“You understand, Father, lots of people on this nation are just one critical medical disaster away from homelessness.”
These phrases caught with me for the remainder of the day. It appeared clear that God was telling me one thing, however what?
Later that night time, I noticed a tweet by a colleague in one other diocese, saying that his congregation was doing a medical debt marketing campaign with the group Undue Medical Debt. That tweet helped me put the items collectively on what God was speaking to me, and I made up my mind to begin exploring this the subsequent day.
A Lenten Fundraiser Grounded in Jubilee
Earlier than the top of the week, I realized by means of Undue Medical Debt’s growth workplace that there was sufficient debt in Wilson County, North Carolina to do a county-specific marketing campaign. I made up my mind to do that as a congregational effort to focus the standard Lenten disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving upon this aim of eliminating the medical debt in our county. The marketing campaign would launch with our Shrove Tuesday pancake supper, and we’d endeavor to boost the funds by Easter. The copy I ready for the marketing campaign web page was theologically grounded in jubilee, resurrection, and liberation.
With an formidable fundraising aim of $30,000 to get rid of $4.9 million of medical debt in our county, I pitched it to my congregation that week, two Sundays earlier than launch. I knew there have been no ensures of broad assist, however I trusted that this was impressed by God. I stood within the pulpit with none written supplies and did what I so typically do: I simply began to speak, letting the Holy Spirit give me the phrases.
I acquired a textual content later that night time from a parishioner, relaying that she and several other others thought that this was an thought price pursuing, and that a few of them had been every keen to contribute $1,000. By the point we launched the marketing campaign with our Shrove Tuesday pancake supper, we already had $14,000 dedicated and $8,000 of that acquired.
By the top of the marketing campaign, we raised roughly $35,000—sufficient to get rid of $5.7 million of medical debt in our county and neighboring county. We despatched the funds to Undue Medical Debt, which used the funds to buy the debt from healthcare establishments and third celebration debt collectors. Then every eligible debtor was despatched a letter saying that their medical debt had been canceled by our marketing campaign.
We did one other marketing campaign the subsequent yr, eliminating the entire medical debt from six counties, totaling about $10 million of debt abolished between the 2 campaigns.
Why Lent as a Time for Canceling Medical Debt?
You might be questioning: Why Lent? Why make a reference to the standard Lenten disciplines? To that finish, I’ll current a few of what I mentioned to my former congregation in my sermon on that Sunday, lower than two weeks earlier than launching our first profitable marketing campaign.
1. “Doing Lent” Collectively as a Group of Religion
One of many issues that has been misplaced within the western church, significantly in Protestantism but additionally in Roman Catholicism, is the concept that in the course of the Lenten quick, the church fasts collectively. Our extremely individualized world has detrimentally affected the best way we dwell the Christian life collectively, and the best way we “do Lent” is only one instance. Our Jap Orthodox mates in Christ by no means misplaced this. Their fasting rules could appear excessive and unattainable by our up to date requirements, however they’re achievable as a result of they take part in it communally.
What the Jap Orthodox Church by no means overpassed is that in seasons of fasting, the church fasts collectively, whatever the stage of every particular person’s participation. They’re exemplars in a form of “holy solidarity” in dwelling out our shared Christian ascetical disciplines. That is one thing worthy of our consideration and reclamation.
2. Reuniting Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving
On Ash Wednesday, once we are invited into the observance of a holy Lent, we hear the phrases:
“I invite you, due to this fact, within the title of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by studying and meditating on God’s holy Phrase. And, to make a proper starting of repentance, and as a mark of our mortal nature, allow us to now kneel earlier than the Lord, our maker and redeemer.” (“The E-book of Widespread Prayer,” 265)
Participation within the conventional Lenten disciplines isn’t any mere train of our private holiness. It’s a deepening of our repentance and the expertise of salvation (Philippians 2:12). That it’s to say, we’re deepening our participation within the work that God started at baptism, reworking us ever extra into the likeness of Christ by means of sanctifying grace. Via fasting, we subdue our passions by disciplining our urge for food with the discount and limitation of the meals we eat. Via almsgiving, we obey Christ and take part in his merciful works within the lives of poor individuals and thereby diminish the maintain that cash and possessions have over us. Via prayer, we draw nearer to God and depend on the Holy Spirit for energy in our Lenten sacrifices.
It’s simple to compartmentalize these disciplines, however they’re a unity. One of many many causes we quick is to deliver us into solidarity with those that expertise day by day starvation with the rumbling of our bellies ringing as a chapel bell calls us to wish for individuals who are poor. Prayer isn’t a magical method by which we persuade God to do what we would like however a dynamic relationship with God that modifications us as we draw nearer to the Father, by means of Christ, by the Holy Spirit. Our prayers for reduction of poor individuals, impressed by the rumbling of our disadvantaged bellies, must name us to motion by means of almsgiving and different corporeal acts of mercy. Recalling the phrases attributed to St. Augustine: “Pray like all the pieces relies on God, work like all the pieces relies on you.” Once we quick, we keep in mind those that are poor and, calling them to thoughts, we pray for them; once we pray for poor individuals, we act towards their luck.
Tying It All Collectively
We made a dedication as a parish to “do Lent” extra communally to free our neighbors from medical debt. The connection between the Lenten practices lastly clicked with many individuals for the primary time as a result of they had been in a position to immediately expertise sacrifice and generosity. By consuming fewer and easier meals and abstaining from sure luxuries, we had been in a position to make the most of the unspent funds outward slightly than inward, to alleviate people who find themselves poor and in poor health by abolishing their medical debt. By the top of every marketing campaign, hundreds of unknown neighbors had been let out from an incredible monetary burden that hung over them just like the Sword of Damocles. It was an incarnational expertise of the gospel, as they had been free of debt in an act of pure grace dedicated by the physique of Christ of their group.
Featured picture is by Alexander Grey on Unsplash; pictures of reviews are supplied by article creator, Paul Castelli
