In my search for a blog topic this morning, one particular subject struck my fancy—food stamps. I read an article stating that Congress is planning to target food stamps for cuts in federal funding in the new budget. Of course, these cuts will place more burden on charities to supply emergency food to the families that previously relied on food stamps to stave off hunger. Charities, of course, like your hometown church or your local soup kitchen.

One problem with this, though—your local charities don’t have money and food donations anymore. One charity in Utah was quoted as saying that “food donations have been flat for some time now.” Why? Because people like you and I (and yes, I am condemning myself here) aren’t really doing much to support our churches and charities financially or with our time. It is understandable, really. We’re busy people, working and slaving away for that hard-earned dollar to keep ourselves afloat. Many of us don’t have the time to share, and we don’t have the money to share, either, in these times of rising gas and food prices.

Now there are a few ways to look at this. We can criticize Congress for failing the two million senior citizens who are on food stamps, for instance. We can point to the extremely wealthy who fail to help, gorging on the glory their money buys while Lazarus lies covered in sores at their gates.

Or we can look at the planks in our own eyes. Perhaps the much-maligned welfare system that politicians attack has not created a slothful underclass, but has instead made the rest of us slothful. We assume that “someone else” is looking after the most needy in our society, whether that is Uncle Sam or the local soup kitchen. We don’t see how the actions of those bodies connect to us, though. We want to keep our tax dollars. We don’t want to give away our 10% in tithes to the church. We’re too busy to volunteer much.

In the extremely mobile and transitory lives of young adults, we’ve managed to lose the sense of community that has always supported those in need. Our bonds to the church and to local communities dissolve as we move from place to place, making it hard to see our connection to those in need around us. It isn’t “our” community anymore, and we’re not responsible for it.

Many of you volunteer in college for various causes, and that is encouraging. But it is time for all of us as young adults to engage, even beyond college. This means supporting social agencies and churches with both your time and your money. It means looking for new ways to help those in need. It means entering into community, with all its obligations and responsibilities. We are all members of the body of Christ, and Jesus commits our care to one another. In an increasingly global world, it is time for young adults to redefine community for themselves and become active participants in it.

“But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another.” --1 Corinthians 12:24b-25

Kelsey