
lunch in order to introduce me to a woman whose work she’s been following:
Rhonda Sneed. Rhonda spoke softly
but her eyes were alight with life and her words danced with real purpose. I felt in her a quiet strength,
although I could not tell you exactly why.
This feeling that I could not
explain soon made more sense as I learned Rhonda’s story. Rhonda moved to Richmond from New York
City in 2013. The homelessness
that she saw here surprised her.
She had seen folks in New York living in cardboard boxes, but she had
not expected that sort of poverty here.
In her first few years here, she
and a couple friends worked together to feed the homeless, distributing soup in
styrofoam cups. In the last couple
of years, they have expanded their efforts and enlisted the help of volunteers
from across the city. They call
themselves the Blessing Warriors.
Each day they drive to several drop-off points in the city distributing
meals, drinks (hot in the winter, cold in the summer), and clothing.
At each drop-off point, Rhonda
blends in with the crowd. Folks
who are waiting greet her with hugs.
Some seem more interested in sitting down and talking with her than in
getting food. Occasionally Rhonda
will learn about someone’s birthday, and the proceedings will take a pause as
the group sings “Happy Birthday.”
Not too long ago, one man told Rhonda that he’d found a church and would
be getting baptized. Guess who
showed up at his baptism to celebrate with him? On another occasion, Rhonda followed a young woman whom she
had been helping to the hospital so that the young woman would have a companion
and an advocate there.
Rhonda knows what the Blessing
Warriors look like to a lot of people: a handout group, a soup kitchen, an
emergency relief team. As she has
said before, “People think it’s the food.
It’s more than that.”[1]
Indeed it is. More than food, it’s hugs, it’s
listening, it’s singing, it’s sharing the hospital hurts of folks as well as
their baptismal bliss. It’s
sharing life with them—so much so that the boundaries blur and sometimes it’s
hard to tell where Rhonda’s life ends and the lives of her homeless friends
begin.
“Laying Down Our Lives”: Just Another Payment?
Today’s scripture begins with a
daunting verse: “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we
ought to lay down our lives for one another” (3:16). For many in the church, faith is simply what Jesus did for
us. “Jesus paid it all,” we
sing. But for the writer of 1
John, what Jesus did for us is simply the beginning. We are called to show that same love for others. “Jesus paid it all, and so should
we,” the writer of 1 John might say.
It is a challenging summons: “We
ought to lay down our lives for one another.” What does the writer mean by that? That we should die for others as Christ died for us? Perhaps, if that is what the situation
calls for. But it appears that the
writer is talking about not just the dramatic or the spectacular, but also
about the little things that make up our daily life. For he continues on to say, “How does God’s love abide in
anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet
refuses to help?” (3:17).
I don’t know about you, but that
makes me feel a little better. All
that talk of laying down lives was a wee bit much. Here we finally have a description of what that looks like,
a concrete rule, and it’s one that I can live with. If you have worldly goods, then give some to the needy. Donate some food to the local food
pantry, or to Rhonda’s Blessing Warriors.
Write a check to your favorite charity.
Verses like this one in a world
like ours are a dangerous recipe.
Nearly everything in our world is already commodified, which is to say,
nearly everything has a dollar sign attached to it. We pay not just for our needs, like shelter and food. We pay for our entertainment: Netflix,
show tickets, theme park passes.
We pay for our health and fitness: gym memberships, dieting programs,
fresh food delivery. We pay for
our education: college degrees, special certifications, online tutorials. Whatever we want, we pay for it. The problem is, we might begin to think
of our faith in the same way: as just another payment. We pay the poor, and in return we have
a healthy faith.
The Good News Is Greater than God Giving Us “Goods”
Fortunately for our world, which
might be tempted to read love as a transaction of goods, the Greek puts it much
more bluntly. Instead of talking
about having and giving “goods” to those in need, it talks about having and
giving bios to those in need. Bios.
Perhaps you can hear the similarity between that word and our words
“biology,” which is about the study of life,” or “biography,” which is an
account of someone’s life. In
other words, our scripture is talking about more than giving money or
possessions. It is talking about
giving our bios, our life, our
living, any part of us that might bring life to another.
That, of course, is the good news
of Jesus Christ. Some Christians
will say that our salvation comes only from one thing that he did, from the single
event of his death and resurrection.
In my mind, that turns Jesus into a handout, a single toss of salvation
from God’s hands to anyone lucky enough to receive it. For me, the good news is so much
greater than that. God does not
simply walk by and give us “goods.”
God shares our life. The
good news is that Jesus becomes flesh and dwells among us, blends in among us,
touches us, eats with us, shares our sorrows, binds our wounds, jumps in the
water with us. The good news of
Jesus Christ is not the good news of a handout. It is the good news of a companion who is always sharing
life with us.
And that, I think, is what the
writer is trying to say. We know
God’s love for us because Christ became our companion. In the same way, we ought to share that
companionship with our brothers and sisters in need. Not as a handout of goods but as a life that blends with
theirs.
Or as Rhonda has said: “People
think it’s the food. It’s more
than that.”
From Death to Life
I share these thoughts not to say
that we all need now to immerse ourselves in communities of the poor and
excluded, although some of us may genuinely feel that call. To do something out of obligation would
become just another rule. Love is
unruly. It is more than a
transaction, a payment.
My guess is that we are already
laying down our lives for others, giving our living—our bios—to them in small ways.
Is this not what we do with our families? The invitation of today’s scripture, I think, is to extend
this love to others around us who are crying out for it. For if we listen, we will hear the cry
of God in others: not only in our circle of friends, but in Canaanite women and
Roman soldiers and tax collectors and convicted criminals, or whatever the
equivalent of these are in our world.
Their cry is not for a handout—not simply for food or for an hour of our
time, although these things may be needed. The cry is deeper.
It is for companionship. It’s
for hugs, listening, sharing tears and laughter. The cry is for love.
And herein lies the good news for
all of us. In 1 John 3:14, just a
couple verses before our scripture today, the writer summarizes all of faith
and life in a beautifully simple statement: “We have passed from death to life
because we love one another.” It
is through the love that we give, the life—the bios—that we share with others, that we ourselves pass from death
to life.
Christ is risen. May we too be raised in his love.
Prayer
Self-giving Christ,
How grateful we are
That you come among us
With more than a handout—
That you touch us
In our hurt,
Walk alongside us
In the dark valley,
Break bread for us
And fill our cup
With gladness.
May your love
Inspire us
To love others
In the same way.
Amen.
[1] David
Streever, “One Woman’s Quest to Feed Richmond’s Homeless Community,” https://rvamag.com/news/one-womans-quest-to-feed-richmonds-homeless-community.html,
accessed April 17, 2018.
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