Community

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Without community there is no liberation-Audre Lorde

NL and RCL covers Elijah going to the Widow of Sidon during the drought. She says “I don’t know why YOUR God sent you here, I have but one meal left for my son and I and then we will die.” She talks about the pain, loneliness and shame of having nothing. Elijah then asks–“Do you have a cup of water?” and she agrees (I like to think begrudgingly as a tough woman) that she does.

Over this established Table Fellowship and Hospitality Elijah offers pastoral care to a widow. I like to think that as she opens her heart to him, she feels seen and heard, and she realizes that the table fellowship was a moment of openness that was just the beginning of a beautiful friendship. He then says that if they establish a community, that she, her son and he will not run out of the oil, meal/flour (and one would think Elijah would then help to gather the wood to cook them).

Mutual aid works because people who have little share what they have and form strong bonds of community. Community is formed here hospitality, pastoral care, table fellowship and mutual aid, among foreigners of different races, religions, genders, and socio-economic statuses. Community is not just about leadership, but about what the people do to help one another along the way, in the times of trouble when the leadership was terrible Elijah and the widow formed community. This is the work, the hope and the blessing that is before us. 1 Kings 17:8-16

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May be an image of text that says 'taco belle @animalologist People often romanticize "being in community" without realizing that community is formed and sustained through reciprocity fulfilling mutual obligations to one another and that this is sometimes inconvenient and taxing! But you can't receive support without offering it'

People often romanticize “being in community” without realizing community is formed and sustained through reciprocity—fulfilling mutual obligations to one another—and that this is sometimes inconvenient and often taxing! But your can’t receive support without offering it! by Baena@Silkyyy with thanks to decolonizing.love on Facebook for the images

Feel free to use/share/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta, “KatyandtheWord”

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Author: katyandtheword

Pastor Katy has enjoyed ministry at New Covenant since 2010, where the church has solidified its community focus. She now works at Capital CFO plus as the Non Profit Director. All opinions expressed on this blog are her own and do not reflect those of Capital CFO plus. Prior to that she studied both Theology and Christian Formation at Princeton Theological Seminary. She also served as an Assistant Chaplain at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital and as the Christian Educational Coordinator at Bethany Presbyterian at Bloomfield, NJ. She is an writer and is published in Enfleshed, Sermonsuite, Presbyterian's today and Outlook. She writes prayers, liturgy, poems and public theology and is pursuing her doctorate in ministry in Creative Write and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. She enjoys working within and connecting to the community, is known to laugh a lot during service, and tells as many stories as possible. Pastor Katy loves reading Science Fiction and Fantasy, theater, arts and crafts, music, playing with children and sunshine, and continues to try to be as (w)holistically Christian as possible. "Publisher after publisher turned down A Wrinkle in Time," L'Engle wrote, "because it deals overtly with the problem of evil, and it was too difficult for children, and was it a children's or an adult's book, anyhow?" The next year it won the prestigious John Newbery Medal. Tolkien states in the foreword to The Lord of the Rings that he disliked allegories and that the story was not one.[66] Instead he preferred what he termed "applicability", the freedom of the reader to interpret the work in the light of his or her own life and times.

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