If there is anything that churches know how to do well, it is to feed people. We do this well metaphorically, and we do this well literally. Today I want to talk about ways we can use our skill at feeding people to support the resistance.

There are so many opportunities to feed people! Start with some local gathering where your neighbors are talking about how best to support immigrants, or trans people, or democracy--show up at the meeting with food! I suggest that your church be represented by two or three people. Bring easy to eat finger food to meetings: cookies, grapes, a pitcher of water or lemonade. Don't bring too much, bring the simplest of paper goods, and adjust what you bring next time based on whether it gets eaten. Home made is a delight of course. Meetings are better with food; food helps to create connections.

First Congregational Church in Rindge, NH funds dinner for the local Bridging Differences group. A volunteer orders from a black owned business in town; students at the local university are more likely to join the conversation when dinner is provided.

If you are showing up at town meeting or an controversial discussion, your congregation should send a delegation rather than and individual. And bring brownies and/or tangerines. Connect with folk over the snacks before the meeting starts, making it easier to feel like you are talking to friends, not adversaries. My congregation brought granola bars and lemonade to people standing out at election time--we brought them to both sides, introduced ourselves and then went on our way. It was tense, but some of the people we think of as "against" us showed up at our active bystander training later in the year. We provided food for that, too!

A bag of jelly beans, or candy canes, or valentine hearts, and certainly almost always chocolate might be good for when your church delegation visits with an elected official.

If you already have a meal or pantry, add some posters, table cards, or other markers to make it clear it is open to people regardless of their immigration status, and that LGBTQIA+ people are welcome. I heard of a church that had one table reserved at their dinner for discussion about how to stay safe. If you have the capacity consider adding events specifically for a group that is being attacked.

In the early church, the evidence that the Kingdom of God is at hand was the existence of dinner every night, open to all regardless of their status as poor, female, or slave. The image of going from being a beggar to someone who was welcomed into the church family dinner still fills me with awe. It is the simplest of tasks to feed people, and it is the greatest as well.

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The first surveys that came out to pastors asking “how are you doing” in this coronavirus age asked about what help we needed with worship. And during Lent, to not have worship seems, well, unimaginable. My church had just started a new Tuesday night dinner worship. That seems like an absurdity now. This week we are considering the unthinkable: how to celebrate Easter online. One of the kids at my church’s food pantry said to me, “maybe Easter will be canceled.”

Easter, I must remind you, I must remind myself; Easter happens every Sunday. That is why Christians worship on Sunday, instead of on the Sabbath. Because every Sunday Christ is Risen. Easter can’t be canceled—it can’t be stopped from happening every week. But that feeling that missing out on the brass quintet and the Alleluia’s and the Lilies and Tulips and Daffodils (the order form is on my desk) seems to mean we are missing Easter. The loss is real.

Easter is the point of church.

Easter worship is not the point of church. Worship, the music, the prayers, the bible readings and commentary, all of this is important, but is not the point of church.

In this time of physical distancing, of caring for our neighbors by staying apart, of struggling to figure out how to gather, worship, and connect through the internet, we have the opportunity to identify what is essential to be church. What is our why? What is our purpose?

The short answer to that is “Easter”. Resurrection. Proclaiming good news to the captives. Feeding the hungry. Caring for the sick. In the early church Easter was the beginning of the God’s rule on earth, and they celebrated it by gathering to eat together. By telling others the story. To get some sense of the trust that Christians had that God’s rule is already here, when plagues came the early Christians went into sick people’s homes to care for them. Death was no longer the ultimate threat. The early church worshiped by living lives of caring for others. By imagining a bounty so large it had to be shared. They imagined the Kingdom of God is here. Now.

Over time the daily meals and discussions morphed into a liturgy and a Christian practice of weekly worship was developed. Today, one of the important activities of the church is Sunday (or Tuesday, or Saturday, or Thursday) Worship. It is important, but it is not our purpose.

This Sunday, Easter Sunday, we will do exactly what the disciples did on that first Easter. We will hide in our homes. We may wonder if the story we are told is really true. We share doubts about the safety of our lives, but also some excitement and hope. We will wait to hear if there is more to the story.

And to live out our purpose as church this Sunday we must also ask: who longs for good news? Who is hungry? Who is captive? Who needs healing? To be the church we must go out and Easter the world around us—sharing the bounty of God’s rule with the world. The rest of the world will know about Easter if we live out the good news. When we say “Alleluia, Christ is Risen” we must mean by that the there is good news for those that are homeless, hungry, sick, for those that are in prison, in violent relationships, living with addictions and mental health challenges.
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Worship helps, but our purpose is outside the building, in the world.