A prayer before Easter feast

We celebrated Easter with my sister and our extended family.

There were five children (all girls) in attendance and three of my nieces have-a-bun-in-the-oven and are due in October, November and December.

It was a warm, loud party with too much food and not enough time to talk with everybody.

My younger brother said grace before we ate. It went something like this:

"Rather than read a prayer, I want to share a story that might have happened. I am not saying it did...but that it could have happened.

After Jesus sent out his disciples two-by-two, what did he do? Did he sit on his hands?

More likely he found a poor down-on-its-luck village. The residents were probably old and tired. The soil was worn out and the water smelled bad. Nobody had any new clothing because cloth was dear.

Walking into the village would cause a crowd to gather, because it was the kind of village that people left and never came back to.

Jesus might have started talking. He might have told the crowd to look at the person to their left, and then to their right. To look at the person in front of them and the person behind them.

Then he would have challenged them. "The people around you are rich" he might have said.

Of course, the crowd would have told him that he was crazy. 

At that point, Jesus would have reminded them..."Do you remember when your wife was sick and your neighbor brought you and your children hot food to eat? Do you remember the time you were harvesting in the heat of the day so you could beat the thunderstorms and your neighbor's child brought you a jug of water? Do you remember the time when your mother died and even though she was a sharp-tongued woman, every neighbor visited you to console you on your loss?"

Most of the people in the crowd nodded in agreement.

"And didn't you do the same for your neighbors? When the fire in the rich man's house went out, did you charge him for an ember to relight it or did you give it freely? Did you begrudge the beggar the heal of your loaf or the copper coin that had been give to you as a gift? No, you did not."

"Amen I tell you. You are all rich men for you have seen my face every day of your life, both when you rendered aid to those in need and when you graciously accepted help from your family and neighbors. That is true riches...not gold, not barns full of grain...but to have seen the face of God in your fellow man and to have lived."

(Modified from Matthew 25:31-46)

After pondering this "prayer", I think one of the hardest things for us as members of our culture is for us to look at anybody that society tells us is "richer" than we are or "more successful" and to see them as fellow humans who, at times, need to be ministered to, who need compassion from their fellow man.

Everybody has struggles with health and family and anxiety about the future. We can only guess at the pain and loneliness of the super-model who only attracts predator/users and people who want dirt to dish. We can only guess at the pain of people who are ten or a hundred or a thousand times wealthier than we are, people who have family members who stab them in the back out of a warped sense of vengeance.

It is easy to feel compassion to a kid who has Down's Syndrome. That kid affirms our sense of superiority and our status in the world. Isn't that the entire nexus of AWFULs (Affluent White Female Urban Liberals)? They champion "the oppressed" they can simultaneously feel righteous and smug. AWFUL is a clumsy repackaging of Kipling's "White Man's Burden".

Bonus pictures

A family in Ukraine close to "the front". They are making dumplings. Look at the books! How many families have the collected works of H.A. Hekpacob? Source

The young woman had to walk two miles to buy the eggs used to make the dumplings. This family is not rich in the material sense but they HAVE been blessed with wealth.