i could have done more

Someone at my office got laid off this week. In my own department no less. It is the first layoff where I work. I guess an impressive feat in an economy that is making every company struggle. It’s the first, but it won’t be the last. Intellectually I get it. It had to be done. The budget just cannot support the amount of people in the office. But my heart doesn’t get it - at all. Not surprisingly a movie comes to mind. This time it’s a movie based on a true story – Schindler’s List. If you don’t know anything about Schindler’s List or Oskar Schindler I recommend looking it up.

Toward the end of the movie Oskar, who saved nearly 1,200 people cried out: “I could have done more.” He takes off a pin on his suit coat and says “I could have sold this and saved another life”, and so on. In the end no one gets mad at Schindler for not doing more. He amazingly did more than anyone could ever imagine. He turned his business and his life upside down not for himself, his 401K, his stocks, but for people.

As an industrialist in Germany during the war, I am sure Schindler could have made thousands of dollars. Instead he sacrificed profits for life. Are companies doing this today? Are companies, top CEO’s, Presidents, and the like sacrificing profits for life? Are top bank officials from places like Citi giving up their half-million dollar bonuses to keep employees at their company? Are smaller companies doing the same? Are there any top executives taking pay cuts for the good of the company? Are we doing all we can be doing? Are we sacrificing for the sake of stocks and profits, or for lives and relationships?

new feature added: twitter

I signed up for Twitter today. If you haven’t heard of it go here. I’m not sure how much I’ll use it. I will basically be using it to keep up with my family. But, just in case I have added a Twitter side bar. It keeps the five latest updates that I add to it.

finding the book of luke in hitch

Have you seen the movie Hitch? It’s this romantic comedy with Will Smith. Alex Hitchens, played by Will Smith, is a date-doctor who helps men set up dates with the women of their dreams. Toward the end of the movie, Albert Brennaman, played by Kevin James, comes to Alex to fix the relationship that he set-up. Alex, baffled by his own love life, tells Albert to shut it out and move on. Albert in misery comes back at Alex with: “You’re selling this stuff, but you don’t believe in your own product.”

And this is the line that got me thinking. Much of the tension between Christians and non-Christians (and quite honestly between Christians and Christians) is this sense that as Christians we are trying to live out a life that is holy, loving, merciful, gracious, Christ-like. You get the point. But, we are human. We fail and that comes across as hypocritical.

The hypocritical trail is everywhere. One of the most recent examples is Ted Haggard, a former pastor in Colorado, who was caught soliciting homosexual sex. Ted openly opposed same-sex marriage. One that always stuck out to me was in high school when the same kids who led Sunday school on Sunday were out drunk the Saturday night before. This isn’t about being hypocritical though.

What is it about then? Simply put by Albert, “You’re selling this stuff, but you don’t believe in your own product.” It’s not about saying one thing and doing the other. It’s about saying one thing and not believing what you are saying you believe. As Christians we talk about the amazing grace and love of the triune God. We sell God as the God of love and grace, but do we believe in our own product? When grace should be shown to others, do we? When we are supposed to love those we are to love, do we? Or do we not believe in our own product? Do we instead believe in the product of judgment, condemnation, hate, jealously, etcetera? Do we merely act like the rest of the world? Do we hate the ones we are supposed to hate and love the ones we are supposed to love? What good is this? (Luke 6:27f)

It is easy to judge and condemn. It is easy to turn a head to the poor or be ignorant of the inequality in the world. If we are to believe in our own product we must take up hope, we must take up faith, and we must take up love.

in the midst of a crisis

In them midst of economic crisis there is something strange going on with the Church of the Brethren. Everyday now it seems like thousands of people are losing their jobs. Billion dollar companies are asking to be bailed out. People are losing their jobs, their money, their houses, their lives. Even in the midst of this we hear the stories about CEOs receiving million dollar bonuses with their companies imploding beneath them. There are the crooks on Wall Street swindling away millions of dollars from people and walking away ‘scott free’. What we don’t hear are the stories of giving.

And giving is what congregations of the Church of the Brethren are doing. With people and businesses beginning to think about how to save money and to cut costs, the Church of the Brethren at the beginning of 2009 began a matching grant opportunity for domestic hunger. Through support of two of the Church of the Brethren programs, Global Food Crisis Fund and Emergency Disaster Fund, allocated $50,000 to be matched towards food banks and pantries. Congregations could match up to $500.

Within the first four weeks of the grant the $50,000 has already been matched by over one hundred Church of the Brethren congregations. Congregations have come from large churches along with small churches. Youth groups have gotten involved. It has inspired churches to go beyond their limit for the love of others. Youth have encouraged their church by not leaving the church until $500 was raised to give to their local food bank. In total, congregations in twenty-one states have given over $75,000 with $50,000 that has been matched for a total of over $115,000.

The grant has been so successful and churches continue to send in requests that the Global Food Crisis Fund and Emergency Disaster Fund are working on creating another grant for $50,000 to continue to support local food banks and pantries.

The Church of the Brethren who has over a three-hundred year history continues to be a church rooted and devoted to peace in the United States and around the world. Although most of the denomination’s churches exist in Pennsylvania and Virginia, there are many spotted through the country.

For more info go to: www.brethren.org