Abundant Grace and Humble Gatherers
“The position of Fellow is not an elevated position, but a servant position.” My eyes raced across those words as I eagerly skimmed through the Nashville Fellows offer letter during my 10 a.m. Software Processes class. I assumed that I knew what the crafters of the Nashville Fellows offer letter meant when they called our fellowship a “servant position.” I was familiar with the folding and stacking of chairs that goes on in the church. At that time, humility and servanthood were not synonymous to me, and faith was not required to serve.
As the Nashville Fellows gathered for welcome dinners and opening retreat, the small talk with other fellows, friends of the fellows, church members, and host families began. With that came all of the tensions of new relationships: the striving to relate to what was not relatable to me, comparing faith, friendship, and interests, and wondering if I was sharing too much or too little. The list of dysfunctional social dynamics could go on forever. In my mind, there was a lot at stake if these would be my “people” for the next nine months; I had work to do and goods to store up.
In the few moments of quiet in those first days as a Nashville Fellow, the Lord whispered three words to me: provision, faith, and humility.
In Exodus 16, the Lord provides Israel with morning bread and evening meat in the wilderness. As the manna is delivered from heaven each day, the author gives insight into the character of God. The author also propositions humanity to deny our nature to act in scarcity: “And the people of Israel did so. They gathered, some more, some less. But when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much as he could eat.” The Lord is an abundant provider, and we are called to be humble and faithful gatherers.
I am an over-gatherer and not a generous sharer of my gains, rarely trusting the provision of the Lord to sustain me. I imagine the Israelites also struggled with this, don’t we all? As relational creatures broken by sin, we look out into the world and select people to “love,” preferably those who can offer us comfort, status, entertainment, affirmation, pride, etc. And because we are selfish lovers, we also feel the need to attract others so that we can be selfishly loved in return.
The words used to describe the manna delivered from Yahweh are intriguing: “like wafers made with honey.” As I read that, I thought about what I would have wanted to order off of the menu instead; I generally prefer savory meals, even for breakfast. I don’t think I’d ever choose the Lord’s provision over my preferences: in heavenly meals and fellowship. Instead, I would choose who to befriend and which congregation to join because I think I know who will love me best and who will offer me the most.
College is the perfect place for us faithless over-gatherers. In this place, we are given never-ending streams of choices to maneuver and help us build personalized, social, and spiritual utopias. We learn the habit of striving. Like the Israelites in the wilderness, our ability to manipulate and hoard resources was eliminated as we committed to nine months as fellows. There, we were only offered pre-made decisions: church, family, and fellowship, all hand-picked by another. What unfamiliar territory for new graduates: nothing to strive for, only people entrusted to us and relationships to steward.
In Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he offers great insight into Christian fellowship: “Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.” Through his grace, the Lord says we may have fellowship with one another - it’s a gift. In the Christian context, fellowship is not something we choose, not something we build, and not something we store up and hide away.
So the Lord gave me a proposition in those first few days: to lay my extra rations at his feet daily and allow him to handle my portions, be them much or little in my own eyes. I have been prompted to slow down and be faithful, to relinquish social anxieties, to allow the Lord to know me, to allow him to make me known to those around me, to pursue who is set before me instead of striving to get in front of others, to risk not being pursued in return, to allow people not to meet my expectations, and to be comfortable with not meeting theirs as well.
And here, I have seen the Lord’s goodness and kindness to provide generously and unexpectedly. I have seen the grace of the Lord to bless us out of abundant love for us, not our abundant earnings. That is the humility of a servant: to see people not for their functionality and not for their ability to fill space in our lives, but instead to see them for who they are, created, beloved, and offered as a gift from the provider to be cherished.
As I get to know the people around me, people I could never have manipulated and maneuvered into my life without the Lord’s hand, as I see intricate and messy stories that are just now colliding with mine after 22 or more years, I have begun to realize why God chose a honey-flavored breakfast for his chosen people. Manna is not a choice or a merit; it is a gift, and the provision of the Lord is sweet!
Thank you, Lord, for the humility of daily bread and the abundance of grace we receive by faithfully gathering!
Bekah Harrison Class 11
Home town: Montgomery, & Lake Martin, AL
Graduate of Auburn University
