A Dumpster, a Lesbian Wedding, and Some Peanut Butter

There are many strange things in my head related to church world. Let's just go ahead and say that. One of the stranger things, though, is social media engagement with my church's accounts. I know which posts and tweets get traction with our followers and which ones don't. I can't help it. I keep track of it the same way I keep track of the dates of Sundays for about two months out--without much thought and as a way of mentally sorting out what needs to happen next.

And the three most significant posts lately have been a dumpster, a lesbian wedding, and some peanut butter. Each post, with no paid advertising, has garnered several hundred views and other sorts of engagement that seems to excite the algorithms that fuel social media. I could blame the pictures that were attached to each of those stories. Pictures also seem to excite the algorithms, I admit. I also don't think that's it.

I think we really like these pictures of abundance. Because, yes, each of these pictures indicates an amazing abundance.

Let's start with the dumpster because that's the least obvious thing to be excited about. Well, for most churches, it wouldn't be very exciting. For my church, it's huge. In 2008, long before I came here, we built our very first building. Money wasn't exactly fluid before, but we needed a home; money got tighter. I hear stories of how little money for anything there was. Because of our location, we can't get a city dumpster. Contract services are too expensive, or so it was believed. So until January of this year, people took the trash home with them. There wasn't a system, per se, it just happened. I took home a few bags in the back of my truck on a regular basis. This year, we got a dumpster. We have a three year contract. Our finances are on solid enough footing that taking on that additional expense didn't seem overwhelming. Oh, and I used the magic of Google to figure out it would only cost us about $65 a month to have a dumpster. We ended up at $58 a month. In the month that it's been here, the dumpster has made our relationship with the other groups that use our building better, almost instantly. Who knew that a dumpster could do so much?

Now to the wedding. We don't have a large LGBT population at my church right now. We do have a lot of straight allies. More precisely, we have a lot of people who love members of the LGBT community. These are their sisters and brothers, sons and daughters, cousins, aunts, uncles, college roommates, childhood playmates, and high school prom dates. Many people at my church intentionally sought out a community where those people they love would be welcome, even if they live on the other side of the country. Therefore, things like marriage equality are celebrated. Opening up our doors for a same-sex couple to be married is an act of justice like few others. It's also an event for which my church folks will show up to do things like sign marriage licenses because getting to say yes to even one person from the LGBT community matters that much. It's one of those things that's amazing to trust in and even more amazing to watch. Calling it love seems too mild a word. That wedding was an outpouring of so many emotions, only one of which was love. It was unbelievably abundant for the few gathered that day and even more so in a community that celebrated on behalf of people they'd never met.

Finally, peanut butter. We just started collecting peanut butter on the third Sunday of each month. We chose to do that because peanut butter is an ongoing need at most every food pantry, including the one in our community. It's a tangible step to tackle a problem we'll always have. Unfortunately, even Jesus said there will always be hungry people who don't have enough to eat. (I'm paraphrasing. He said, "The poor you will always have with you." But you get what I mean.) When I dropped it off at the food pantry this morning, the woman volunteering immediately said, "How did you know we needed peanut butter? We're completely out!" I wasn't surprised to hear that. Peanut butter is usually listed as one of their most needed items. Most Christians, actually most people of any faith, genuinely want to help the poor. We don't always know how to help, though, especially in a way that meets a real need. It turns out, peanut butter does just that. Everyone understands how peanut butter meets a need. At my church, most people can afford at least one extra jar of peanut butter. It's a story of abundance in a beautiful, simple form.

So there you have what sounds like a bad joke or a parable headed your way. I, however, thank God for a dumpster, a lesbian wedding, and some peanut butter.