Mercy & Justice

Mercy without justice is a bottomless pit, but justice without mercy is cold. [Judy Graves]

And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. [Micah 6:8]

This past weekend, I attended an event titled “I was hungry and you gave me food” at Christ Church Cathedral in Vancouver.  Judy Graves, a housing advocate for the City of Vancouver, addressed a group of volunteers with different food programs, many from local Anglican Churches.  Judy spoke about how Vancouver has several areas that are essentially food deserts, and how many also experience a desert of human companionship.  She reflected on Micah 6:8, and about how any success she realizes as she advocates for the most hard-to-house in Vancouver comes from walking humbly with God.  Judy sees her role, and the Church’s role, as sometimes providing mercy, in the form of hot chocolate and a friendly conversation (which really just takes cocktail party skills, as she says), and sometimes fighting for justice with and for our most vulnerable neighbours.  The Church, as a connected body, is valuable, as it is not always the same person or same congregation that can provide both justice and mercy, but together, we share our resources and our skills, and do what the Lord requires of us.

International Students ask about Food Justice

Saturday night, I joined a group of UBC international students for their weekly dinner and discussion.  I was invited by Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship to talk about food, justice and hunger in Vancouver, and to share about our Christian Community Food Network.  Since we were talking about food and culture, I invited the students to cook the meal with me.  Together, about 25 of us, many whom were inexperienced in a kitchen, made roasted butternut squash soup, baked potatoes with as many toppings as I could think of, and baked apples stuffed with raisins, walnuts and cinnamon.  Dinner was delicious, despite a little chaos as we were preparing it, and the momentary fluster I felt when I handed one student a stalk of broccoli, and he looked at me somewhat apologetically and asked, “What do I do?  I’ve never washed broccoli before.” 

Between dinner and dessert, we talked about food security, and why the definition includes a reference to the importance of culturally appropriate foods.  We read the story of Jesus feeding the 5000 (John 6), and talked about different practices of saying grace.  We also talked about why after the crowd had eaten their fill, Jesus asked his disciples to "Gather the leftovers so nothing is wasted" (v. 12).  I learned the word “mottainai,” which is a Japanese term used to convey feelings of regret when anything, even a spoonful of rice, is wasted.  We don’t have such a term in English, but I think it captures what Jesus meant when he spoke to his disciples that day.  He must have known that we would still be reading that story 2000 years later, and known how much food we would come to waste, and how unnecessarily hungry so many people would be. 

The students asked good questions about hunger and malnutrition.  I continue to be encouraged by people’s interest in the community meals and food programs in Vancouver.  I couldn’t answer the students’ questions about why so many go hungry here, nor could I answer their questions about what Canadian food is, though I did say that the dinner we had cooked was as typically Canadian as I could imagine!