Finding Abundance in the Quiet Places
Recently, I was speaking with a mentor whose job is to ask questions of me that I don’t want to answer. As an executive director, I was discussing with her the constant stress of fundraising, and how afraid I was that we would not be able to meet our budget for the year and have to cut back on existing programs that have been life changing and soul feeding. She asked me if I preach about abundance (knowing that I do), and if I actually believe what I preach.
We preachers may often speak to ourselves and hope that the message will resonate with others. Of course we rarely completely, 100% all-in, are without doubt and often through preaching work through that doubt.
This theme of abundance is one in particular with which I have struggled and doubted. In my head I believe that there is enough love, food, and money to go around. However, in my heart I often believe this in a “kingdom come,” rather than the “here on earth,” kind of way.
For physical resources, it is really a justice matter of redistribution—there is enough food and enough money for everyone on the planet, but because of unjust systemic structures some have way too much and others have way too little.
I also know that God loves us all equally, but I admit that part of me doesn’t like that, part of me wants to be able to, through my works, through my actions, through my Calvinist proving of myself, be able to work my way into a place of greater favoritism, with people and with God. In short, I want more control than trusting in God’s abundance allows.
Biblically speaking, I am wrong; I miss the mark. The reality is that no matter how hard we work we won’t necessarily reach the American Dream—no matter how much we strive to be likeable and loveable—the inside game of gaining favor is not winnable. Instead, in Scripture, it is even the people who don’t follow societal rules who win God’s heart; it is all of the outcasts with whom Christ sits, even the ones who betray him.
The lacking of embodied abundance can really, however, burn me up. I know there is enough for everyone, but as I look and see so many people I love struggling in economic hardship, and even more those whom I don’t know in the depths of poverty, it is hard to believe in the biblical concept of abundance. In addition, just by believing in God’s abundance does not mean that wealth will be redistributed, does not mean that the opportunities will emerge instantly, and I will be able to figure out how to raise more money and pay the bills. That is in its own right a trap—if only you believed more, then it would happen; if your faith were stronger, then what you need will be supplied. It ignores our social structures.
I spend my days working with Presbyterian congregations who are striving to be welcoming and to reflect the abundance of God’s love to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, a community that has rarely known this from the Christian tradition. My experience spans working with congregations that are large or tiny, rich or poor, polished and reserved, or scrappy and struggling. An advantage of my work is in having glimpses into so many ways of expressing God’s abundant love and care as well as the daily struggles of doing so. For many of these congregations it is a challenge even to keep their doors open, due to dwindling membership that we hear so much about, but mostly due to the changing nature of mainline Protestantism and the role that it has in Northeastern, often white, middle class U.S. culture, and our struggle to address this question of abundance in a broader sense.
I think the insistence to answer the question of finding evidence of God’s abundance, of requiring God to prove this biblical and theological concept through physical resources, is not a fair one. It isn’t God’s job to prove abundance, to redistribute the wealth that is in this world, to provide funding for much needed projects, to keep our church doors open.
Instead, it is our job to labor for this redistribution and also to open our eyes to God’s grace that is shown to us daily, but that we don’t have the eyes to see. This, however, is different from convincing ourselves that we believe in abundance and continuing to do what we have always done, sure that if we do it more and better God’s abundance will come showering down on us in the form of members and money.
What does this mean? How does this look?
If we find God in the body of Jesus Christ, and then find him embodied in each of us, I meet God through the abundance of people around me. It takes me time to be calm enough to notice these expressions of God’s abundance. However, when I take that time, I relish it in a partner who takes the dog out early and allows me to sleep in, even though she needs the sleep more than I do. I give thanks for it in a friend who has known me for over 20 years and within one minute of realizing I am upset, can give me the world’s most effective pep talk. I am surprised by it in a stranger who, through no reason that I can figure out, devotes time and energy to helping me realize that I have more skills and power in my own body than I ever thought I could claim.
Abundance here can almost be a synonym of grace. That is just me in my daily life. I spend my days wondering how congregations can notice abundance, or be transformed by taking the time, space, and energy to see the possibilities before them. Noticing abundance comes with creating space to find it. I propose that congregations might stop all of their normal activities—even Sunday morning worship as we know it—and strip away the trappings so that we might know what is really important; so that we might hear whisperings of where God is calling us; so that the abundance of time might be delegated in ways that make us expressions of grace that are given so abundantly. By stopping, by resting as worshiping communities, and reflecting in that rest, we might become grounded again in the root of our belief, our trust, our excitement, and our joy. Perhaps, then, our worry and fighting to keep doors open might be transformed.
So, do I believe in God’s abundance? Yes! But believing in abundance won’t pay my bills, and it won’t pay yours. It won’t even make me or you feel instantly loved and cared for enough. It isn’t God’s job to prove it to us, it is our job instead to relax into God enough to notice it for ourselves and then be the Abundance in the world that we want for ourse
