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RSSAnybody and Everybody
by The Rev. Barbara Cawthorne Crafton
1/28/2007
But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian. When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. -- Luke 4:25-28
What made the people in Jesus' hometown so angry? It was his refusal to limit the love of God to the people of Israel. Healing was for everybody, he told people again and again, throughout his short ministry. Everyone will eat, anyone who is thirsty will drink! Look at these cases, he said, cases you folks remember hearing about: miracles worked by God -- in the lives of foreigners! That was hard for those who had always been told that they were the chosen people to believe.
I suppose it all comes down to what it means to be chosen. It seems that chosen-ness for Jesus involved looking outward, sharing the love of God with people besides the ones known and loved. It seems that chosen-ness was for the sake of the whole human family. We don't have to know who they are or who they follow. Need qualifies them, nothing else.
Who knows how many of the farmers whose cattle herds were devastated by the terrible ice storms in central Nebraska were Episcopalians? How many were Christians? Which of the homes without power and the hospitals on emergency generators were Christian ones? Nobody involved in relieving their suffering knew or cared, not when the ice was eight inches thick in places and the power lines were down.
People in and around the town of Holdredge could go to St. Elizabeth's Episcopal Church for vouchers for food, utilities, rent -- all local businesses were closed, some for as along as three weeks, and many people lost their sole income. During the days when radio and television transmitters were out of commission, the church was an information center. Local pastors quickly improvised a program of community meals at another church, opening its doors for lunch and dinner, other congregations taking turns cooking and serving. In two weeks, the churches of the little town of Holdredge served hundred of meals and dispersed vouchers worth $28,000.
We're going to have a big celebration as soon we can, the Rev'd. Jami Anderson of St. Elizabeth's said. Local restaurants will put on the food, see if we can't help them make up for some of the business they lost. We'll open the agricultural center in town and have a reconnection celebration. Not just the reconnection of the electricity, although that will be wonderful -- there's still only one electrical line going into Holdredge, and we all have to be really careful -- but a celebration of reconnecting with one another and with the outside world.
You know, she went on, one of the things we've been struck by is how blessed we are. The bishop and Episcopal Relief and Development have been great -- we're tiny, and we could never have done what we've been able to do without their help. And we've done it! We're doing it! I've been thinking a lot about how rich we really are. Even with all that's happened, we've got it pretty good.
Through the Diocese of Nebraska, ERD helped St. Elizabeth's help. Right away. A tiny church in a tiny town, frozen in the ice out in the middle of the agricultural heartland. Isolated, but not alone. God was with all the people of that rural area, and the Church was there.
