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Since he was with us on Sunday, one of the stories Pastor Eduardo shared has stayed with me.
Those of you who were here will remember him talking about the woman who brought her rice cooker to church. Because of the ongoing power outages, she wasn’t able to cook at home. But the church had power, so she took advantage. Eduardo told the story almost matter-of-factly, as though this were simply one of the things a church does. Then he said, “This is what we do for people.”
That sentence has been rattling around in my brain.
There is something heartbreaking about a woman having to bring her rice cooker to church because she cannot count on having electricity in her own home. Our Cuban siblings live daily with circumstances shaped both by U.S. policies toward Cuba and by decisions made by their own government. Eduardo’s story highlighted how ordinary people are left carrying the consequences of those larger forces in the most ordinary parts of daily life: cooking a meal, keeping food, getting through another day.
And yet, in the middle of that hardship, there is something deeply beautiful about what the church becomes.
The church has electricity, so the church shares its electricity. Someone has a need, and the community has something that can meet it. There is no elaborate program, no application process, no distinction between “ministry” and ordinary life. There is simply the recognition that what we have is available to someone who needs it.
That may be one of the clearest pictures of the church I have heard in a long time.
We sometimes imagine the church primarily as the place where we gather for worship, study Scripture, sing, pray, and care for one another. All of that matters. But perhaps the deeper question is whether people know that when life becomes difficult, they can bring their need through our doors and find that someone will make room for them.
Sometimes that will mean a meal or a visit or a ride or help with a bill. Sometimes it will mean a listening ear or a prayer. And sometimes it might be as simple as letting someone cook her rice because the lights are on.
I think this is one of the gifts our relationship with Inmanuel has given us. We did not enter this relationship simply because we had something to offer. God gave us one another, and over the years we have discovered that we have received at least as much as we have given. Their faith, hospitality, perseverance, humor, and trust in God have become part of who we are.
So when Eduardo says, “This is what we do for people,” I hear more than a story about a rice cooker. I hear a description of the kind of church we are called to be: a community that looks at what it has been given and asks, Who needs this?
That is a beautiful question for a church to keep asking.
And perhaps that is why this small story has stayed with me. In a world where so much is organized around protecting what is ours, the church offers another way of living: If you need something and we have it, it is yours.
May we be that kind of church.
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