Deer Park United Methodist Church Blog

Not too long ago, one of our closest friends came up to the parsonage to meet me and my husband for a weekend camping trip into the hills. He showed up a little earlier than expected so we killed some time outside on the dirt while we waited for my husband to pull up from his long commute.   As we talked about all of the random things we tend to discuss together, one of the volunteers pulled up to the food pantry below the house to unload the many boxes of food we’d so thankfully received from Food Bank of the Rockies to supply the people around us who’ve had a hard time making ends meet (like so many people these days), with food for their families.

I looked down at the truck, then back to my friend; and he knew before I said a word that I was hoping we could head down together to help.

Immediately he shook his head. “Huh-uh. I’m not going down there with all of those Churchies around.”

I “lol’ed” just now, typing the word.  “Churchies” is what this good friend of ours calls people who regularly show up at services on Sundays.  He knows I’m a pastor, of course, and we mutually respect the details of each other’s lives; but you’d be hard pressed to find someone more against organized religion than “Jim” (this isn’t his name, but for the sake of privacy, this is the name we’ll give him for the blog).

His reasons for being against organized religion are legit. He’s aware of the ways Christian history has played out in the world over the centuries, and of how the various, and unfortunately, multiple moments of corruption have hurt good people.  As a result he’s become deeply jaded.  No surprise there.  I hope we all are, to a certain extent, or else we’d have to wonder whether or not we’ve been fully informed about the details of our own religion, and the accuracy of that nagging needle on our proverbial moral compasses, right?

On top of all of this, Jim was hesitant to head down because he tends to rattle more traditional church-goers with his tattoo sleeves, which on one arm extends into the second knuckles of his right hand.  He didn’t want to go through the awkward pains of being judged.

I assured him the people down there were laid back, and absolutely wouldn’t push him away—that they were down there to help people who needed some support, and wouldn’t shove pamphlets into his pockets or bible verses into his brain.

With one last look of hesitation, Jim nodded his head, gave me some chuckled grief on the way down the stairs, and walked with me to the bed of the truck to unload. Inside the pantry, Jim helped the kids move containers of frozen food to the freezer, worked at organizing the non-perishables, and broke down boxes.  The volunteer downstairs burst out with endless thanks for us coming down to help, and gratefully let Jim know how much time he took off the task by lending a hand.  No one looked twice at his well-crafted tattoos (at least not in any way a person could notice from the outside).

As we all worked together, I noticed Jim smiling—often. He isn’t the type to grin without reason.

With all hands together, the time we spent in the pantry was short and sweet; but to my complete shock, the impact was long.  Jim talked about the experience of being down there on and off for almost the entire hour before we finally got on the road to go camp. As he later sat down with my husband by the fire, he brought it up again, cautiously mentioning how good it made him feel to do something to help people who were down on their luck.

The afternoon highlighted very brightly in my mind the fact that so many people these days (of my age, or younger, or older) stay away from Christianity for what Christians have done, but I think something inside – some spiritual spot which sits in the deep parts of us all— still wants to be filled with these moments of doing something they know is right and good to do in bringing loving support to the people around us.

Ironically enough, being a part of the moments of doing something good—of bringing loving support—to the people around us, is the very heart of that Christianity so many people have labeled as a spiritually superficial and socially destructive religion.

Where does this leave us, as Christians, then? And where does this leave all of the people who share the very well-founded opinions floating around in Jim’s mind?

Some food for thought.