So many things are now upon us, just because we’ve entered the month of November. Although I’m composing this essay in mid-October, you will be reading it around the time of our national election. Then, on November 8, we will commemorate Stewardship Sunday—the annual ritual of commitment and goal-setting for another year. Later in this month, we’ll celebrate Thanksgiving and then step into the pre-Christmas season with the first Sunday of Advent on November 29. Plus, November will mark the eighth month of significant restrictions due to the coronavirus.
Throughout the crazy seasons of 2020, we have been simply trying to get by—trying to find some balance between the unusual demands of this year, coupled with maintaining some semblance of normalcy in our work-home-life routines. Given that so much of this year has been unprecedented, and due to the requirements of quarantines and social isolation, we’ve largely had to rely upon our own resources. We’ve had to find creative ways to fill the days and try to be as self-sufficient as possible.
Yet, is self-sufficiency truly the best course of action? Despite staying close to home for the past months, we have depended on lots of other people for our basic needs. The recent election reminds us that democracy is predicated upon the idea of working for the common good. Thanksgiving is a holiday typically seen through rose-colored glasses, but nonetheless built on an idea of mutual support and hospitality toward others. And within the life of the church, stewardship is not about self-sufficiency, but a faithful sharing of resources, trusting in a generous God who provides for all abundantly.
A recently finished a book by Willie James Jennings, a Yale professor of theology and Africana studies, titled After Whiteness. In it he included a short poem he wrote about self-sufficiency:
Could self-sufficiency be redeemed? But who would
want such a thing?
Certainly not one who asked Mary for life, or one
who needed friends along the way of discipleship, or
one who called on an Abba-God, or one
who fell onto God’s Spirit like a limp body in need of support
just to face the morning sun,
or one who said, “This is my body and my blood,
eat me because you need me in you.”
Certainly not one who on a cross killed the illusion of
self-sufficiency.
Jennings wisely went on to say, “We exist inside an overturning that is the turning the world right side up by God.” Perhaps the movement from self-sufficiency to Christ-dependency is the direction we need to orient ourselves this month. May this November allow us to replace an illusion of sufficiency with a reality of daily, healing, heaven-sent grace.
—Randy Bush