The Reparations Fund Jar

When the congregation at Hope Community Church voted to establish a reparations fund, not everyone was cheerful about it. Some questioned whether a small church of ninety people could make any real difference. Others wondered if this was even their responsibility.

Pastor Danya placed a simple mason jar on the communion table that first Sunday. "Paul told the Corinthians that God loves a cheerful giver," she said. "But I think we misread that verse when we make it about our feelings. Paul was talking about a community pooling resources for people they had never met — believers in Jerusalem who were suffering. He was asking them to participate in economic solidarity across borders."

The jar sat there for months. Some weeks it held twelve dollars. Some weeks, hundreds. A retired teacher began dropping in her coffee budget. A teenager contributed babysitting money. A couple who had just paid off their mortgage doubled their pledge.

By year's end, that jar had funded scholarships for three students at the historically Black college two miles away — a school most church members had driven past for years without stopping.