Hands and feet
Luke 10: 38-42
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
July 21, 2019
I consider mission trips to be one of the best spiritual teachers for how to live life. Even though this was a mini-mission trip—Sunday through Wednesday rather than Sunday through Saturday and geographically closer to home—the same spiritual principles were there.
Interestingly enough our mission trip began with play. Five youth and three adults arrived at the Brasels' river house last Sunday around mid-afternoon. Three more youth and two more adults were to arrive later that evening. We had planned some group building games, but the group began building itself. We swam in the Bush River, paddled kayaks, and took a ride on a speedboat. We cooked dinner, ate together, and cleaned up. We had a campfire and s’mores. We stayed up until the rest of the team arrived, because the mission trip doesn’t really start until we’re all there. We then went to bed, hopefully ready for what the next day would bring.
Usually on a mission trip there is an intermediary organization that has asked the mission site what they need, puts workers together with tasks, and ensures that everyone has the tools and supplies they need. On this trip we worked with Meeting Ground directly, which meant we were the ones asking and listening, assigning workers to tasks, and sometimes providing the tools and supplies needed. More often than not, we would burn through a job and would need something else to do. We painted doors and stairs, cleaned picnic tables and stained them, planted flowers, helped make lunch and served it, weeded, trimmed, and mowed.
Our big learning happened at lunch, when we would eat with some of the clients at picnic tables behind the men’s shelter. We heard their stories of how they are trying to make a better life. We heard their stories of not just hard luck but systemic injustice designed to keep the poor where they are. We heard their stories of injuries and medical challenges coupled with the lack of adequate healthcare or the inability to pay for it. We heard one man tell us how he was hit by a car while he was riding his bike. One hand he can open partially; the other is splinted and wrapped and, he said, “mangled”. This same man used to work at an Amazon warehouse where, in his words, “they work you to death”. He had a paycheck from Amazon that he couldn’t cash because he only had a photocopy of his ID. He said he would have to go to a payday lender who would take 15% of its value.
We went to the historical society in Elkton and heard how the town changed during and after WWII, when fireworks factories became munitions factories and poorer folks from the south came north to work in those factories and then stayed, even as those jobs dried up. In a photography exhibit at the Cecil County Arts Council we saw the world through the eyes of an autistic man.
Around the campfire we shared our reflections of the day. We prayed for those who find help and community at Meeting Ground and we gave thanks for the ability to help and for our own lives. We ended our time with the Lord’s Prayer; the words “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” revealed once again that love is three-dimensional.
Our last day there was not much for us to do so we played games, eventually all of us together in the living room at the men’s shelter, playing Heads Up with a cell phone and Mafia and Never Have I Ever. We learned that we’re all more than what we let others see and that it’s good to be seen and to see, to be valued and to value others, to be heard and to listen, just as we all are.
We ended the trip with ice cream at the UD Creamery. Not exactly what you’d expect for Communion but then the entire trip was our lives and the lives of those whom we served broken open—at least a crack—our time and energy and emotions and thoughts poured out for the sake of healing and wholeness, which is another way of saying the forgiveness of sins.
A mission trip or any kind of service to others is both doing and listening, working and learning. God does not require chores of us but relationships; not tasks but ministry; not jobs done, impact made, difference seen but transformation and restoration of lives, including our own.
You see, there’s another way to read this story of Mary and Martha. Mary Stromer Hanson, a longtime member of Christians for Biblical Equality, interprets this story as two sisters both of whom sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to what he said. Both of them had a ministry, diakonia. Rather than translating diakonia as ‘tasks’, one verse could read “But Martha was distracted with her service, her ministry, so she came to him and asked, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve, to minister alone? Tell her then to help me.’” When read this way, it appears that Mary is not at home but away on a mission trip for Jesus. Martha is overwhelmed by her own ministry; she’s hitting her own wall, her energy and attitude flagging and she needs help. Mary is not there to help her fix good food or have a dance party in the kitchen or reflect on the day by the campfire. Martha needs Mary’s help and yet Mary has chosen a good thing to be on the road for Jesus.
We’ve all got our challenges when it comes to being the hands and feet of Jesus. The life of a disciple includes both service and learning, active ministry and downtime, according to our abilities, and to serve alongside others. Teresa of Avila said to those in her care that “Christ has no body but yours. No hands, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which Christ walks to do good. Yours are the hands with which Christ blesses the world.” If anything, this is a story about not serving alone, about when we hit our wall, when we find ourselves overwhelmed, to reach out for help and yet not take others away from their mission, from the good that they have chosen.
Perhaps the most overlooked verse in this story is the first: “Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home.” In all our serving, in all our doing, in all our being and listening, the first thing we need to do is to welcome Jesus where we are, where we find ourselves, wherever we have been called, however we find Jesus, and to trust that Jesus enters when we open ourselves to ministry and to service.
Amen.
Benediction – enfleshed.com
Though we go from here in different directions,
still we go together:
bound by the promises of God,
held in the prayers of one another,
and joined in the shared labors of love.
With Christ as our companion,
let us go in peace.
Amen.
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
July 21, 2019
I consider mission trips to be one of the best spiritual teachers for how to live life. Even though this was a mini-mission trip—Sunday through Wednesday rather than Sunday through Saturday and geographically closer to home—the same spiritual principles were there.
- Remain flexible at all times.
- Make plans but don’t expect things to always go according to those plans.
- It’s as much, if not more, about being in community as it is about helping others or getting the job done.
- Ask what is needed rather than fix what you notice.
- Listen.
- It’s humbling when we spend our privilege on those who have been pushed to the margins.
- Humor and kindness go a long way.
- Be prepared to improvise.
- Eventually you and your energy, your attitude will hit a wall and you will need help.
- Coffee in the morning is a sacrament.
- Drink lots of water.
- Good food and good music can restore the soul at any time.
- Take time to play, especially while you’re working.
- If you open your heart and your mind, you will be changed for good.
Interestingly enough our mission trip began with play. Five youth and three adults arrived at the Brasels' river house last Sunday around mid-afternoon. Three more youth and two more adults were to arrive later that evening. We had planned some group building games, but the group began building itself. We swam in the Bush River, paddled kayaks, and took a ride on a speedboat. We cooked dinner, ate together, and cleaned up. We had a campfire and s’mores. We stayed up until the rest of the team arrived, because the mission trip doesn’t really start until we’re all there. We then went to bed, hopefully ready for what the next day would bring.
Usually on a mission trip there is an intermediary organization that has asked the mission site what they need, puts workers together with tasks, and ensures that everyone has the tools and supplies they need. On this trip we worked with Meeting Ground directly, which meant we were the ones asking and listening, assigning workers to tasks, and sometimes providing the tools and supplies needed. More often than not, we would burn through a job and would need something else to do. We painted doors and stairs, cleaned picnic tables and stained them, planted flowers, helped make lunch and served it, weeded, trimmed, and mowed.
We went to the historical society in Elkton and heard how the town changed during and after WWII, when fireworks factories became munitions factories and poorer folks from the south came north to work in those factories and then stayed, even as those jobs dried up. In a photography exhibit at the Cecil County Arts Council we saw the world through the eyes of an autistic man.
Around the campfire we shared our reflections of the day. We prayed for those who find help and community at Meeting Ground and we gave thanks for the ability to help and for our own lives. We ended our time with the Lord’s Prayer; the words “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” revealed once again that love is three-dimensional.
Our last day there was not much for us to do so we played games, eventually all of us together in the living room at the men’s shelter, playing Heads Up with a cell phone and Mafia and Never Have I Ever. We learned that we’re all more than what we let others see and that it’s good to be seen and to see, to be valued and to value others, to be heard and to listen, just as we all are.
We ended the trip with ice cream at the UD Creamery. Not exactly what you’d expect for Communion but then the entire trip was our lives and the lives of those whom we served broken open—at least a crack—our time and energy and emotions and thoughts poured out for the sake of healing and wholeness, which is another way of saying the forgiveness of sins.
A mission trip or any kind of service to others is both doing and listening, working and learning. God does not require chores of us but relationships; not tasks but ministry; not jobs done, impact made, difference seen but transformation and restoration of lives, including our own.
Perhaps the most overlooked verse in this story is the first: “Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home.” In all our serving, in all our doing, in all our being and listening, the first thing we need to do is to welcome Jesus where we are, where we find ourselves, wherever we have been called, however we find Jesus, and to trust that Jesus enters when we open ourselves to ministry and to service.
Amen.
Benediction – enfleshed.com
Though we go from here in different directions,
still we go together:
bound by the promises of God,
held in the prayers of one another,
and joined in the shared labors of love.
With Christ as our companion,
let us go in peace.
Amen.
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