The Food and Faith Blog highlights ways people are
building life-giving food systems based on community, sustainability, faith and
love, as well as ways our agri-food
systems all too often fail to give glory to God. That is reality, and related to this reality, I want to share some words and images from our worship service yesterday in Louisville.
This is a scene of the tragic collapse of the bridge in Minneapolis, an image pastor Jane picked up to illustrate the breakdown of systems and ways of behaving that fail to give life.
Cranky old Jeremiah and the sermon at Crescent Hill Presbyterian Church inspire me to try to be a worthy disciple, in the midst of the crumbling all around us that Rev. Jane Larsen-Wigger preached on:
"…The Minneapolis bridge collapse recently seems an
all-too-fitting illustration of what is happening to our nation. Old structures are just not holding. And
we’re not just talking bridges here – but also our political system, networks
of care, even the very air we breathe.
"…There
is other evidence too: take the fact that there will be a high correlation
between the party nominees for president and the amount of money behind them. Or the increasing frequency that decisions
that are meant to aid the public are happening more and more in back rooms and
corporate board rooms and in secret meetings among a relatively small number of
people. And more and more rarely do we
see that it is those with no money or power who come out winning."
Thankfully, Jane didn’t leave it there. She painted a picture of a beloved community in our midst, beyond "institutional maintenance, preoccupied with
merely surviving – just like we always have. We are not called just to hunker
down together against the ills of the world. Not called to support unquestioningly the government or any other
institution – including the church. We are called instead to be a prophetic
community that is about God’s business of transformation and healing."
Actually, better to read the sermon yourself! Read on, read on…