Feeding the Hungry

My daughter has now graduated High School and will be going to college in the fall. Over the summer, she will be working with AmeriCorp and the United Way to connect children who are food-insecure to Free Summer Meals at hundreds of sites all over the county. This morning, she exclaimed with delight “It’s real food! Like fresh vegetables, produce, pita pockets with real cheese. Its healthy food! Delicious food!” She is so proud to be part of a first-class effort. Although in many typical ways a cynical, know-it-all teenager, her love for children and compassion for people in need comes through. I am so happy that she found this path.

Shortly after I started this particular blog in 2010, I wrote the following Devotion for a well-known charity newsletter:

“And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.” — Phil 1:9-11

It seems a paradox to be both abounding with love and highly discerning.  Knowledge and discernment can make it easier for us to identify all that is flawed and not excellent about the world.  So Paul challenges us to sharply hone our senses, both our moral and physical senses, and not simply to condemn what is wanting, but to do the more difficult work of approving what is excellent.

Maybe its not accurate to say that Paul challenges us.  He prays that we do not become cynical and distrustful of loving, believing it to be naive. And for certain, it would be naive not to know that we live in a world where humanity is fallen, broken, and sinful. But it also takes more knowledge and discernment to understand that the Good News that Jesus Christ is the light that shines in the darkness and that we should seek him in the world, in others, and in ourselves. Paul’s prayer in Philippians 1 is for all of Christ’s disciples: those who teach, those who care, those who share and spread Jesus’ love. Paul’s prayer is also for those who are in need of abounding love: the children and family who need our help, but who also need to know that God’s love is within them, that it is excellent, and that through Jesus Christ it will grow more and more until the love is abounding.

Prayer:

Dear God,

Your excellence and the fruits of righteousness are the greatest knowledge. I love them, want to share them, and want to help others to discover them. Grant me the strength to do your work, the wisdom to do it well, the Joy to do it with love, and the faith to know that your Will shall be done. Amen.

For years, I would do some sort of variant on this prayer before we broke bread as a family. At some point, however, I stopped encouraging the kids to say grace at dinner. I became cynical, exhausted, and despairing. My children are skeptical — like true scientists. They are also full of hope and joy — like true Christians.

Here is the experience of Grace: Listening to my daughter discern with a scientific eye and scholarly mind that there are structural inequities and injustices which create a prosperous community that nevertheless has thousands of hungry children, and in the next breath express abounding love for the bringing good food to children who need it. It does not matter that I got discouraged and wandered away from a church home and stopped praying. It does not matter that I am tired. Somehow, the message got through to my kids and today my daughter is in the world doing good works. God’s Will be done. Amen.