One Sunday a child approached me and inquired “Pastor Jeff, why is the Food Pantry box in the corner?” Punctuating her question, she pointed to the box tucked away in a most inaccessible space in the sanctuary. She was wise beyond her years! Her jarring question left me perplexed and dumbfounded. Suddenly my rushing between services had been reduced to a slow plodding. Her question caused me, in those few minutes, to wonder whether or not our current practices were consistent with our beliefs. In that moment, my young friend questioned our community’s way of life. What an interruption in my preparation!
You see, in theory our church made regular donations to the food pantry located just blocks from the church. Yet, while the box was located in the corner it remained out of sight and out of mind. Without the box’s visual presence our responsibility became invisible and our contributions became inactive. The young child had identified a broken practice in our community. Unbeknownst to us, we were being shaped by a spirit of indifference to our neighbors.
The timing of her question invited a wonderful opportunity. The Season of Lent would begin in just two weeks. In our local congregation this journey grants us space to consider the magnitude of the redemptive work of God for all of creation. Acts of charity, devotion, contrition, and fasting tend to draw us nearer to God. In such a context, I suggested that we put the box in front of our Communion Table and invite the congregation to consider their responsibility to our neighbors. My wise, young friend agreed with the idea!
On that first Sunday we introduced the concept to the congregation and carried the box to the center of our space. Once we put it down we quickly realized that it was an odd, bulky piece of furniture sitting in the wrong place. It disrupted our walk patterns. We had to be careful not to trip over it. Simply put, it was ugly and out of place! The box’s presence, and our felt response to it, illustrated our own discomfort with the box’s message. We had become indifferent.
Despite the box’s ugliness, the People of God generously donated bags and bags of food during the following days. Overflowing with donations, the food pantry box sat in front of the Communion Table on which the elements rested for worship each week. It was a beautiful sight!
Yet, despite the beauty, a growing anxiety deepened within me. During our Lenten journey I was being transformed. God was cultivating a new way of life among us. I knew we couldn’t put the box back in the corner following the Season of Lent. Our practice of bringing food contributions changed us. In those few weeks we had become a different people. We were more aware of our neighbor’s need. I knew the box had to remain as part of our liturgical space. To put it back in the corner would mean that the change was only temporary. Needless to say, it wasn’t difficult to convince others, as they had experienced the same transformation. Indeed we were different people.
Reflecting upon that experience allows us space to consider the emergence of a couple of concepts for us. First, when we took on a new practice of bringing food for others as a regular expression of our worship the ethical implications of our worship emerged. Seeing food donations sitting next to the Communion elements helped us to live the connection between our worship and our action. The second concept erupts from the first. Our gathering around the Table of Holy Communion began to extend beyond the walls of the church. Table fellowship began wrestling its way into the homes of our neighbors. We began to see our neighbors and our neighborhood differently. This new practice created space for us to re-imagine our understanding of responsibility for one another and, more specifically, for our neighborhood. We now see both the gift and responsibility in our Table Fellowship. Two years later and that “out of place” box still sits in the middle of our space and people still bring donations.
As a local congregation we remain in conversation with our denominational identity. We’re still trying to re-imagine what makes a Nazarene congregation Nazarene. We’re still trying to figure out how to move from compassionate actions to justice. We’re still trying to evaluate if our current practices are shaping us in ways consistent with our commitment to making “Christlike disciples in the nations.” We’re still trying to imagine a shared life together which creates space for God to gestate a “holy” people!
