Blessed in Brokenness

by Fr. Scott Homer

Once a month the residents of a number of group homes come to Trinity, Beaver to share in a lunch with dozens of volunteer parishioners. The event has been dubbed the Mustard Seed Café. Our guests come faithfully month after month and they receive tremendous meals served up with a smile. The question I am asking is, why? Why do they come? What do they need that we provide? A bowl of soup, a sandwich, some chips and a beverage? Sure, I guess, but they would have those things without us. They don’t need to venture outside their homes to get their bellies fed, so what is it that brings them to us?

Community, friendship, acceptance, love, forgiveness? Obviously they cannot articulate these things to us but isn’t that why they are really coming? They are coming to see you! They are coming to be greeted by you! They are coming because you are glad to see them, because you sit and talk to them, joke with them, sing with them, pray with them! They are coming because they love you and they enjoy being loved back.

Are they hungry and needing to be fed? Well yes, but they are not hungry for food. They are hungry for joy. They are hungry for companionship. They are hungry for relationships that greet them, and encourage them, and support them. Healthy relationship: that is the hunger that is beginning to be met at Mustard Seed Café. The core of every healthy relationship is love and the ultimate source of that love is Jesus Christ.

For the disabled and the handicapped relationships are often difficult. Many have grown up in relationships characterized by abuse and neglect. Many have been laughed at, mocked, humiliated and degraded. Many have been taken advantage of, used, or ignored. Many have grown to hold themselves in extreme contempt and to distrust others. They see little or no value in themselves as human beings. They do not like what they see when they look in the mirror. When they look in the mirror they see the “despicable me” the world has taught them to see. Is there any doubt about why they love the positive attention you show them?

“They” are not alone. Although we spend most of our lives attempting to mask our neediness and deny our lack of self-worth, although we want to feel good about ourselves and to know we are valuable to others, the truth for many of us is that we are hungry to be greeted, encouraged, and supported. We are hungry for positive, healthy relationships too. We too have heard so many negative voices for so many years. I pray that our church will become a place where healthy relationships support people by encouraging them, supporting them and nurturing them. I pray that the need for community that is central to every human being would be met in this church as we remind each other that we are forgiven, protected and welcomed by the head of our community Jesus Christ. I pray that many of us will model our lives after his example.

We are all hungry for relationships and if we cannot get healthy ones we will settle for unhealthy ones. Welcome to America. Welcome to the problems of drug abuse, alcoholism, sexual promiscuity, compulsive shopping, compulsive eating and compulsive living. If someone is starving he will settle for junk food. When people are starved for healthy relationship they will settle for any relationship, no matter how destructive. I pray that the people we know, the people who live around us will never have to settle for unhealthy relationships because they will find us to be a ready source of healthy ones.

The Mustard Seed Café at Trinity Church is a fairly new venture but already we have established a toehold on the true meaning of community. In our relationships with the truly broken, the truly marginalized and the truly poor, we are seeing our own brokenness and our own needs. As we see God's grace operating through us we begin to recognize the presence of the One who meets us, greets us, encourages and strengthens us, not in our areas of strength but in our greatest weaknesses. The heart of the community we are finding at the Mustard Seed Café is the heart of Jesus blessing us and encouraging us as we learn to bless and welcome one another.

In the months ahead I hope we will be able to find creative ways to point to the presence of the Holy One in our midst, to name Him and proclaim Him and rejoice in what He is doing for us. And I hope that we will begin to find ways to operate outside of the box, to explore new avenues for deepening our commitment to one another and to the community. What a blessed beginning the Lord has given us!

The next Mustard Seed Cafe will be held June 26 at 12:15pm in the parish hall. Try it. We believe you will like it.