Sermon: May 2, 2010

Is there anyone here who doesn’t get what Jesus is saying about how to give a feast?

When you give a feast (don’t invite you friends and family and your rich neighbors invite the poor, the quadrapeligic, those who can’t see, the widow, the orphan and those who are chronically hungry and you will be blessed because they can’t pay you back.

In the new world of God’s dream, new table manners are required. Today in our offering of letters for Bread for the World we seek to change the etiquette at the dining table of our country, the richest nation in the world. We have fashioned a way of life and set a table in our society where many are not welcome to eat. We gather at the table of Jesus this morning because we know we can change that.

Play: http://www.youtube.com/breadfortheworld#p/u/0/-_KXgiYslHo

Last: “...my landlord doesn’t want milk or cheese, he wants a check.”

Working but still poor. In Lane County over a third of food box recipients are single mothers. A full-time worker at minimum wage earns $14,500 a year. The average annual cost of child care for a mother with 2 children is $15, 800.

All we have to do today is write a letter on behalf of those who are working but still poor. Does anyone here not understand what James says in the letter he wrote to the faithful of his time?

Behold the wages you do not pay the laborers who work your fields, serve your burgers and fries, empty your parents’ bedpans and make the beds in your vacation rentals cry out and the cries have reached the ears of God.

His letter says these wages are kept back by fraud. Fraud. Certainly their are legal definitions of fraud and we are dealing with them to sickening heights on Wall Street. For Christians fraud is anyone living with any amount of surplus while even one family in the community can’t afford to eat. The shame of spending trillions on unprovoked war and weaponry to deter the threat of future war while 16 million american children live in households who struggle to put food on the table, ought to rearrange a Christian’s soul.
But for today, Bread for the World says there is one small thing we can do about wages that, in 2009 lifted 3.3 million children above the poverty threshold. Write a letter. Write a letter urging the policy-makers who serve us to continue tax policies that are about to expire and strengthen tax credit laws for people who work but are still hungry. Our own Sharon Thornberry, a member of our United Methodist congregation in Philomath and staff of the Oregon Food Bank knows alot more about this than I do. She says we can actually create hope. She says we can actually do justice.

Play: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRvN6tOMQaA

(00:00-2:54)

Last words: “... a life framed by justice, not just by charity.”

Every once in awhile, my 8th grade teacher, Mr. Taylor, shows up here at church. He lives in the neighborhood. As a shy kid with pretty low self-esteem, he believed in me until I could believe in myself. As my basketball and track coach he saw something in me that, until then, I didn’t know was there...whatever that God-spark is that can light our way toward the humanity we were born to be. It was hard enough for Mr. Taylor to convince me, and it makes me wonder at how much more it must take to convince a hungry child that they are created in God’s image. We know how nearly impossible it is for undernourished children to learn. That’s what this is about for me. I want our kids to know the Divine inside themselves. Some will question if a hand-written letter will make any difference, but listen to these folks who know from experience:

Back to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=Ly4ToTXFDXY&feature=related

(1:23-4:44)

Last words: “What I saw there that day really demonstrated the power of one person in changing history.”

We only need to do one thing today. And that one thing can change history. It’s about wages. It’s about food. It is about justice and hope.
It’s good table manners.