Joining God in the Renewal of All Things

This is a draft of the first page of the discipleship book I’m working on. I used to dislike the word “evangelical,” because it has picked up so much political baggage over the last several decades, but I have come to realize “evangelical” is exactly what I aspire to be: someone who delivers good news.

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I’m inviting you to join God in the renewal of all things.

Actually, I’m just delivering the invitation. God does the inviting. I think this is cool for several reasons:

1. God wants you
2. to join God
3. in what God is already doing.

You may not believe in God, or in the Bible, or think of yourself as particularly religious. You may have a low opinion of churches and church people, or of people who call themselves “Christian” and talk about Jesus all the time. Or you may have a low opinion of yourself and your own value, and doubt that God would be interested in inviting you to do anything. That’s fine. The invitation still stands.

In one famous Bible story, a king (representing God) invites people who claim to be his friends (religious people) to a banquet, and they all refuse. Fed up with their hypocrisy, the king orders his servants to go invite people off the street until all the seats are filled. After they do so, there are still empty seats, and so the king orders his servants to just go grab random people and compel them to come in, until the banquet hall is filled with people “both good and bad.” Those random people represent the rest of us sinners, saints, and skeptics who never expected to receive an invitation! Some of us find ourselves sitting in the banquet hall hardly aware of how we ended up in this place. Maybe a friend even “compelled” you to come in! Apparently God is less concerned with the value judgments of people than we are. God wants you.

I suppose God could do this on God’s own, but that’s not the way God works. Some religious people like to describe God as all-powerful, sovereign, and in control, and I suppose those descriptions are true. But they are also often irrelevant, because God is first a lover and a creator. Lovers and creators (like parents and artists) know that both creation and loving involve giving up control. God made people in all their rich and wonderful diversity so they could participate with God in creating something wonderful. God wants us to join with each other and with God in God’s project of renewing and salvaging a broken world.

And God is already doing it. Everywhere he went, Jesus said that “the kingdom of the heavens is at hand.” Although many of his contemporaries believe that the kingdom meant something far off in the future, and although lots of people today believe that “heaven” is somewhere they go when they die, Jesus meant something different. “The kingdom of the heavens,” or the kingdom of God, represented the state of the world when people would finally live at peace with themselves, each other, and all creation; when oppression would end, everyone would have enough to live and thrive, and the world would be healed. Jesus believed in it so strongly he taught it as a prayer that summed up his teaching: “Our Father in heaven, let your name be hallowed. Let your will be done on earth as it is in the heavens.” Moreover, he taught that this kingdom was already breaking through into the world, like a growing plant pushing through the soil. Unlike many modern religious people, he did not see this kingdom as the destruction of the earth, but the renewal of it.

So, there’s the invitation: Join God in the renewal of all things. It’s already underway. Do you want a piece of this action?

Getting Off the Streets

Over the last two months, I’ve been working to help a man get off the streets. We’ll call him “Hakim.” He’s an African-American man in his 50’s who has a remarkable knack for striking up conversations with strangers. I’m a white preacher in my late 30’s who’s a bit of an introvert. We met at the YMCA through a mutual friend.

When you meet Hakim, it may be hard to understand why he is homeless. He works hard (and works out), he’s smart, funny, and friendly. He has a commercial driver’s license. He has no mental illness and no addictions. When we met, he had a job waiting for him as a commercial driver, provided he could meet certain criteria.

But he also has—or had—the nearly insurmountable obstacles that face many people who are financially poor: bad checks he had written 12 years ago; the money to buy his own uniform; a place to store his clothes and few belongings.

I’ve been meeting with him weekly for a meal and conversation. We talk about his goals, the next steps he wants to take to get off the street, and our relationship. I’ve been as honest as I can about my motivations for helping him, and we’ve talked about keeping healthy boundaries and the distorting effect money, race, power and privilege has on our relationship. We also talk about the church I’m trying to plant, my family, and our thoughts about the world.

Many years ago when the company he worked for went out of business, checks he had floated toward his last paycheck bounced. He found out last month he wouldn’t be able to transfer his CDL to an Alabama license until he paid off this ancient debt. The job he had secured would wait for him for one month.

We’ve scrambled the last month trying to get him some odd jobs. He did some work for me as well, helping out with some ministry tasks around town, setting up and taking down our worship space. We resolved that last week, we’d take care of the debt, transfer his license, and get him ready to start his job. That’s when the circus began.

Monday, May 13
8:00 AM – I call ahead to [small rural Alabama town]’s DA’s office, worthless check unit. The phone rings and rings and rings. I try several other numbers.

8:30 AM – I call the DA’s secretary, who nearly hangs up on me until I explain I’m a pastor trying to give her money. She says the woman I need to talk to is on vacation, and I’ll need to call back next week. I explain I already have all the information I need, I just want to know how we need to make out the check. She becomes much more receptive.

9:30 AM – Information in hand, I meet Hakim at the YMCA. We make a plan for the day. We think we can get this knocked out by noon.

10:00 AM – We go to the bank and get a cashier’s check for the necessary amount.

10:30 AM – We drive to [small rural Alabama town] to pay his debt. He keeps talking about paying the church back, but I remind him that we do not do loans. We pay debts—that’s what Jesus does. We do a short Bible study in the car. This is like the day of jubilee!

11:30 AM – We arrive in the office of the DA. We pay the debt. She takes it to the Sheriff’s office and explains that it will take some time to clear out of the database, but we should be good to go. “In case it doesn’t clear,” I say, “Is there a number we can call?” See, I’m smart, because I’ve dealt with bureaucracy before. “Also, can I get a receipt?” See how smart I am? Good thing I’m so smart. She photocopies the check and writes a number at the top.

11:45 AM – Just to see if we can, we go downstairs to the license office. The officer behind he desk asks for his old driver’s license, his social security card, his medical examiner’s card… and his birth certificate. “You don’t need my birth certificate,” he says. I think he’s trying a Jedi mind trick on her. “Yes we do,” she says. He looks at me in disbelief. “It’s not a problem,” I tell him. “We’ll just go to the health department and get you a birth certificate.” “That’s going to be more money,” he tells me. He already feels like I’ve given him too much. “We’ve come too far to let this stop us,” I say. Very inspirational.

12:00 PM – Every office shuts down for lunch. We go to a cafe. “That lady didn’t need my birth certificate,” he says. “She was just being a butt.” “No, I’m sure she wouldn’t ask for it if she didn’t need it,” I say. “They didn’t ask for a birth certificate in Jefferson County.” I chalk it up to paranoia. He’s been living on the streets, so naturally he’s suspicious of people. He also has a tendency to get into arguments with the police. He physically shakes in the presence of people in uniform.

We get the directions to the health department from the wonderful lady who serves us. She’s pregnant, and we can tell she thinks we’re an odd couple in this all-white cafe. Hakim cracks a few jokes about being out of his element, which is his way of dealing with discomfort. Before we eat, we invite her to pray with us, and I can tell people are watching us. We pray for our food, for our server, for her expected child, and for our mission.

1:00 PM – We visit the health department to get a copy of his birth certificate. There’s just one problem—he changed his name nearly 20 years ago, from something white and English-sounding to something more African and Arabic. We go around and around with the people at the health department until we decide we’ll need to get the court documentation for the name change. It’s in another county.

2:20 PM – After driving to [second small Alabama town], we stand in line to get the name change documentation. After paying for that, we go downstairs to the DMV to try for the license again.

3:00 PM – When we go into the DMV, the lady behind the desk asks to see his license, medical examiner’s form, social security card… and NEVER ASKS FOR THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE. Hakim does not say, “I told you so,” but I do not feel so smart anymore.

We spend the next hour on the phone calling back and forth with [first small Alabama town]’s sheriff’s office and another number where people who hold the power to “clear it out of the computer” are spending their time watching YouTube videos of cats and eating Chee-tos. Well, I do not have evidence for this last part. They may be hard at work. But they clearly don’t want to be talking to us, and they keep referring us back to the former number.

4:30 PM – The government offices close. We drive home and get some dinner on the way. I drop him off at the shelter at 5:30. We’ll try again tomorrow.

The following day, Hakim called me in the morning. He had called the DMV in Birmingham and his name was clear! We went to wait in line for three hours, and he came out with his temporary Alabama CDL. We celebrated by going to Captain D’s (his choice). Man, that deep fried fish is good.

So far, we have spent nearly $1000 on Hakim: weekly lunch meetings, two uniforms and changes of clothes, shoes, supplies, the occasional motel room for when he had overstayed his shelter time, cell phone time, various costs associated with his debts, and so on. I’ve driven him over 200 miles.

I share this story for several reasons:

1. I am so proud of our church for helping finance this guy’s efforts to get off the street.
2. I want to warn anyone who ever says homeless people, or poor people in general, just “need to get a job.” If you say this in my hearing, I will not guarantee your physical safety.

Most middle-class and wealthy people just have no clue how forcefully the spiral of poverty can suck you down. It’s one thing to be a white college graduate starting out with $25 and a duffel bag. It’s another to have to claw your way out through injustice and a system rigged to keep you poor. While I believe Hakim could have eventually dug his way out, this relatively short experience of bureaucratic frustration made it even more clear to me that a skewed legal system, stress, depression, and discrimination are all part of the obstacles in the way of people becoming self-sufficient.

And I have not begun to address those who can’t quite reach self-sufficiency. Plenty of research has shown that we spend more on people in poverty if we neglect them. It would make much more sense to simply give people housing. In Hakim’s case, it doesn’t make sense to let a fine of a few hundred dollars prevent him from getting a job and becoming a productive member of society and paying taxes. It is remarkably inefficient to keep such a person in a shelter or a prison.

I also share this story because I have wanted, for a long time, to focus our mission efforts on helping a smaller number of people make one or two significant changes in their lives. Rather than open a kitchen to feed hundreds, what if we resolved, as a church, to take someone out to lunch and spend time with them? To treat them not like a problem to be solved, but a friend and helper with whom we could walk as they tried to define and meet their own goals? Who might have gifts or graces that could benefit us, too? I think churches need to ask, “What do homeless people or people trapped in poverty have that we need?”

As I said, I do understand the complex relational, economic, and development issues surrounding all mission work. I constantly reevaluate my own motivations. Am I trying to be Jesus and live out a savior complex? Am I carrying a white-man’s burden? Am I maintaining healthy boundaries? Do I understand that money, power, and privilege affect all of my relationships, but especially those with people more financially poor than myself?

I’ve decided that though I need to raise those questions and wrestle with them, I can’t wait until my motivations are pure and my methods foolproof before I act. Hakim may be Jesus in disguise, the man robbed by thieves on the road to Jericho. Or I may incarnate Jesus when I act out of compassion. Or maybe Jesus is incarnate not in either one of us individually, but in the moment when we both try to reach across the physical, economic, and spiritual barriers that the kingdom of death has erected to divide us.

I should also add that I’m no expert at this, and I’m not sharing this story to be self-congratulatory. People much wiser than me have been doing this kind of work for much longer, and much more effectively. I’m not a full-time social-worker. I’m a pastor trying to plant a church. But something about this situation was compelling enough that I knew I could not continue to pastor my congregation and say the things I say if I didn’t make the effort to help Hakim realize his goals of getting off the street and into what he says is his dream job.

Anyway, yesterday I picked up Hakim after his first day of work. He looked professional in his uniform and name badge. He was tired but happy. I know his work is not over yet. He has a long way to go, and, like other homeless people I know, he will take two steps forward and one or more back. But he is on the way to supporting himself and, he says, paying it forward. He has managed to do very well under a crushing burden. Now that it is being lifted, I look forward to seeing what he can do.

Practicing the Discipline of Non-Prophecy

I can, and have, critiqued the American Dream from within the framework of the Gospel: we are too soft. We are too prosperous while too many are too poor. Our pews are too cushy, our music too out-of-touch, our priorities too scrambled. The modern institution “church” looks nothing like the simple and radical early followers of the house-builder from Galilee. Yadda-yadda-yadda.

But I’m increasingly impatient with this kind of criticism of “the institutional church” or “Christian culture.” Both of these phrases are really empty signifiers waiting to be filled with whatever negative generalizations we come up with. It’s about as difficult, insightful, and radical as bitching about reality TV. (I confess that I do this, too.)

As we’re beginning Saint Junia UMC, and as I read more and more books and authors talking about how the old way of doing things is broken, I am beginning to believe this kind of talk is a symptom of a deeper problem. We are naive, and I believe naiveté is not necessarily benign. It can be sinful.

We often believe that the early church must have been great, because the author of Acts says it was (although you can read Paul’s letters for a reality check). We seem to believe it is possible to love human beings but hate human institutions, human groups, and human ways of organizing labor. We talk about “relationships” in a warm and fuzzy way as if they existed outside the context of schedules, money, power, or leadership. I believe that by thinking in these ways we assert a particularly earnest and Christian naiveté that actually allows systems of abuse, indifference, and exploitation to flourish and reproduce.

Politically, it looks like this: Those of us with money, political power, and the freedom to pursue lives of meaningful work love talking about simplicity and criticizing the “American Dream” because it is yet another function of privilege to voluntarily choose a lifestyle rather than be forced into it.

Theologically, it looks like this: We talk about the importance of churches “getting out the pews” without actually noting that people’s butts occupy them for less than an hour each week. We diminish the importance of worship. We elevate the importance of “low overhead.” We make broad, generalized, negative assertions about church members’ volunteerism, beliefs, and generosity with absolutely no data. We repeat the claims of the harshest critics of “the institutional church” without ever asking “Which church? Who does this? Based on what evidence?” We uncritically make the connection between any given church crisis and a thought problem (theological, institutional, or otherwise) rather than demographic, social, or economic changes. “In order to reach a new generation for Christ,” we say, “we need to be more X,” where X can be missional, evangelical, biblical, liberal, conservative, organic, whatever.

Again, while I am no traditionalist, and I do not want to be an apologist for the North American Institutional Church, I am increasingly skeptical that the movers and shakers who write books about where the church needs to go in the next century have any freaking clue. Most of the stuff out there written by would-be-reformers isn’t based on good data. It isn’t even based on good Bible study. It’s based on people’s strong opinions.

I am trying to practice the discipline of non-prophecy. It is surprisingly difficult to hold my tongue about the grand evils of society or the church and look at specific problems and specific solutions, to name the sin not just of “bureaucracy” but of a particular situation with a particular remedy. I think we pastors have been trained away from such thinking because we have been taught it is not only acceptable, but “prophetic” to make broad, data-free assertions about things we don’t like. I also recognize, on reflection, that this, too, is a data-free rant.

I repent, and I will try to do better.