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Monthly Musings from Pastor Ryan: A Day at the Pantry
August 2024
It’s a little past noon on a Wednesday. Stepping out of the summer heat and through the church doors, I see that the kitchen area has already been transformed into the waiting area for the food pantry. Poking my head into the sanctuary, I find the pantry shelves have already been positioned. Bags of beans, cans of fruit, boxes of pasta, cartons of eggs, jugs of milk, tables full of fruit and vegetables—everything had already been set out the day before.
Because the morning fitness class is on summer break, the Tuesday shelf stocking crew of volunteers were able to get everything set up the day before. Usually, the HACAP food truck arrives in the morning on the Tuesday before a pantry day. Sometimes the delivery doesn’t happen until later in the day. I had missed the delivery because of a meeting and because I was called out on a pastoral care call. Instead, I got to be the person to walk into a quiet and still church and just sit for a few minutes with all the items that would soon be picked up and taken home by shoppers from around town. Saying thanks for the abundance that we were about to share, I walked away from the sanctuary feeling blessed by the volunteers who had set everything up, the truck driver and warehouse workers who supplied us with the food, all the hands of labor that packaged and prepared the food items, the farmers, the rain, the sunlight, the soil, the earth, the food itself, God.
Later, just before we opened the doors, we circled up like we always do just before we welcome people into our sanctuary to collect groceries. We decide who is going to do what. Everyone has a role to play. A joke or two is usually shared. We pray, giving thanks for this chance to share with others.
Twenty people wait outside. After almost two years of welcoming people to our pantry, we’ve gotten to know many of the shoppers. On this particular day I take notice of some of our regular shoppers. One seems to be a little more at ease than usual. Another seems to be a little more edgy than usual. As always, cooing babies and restless toddlers liven things up. Everyone is ready to get their food and get going back home or to work or to their child’s soccer practice or to wherever—just like all the rest of us. I give thanks for the ways we all make the food pantry work, both the volunteers and the shoppers.
5:30 p.m. rolls around and it’s time to close-up. After having served over sixty families, we’re tired. Volunteering at the pantry can be fun, illuminating, and more than worthwhile. It can also wear a person out. Even so, after the last table is put away, cardboard box collapsed, and shelf on wheels rolled back into storage, I can’t help but notice how the experience has also fed all of us. While our main motivation at the food pantry is to answer Jesus’ call to feed the hungry, I can’t help but notice that we too have been fed by a spirit of hospitality and kindness that has weaved its way around and through us for the past few of hours. For that I give thanks, just as I would give thanks “for the reading and hearing of this good news” or the breaking and sharing of bread and cup when we celebrate holy communion.
Friends, we have much to be thankful for. While the world seems as fragmented as ever and we can’t be sure of what our future as a church will look like, we are a place where people come to be fed both in body and spirit. Sometimes it’s visitors or shoppers who are fed. Sometimes it’s us on a Sunday morning. Sometimes we may not know what this is all for or we why we keep coming back, but we do, sometimes to pray, sometimes to laugh, sometimes to cry, sometimes to volunteer, sometimes to learn, sometimes just because. And for all that and for all the other many reasons we and others keep coming back, I give thanks to all of you for being a vibrant and loving community in Christ.
MONTHLY MUSINGS FROM PASTOR RYAN: Should We Ban the Bible?
February 2023
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” Matthew 22:37
Considering the ongoing efforts to ban books in Iowa, we need to seriously think about banning the Bible. While I am not a proponent of banning books, I do take seriously the concerns being raised by others. For example, there are some adults who are uncomfortable with any mention of sexuality in school library books. In addition, there are those who also take umbrage with historical facts that might make them uncomfortable or at the very least ask for their empathy. And then there is the argument that there is some kind of insidious indoctrination happening between the stacks in school libraries from Davenport to Council Bluffs.
While I have not read all (or even most of the books) that are being targeted by this loud band of book banners, I am familiar with the Bible, and, truth be told, there is a lot in the Bible that might make just about anyone uncomfortable—sex, rape, genocide, sexism, incest, deceit, etc. In addition to all that, there are stories of people overcoming slavery, sexism, and fundamentalism. Such stories, I’m afraid, might make some people uncomfortable because one could very easily read hints of something such as Critical Race Theory into such stories of liberation.
And then there’s Jesus. Interestingly enough, Jesus doesn’t say one word about homosexuality. He does talk a lot about the dangers of wealth and inequality. He actually warns that those who do not feed the hungry and care for the most vulnerable among us are going to face a harsh judgement. To be perfectly honest, that always makes me a little uncomfortable, but I can’t imagine how unsettling it must be to those politicians who while trying to ban books are also talking about cutting SNAP benefits (food assistance), rolling back child labor laws, and elevating tax breaks for the wealthy over the needs of the people. I do worry about them, because it would seem to me that if there is anything insidious going on in our state, it’s coming from the Statehouse and not school libraries.
Along with each of you, I find my faith to be a source of both great challenge and comfort. Our challenge today is to speak up in favor of intellectual freedom, including for our youth. Our challenge is to lift-up and celebrate the fact that because of our God-given diversity there is no one single story about the human experience that should be elevated over and above others. Our challenge, even if these new laws are enacted, is to do our part to make sure that those who are being ostracized and denigrated still have places where they can learn, explore, grow, love, and be loved in safety and without fear.
When Jesus tells us to love God, he tells us to do so with all our heart, soul, and MIND (emphasis added). As Christians we should not fear learning about others, celebrating their stories, and contemplating both the good and the bad sides of our histories. To do all that takes an open mind. To do all that takes a willingness to see the image of the Divine as it is reflected in others and all the many different ways that we love, care for, and struggle alongside one another.
While I do not support banning the Bible, I do pray that those who are pushing the efforts mentioned above come to see that they are doing real harm to others whose sacred worth is just as valuable as anyone else’s in God’s eyes. Until then, let us recommit ourselves to being a church that is Open, Affirming, and committed to a kind of Just Peace that values the sacred worth and dignity of all God’s children.
Moments of the Divine - Opening the mark twain - lucas farms food pantry
NOVEMBER 2022
While I know the Divine is always present among us, especially evident when you are open and watching and listening with Heart. But I’ve been surprised over these last several months at the number of times the Divine directed our efforts with the food pantry so splendidly and so obviously that I had to stop to ponder and let the moment fill me with appreciation and awe.
Our mission of helping others who are food insecure just keeps getting reinforced, whether through the Heifer Project, Center for Worker Justice, Domestic Violence Intervention Project, Shelter House, or the Crisis Center, and now through our own food pantry. I’d like to share this example: We were referred to an organization called Field to Family whose mission is to partner with food producers located within a 100-mile radius of Iowa City. Food is purchased and then sold at wholesale prices to organizations, (think schools, UIHC, care facilities, the CommUnity Food Bank). When I contacted them, they had “just” received a $50,000 grant called the Local Food Producers Agreement. Anyone endorsed by HACAP was eligible to purchase fresh food items using this grant money. So, for our first pantry event, we “purchased" tomatoes, squash, and apples, all free to us and coordinated by Field to Family. I contacted them a day after their orders were due, yet the coordinator helped me place an order anyway, and agreed to personally pull these items for me to pick up.
All along we’ve met people with this kind of heart. The HACAP workers who assisted in the set up and those who work in the warehouse and deliver the orders. The principal at Mark Twain, Jason McGinnis. The Mark Twain Student and Family Advocate, Jen De La Cruz, who has a wealth of experience with food pantries and has guided our selections and set up. The CommUnity Food Bank who allowed us to visit (drop by unexpectedly) and ask a hundred questions about their process. Table to Table who kindly sent us an application to be on their wait list for food items. Our own folks at faith who have spent hours discussing, writing, considering, measuring, constructing, carrying, and a hundred other activities to get this up and operating. And the Man of the Hour is our newest player on the field. Ryan has been the person to keep it all running and coordinated and communicated to Faith, Mark Twain, HACAP as well as the Lucas Farms Neighborhood. It’s all in place, and as of this writing the food is to be delivered this afternoon. I’ll be looking for the Divine. Hopefully I’ll remember to pause and offer a prayer of thanks for making this all possible.
