What I’d Give: Assets and Allies

Since mid-December I’ve been deeply involved in helping launch a redistricting reform coalition, Fair Districts PA. I spent the first days of the year structuring a website (FairDistrictsPA.com) and have been working with others to assemble assets and allies for the challenge of promoting constitutional change in the way Pennsylvania creates electoral districts.

Much of the work involves seeing what’s needed (petition site? Html experience?) and finding someone who can offer it. But an interesting surprise has been dealing with unsolicited offers, unexpected allies, support from unexpected angles.

I’ve been posting this Epiphany about what I’d give others if I could: essential gifts that aren’t mine to give. Awareness and experience of God’s abiding love, foundational faith, resolute hope, wonder, awe, wisdom.

Assets and allies are also on that list: resources for the life we’ve been called to, companions in the challenge of living as agents of God’s kingdom here on earth.

I’ve been struck lately by the apparent irrelevant add-ons at the ends of many of Paul’s epistles: Tychichus will tell you everything; (Galatians 6:21); I am amply supplied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent (Ephesians 4:18); our dear friend Luke, the doctor, and Demas send greetings (Colossians 4:14); Erastus stayed in Corinth, and I left Trophimus sick in Miletus. (2 Timothy 4:19).

In an unexpected way, those bits of personal detail at the ends of Paul's letters remind me of coalition building: L. will help with the proofreading on that. K.’s mom is sick; she’ll check back in later. The folks at RDP will be in touch.  S. says thanks and is looking into funding.

Paul was on a mission, was building a coalition, and was using the tools at hand to manage the resources and relationships he’d been given.

I pause on that word: given. Some might say he went out and found them, built them, earned them.

I’d say given.

In my own experience, there have been times when I’ve been called into challenging tasks, doubted my own ability, felt overwhelmed by the heavy lift, and seen God supply in amazing ways.

China Inland Mission founder Hudson Taylor has been often quoted: “God’s work, done God’s way, will never lack God’s supplies.”

 

That supply is rarely a check in the mail, although there are some great stories of exact amounts arriving at exactly the right moment.

More often the supply is not quite what we expected, from avenues we might have overlooked.

And sadly, all too often, the supply is missed: because we’re too proud to ask or receive it, because we don’t like the one who offers, because we’ve framed things so neatly in our own five-year plans we can’t adjust timing or see what’s being given.

I’ve done that: run right past people offering help that didn’t quite fit my idea. Stepped on and squashed resources that didn’t line up with the vision in my head.

I’ve learned the hard way: I run myself right into a wall trying to do it myself.

Or I can stop, sit, listen, wait, and see what God has in mind.

The first summer I led a youth mission trip in Kensington I came very close to crashing: the structure was unsustainable, the plan exhausting beyond belief. I picked up a terrible case of poison ivy midweek. My one thought, through much of the week, was “never again. Never never again.”

I’d been warned the mission model wasn’t workable. I’d inherited it from a predecessor, with the hazy suggestion I live through one week then find a way to shut the project down.

But mid-week, strung out on steroids for the poison ivy, struggling to get by on an hour or two of sleep each night, I started praying to see what God had in mind. Asked the team to join me in that prayer. And began to see something totally different: a model that would work with the tools and context we’d been given.

Good fruit came from that difficult week, not least a much deeper understanding that God’s work done in our own pre-patterned way is often doomed to failure.

In the decade of summers that followed, I’d often start the week of mission with the story of King Jehoshaphat, from 2 Chronicles 20: a vast army assembles against God’s people. Jehoshaphat calls the people to prayer and sets the problem before God: 

Lord, the God of our ancestors, are you not the God who is in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. Power and might are in your hand, and no one can withstand you. . . .[W]e have no power to face this vast army that is attacking us. We do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you. . . .” Then the Spirit of the Lord came on Jahaziel son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah, a Levite and descendant of Asaph, as he stood in the assembly. 

That’s the part I always paused on: Jahaziel was nobody. He wasn’t the leader, the high priest, the appointed spokesman. Just a guy in the crowd. But God chose to speak through him, and because King Jehoshaphat was willing to wait, and listen, because Jahaziel was courageous enough to offer what he was given to say, the enemy was defeated.

My challenge to our team: we have all the wisdom and ability we need. But we’ll need to wait and listen, and be brave enough to say what we see, or do what we’re asked. Even if it feels a little scary.

I love 2 Corinthians 9:6-8: 

Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.  7. Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. 8. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. 

We hear maybe too much about verse 7 – cheerful givers – and not enough about verse 8: God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

Most of the time most of the church doesn’t exactly live that way.

We haggle over who gets what, guard our turf, worry about the shortfall.

We ignore gifts that don’t meet our guidelines, reject unexpected assets that don't fit overly-corporate spreadsheets.

I say “we.” That’s not exactly accurate. I’ve been on the other side of that equation more often than not: told the gifts I’m offering don’t exist, because “God doesn’t give those gifts to women.” Gently ushered out the door because I don’t match the ministry model the leaders had in mind.

And I’ve watched with great sadness when wonderful offerings from others are discounted: because the offerers are too young, too old, too “odd.” Their accents aren’t quite right. Their ideas are a little different.

Praying and puzzling over this I came across a post by Reverend Dr. Eric Foley, cofounder of Voice of the Martyrs Korea:  

I suspect one of the grave ways we impoverish ourselves as missionaries and nonprofit ministry organizations is that our engines run only on cash; every other kind of gift (and here I’m not talking only about gifts-in-kind but people, especially the various and sundry kind, offering themselves as if they were treasure–the audacity!) just seems to choke the motor. Taylor’s promise was not that God’s work, done God’s way, will never lack for our supply. Rather, his contention was that God would supply as a good Father giving good gifts to His children. Kids always want cash, but sometimes parents know that other gifts are far more needed by their children.    

I have seen audacious gifts offered and rejected. 

But I’ve also, by God’s grace, seen audacious gifts put to good use, seen God’s kingdom made visible through unexpected means.

I’ve had the blessing of seeing God work through unorthodox teams, creative coalitions, accomplishing far more than I could have asked or imagined, stretching scant dollars to supply surprising outcomes

Assets and allies are not mine to give, although I’m happy to offer what resources I have, and give my support in whatever ways I can.

From The Life of Christ, James Reed, 1930

In truth, assets and allies have already been given, all around us, more than we could ever need, more than we will ever know.

What I’d give if I could is the willingness to see them. The openness to embrace unexpected allies, unusual assets.

The willingness to offer what we have, even after we’ve been shut down, shut out. Again, and again.

The willingness to offer our bread and fish, our untamed donkeys, our strange ideas, our seemingly slim assets.

What I’d give is the ability to hold our own plans lightly, to wait and give with open hands.

To lean in close to the one who 

is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. . . . Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness.  You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.

During this Epiphany season (from the beginning of January until the beginning of Lent on Ash Wednesday, February 10) I’ve been blogging about those things I would give if I could. This is the last in that series. 

January 3: What I'd Give You

January 10: What I’d Give: Living into Love 

January 17: What I’d Give: Foundational Faith  

January 24: What I’d Give: Resolute Hope 

January 31: What I’d Give: Wonder, Awe, Wisdom

Kensington Sabbath

July 2010

  1.  Fifteen feet by ten

  Two-thirds cement, still roses

  Bloom, and sparrows sing.

  2.  I will be rich and

  I will live – someplace – very

  Very far from here.

  3.  Teeth lost, back sagging

  Eyes slide away to distant

  Sadness – seventeen.

  4.  God breathes, a breeze stirs

  Cool air from the river, sweet

  Whispers of blessing.

  5.  Justice is the ache

  This lingering limp, this . . .

  Silence echoing.

     

For the past eleven summers I led a program called Urban Serve, a week-long children’s outreach in Kensington, a diverse neighborhood in Philadelphia with a high concentration of children living below the poverty level. The team I led was composed of teens and adults from my own suburban church and the partner church in Kensington. Each summer about two dozen of us gathered in the parish house of the Free Church of St. John, sleeping on the floor, and showering in the narrow yard behind the parish house, preparing a program to share the good news of Christ with neighborhood children, toddlers to teens as well as older siblings and parents.

The first year I was part of this program, we followed the model of our suburban church vacation Bible school. It was one of the most difficult weeks of my life. We worked hard, but few children came. I slept about ten hours the entire week, and somehow encountered the only poison ivy in Kensington in one of our small service projects. I promised myself I would never do the program again unless God showed us another way to do it.

July 2004

He did. The next summer we used outreach materials from Scripture Union, moved the program outside, and ran it in the early evening, when the streets around the church were full of wandering children. We registered more than a hundred children, gave away dozens of Bibles, and caught a clearer vision of how God intended to use the one week of outreach to energize ministry to children throughout the year.

It feels odd to be at home this morning, knowing the team is waking up from their first night on the floor, preparing to attend the morning service at St. Johns, getting ready to practice songs and dramas for the start of the children’s program this evening.

Looking back on my weeks in Kensington, I find that God used that time as an intensive annual graduate course in ministry. Trust, patience, obedience, endurance, wisdom, grace, courage, hope, compassion were all on the syllabus, along with intensive exposure to poverty, community, addiction, mental illness, injustice, systemic failure, amazing resilience.

July 2006

Every summer I approached our mission week with a sense of unease. I never felt ready, never felt like I had quite enough of whatever the week seemed to require. Our team was always weak in one way or another: not enough experienced leaders, not enough kids from the community, not enough musicians, not enough something. Yet, as I wrote last week, God’s supply is always enough: "And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.” 2 Corinthians 9:8.

Last summer I found myself mentally, spiritually, physically exhausted. It had been a very hard year of ministry, for a long list of reasons. There had been less support than usual, and far more challenges, and I felt in need of a month or two of sabbatical rather than a week of little sleep and hands-on leadership from dawn to well-past dark.

At the time, I was reading Sabbath, by Dan Allender, thinking and praying about how much I needed more Sabbath in my life. Just days before our mission, I was recording some highlights of the book in my journal when I had a strange thought: could the week in Kensington be a Sabbath?

“The Sabbath is the day in which we receive and extend the Father’s invitation to be reconciled.” (106). In a community divided racially, in a place where resentments simmer into physical violence, reconciliation is a message met with disbelieve and amusement. Even our team struggled with reconciliation. It’s never easy working and living side-by-side with people of different ages, different personalities, different cultural expectations about cleanliness, noise, time, personal space.  

Allender goes on to explain that part of Sabbath “is allowing the ‘not yet’ to be more real than the ‘is.’ . . . The Sabbath asks, how would you live if there were no wars, enmity,  battle lines, or need to defend, explain, interpret, or influence another to see anything differently? The Sabbath glories in the goodness, the amazing, solicitous, heart-thrilling glory of each person to whom we are privileged to speak .. .The Sabbath is the day we set aside to look at one another from the vantage point of eternity and then to operate in time, in an actual hour or minute, as if it is true.” (111)

July 2010

I wrote in my journal “Lord, I would like to approach Urban Serve as a Sabbath, a holy time set apart, a time of wonder, of play, of delight, of reconciliation.”

I had no idea what that would look like, but found, as the week unfolded that I saw our team differently, with much greater appreciation, much deeper awareness of what a gift each one was. The inevitable challenges took less mental energy. Iin fact, most became opportunities for creativity, good conversation, new levels of engagement. It wasn’t a perfect week, but in many ways, it was a much easier week. I was more fully aware of God’s presence, more conscious that we were working together as citizens of an eternal kingdom, at odds with, yet joyfully invading, the broken kingdom around us.

Sleep is often an issue for me, especially when I’m sleeping on the hard floor surrounded by two dozen people I’m responsible for. I hear every street noise, kids talking in their sleep, team members snoring. I wake at every footstep, every voice down the alley. We normally scheduled an hour of rest and reflection after lunch; for me that time was essential for mentally debriefing the hours before, planning needed changes to the hours ahead, then trying to regroup from the lack of sleep and constant noise.

July 2010

In Sabbath mode last summer, an odd thing happened. I slept more soundly, plans were resolved more quickly, my energy level was higher, and I found myself spending my rest and reflection time sitting in various corners, praying and writing poetry. I hadn’t written poetry in over two decades, but for some reason, sitting in the “not yet” of the coming kingdom, things looked different, and poetry seemed a good way to respond.

We also found more time to sing - worship in the church yard before the program, worship with the team late into the evenings, some gospel bluegrass for fun at odd moments of the day, with "The Rootin' Tootin' Emeralds" performing at our annual talent show our last night together. 

I’m still processing lessons learned, still practicing Sabbath, not just on Sundays, but in new ways, new contexts. And I’m still praying for our summer mission, for our friends in Kensington, for the team gathered there this week. I know they have already begun to experience the “enough” of God’s provision, and I pray that they learn all He has to teach them, that they meet Him in His grace at each point of difficulty, and that they come home on Friday refreshed, comforted, nourished by His goodness.

I will pray

     I will

For hope beyond this corner bar

For joy that lifts

     beyond the salsa beat

     and rains

     like kindness

     down on flat tar roofs

For peace, a peace beyond mere calm

     a peace that sings

     that blooms

     that shimmers off the streets

     and shines

     like sun

     on sun-starved skin.

I’ll pray

But if I pray,

     Good God,

And if I stay

     alive enough

          to care

          to hope

          to wait

Then meet me here

     right here

         beneath the broken streetlight

Meet me

     on this narrow strip

          of rubbled pavement

Meet

     and teach 

          my

               tired

                    feet

                         to dance.




Please join the conversation. Your thoughts and experiences in this are welcome. Look for the "__ comments" link below to leave your comments.