About 17 years ago, I joined the staff of a faith based non-profit that saw itself as a global movement to change the world. I wasnt exactly a missionary. I was part community organizer, part student mentor, part ethnographer, part artist, part speaker, part campus minister I guess. I had to raise my own financial support and that was really hard. So hard, in fact, that I chose to live off very little rather than ask more people for money. While raising support, my new wife and I moved into my parents basement. I dumpster dove for art supplies and furniture. My clothes came from thrift stores. I ate a lot of ramen, macaroni, and tortillas. Milk had to be rationed. I ran in low top Converse sneakers because I couldnt afford decent running shoes. I cried when I couldnt afford to take my new wife out for a decent one year anniversary dinner and was humbled when a church put us up in a nice hotel for the evening. It was very difficult to walk around in second hand clothes when so many around me had so much more. Taco Bell Tuesdays became our splurge spending night out. I still think back fondly on that. The police were always outside our apartment complex with someone often in handcuffs. We had a secondhand car that we shared and we spent far too long stalking free parking spaces near the UC Irvine campus that we worked on. We lived in lower income housing in a neighboring city, as Irvine was far too expensive. In Irvine, it was illegal to be homeless, so the police would put them in the back of their squad cars and drop them off in the city we lived in instead. We lived below the poverty line for a number of years but were never homeless. We were very fortunate. So many of my family members werent as lucky. I felt like we were always just a couple missed paychecks away from that. I struggled with my faith during that time. I came to believe that what the world needed wasnt more evangelism and Bible studies. Rather, I began to believe that what it needed was a reorientation toward the poor, the vulnerable, the exploited and oppressed. I began to see Christianity differently. I started to take more seriously the call of Jesus to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, take care of the widow and orphan, and visit the prisoner. This, I believe is true religion. I had been working for some time on a postmodern evangelism tool that was designed to interweave the story of God and the story of man in a way that was experiential, exploratory, non-authoritative or absolute...something reflective and personal and revolutionary. This year I figured it out. If you want to reach the world change the world...if you want to do so in a way that people can experience, in a way thats revolutionary, put the gospel tracts away for a time and look at what Jesus did instead. He fed people, he loved people where they were at, he went to the prisons, he cared for the poor...and because he gave preferential treatment to the least of these, people experienced love in a tangible way and they were attracted by the thousands to this one man. The government, the rich, and the religious were extremely threatened by this. They imprisoned, tortured, and murdered him for it, this homeless man who loved the homeless. This revolutionary who scorned the pursuit of things for the pursuit of things that mattered...the poor, the hungry, the hurting, the sick, the broken, and those just trying to get by. Those who are are still our people, still our equals, still so very important, those who weve been called to love despite our chosen faith or lack of faith. If the privileged, the powerful, and the politician arent threatened by our orientation toward the poor and the hurting, I think were actually doing it wrong, for doing good thats truly good is different and dangerous, subversive and a threat to who benefit handsomely from the status quo. I think there comes a time when time itself is ready for a change, a time when history itself is ripe for a revolution of the heart. I believe that we are now living in those times. I believe change is possible, that poverty is endable. I believe differently now than I once did, but I believe. I believe.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 14:06:24 +0000
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