HELP FOR HOPE CLINIC
May 10 – 16
From May 10 – 16, St. Paul Ann Arbor will donate 100% of offerings to Hope Clinic and will match donations dollar for dollar. Hope Clinic provides meals, groceries, medical care and dental care to the poor, the sick, and the hungry of our community in Jesus’ name.
Hope Clinic has been the hands and feet of Jesus to the poor, the sick, and the hungry since 1982. Never have their services been needed more than now. The giving window opens on May 10 (Mothers Day!) and continues through Saturday, May 16.
During the May 10 worship service, Pastor Neuendorf interviewed Hope’s Director of Church Relations, Billy Kangas. Billy is a graduate of St. Paul School! See their interview in the video below.
In the book of Esther there is a moment when she has an opportunity to serve God’s people, Israel, while they are in dire straits. She hesitates because there is some risk to herself. Not much perhaps – she is loved by the king. She has been elevated to a high position, higher than she had any reason to expect only a few months before. And yet, there is some risk if she goes in to speak to the king without being summoned. At that moment, her cousin Mordecai says this, “who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
You’re all probably familiar with that saying. It’s a famous way of saying that you have been given special gifts and special opportunity to do good.
There is another saying in this story that is less often quoted, but which is equally important. Before Mordecai spoke those famous words, he also said, “if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish.”
I don’t know if Esther’s family would really have perished. Mordecai isn’t considered a prophet. But I do know this for certain. If Esther had not helped God’s people, he would have found another way, but she would have lost the chance to be the one used by God to do his work.
This is a time of need in our community, the place where we believe God has called us to serve. Like Esther, we have been elevated to a place we didn’t expect just a few weeks ago. We have the ability to meet some of that need. I am confident that, if we keep our gifts to ourselves and refuse to use them, God will find someone else to meet the need. We don’t even need to fear being destroyed as Mordecai warned Esther that she and her family might be. But we will lose this – if we refuse to use God’s extraordinary gifts, we will have lost the opportunity to be used by God to do his work.