Tuesday, October 26, 2010

How Old Are You?

A bus-load of high school students just rolled up to my door at the Helena Food Share Lewis St. Pantry. (check us out! www.helenafoodshare.org or your local food bank at www.greatfallsfoodbank.org)


These students are having a big food drive for our clients - and some of these kids are our clients. Their answers to my questions make it clear that the food bank is a familiar place. (Me: "Where did you wake up this morning?" Student: "On the floor.") In the month of September, we served 1631 people under age 17. About 10% of all the clients we served in September were ages 13 - 18.

How old are you?

Seeing these kids do a food drive makes me think of a guy named Dietrich Bonhoeffer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Bonhoeffer Here is a guy who chooses, because of his faith, to work beside the victims of history (Jews in Germany) - much like the food drive students this morning serve the poor (hungry kids in Helena). They walk the walk.


Bonhoeffer had an idea about all this (that relates to Nick's last post...) - "cheap grace" vs. "costly grace" The difference between the two for ole' Dietrich was "vocation" or discipleship.


To put it another way, in Dietrich's words: "Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ."


Like the food drive kids this morning (354 lbs. baby!), like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, like the kid who woke up on the floor: How do you walk the walk?

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