Plucking Grains on the Sabbath: When the Righteous Get in Their Own Way
As I boarded a plane home from a weekend convention, I received word that a church that had volunteered a group to help staff the soup kitchen and clothes closet at our downtown church next weekend had pulled out of their commitment. They stated that because our church does not believe that homosexuality is a sin, a denominational position of the Presbyterian Church (USA) for over a decade, we are “not biblical” and they will not serve soup in our kitchen anymore.
I was shocked, but not surprised. (Think “Wow,” followed by “There it is.”) I am disappointed, but not incapable of understanding how this is the response to disagreement in the time of cancel culture and poisonous polarization. To be clear, there is no religious instruction offered in our Sunday afternoon ministries, which consist of a soup kitchen meal and an invitation to visit the racks in our large clothes closet and make selections of items to take home from our food pantry. We simply do the work that we believe Christ instructed us to do in the Gospels - feeding the hungry, clothing the naked and showing a special care for our low-income neighbors living in and around Downtown Memphis. In more than 40 years of operation, we have served many thousands of guests.
This rejection and admonishment by a fellow Christian church reminds me so much of a lesson Jesus offered when confronted by the Pharisees (Matt 12:1, Mark 2:23, Luke 6:1). Jesus allowed his disciples to pluck grains on a stranger’s field on the Sabbath because they were hungry, and when confronted by Pharisees for breaking the Law of God (working on Sabbath/trespassing/stealing grain), Jesus offers a lesson. He points to the overarching Law of God, which always prioritizes and even mandates love and care for others. He reminds us that any law not in compliance with this aim is not representative of God’s Law.
Churches can argue about Biblical interpretation all day - we’ve been doing it steadily for about 2000 years. What Christ reminds us is that at the end of the day, the biggest sin any of us can commit is to refuse to do the fundamental work of providing for the basic needs of the most vulnerable among us. This local church pulling out of volunteering in our soup kitchen isn’t going to change our denominational position on LGBTQ+ inclusion. In truth, the only ones impacted by this move are the recipients of our ministry services - the “least of these” that Jesus said should be the first people we consider in our discipleship endeavors.
We are living in a moment of toxic division in the United States. What a powerful witness to the love of God and reconciling work of Christ it would be if churches were able to put aside their disagreements over what ultimately amounts to a very small number of issues, and simply join together in doing the work that Christ instructed us to do. We don’t have to worship together in order to come together in the name of the God to do the simple and powerful acts of feeding and clothing our neighbors living on the margins.
So, we welcome any person, church or group, regardless of religious perspectives, to join us in uniting together to do the holy work of feeding and clothing our neighbors. Christ is clear in his charge to us to do this work. And in this cultural moment, couldn’t we all use more occasions to work together across differences in caring for others? Isn’t it possible that building the Kin-dom of God starts with unity, not further division?
