One of the Bible passages that I think about often is Matthew 25. I am not sure why this particular passage comes to my mind often, it just does. Matthew 25 is the parable of the Sheep and the Goats. Basically Jesus is speaking about the end times and talks about the judgment that results in the separation of the sheep and the goats. Then the king comes and says to the sheep, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since

the creation of the world. For I was hunger and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ The sheep are confused for they did not know when they did these things. And the king answers, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these my brothers or sisters, you did for me.’

Jesus is clearly stating that when we do acts of mercy and compassion to other people, we in reality are doing it to Jesus. This is a clear call to action for the body of Christ. Jesus is plainly telling us that part of our mission and the will of the Father is to do these things—feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the lonely, attend to the sick, visit the prisoners.

Many times we may take some of these things for granted and thus do not do them—or even worse we simply just do not think about these acts. 

As I have written in the last newsletter about seeking to empower local ministries and live out the challenge of the Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson of the ELCA to help build capacity to alleviate poverty, one of the ways that we can do this is to be intentional about supporting the food pantries of our community. It is my understanding that we have three primary food pantries—Provisions, the Food Pantry at Human Services, and Anchor House Food Pantry.

My challenge to everyone is to start and bring an item or two for the food pantries every time you come to worship. My plan is to have a box made to collect all of these food items which can then be delivered to the food pantries to help serve our community. In order to help people remember to bring something as well as seeking to provide some of what the pantries need to stock their shelves—we will ask you to bring a specific item for the entire month. Thus, we will have a mac-n-cheese month and a soup month and so on.

For the month of March, I challenge everyone to bring a box of mac-n-cheese or two every time you come to worship during the month. Then, I will have a new item for the month of April.

Think about these numbers—if we have 200 people in worship who bring one item of food each week during the month that would be 800 items for the month and 9600 items for the year. Think about the difference that would make to our community. Think about the fact that we as a congregation could contribute about 10,000 food items as we seek to live out Jesus’ words to feed the hungry.

This is one simple way that we can be faithful to God’s Word and live out our faith in a simply and regular way. May we, as a congregation, seek to become a Matthew 25 community.