Feeding the Hungry, with Rev. Dr. Steven Koski.

Feeding the Hungry, with Rev. Dr. Steven Koski. Series: Holy Troublemakers A Spacious Christianity, First Presbyterian Church of Bend, Oregon. Scripture: Matthew 25.35; Matthew 6.11; Deuteronomy 15.7; Leviticus 23.22; Micah 6.8; Matthew 22.37-39; Matthew 25.35.

Searching for meaning beyond yourself? This Sunday, we’re diving deep into what it means to truly care for others. First Presbyterian invites you to explore a message of hope, compassion, and radical love that challenges how we see our world and each other.

Join us each Sunday, 10AM at bendfp.org, or 11AM KTVZ-CW Channel 612/12 in Bend.  Subscribe/Follow, and click the bell for alerts.

At First Presbyterian, you will meet people at many different places theologically and spiritually. And we love it that way. We want to be a place where our diversity brings us together and where conversation takes us all deeper in our understanding of God.

We call this kind of faith “Spacious Christianity.” We don’t ask anyone to sign creeds or statements of belief. The life of faith is about a way of being in the world and a faith that shows itself in love.

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Keywords:

Worship service, First Presbyterian, spacious Christianity, doubts and questions, diversity, radical love, peace, violence, prayer, Lord’s Prayer, daily bread, food insecurity, vulnerable, compassion, community support., presbyterian, church, online worship, bend, oregon

Featuring:

Rev. Dr. Steven Koski, Rev. Sharon Edwards, Becca Ellis, Brave of Heart, Guests

Transcript

Whitney Higdon: 0:20

You. Welcome to worship At First Presbyterian we, at First Presbyterian, practice a spacious Christianity, which means no matter where you are in your faith journey, you belong and there is space for you at the table, there is space for your doubts and questions. We believe doubts and questions are a gift that invite us into deeper conversations and a more authentic faith. We believe diversity is a strength. Every story is sacred and everybody matters. We do our best to live the spacious and radical love of Jesus so that all might have a chance to flourish in this world. We are so glad to connect with you in this way. We would also love to worship with you in person if you're ever in the neighborhood on Sunday mornings at 830, or 10am and never hesitate to reach out to us to learn more about us or how we might support You. I hope you enjoy this worship service. Welcome.

Sharon Edwards: 5:37

friends, we begin our prayer today by the lighting of a candle, the universal symbol of hope. Let us pray, God of mercy, God of justice, God of peace. We come to you with heavy hearts and anxious spirits as the world teeters on the edge of continued violence, bombs have fallen and rhetoric has sharpened and we cry, Save us. Save us from the lies that lead to war. Save us from deceitful tongues that twist truth into justification for more violence. Save us from leaders drunk on power and from apathy that dulls the human conscience we long for peace, not the peace of silence or surrender, but the peace that honors dignity justice and life for all people. Remind us that every person beneath your skies is your beloved child, Iranian, American, Israeli and Palestinian and all none are outside of your love or outside of your grace. Break the bow still the drone, scatter the plans of destruction and make known another way. Let those with power choose restraint, let those who are afraid be comforted and let those who grieve not mourn alone. Let your people be brave enough to be peace makers, truth tellers and healers in this weary, wounded world. We call on you, O God, give us your wisdom, surround us with courage and lead us into the peace that passes all understanding, peace rooted not in might, but in love. In love, may it be so. Amen,

Steven: 8:40

Jesus said, I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. And he was asked, when did we see you hungry and give you something to eat? And Jesus answered, whatever you do for the most vulnerable of these brothers and sisters of mine, you do for me. You know, every Sunday, at First Presbyterian, we pray the prayer that Jesus taught, that he taught the disciples, called the Lord's Prayer. And I like to introduce this prayer by saying, let's be bold to pray, because when we pray this simple prayer, we are literally asking God to use us to change the world. And one sentence of the prayer says, Give us this day our daily bread. Now notice it doesn't say, you know, give me my bread. It says, Give us our bread. You know, bread for myself is a material question. Making sure there's enough bread for our neighbors is a spiritual one. Give us our bread is really a challenging prayer in our culture of overconsumption, where more people will die from. Too much bread than too little. I have a clergy colleague who took his church on a on a work trip to Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, and his mission team worshiped in a rural Haitian, Presbyterian Church. Now the church was packed with about 200 men, women and children sitting on a dirt floor. Most of the children had red tipped hair, the sign of malnutrition, and they came to the part in the service like like we do when they prayed the Lord's Prayer, and when the small Haitian church prayed the phrase, Give us this day our daily bread. They lifted their arms to heaven like they were begging, pleading with God to give them bread so that the children would have what they needed just simply to live, to survive that day, the service concluded with communion. My clergy colleague noticed there were several large loaves of bread on the communion table, and when people came forward for communion, this Haitian pastor just tore off large chunks of bread for the children, because he realized that that would probably be the only bread many of those children would would eat that week. Now imagine if you are or your children are food insecure or even starving, praying, give us our bread would have a whole different meaning. What if we change the words to give everyone the bread they need today, we're praying not just for ourselves, but on behalf of everyone who is hungry. We're praying for those hungry children in Haiti. We're praying for those who line up to receive a meal at family kitchen. We're praying for those who contact the church every day hoping for food vouchers to feed their children. We're praying for everyone on a street corner holding a sign that says, I'm hungry. Anything helps. We're praying for the one in nine people in the world, one in nine who are food insecure. We're praying for the one in five children born into poverty in the United States, the richest country in the world, one in five children who will go to bed hungry tonight. Did you know that 45% of all child deaths in the world are from malnutrition? Give everyone this day their daily bread. Give everyone the food they need to live today. I believe that's how Jesus intends for us to pray this prayer so that we might become convicted and be part of the answer to our prayer. In his book God's politics, Jim Wallace talks about how he came to see, to see his faith through a through a different lens. He was attending Trinity Divinity School, a conservative evangelical Seminary in Illinois. And while he was there, he did an internship in the inner city in Chicago, and he became really interested in what what the Bible had to say about the poverty he encountered in the inner city, and he discovered that one of the defining characteristics of the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, is the attention it pays to the poor, the weak, the vulnerable. I mean, at the very heart of the Law of Moses is Deuteronomy 15, where it says, Do not be hard hearted toward your needy neighbor. Rather, open your hand. The Book of Leviticus orders that a corner of every field is to be left unharvested, so that the poor will have something to eat. The prophet Amos encouraged those who trampled the poor ignored the needy to repent. The prophet Micah said, God doesn't care about our worship assemblies. He. But what does the Lord require of us to act justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God? Jesus was asked out of the 623 laws that make up the law of Moses, which one is most important and Jesus said, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus said to love God is to love your neighbor. To love your neighbor is to love God. So Wallace began to wonder, how is it possible to love your neighbor if their needs are less important than your own needs? How can we love our neighbor if our plate is full and theirs is empty, Wallace concluded that maybe we're not as concerned with the empty plates of our neighbors as God desires, because we're too Full of our own privilege. Now Wallace was shocked, because this was not what he was taught in church growing up. I mean, he was taught that salvation, salvation was a personal matter, you know, related to what happens after you die, and that it was somehow separate from the daily needs of human beings. And Wallace discovered, there is no personal relationship with Jesus that doesn't transform our worldview about privilege and the needs of others. There is no personal relationship with Jesus that doesn't open our eyes to see and to meet Jesus in others, especially those who are most vulnerable. You know, we're not called to feed the hungry and care for the most vulnerable, to feel good about ourselves, but so that we might grow into the likeness and image of Christ. We don't feed the hungry to earn our way into heaven, but so that heaven might actually find a way into us. So after all of this Wallace rededicated his life to Christ, which meant dedicating his life to meeting Christ in those who were poor, hungry and in need. Victor Frankel survived the concentration camps of of Nazi Germany, and he observed that those who survived the the worst kind of evil imaginable, that those who survived all shared something in common, and it didn't have anything to do with age, gender, physical strength. FRANKEL observed that those those who didn't survive, took the little ration of bread that they were given, and they closed their fists and kept it for themselves. And he observed that those who survived, those who managed to survive, took the little ration of bread they were given, opened their hands and shared it with the elderly, the sick and children. It turns out, the kind of love where you risk opening your hands, sharing what you have is more powerful than the worst kind of evil. You know, we sometimes forget that, that our need to share, to give, to care, to love, is every bit as great as the needs of the hungry and poor. You know, for those of us who who may not be physically hungry, praying give us our bread, is asking God to fulfill our deep need and hunger for meaning and purpose, our deep need to live and love in a way that reflects our very best selves, that allows us to practice the best of what we believe, and that allows. Us to become more and more shaped into the image and likeness of Christ. A man asked God to show him, to show him both what Heaven and Hell looked like. God took him to a place where people gathered around a banquet table with the most delicious smelling stew in front of them, and the people around this banquet table didn't look at each other. They didn't speak to each other. They looked miserable. They were starving because the spoons they were given were longer than their arms, and they couldn't get the stew to their mouths. And God said, This is hell. The man asked to see heaven. And his surprise, he was taken to a place that looked exactly the same, same banquet table, same same people gathered around the table, same delicious feast, same long spoons. This time, though, the people were laughing, they were listening to each other's stories. They they appeared full and happy. This is heaven. God said, Well, what's the difference? Ask the difference. Ask the man in this place, God said, the people have learned to feed each other. Jesus said, For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat. In feeding the hungry and caring for the most vulnerable, we just might discover we are the ones whose souls are fed and whose hearts are full. May it be so you. Give us this day our daily bread. May those who are hungry be fed, and in feeding the hungry and caring for the most vulnerable, May our souls be fed and our hearts be full, May the grace of God be the ground upon which you walk. May the love of Jesus inspire you to love as boldly, generously, inclusively as Jesus did, and may the presence of the Holy Spirit stir your hearts, guide your steps and lead you to your neighbors in need of your love, go in the peace of Christ, and may your love bring peace to others. May it be so.

Whitney Higdon: 28:38

Thank you so much for joining us, and we hope you enjoyed this worship service. If you would like to make a donation helping make these broadcasts possible or support the many ways, first, Presbyterian seeks to serve our community, you can make a financial gift online@bendfp.org every week, we hear from someone thanking us for the gift of these broadcasts and what a difference they make. Your support makes that possible. Our church is committed to reach beyond our walls, bringing hope where there is despair and love where it is needed the most. Your generous support helps us to be generous in love. Go to our website, bendfp.org, and click on the link. Give online. Your support is really appreciated and makes a difference in people's lives. Thanks again. I hope to see you next week. You