We are called to seek justice, love mercy and walk humbly before our God. Some days, this is very difficult and other days it comes very easily. 

I spent the past two days serving frontline urban ministry workers in Toronto. On Wednesday there was a StoryDay event which is a grassroots movement aimed at giving pastoral care to frontline urban ministry workers. We heard the hard stories of people with various disabilities and the way that they experienced being othered by people. Seeking justice for those who, literally, have trouble getting in the door is sometimes hard. 

The next day, the Social Transformation Hub sponsored a forum on practicing the presence of God in an outcome driven world. I opened the day speaking about the Dish with One Spoon Wampum and how we are all welcome to take from the collective dish of resources. We are, also responsible for giving back and replenishing those resources from the gifts that have been given to us by God.

During this forum, I offered a workshop on holistic worship that allowed these practitioners to slow down and experience the presence of the Lord by using all five of their senses. They were deeply blessed and left the workshop with a set of prayer beads that reminded them of their co-creation with God and the ways in which they can worship using all of who they are created to be. 

One of the stations had the worshippers tasting apples, dipped into honey has a way of remembering God, his self-revelation, and the sweetness of that revelation given to us in scripture. At the end of the workshop, I was left with a bowl full of apple slices as I had over prepared. I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do with the bowl of apples as I walked out of the building towards my car. About halfway through a park, an Indigenous man sitting on a bench, looked up at me and asked if I had any spare change. I told him that I did not, but then, as I looked down, I saw that I had a bowl full of fruit, and it was obvious that he was hungry. I offered this man the bowl of apples; it was all I had. He gladly accepted it and told me that his name was Roger. I didn’t have to seek very far to find a way that I could participate in the affecting of shalom this day. Loving mercy came easily.

It doesn’t do to spend two days talking about serving the least of these or those who are sitting on the margins and not live it out when I walk outside of the building where we were just talking about it.

I don’t know if Roger’s world will be changed or if he will stop drinking the multiple cans of beer that he had sitting around him in the early afternoon, but for this one moment he was able to experience a small glimpse of God‘s character. 

Would you take a brief moment and pray for Roger? 

My encouragement to you all is that you embrace the times when embodied worship is difficult and embrace the times when it comes easily. Let whatever is in your hands, be the offering that you bring to the world around you.