Sara Miles didn’t grow up in the church – she just walked in one day – and now she runs a food pantry right out of the very sanctuary she came to know God in. She shared her story on NPR’s “This I Believe” segment.<\/p>\n
That first communion knocked me upside-down. Faith turned out not to be abstract at all, but material and physical. I’d thought Christianity meant angels and trinities and being good. Instead, I discovered a religion rooted in the most ordinary yet subversive practice: a dinner table where everyone is welcome, where the despised and outcasts are honored.<\/p>\n
I came to believe that God is revealed not only in bread and wine during church services, but whenever we share food with others \u00e2\u20ac\u201d particularly strangers. I came to believe that the fruits of creation are for everyone, without exception \u00e2\u20ac\u201d not something to be doled out to insiders or the deserving.<\/strong>“<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Listening to the story and reading along gave me chills – especially when she came to the ending:<\/p>\n
But I learned that hunger can lead to more life \u00e2\u20ac\u201d that by sharing real food, I’d find communion with the most unlikely people; that by eating a piece of bread, I’d experience myself as part of one body. This I believe: that by opening ourselves to strangers, we will taste God.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
listen to the full story<\/a><\/p>\n
For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ – Matthew 25:35 & 36<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sara Miles didn’t grow up in the church – she just walked in one day – and now she runs a food pantry right out of the very sanctuary she came to know God in. She shared her story on NPR’s “This I Believe” segment. That first communion knocked me upside-down. Faith turned out not … Continue reading Strangers bring us closer to God<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,17],"tags":[4650,4661,1044,1043,1046,1045],"class_list":["post-3709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-take-action","tag-faith","tag-food","tag-giving","tag-hunger","tag-pantry","tag-selfless"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pEnSo-XP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3709\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/casadeblundell.com\/jonathan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}