The following is a transcript of a Raised Catholic podcast episode.

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Today is episode 162: The Delivery People

Hi friends. As I mentioned in the last episode, this was the week we said goodbye-for-now to our friend Jim. There were so many rich words spoken at his wake and his funeral, so many lessons from his truly wonderful life, that I will carry with me. And since Jim never centered himself in any of his work while he was alive, I’ll not do that in his death. Jim would be the first one to say that he was simply a delivery person.

My Brother’s Keeper, the charity that Jim started with his wife Terry, delivers the hope of Jesus Christ in the form of food, furniture, and Christmas gifts to thousands of families in our area, and each delivery ends the same way, with the gift of a crucifix. Someone on the delivery team will hand the recipient a crucifix and they will say, “We’re just the delivery people. This is the man who gave you…” the furniture or the food or whatever happens to be in that delivery. Often, people react more strongly to that gift than to anything else they’ll receive that day, because the gift of the crucifix signifies that, even in their hardest moments, that they are seen, known, and cared for by a loving God in the person of Jesus. It’s a powerful gift of hope and grace. And as Jim said, “Without the crucifix, we would just be in the furniture delivery business.”

When we first got to know Jim at our beloved retreat house, we noticed that he never introduced himself by his title, either there or at My Brother’s Keeper. Instead, he would say, “Hi, I’m Jim. I work here,” at the House or the Keeper or wherever, and then he’d ask a question of whoever was in front of him, to get to know them better. I never once heard Jim refer to himself as ‘President’ or ‘Founder’ or by any other title. Rather, he stepped back so that God could step forward and deliver grace or kindness or help through him. This was clearly an intentional choice to step back from ego and pride, and it made a real difference in how each person encountered him because they really could experience the love of Jesus being poured out through Jim. He was just the delivery person.

The Book of Mark, chapter 12, offers a stunning contrast between the religious leaders of the day and an unknown, unnamed widow. The scripture reads, 

“As he taught, Jesus said, “Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in flowing robes and be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will be punished most severely.

Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents.

Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”

Now, I’ve heard priests preach on this reading in a particular way, and if you were born and raised Catholic, I bet you have, too. Many priests use this text as a launching-off point for a plea for more church funding. They point to the poor widow who gave everything she had to the church, and then they exhort the people in the pews to do the same. 

But if you look closer, you will see that this is no fundraising scripture. Jesus is presenting a clear contrast between the religious leaders and the widow. The teachers of the law actually take from the widows, they ‘devour their houses’ while at the same time, they make a show of lengthy prayers, getting the seats of honor at banquets and at religious services. These religious leaders are centering themselves, their egos and pride and comfort to the detriment of those that they are called to serve, and Jesus sees it all. Meanwhile the unnamed and uncelebrated widow quietly makes a delivery of a couple of coins into the temple treasury.

Well, in Jesus’ upside-down kingdom, the religious leaders not only get ‘no credit’ for their show and their lengthy prayers but what Jesus Himself calls ‘most severe punishment’. In contrast, the widow gets seen by Jesus in the crowd and she is immortalized forever, her story told all over the world, in every language, through all generations. Wouldn’t it have been kind of something to see her learn about that reality when she got to Heaven?

In our ministries and our vocations, in whatever work we do for God or for God’s people, whether clergy or laypeople, friend, we are just the delivery people. Through some of us, God delivers food or furniture or other physical necessities to God’s people who really need them. Through others, He delivers care or wisdom or compassion, medical support, music, Sacraments, encouragement, logistics or a host of other things that help God’s people to live and grow every single day. As we said in episode 160, Your Vocation, each of us is suited to serve the people of God in unique and particular ways, but it is on us to remember to step back, step back, step back from ego and pride. To humbly allow the beauty of what God wants to give his people to be delivered through us in love to a waiting world. To be the widow in the story and not the religious leaders. To allow ourselves to be nameless, to drop our titles, to not take the credit, but to point always toward God as the giver and us as simply vessels of His goodness. Friend, we are just the delivery people.

If we can make this shift with small intentional choices, it will transform every encounter and every life that God touches through us, and it will change us at our core while we’re at it. This ‘death to ourselves so that Jesus can live in us’ is the kind of transformation that the Christian life is really all about. It’s what Paul meant when He said to the Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

The Message version of that same verse says it this way. I love this, and I think you will, too.

“What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So I quit being a “law man” so that I could be God’s man. Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not “mine,” but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that. Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.”

At the end of every retreat weekend, our friend Jim used to stand up and address the retreatants. He would talk about how they might’ve walked into the retreat house a little unsure or nervous at the start, but that during the course of the weekend, he would see them open up like flowers. “Well, look at you now,” he’d say. Jim understood the privilege he had to be witness to how God works within a human person and to participate in how God delivers grace by offering himself as a humble conduit of that grace. A delivery person through and through.

And well, Jim, look at you now.

Thanks so much for being with me today, friend. If you need me, you can find me on Instagram @kerrycampbellwrites, at Substack at kerrycampbellwrites.substack.com, or on my website at kerrycampbell.org. Thanks so much for rating, reviewing, subscribing and most importantly, sharing this podcast with a friend.  That makes a real difference in growing our community, so thanks. If you would like to support this podcast financially, there are a couple of ways for you to do that in the show notes, along with some resources related to today’s episode, so do check all of that out, but before we go, let’s pray together.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

Lord, help us to receive the grace that you have for us in every area of our lives, that we might then allow you to work and in through us for the good of your people. Help us to step back so that you may step forward. Let it be You in us that your people experience, fully knowing that that is the path to joy and peace for us, too. For us and for our dear ones we pray in the name of Jesus and wrapped in the mantle of Our Mother Mary, amen.

Thanks so much for listening today, friend. I’ll see you next time.

Show Notes

This week we reflect on how God works through us to deliver his gifts to his people, and how reality that requires us to step back from our ego that God might step forward.

In Memory of our friend, Jim Orcutt.

If you’d like to connect with me, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠find me on Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠at my website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠on Substack⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. If you’d like to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠help support this podcast financially⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, there’s a way to do just that ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠on my page at buymeacoffee.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠! Thanks for sharing, subscribing, rating, and reviewing, as this helps our community to grow.

Thanks as always to my friend, Peter Vaughan-Vail, for providing the beautiful harp music you hear in this and every episode.

Here are some resources I hope will help you to engage with this week’s topic in a deeper way for yourself:

1. ⁠Galatians 2:20 in many Bible translations⁠ – find the wording for The Message version here

2. ⁠My Brother’s Keeper⁠, the charity that Jim began with his wife Terry. Donate or volunteer.

3. Video: ⁠My Brother’s Keeper Policy #2⁠

4. Podcast: ⁠Upside Down⁠: Conversations on God’s Upside Down Kingdom

5. Song: ⁠Christ in Me Arise⁠, by Trevor Thompson

6. Song: ⁠Lord, I Need You⁠, by Matt Maher

7. Song: ⁠I Am Nothing⁠, by Ginny Owens

8. Scripture: ⁠Mark 12⁠