When A Plan Comes Together

"I just wanna know--where does this food come from?"

The question was a challenge, and I wasn't up to it. I just got frustrated. It was late, and I was tired, and I was leaving the next day for Duke University Divinity School's annual Convocation and Pastor's School. We were at a leadership team meeting at one of my two churches. I was, for the nth time, trying to get them to consider partnering with Angel Food Ministries to provide low-cost perishable food once a month to the community from our facility. Still, no one was coming forward to lead the effort, and now this question: "Where does this food come from?"

Little did I know that my frustration would be turned to agreement with his incredulity over the next few days. Little did I know that when the Assistant Dean for Continuing Education at Duke Div. said "This convocation has the potential not just to change your mind, but to change your life," she would be right.

As the star of one of my mother's favorite shows from the 80's used to say: "I love it when a plan comes together." (The A Team, if you're wondering). But just whose plan was coming together? Well, I believe that would be God's.

This past week, I had the amazing privilege of learning from Biblical Scholar Ellen Davis about how God speaks of creation-care and true wisdom through the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). I sat in wonder at the truth about humanity's and the earth's precarious position at this point in time as told by scientist Wes Jackson. And I was moved to contrition and repentance by the poetry and words of Wendell Berry. All of them spoke of how we've forgotten the implications of praying "Give us this day our daily bread," as we hoard unnatural foods that were shipped from nations away and were produced by people we don't know, whose treatment we can't verify as just. All of them explained the restraint, trust, generosity, and justice God calls for in his people. All of them spoke as prophets. In addition, as if I weren't feeling contrite enough, As I flipped through the cable channels on Tuesday night (enjoying the plethora of channels we don't have at home), I got stuck on Blood Diamond on HBO. This violent film has a powerful purpose: to open our eyes to see how our desire for nice things, in this case diamonds, has terrible implications for other human beings sometimes, in ways we'd never imagine.

All of this to say, God made everything from Sunday through Wednesday come together for a plan...for me and my family to live more as God intended on the earth, as best we can, as we seek to be "in the world" but not "of the world." Have you shopped at a farmer's market recently? Have you put in some Compact Flourescent Lightbulbs in your house? Do you ask your jewelers to prove to you that the diamond you're about to buy is not a "conflict diamond?" Do you know how the animals that are now your meat were treated? Do you recycle? Do you tend a garden? These are just some of the questions I believe God wants us to ask ourselves. Then we might just make a beginning of living as Christ intended, of "exercising mastery among" creation (Ellen Davis' translation of the Hebrew in Genesis 1) rather than "domination over" it (as we've traditionally understood that same Hebrew phrase).

Don't you love it when a plan comes together?