Giving Ourselves Away by Cheri Holdridge (with an assist by Kurt Young)

    The knock came at my door one afternoon. We had only been living in the Old West End for a couple of months. I had just starting working as the pastor of an inner city church. It was my dream job. Not everyone would call it a dream job (be careful what you dream for), not everyone would call being the Pastor of an inner city church with 27 members (and attendance of 19) their dream job.  But ever since I had lived in Atlanta and worked at an inner city church while in seminary, I had dreamed of being the pastor of a church in a neighborhood just like the Old West End. It took me about ten years to get here, because the powers that be, sent me first to the suburbs of Cincinnati and then to the county seat town of Findlay Ohio.

    Finally, I landed in the Old West End, at a tiny congregation with a passion for reaching out for people living on the margins. We had an after-school program for children at the local public school. I told you last week about Travis, our children’s leader here at the Village, who was a part of this program years ago. 

    The knock on the door came from a woman I’ll call Toni. She had worked previously at the church as the custodian, on a very part-time basis. Toni lived on social security disability. I did not know much of her story, but I knew that she was economically poor, African American, did not finish high school, and that her disability had something to do with being mentally slow, she had a mental disability. Compared to her, I enjoy great privilege in this world. Toni knocked on my door that day, looking for work. She asked if I had any odd jobs she could do. She needed money. I don’t remember the details of her particular story that day. I don’t recall if I found any work for her. Maybe I gave her a few dollars, as a loan, knowing that I would probably never see the money again. I don’t do that very often, but sometimes I do. Maybe I gave her some food.

    This is what I do remember about that day. I was holding my infant child, and I needed to go into the house to get something. So I asked Toni to come inside and I asked her to hold my baby for a moment while I went to the kitchen. And when I returned, Toni was crying. She was staring at my baby, and then she looked up at me and said, “Oh thank you Pastor Cheri for letting me to hold your baby.”

    I meant so much to her that I asked her to just hold the baby.  She said it had been a very long time since anyone had let her hold a baby. But she also made it clear, that it was a big deal that I had asked her to hold my baby.

    What struck me, was shame. Because I had hesitated. Toni was not really someone I trusted. To be honest, I was not sure I wanted to let her hold my baby. She kind of smelled bad, as if she had not showered in a few days. And I honestly had hesitated before I handed the baby to her. And then, I thought to myself “How stupid is that?” I could not have consciously gone through this thought process, but in a flash it went something like this: “Cheri, You have waited ten years, been dying to come be a pastor in the inner city for the past two years, and you are standing in the safety of your own home, and you are hesitating to let another child of God hold your baby while you walk into the next room?”

    So I handed the baby over.  God taught me so much in that moment. It was a moment of blessing. Toni was blessed in that moment, in the way we are all blessed when we get to hold a baby and wonder at the beauty of any child of God. Toni was blessed that I trusted her with my most precious child. I was blessed, even in my shame, as God showed me that it is in giving and sharing that we bring joy to the world. My baby was blessed too. Of course she did not know it at the time. But she was blessed too. And I have to believe that God smiled in that moment.

    When we give ourselves away, we are blessed.  When we give ourselves away, we experience fullness of joy.  When we give ourselves away, we are living as God’s beloved children.

    In his book, Life of the Beloved, that wonderful spiritual author Henri Nouwen reminds us that our living finds meaning when we live for others (p. 84). He writes: “True joy, happiness and inner peace from the giving of ourselves to others. A happy life is a life for others. That truth, however, is usually discovered when we are confronted with our brokenness” (p. 87).

    Nouwen says that there seems to be a mysterious link between our brokenness and our ability to give to each other. I have to agree. I call it vulnerability, or authenticity. Around here we call it being real, or recognizing that there are no perfect people in the world. You seen, when we own the reality that we all have been through hard times (not that God caused us pain in order to teach us a lesson, I don’t believe that – I think that kind of theology is problematic). But you can look around and see that life includes some hard times. It is what it is. When we live in authentic community, we are honest about our brokenness.

     Then out of the honesty of our shared experiences, we have the opportunity to give to one another – to be generous, forgiving and compassionate.

    You see I can forgive another person for disappointing me, or hurting me, because I own up to the fact that I have been a disappointment to others.

    That is what it means to be in a community of people who follow Jesus: we trust God to use our brokenness, to bless us, and we trust that when we give ourselves away we will all be blessed.

    Our scripture reading for today (2 Kings 4:42-44 from the Message translation for those following along on the net)  is a great example of this. The story is reminiscent of those great stories in the New Testament when Jesus takes a couple of loaves of bread and a few fish and feeds masses of people. Do you remember the stories? And then after everyone eats, they gather up baskets of leftovers, and they have more food left than they started with?

    Well, in this story from the Old Testament, long before Jesus came along, we have a story of one of God’s prophets, Elisha. A servant comes to this holy man and brings a humble offering to God of twenty loaves of bread and some apples. Elisha tells him to use it to feel the crowd. The servant is taken aback because there are 100 people there, and this will never be enough food to be an adequate meal for such a crowd. Elisha says: “Go ahead and feed them. Give what you have. God says there’s plenty.”  It’s always about trusting God, isn’t it? 

    As the story goes, the servant feeds the people. There is more than enough and they have plenty left over. You see, the man focuses on what is lacking. But God blesses his gift, multiplies it, and all are blessed abundantly.

    You see, you can’t out-give God. When we are generous, God always blesses our giving. When we don’t hold back, there is always plenty of blessing. I had no idea what a blessing it would be to Toni that I asked her to hold my baby. But God knew. Even in the brokenness of my fear, God brought about blessing. I trusted God. I took a chance. Not only was my daughter perfectly safe, but Toni and I were both blessed in that moment of connection.

    The servant came to Elisha thinking he was giving an offering of food to the prophet. I don’t think he had any idea that Elisha would try to feed the whole crowd that day. But Elisha and God used the man’s humble gift, and multiplied it. You see with God, every act of love and forgiveness and generosity is multiplied and there are even left-overs (Henri-Nouwen, p. 98).  Leftovers of blessings, I love that image.

    So, here we are Village Church. God has brought us to a new neighborhood. We are still serving the greater community of NW Ohio and SE Michigan but since we have this new home on Sunday mornings, we have a chance to reach out a little more to Maumee and the surrounding neighborhoods. How shall we give ourselves away?

    We are going to start with something really basic: FOOD. In two weeks we are going to sponsor an afternoon of music down the street at The Village Idiot. We’re calling it “Feed Your Village.”  Our band leader Travis has secured a line-up of seven musical acts to perform. We are asking for donations for the “Feed Your Neighbor” food pantries in Toledo.

     We’ll also set up this Hope Chest in the lobby of the Maumee Indoor for the next 3 months in order to collect food.  You see, we asked the folks down at The Village Idiot, (a local bar and restaurant) what do they think people in Maumee care about and they said people need food, so that’s what we are raising money for. I think most of us have enough food and enough money to buy food. If not, let me know and I can give you a referral to one of the “Feed Your Neighbor” food pantries.

    You see, there is actually enough food in the world, it’s just a problem of distribution.  There is certainly enough food on the shelves of the stores in Toledo. It’s just that some people are out of work. Some children have parents who can’t feed them, and so they need food at these pantries. Everyone in this room has the ability to give something to “Feed Your Neighbor.” More than that, you have a friend who likes music and pizza and who would like to come out to the Village Idiot for our “Feed Your Village” event. So, I want you to invite them to come with you.  We’ve even got a Facebook event to get invited to and let you invite people.

    Now the Village Idiot is a pizzeria, but it is also a bar. We will be there on Sunday afternoon. The music will be family friendly and young people are welcome. But the bar is not your scene, that is fine. We don’t want anyone to come who is not comfortable there. You can make a donation here at the church. This is just a way to get out into the community with folks who might not come to our church without us going out to meet the first.

    Here at the Village, we will have opportunities every month to give ourselves away. Last month we went to the Toledo Seagate Foodbank and sorted boxes of food for senior citizens, helping feed hundreds of people for a month. We will do this again.
Other months we have participated in a community meal at a church in the Old West End. In May we are going to host a Mother’s Day brunch and we are going to give some free tickets to some women who have been victims of domestic violence so their children can bring them for a nice meal. If you want to participate in one of these service projects talk to me, or Patrick or one of our other leaders.

    At the Village, we follow Jesus and Change the World.  We give ourselves away. This is a core value. This is who we are. We are followers of Jesus. We are changing the world by giving ourselves away. I hope you give yourself away. I hope you find ways, on a regular basis, to let go of your blessings so they may be a blessing to others. You see, in this way, our blessings are multiplied. Joy comes when we do something for others and give ourselves away. So let’s live out that calling of Jesus. Will you? Let’s live in that way of Jesus, that way of Joy and give ourselves away!

    Want to be a part of a faith community like this?  We’re now at the corner of the Anthony Wayne Trail and Conant Street in the Maumee Indoor Theater.  We’re here Sundays at 10:30 AM and out in the world the rest of the week.  Come join this group of imperfect people as we try our best to follow Jesus, and to change the world in ever way we can.