Pastor Jamie's November 2024 Article

The Spaghetti dinner is on the horizon. In one week we will gather together in fellowship, break bread and share a meal. It’s the first time since 2019 that we have opened the social hall for dine in spaghetti. Since 2020 it has been take out only the food was there but the community fellowship wasn’t. In many ways this has reflected a trend in our society, more and more things are remote, community has moved from in person to online and social interactions often happen electronically. This has had great benefits for society but it also makes me wonder what we have lost. Perhaps the date the Spaghetti dinner is held on, election day, can help us to see what we’ve lost.

From what I can tell the dinner began after WWII and has always been on election day. Which means it would have been beginning during the 1948 election, Harry Truman v Thomas Dewey. Truman was expected to lose so he went on a nationwide tour holding rallies at train stops where he railed against the opposing party as “do-nothing, good-for-nothing “ and the crowd replied “Give em’ hell Harry”. This was a very aggressive campaign approach and a very aggressive message. Dewey tried to stay neutral on most things in an attempt to avoid alienating anyone. The election was contentious and despite faulty reporting claiming Dewey won Truman came out ahead and won what was in effect his second term. What I notice in all of that though is despite the strong, oftentimes harsh message Americans remained united no matter who they were voting for. It simply does not seem the same today. Today more than ever we tend to vilify those who support the “other side”. I wonder if this is because instead of interacting with other people like we did in 1948 we are interacting with the media, our screens and our online “communities”. Each of these modern day forms of communication are facilitated through a corporation whose goal is to make money off of our attention and there is no better way to hold attention than to make people angry, fearful or upset. Perhaps like our spaghetti dinner we need to return to gathering in person engaging with people who see things differently than we do. We need to talk with those who see things differently and recognize that they aren’t bad or evil, they are children of God just like us. As Paul writes

Romans 8:38-39 I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.

Nothing can separate us from the love of God, not who we vote for or how we see the direction of our country or the world. Furthermore nothing can separate others from that love either. So when we get angry at another we are getting angry with someone that God loves. So this next Tuesday vote your conscience, then gather with others who did the same for some tasty spaghetti and know that no matter who we cast our vote for we are loved by God and called to be the body of Christ in community together.

Peace, Jamie