It's absurd world after all

I ride a bus for about 3 hours to get to Flint. Last week, a volunteer was sent through the Red Cross to help distribute water at the Brethren church. As we talked, I found that she lived in Chicago, but was presently attending college in California, and for Spring Break, she travelled to Flint to help with water distribution. I thought, “wow,” that’s one alternative to Daytona Beach. This week, I had another remarkable volunteer moment while distributing water.

When I arrived on Stocker Ave. for Thursday distribution, I was told by Mulondo, a minister with NOW Ministries that shares the church building with First CoB, that more volunteers were coming to help. At noon, a van from Save the Children pulled into the lot, and five men jumped out. Mike was a Save the Children representative, and he brought four young men with him; one from Pennsylvania and three others from New York.

“New York City or state?” I asked one of the men.

“About two hours north of the city,” said one of the young men.

“Oh,” I responded, “my family spent a week at a Bruderhof community near New Paltz a few years back.” The young man’s eyes brightened a bit and he asked me if we were in Rifton, and which family we stayed with.

“Jimmy and Dahlia’s family took care of us,” I said.

He immediately pulled out his phone while saying, “You stayed with Jimmy Wipf. I remember your visit.” He was calling Jim Wipf to tell him he ran into me while volunteering in Flint, of all places, and commenting on what a small world it really is. I called my wife Jenn to tell her the story. A lot of great conversation followed with all of the young men, and the Save the Children rep, as we distributed a record number of bottles of water for the church that day, more than six pallets of 72 cases each, with seven of us working. Three men even went with B.B. to deliver water to shut-ins because we had so much help.

There is more to this, however, than describing a reunion with fellow radical Christian servants. The very reason my family visited the Bruderhof community in Rifton, NY was to experience a Christian community of goods, and live for a week holding all in common as the Acts 2 church did 2000 years or so ago. Not really simple living (though in many ways it is) but intentional Christian embodiment of the Gospel is what happens at Bruderhof communities. It was a welcome change of pace for our family, and a lesson in how community can work when faith is the motivator and cooperation is the priority. And, to answer the question that follows nearly every time I share about the Bruderhof, there is plenty of individuality in these Communities of Christ. The fact of the matter is, individuals thrive while committing themselves to the needs and progress of the community. We take care of ourselves when we take care of others around us. I believe this is at the core of the gospel, though in the United States, Acts 2 churches are considered a gospel of the absurd.

Without such a community that binds us to the gospel and one another, the church in the United States is, for the most part, at a loss when it is needed to respond to crisis such as the water emergency in Flint. In fact, the church has been at a loss for a century when it should have been responding to the crises of war, poverty, abuse, and hunger when anything more than money was necessary to address these concerns. It seems that, outside of communities like the Bruderhof, who care to embody the message of Jesus to the point of sacrificing wealth or pursuing career paths in order to be faithful to God, their church, and themselves in a way that allows for them to serve people in Flint when it is needed.

This is a matter of carrying one’s cross, and it is a matter that is lost upon the church. We are called the Body of Christ because we are to be the hands and feet of Christ in situations when grace, mercy, and sacrificed are needed on behalf of those who are in need. When a whole city has no access to water for drinking, bathing, or cooking – that is a primary example of a time when the church needs to be available to heed the call to servanthood. Remember, Paul calls us to be slaves to Christ.

Yet we as Christian get caught up in maintaining a lifestyle that refuses to release us to care for those in need. We might send extra money, or water, or food, but because we need to work to pay any number of bills we run up to satisfy material desires, we are not available to give Flint what it needs – not just water and empathy, not just money, but relationship building, time, and hands on help in the face of disaster. If you don’t believe that Flint has experienced disaster, you have not been there in the last 30 years, let alone two years of the water crisis.

A church is a community, and while all of us are not called to sacrifice in exactly the same way as the Jerusalem church decided to sacrifice on one another’s behalf by giving everything away, we must find a way to support those who claim Christ who wish to spend their time helping communities and individuals in crisis. We have missionaries across the globe, and far too many Christians serve in the armed forces. Yet so few of us are willing to provide the resources our communities need to rebuild their social fabric and reinvent their economies. We need a Lamb’s defense to go along with the warrior mentality that the American church has so easily assumed since the Revolution. The gospel says all there is to say about sacrificing on behalf of the poor, and even the prisoner. It says very little about Christians going to war against human enemies.

I ask this question far too often, and it is answered in too many unsatisfactory ways. Why do American churches preach peace while sending our young people to war, while at the same time preaching that Jesus loves the poor while refusing to dedicate the means necessary to serving their needs. Whether it is government’s job to respond to every disaster is not the question the church should be asking itself. Rather, we should be asking why the government has to respond to disaster when there are so many churches in our country.

The Bruderhof communities, which were part of the Confessing Church movement in Nazi Germany were exiled because they spoke out against Nazi injustice in the late 1930’s. It seems they are often just alone acting against injustice in 21st century America. Flint needs more churches to help out, and God commands it. Let’s stop dragging our feet and send our young men and women to sacrifice on behalf of those in need without having to kill others to do so.