What is Ours To Do?  Hospitality or Social Action?

Stretton Smith’s 4T Prosperity Program teaches participants about tithing 10% of their time, talent and treasure.  Regarding the time component, he uses a 40 hour work week as the basis for the calculation, and this results in a service opportunity or tithe of time that is equivalent to four hours a week.   As a former Volunteer Coordinator, I am aware of the many service opportunities in a typical church setting ranging from hospitality and ushering – and numerous other activities that directly served our own spiritual community – to serving breakfast once a month at a local homeless shelter – a service to our community at large.

Our Unity principles teach that it is not enough to know the truth; we must also live the truth.  Other Christian denominations have a similar viewpoint.  The website for the United Methodist Church http://www.umc.org speaks to a Theology of Discipleship and says that “We live out of our understanding of who we are in relationship to God, to one another, and to the world. . . As Christian disciples, we are not passive spectators but energetic participants in God’s activity in the world. . . Because of what God has done for us, we offer our lives back to God.  We order our lives in ways that embody Christ’s ministry in our families, workplaces, communities, and the world.”  The question that begs asking then is what exactly is an energetic participant in God’s activity supposed to be doing with their time and talent?

The UMC website goes on to talk about meeting specific needs such as hunger and illness, and it also speaks to embracing those who fall outside our natural social circle of family, friends and neighbors – people like prisoners, or people we may considers as enemies.  Beyond specific acts of love and charity to address specific needs, there is the broad umbrella of social justice.  Activism and advocacy in this context may address a broad range of issues including marriage equality, poverty reduction initiatives, or the creation of a Department of Peace.  Aside from the sheer number of issues and causes that may get lumped into this category, there seems to also be an underlying debate as to whether social justice is an organic outcome or by-product of collective human action, or a legislative construct externally imposed.     

 

Reza Aslan has written a book called “Zealot:  The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth” that looks at the social, economic, and political context in which Jesus existed and concludes that while Jesus was not a violent advocate of regime change, intellectually, he was squarely in the camp of the zealots who abhorred the Romans and the Temple inner circle.  It is Aslan’s position that Jesus was a political activist executed for the crime of sedition.

Considering then the life and times of Jesus, what is ours to do?  Is it sufficient to serve coffee after service and practice with the choir on Wednesday evenings?  Is it enough to rock babies born to crack addicted mothers at the local hospital and serve breakfast at the homeless shelter?  Must I show up at the Federal Building with my picket sign advocating Peace Now? 

Some would look at the range of choices – from serving coffee to camping out in the state legislature  - and say that it is all good.  And maybe it is – but if there is a theology of discipleship – What is ours to do?