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Rev. Rich Lang |
The true revolution is about justice. A just society is one where all of its members have enough provision to both survive and thrive. Some members, given opportunity, will thrive splendidly, soaring high. Others will flounder, sputter, fall on their faces, and eventually slide into a hole. A just society is not necessarily equal, but it will strive for equal opportunity. A just society will place a floorboard in that hole. Eventually the one who collapses will be caught and held, nurtured and nourished, whether or not the poor one is worthy or not. A just society will also place a ceiling on those who learn to soar; the ceiling will require the one in flight to return again and again to the ground. A just society requires of those who soar a return to the ground, a return to humility and gratitude, a due recognition that we are all in this together.
Soup kitchens in churches are a small step toward the vision of justice. Most church soup kitchens are funded and staffed by those who have learned to fly. The best soup kitchens are those that serve food to strangers as if those strangers were family. Or, in other words, the best soup kitchens are those that exist for the purpose of building relationships and friendships. Soup kitchens are the revolutionary meeting places where rich and poor can network. They are places where those who have been segregated can integrate. The best soup kitchens are those where the visitor doesn’t know who is staff and who is guest. The best ones integrate the staff and guests together until both switch places, the guests becoming the hosts, and the hosts becoming guests.
I have a dream for church soup kitchens. I dream that hosts and guests become friends, bonding in solidarity, talking politics together. I dream that talk leads to visioning a society of equal opportunity. I dream that visions lead to strategy and that strategy leads to building relational, political power. Imagine for a moment what life would be like if the poor and the middle class began to see that their interests and values were similar. Imagine the building of a new political movement that insisted that housing, jobs, health care, earth care, and education took priority over business, condos, militarized police, and catering to the amusements of the wealthy. Imagine a politics that actually thought that people who work at minimum wage were important.
The true revolution is about justice, and justice is always about revolution. It is always the casting off of oppression, and it is always the empowerment of those who have no power. Soup kitchens almost always begin out of the kind hearts of charity. But I dream of church soup kitchens moving toward justice, a power that changes everything, and makes all things new. My dreaming has me wide awake for possibility. |
