If We Are the Body

Maybe, just maybe, the essence of God smells a little like the orange fragrance of Murphy Oil Soap.

In August, I was my church's lay delegate to the Unifying Conference for the Great Plains Conference of the United Methodist Church. It was the final process for joining the Kansas East, Kansas West and Nebraska conferences into one Great Plains Conference as of January 1. We slogged our way through 154 pages of a Plan of Organization. Who knew that the kind of insulation used or the number of GFI outlets available in parsonages would spark such debate? (Not me! I didn't even know what a GFI outlet was until I got there!)

But, tucked in the minutia of parliamentary procedural amendments and votes, the 1,700 conference delegates had the opportunity to Serve Salina. More than 1,000 of us accepted the challenge. Projects included yard and groundwork, minor home repairs, helping the elderly or disabled, sorting food and supplies at pantries and working with children. In all, volunteers completed 50 service projects for individuals, families and nonprofit organizations throughout Salina.

I was among those sent to the Saline County Commission on Aging, which occupies the 103-year-old former Saline County Courthouse. It has soaring ceilings and rich wood trims surrounding beveled glass windows and marble walls. The county allows the Commission on Aging to use the building for a nomimal charge, but they don't have the staff to do deep cleaning projects. They are too busy making a difference in the lives of the aging in the county through program like Meals on Wheels, the Older Kansans Employment Program or Live At Home Solutions.

So there we were - armed with rags and Windex and Murphy Oil Soap - and bolstered by a common cause. Our Serve Salina t-shirts got a little sweaty as we got on our hands and knees or climbed ladders to clean - me a lay delegate from a farm in South Central Kansas and another woman from metropolitan Lincoln. There were pastors who serve the big congregations of Wichita and some who preach at three little churches in rural Nebraska each Sunday morning. Big or small, laity or preacher - we were all trying to make a difference in some small way. 

As I started at the bottom of a wrought iron stair rail and worked up and a lady from Agra started at the top and worked down, I was struck by the symbolism. We could have sat in the air-conditioned Salina Bicentennial Center and stuck to the business of approving mission statements and vision statements. But what's the use of a mission statement without some hands and feet to put it into action? That would be about as effective as hanging a rag over a staircase and hoping it would miraculously get dusted. 

Saline County Commission on Aging and related programs, whose offices occupy the structure. - See more at: http://salina.com/search/Old-courthouse-tour-091310#sthash.T7iXqQsV.dpuf

How do we live out the mission statement of "making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world?" Sometimes, it's overwhelming. When you're at the bottom of the hill - or the bottom of a three-level staircase - and staring upwards, it's hard to see the end goal. Likewise, in a world where people are more likely to follow a celebrity on Twitter or check their status on Facebook than they are to attend church on Sunday morning or read the Bible each day, "making disciples" is an uphill climb.

But the only way to finish is to start. You have to get into the nooks and crannies and do the work - one detail and one step at a time.

 

At our evening worship service, organizers showed a video that featured several of the volunteer projects completed during our afternoon of service. Maybe this particular "cleaning volunteer" was a little envious that some of the other volunteers got to experience smiles and laughter while playing with children at a day care center or watched as a Mother walked away from a pantry with a newly-packed box of food so she could feed her children for another week.

But, there's something to be said for dusting, too. After all, Jesus did his own version of "dusting" before He went to the Cross. Jesus was having a final meal with his disciples in the Upper Room. But no one volunteered to clean the dusty feet of the disciples.  Until Jesus…

Jesus “got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist.  After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet.”  (John 13:4-5)  ... Jesus said: “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.” (John 13:14)

See? Sometimes Love itself comes by washing away a little dust. It may even come when you're comparing the virtues of furniture polish brands with ladies who've come to the Senior Center for an afternoon game of pool. We may be rubbing out apathy and instead shining on compassion as effectively as that bottle of Windex and paper towel takes away grime from a streaked window.

As we ended our work at the Senior Center, a pastor asked the center's director to stand in the middle of a circle. We built our circle from the inside out, each of us grasping the shoulder of another, as we prayed for the ministry offered by the director and her staff and for the people who walk through the doors each day.

Later, I thought about all those hands and hearts joined together in work and prayer. I've always heard there's no "I" in team. It's a favorite saying of coaches. I found it somewhat ironic that I personally was part of an "i" in a banner that decorated the Bicentennial Center. The banner used the photos of every delegate and every pastor who had come together for the Unifying Conference. My face happened to fall in the "dot" of the "i" in the word, "Plains."

In this instance, I'd have to say there was an "i" in "team." And in all the other letters, too.

And, yes, there was the essence of Christ Himself in that orange-scented fragrance of cleaning supplies and in the many hands that picked them up that day ... or helped a nursing home patient clap their hands to a praise song ... or skipped down a sidewalk with a laughing child.

Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which He looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which He blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are His body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

Teresa of Avila

A Casting Crowns song called, "If We Are the Body," says, in part:

If we are the body

Why aren't His arms reaching?
Why aren't His hands healing?
Why aren't His words teaching?
And if we are the body
Why aren't His feet going?
Why is His love not showing them there is a way?
There is a way.



There IS a way.

***

How about brightening the day of a grieving family, a shut-in or a neighbor with a special gift from your kitchen? This Monster Cookie Bar recipe uses a sheet cake pan, so there will be more than enough to go around. And who isn't cheered up by M&Ms!

Monster Cookie Bars

Or, maybe you still have zucchini in your garden. Make Banana Zucchini Bread into mini loaves or muffins and share them.

Low-Fat Banana Zucchini Bread (or Muffins)

Tourist Trap

I'm not a world traveler, though I did get my passport a few years ago. Just in case.

In fact, I've only left the good old U.S. of A. once. I was a fifth grader on a family trip to California. We crossed into Mexico, where we weren't allowed to drink or eat a thing until we returned to California mid-afternoon. We kids thought we were going to absolutely starve to death. In my parents' defense, they had a car filled with four kids, ages 11 and younger. Would you have wanted to chance a bout (or four bouts) of Montezuma's revenge? From my parental perspective today, it makes total sense that we were banned from brunching in Mexico. 

So, what's been my most memorable family vacation? That's what the ladies at Lovely Branches Ministries wanted to know this month. On the same family trip, I snapped picture after picture of the flower-covered floats in the Rose Parade. Too bad they were all in black and white. (See? My camera clicking began early. Randy is grateful every day for the advent of digital photography.)

Since Randy and I have been married, we've certainly visited some wonderful places. Our honeymoon was memorable. I snowskied for the very first time in March 1981 on icy Rocky Mountain slopes. My new hubby might not have been Olympic-caliber like Billy Kidd, but he'd been skiing several times. Throw in an agonizing toothache one night to go with muscles stiff from trying to stop myself from falling down a mountain: That's memorable. (For any newly engaged couples planning a honeymoon, I'm not sure I'd recommend it, but we have been celebrating anniversaries for 32 years now.)

We've done Disney World with Jill and Brent. (They will be thrilled I shared this photo.)

Two years ago, we left drought-stricken Kansas because my farmer husband was weary of watching our crops burn to a crisp. I'd say the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone was a worthy distraction. 
So were the Grand Tetons.

Within this space, the Creator
must have intended
to bring man in humility to his knees.
-- Margaret E. Murrie, 

Grand Teton Official National Park Handbook, 1984 

When Jill was at Vanderbilt for her dietetics internship, we loved visiting Nashville, whether it was music row or the Cheekwood Botanical Gardens.

We found plenty to do and see when Jill and Eric lived in Omaha, including the solitude and beauty of the Holy Family Shrine.

Brent's work on his master's degree took us to South Carolina where there was more Spanish moss than the cottonwoods of Kansas.

Boone Hall Plantation, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina

We made a side trip to Tybee Island, Georgia, where we watched the sun rise and where there were waves of water, not waves of wheat. Moving Brent to his first job took us to Kentucky and Morehead State University's beautiful Eagle Lake.

Eagle Lake, Morehead, KY, September 2012

It is a place to savor nature in all its glory, whether it's bathed in the humidity of a late summer day or the brisk, catch-your-breath bite of winter. 

 

Some of my favorite places recently have been zoos with our granddaughter, Kinley.

Those vacation images barely scratch the surface hidden among the 27,000-plus digital photos I have on my computer and the dozens of plastic tubs filled with film envelopes in my basement. 

So I was stopped in my tracks by a line in a book I was reading last month, RESTART Your Church by Dottie Escobedo-Frank:

Religion in our time has been captured by the tourist mind-set.

Eugene Peterson

The author was quoting Eugene Peterson, who translated the Bible into The Message:The Bible in Contemporary Language.

Escobedo-Frank explains her take on that statement:

A tourist merely visits a location, taking pictures, getting an overview and seeing sites from a distant viewpoint. A tourist thinks it might be great to live in the locale but is not ready to change addresses in order to know the life of the town he or she is visiting. A tourist Christian is one who is merely ogling the lifestyle without developing a relationship with the town mayor and with the townspeople. Tourist Christianity is unwilling to suffer, sacrifice or remain faithful.

From the book RESTART Your Church by Dottie Escobedo-Frank

I don't know why I'm surprised when things like blog themes and the book I happen to be reading fit together like puzzle pieces. My friend and fellow LBM blogger, Keva, would call it a God Wink. I would have to concur.

It reminded me, too, that beauty is in my backyard every day. I don't have to travel to Mount Rushmore to find it. I don't have to pack my carry-on for a weekend trip to Chicago. It is all around me, every single day.

If you begin to live life 

looking for the God 

that is all around you,

 every moment becomes a prayer. 

–Frank Bianco, U.S. journalist and photographer

It's hard to miss the beauty in the "big" things ... the mountains, the ocean and monuments. But sometimes, in our haste to look forward to the next "big thing," we miss the myriad of small things around every single day. 

Beauty is found in the church pews, seeing the familiar faces, week after week. It's in the faces and voices of the children who sometimes skip up the church aisle to children's story time. It's found as we make apple butter in the church kitchen for the annual United Methodist Women bazaar. It's nestled next to the box of crayons that someone brought to the church for the school supplies collection drive.

It's found along the ditches as I walk along my dirt road.

Today, I will cherish the small things ... the tomato fresh from the vine, a favorite song on the radio, a phone call, the touch of a hand, the compliment I don't think I deserve, the email from a friend, the smell of freshly-turned earth on an early morning walk, a cool house on a hot day. Small blessings abound, if we just pause to look for them. They don't have to be carved into rock in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

I want to look at my everyday places with the eyes and the wonder of a tourist. But it needs to be more than that. I don't want to just "ogle the lifestyle." I want to live it in the way that God calls me to be a part of it. It's all about getting to know the Mayor Himself. Then it's about listening to His voice as He urges me to be His hands and feet on this beautiful Earth - whether I'm here on the County Line in Kansas or on a mountaintop in Colorado.

***

When we visited Brent in Columbia, S.C., in 2011,  we had an non-traditional Thanksgiving meal,  including shrimp we bought right off the dock.
If you'd like the recipe for Baked Shrimp Scampi and Cheese Grits, just click on this link. After visiting the south, I add cheese grits to our menu here in Kansas on occasion. And every time I eat them, I think of those shrimp boats at sunset in Mount Pleasant, S.C.