More Than Enough

In January, I heard Walter Brueggemann speak in Greenwood, Mississippi. The welcome sign still proudly names the town to be the Cotton Capital of the World, though the glut of boarded up downtown shops might cause someone passing through to question that claim. But then again, I don’t know how many people just happen to be passing through the Mississippi Delta.

As I drove past empty, winter cotton fields, turning golden in the setting sun, I listened to NPR commentators debate the plausibility of Bernie Sanders’ healthcare plan. I was surrounded by towns with some of the highest rates of diabetes, STDs, obesity, and hypertension—maybe some of the most preventable diseases around. And I wondered if anyone debating policies had ever met someone who lives 100 miles away from a major hospital. I wondered if they’d ever been to Mississippi.

Brueggemann went though a list of books that he recommends for anyone interested in exploring our discussions further. The first book listed was Empire of Cotton: A Global History. A book that describes how cotton growing and manufacturing has always led to violence. “I didn’t just put this on because I was coming here,” he says. “This is the list I give to everyone.” But I don’t think the irony is lost on a group made up of 95% white people 10 miles south of where Emmett Till was murdered.

Over the last few months, as I’ve looked around, it’s hard to find many reasons to be hopeful. In a world of racism and health disparities and failing economies, it’s easier to just be angry. Maybe that’s why we can’t have conversations anymore—on Facebook, at political rallies, or even with a neighbor. It’s hard to be in our world without simultaneously being overwhelmed by grief, but it’s a little less painful to be angry, so we resort to that instead.

We act as if we live by the economics of scarcity, Brueggeman explained. We act as if there’s not enough—not enough money, food, healthcare, whatever. So we hoard it all for ourselves. We grab and take and stockpile as much as we can, because we never believe there will be enough. But the God who brought the Israelites into freedom, who provided manna, who commanded Sabbath, who turned small loaves and fishes into a feast, who offers grace upon grace upon grace, that God has called us to live with open hands and open hearts. That God has told us there is always more than enough, so we give and give and give. It’s the economics of abundance.

When I hear a gunshot, when I see a fight, as I watch another Facebook argument unfold, I wonder what to think, or what to pray for, or what I wish would get better. Because it’s easy to see the anger, but I wonder if we’re all just really scared. Scared we might lose our stuff or our dignity or our pride or maybe even our heroes. Scared we might not be the cotton capital of the world, scared we might not be as Christian or as good as we claim to be, scared we might not be right. So we build a wall around all of our possessions and reputations and ideologies, because if I give and give and give, I might lose mine.

And eventually we get sick of staring at each other’s walls, and it’s easier to just walk away.

I baked communion bread for Common Ground at the beginning of the month. At the end of the service, I stood with a container of leftover bread in my hand trying to figure out what to do with these small leftover pieces of pita we had just declared to be the Body of Christ, broken for us, when a second grader runs up to me.

Miss Sarah, can I have some more of that?

Yeah, definitely, please, take as much as you want.

It’s just that it’s so good. Can I bring some to my friends?

Of course. There’s more than enough. There’s always more than enough.