You Are Worth Speaking About

You Are Worth Speaking About
Dear Friends,
In their book, The Rich and the Rest Of Us, Tavis Smiley and Cornel West list ten lies about poverty that America can no longer afford. At the top of that list, number one is: “Poverty is a character flaw.” No one likes to talk about being poor and the reason is that America is a land of abundance. With so much abundance people have to come up with reasons why anyone would be homeless or unable to afford food. It must be that homeless people are drug addicts, alcoholics, criminals, etc. Poverty is not a character flaw. It is a lack of money—period. No human is any more human because of their money.
Money is a social construct that, many argue, has become less and less human over the years. Money is a tool, not a definition of our character, and yet, as we see in the Scriptures going all the way back to Job, even a man’s closest friends wonder aloud about his character because of his impoverished state. He must have done something wrong. His friend Bildad said, “Be sure, God will not spurn the blameless man, nor will he clasp the hand of the wrongdoer.”(Job 8:20, Revised English Bible) Ancient wisdom says that blessing comes to the righteous but that poverty, disability, and mental confusion are the result of sin.
Jesus’ disciples demonstrated the mindset directly with their question (John 9:2) regarding a man blind from birth, “Rabbi, why was this man born blind? Who sinned, this man or his parents?” Jesus answered; “It is not that he or his parents sinned, he was born blind so that God’s power might be displayed in curing him.” (vs. 3, REB) And so it goes, the convenient lie is that unfortunate circumstance is directly related to personal virtue. The common cry is “What did I do to deserve this God?”
We shouldn’t assume that prosperity, blessing, and honor follow the righteous, and equally we should not judge the poor as unrighteous because of their lack of financial blessing and worldly honor. Economic disparity in our world, where the majority of wealth is in the hands of a small number of people, is not the will of God. In Psalm 82 God stands in court and holds judgment on those who ignore the poor. “Do justice to the weak (poor) and fatherless; maintain the rights of the afflicted and needy. Deliver the poor and needy; rescue them out of the hand of the wicked. [The magistrates and judges] know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in the darkness [of complacent satisfaction]; all the foundations of the earth [the fundamental principles upon which rests the administration of justice] are shaking.” (Psalms 82:3-5, Amplified]
To be without housing and income is often to feel alone, defeated, and paralyzed. To be without a family anymore, father and mother, husband or wife, can make you feel forgotten. Let there be no doubt, this sense of abandonment is not your identity. But the psalmist reminds us, “The Lord has heard my entreaty; the Lord will accept my prayer.” (Ps. 6:9, REB) You have a gracious heavenly father, his son who sacrificed himself, and a comforter, the Holy Spirit, surrounding you with care. Jesus will never leave you or forsake you.
The Apostle Paul demonstrates the power of God’s love in his letter to the Thessalonians. We are loved by God in order to be channels of his love. We all have a great work to do. The love of God is not a matter of talk or sentiment, but of sharing our lives with each other.
“Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, 8 so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well. 9 Surely you remember, brothers and sisters, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you. 10 You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed. 11 For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, 12 encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.” (1 Thess. 2:8-12)
The liberating power of the gospel, that the grace of God has appeared for all people, subverts the current order of things by turning the heralds of the kingdom into little windows of its glory. The apostle’s audience knew Paul’s love because he came as a hard worker rather than a lordly prince. The Word of God was demonstrated in action. Maybe one of the reasons the gospel falls on hardened hearts here in the USA is that we have far too many preachers who don’t offer their lives, only their mouths. People want to see what the gospel has done to change us. They want to see by our actions that this is liberating good news. And people want to know that there is work for them to do as well. “Not only the gospel but our lives as well.”
I believe that America needs men, women, and children that it doesn’t even value rightly to rise up and save this nation. This will take divine courage and vision. There’s an important story in Ecclesiastes that demonstrates this possibility.
13 “I also saw under the sun this example of wisdom that greatly impressed me: 14 There was once a small city with only a few people in it. And a powerful king came against it, surrounded it and built huge siege works against it. 15 Now there lived in that city a man poor but wise, and he saved the city by his wisdom. But nobody remembered that poor man. 16 So I said, “Wisdom is better than strength.” But the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are no longer heeded. 17 The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded than the shouts of a ruler of fools.18 Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good.” (Eccl. 9:13-18, NIV)
Every person has a unique wisdom to share. We all play a part in God’s story. To stay quiet, shrink back, to bow out, is to allow the “shouts of a ruler of fools” to be the only voice heard. You might ask, “What wisdom do I have to share? Society is such a mess.” That question is just the beginning of your journey. Are you willing to take it?
1. Understand your worth as a person. Know where it comes from and what it is for. You are a social being with a divine purpose. It may take over $10 an hour in this economy to support yourself with housing, food, transportation, and clothing, but never relegate yourself to your production value. You are not a machine. You have so much more to give than what society quantifies.
2. People belong together. Belonging comes from the work we’re given to do, where we are located, and the story we share of our experience. Together we shape personal and collective identity. As long as each individual stays separated and seeks his own well being, there is no shared identity and no collective strength to speak up. The poor man who saved the city with his quiet wisdom did so because he belonged to the city. His name was forgotten, but his identity was secured.
3. Tell your story. There is someone else out there, most likely many people, who gain strength from your story. As you tell your story you will get to know yourself better. Start by writing it down.
In his well-known parable about a gracious father and his two lost sons (Luke 15:11-32), Jesus offers us a picture of our true identities in the divine narrative. It is common to focus only on the prodigal son in this story, and how he dramatically repents and comes back home, but this story involves three men: a father and two sons. The father and older son represent plenty, provision, work, location, place.
The second son is restless. He wants his rightful inheritance in order to live his own life. He tried on a new identity far away, but then the money ran out, an unexpected famine strikes the land, and he does all he can just to survive. His experience causes him to come to his senses, and he chooses to return home. He remembers his first identity as a son, but believes his actions have permanently altered the situation. In his poverty and despair he makes a plan to confess his sin and beg simply to be allowed a place as a servant.
The father’s actions speak louder than his words. He sees the son in the distance and hikes up his skirt and runs to his son. Older men in those days did not do this sort of thing. This was a scandalous display of affection. He threw himself on his son’s neck and kissed him. When his son speaks his rehearsed confession the father tells his servants to make ready to throw a lavish party. The prodigal never stopped being his father’s son. The older son however despised his father and brother for the “resurrection” party. The older brother never left home, had never betrayed the father, but felt that the father was rewarding the brother’s betrayal.
The father’s message to both sons is one of mercy, blessing, and acceptance for all. The prodigal son is not a slave but resurrected from death. The older brother learned that he had so much more than his right of inheritance, and that his father’s love was the most important thing. The prodigal son learned the value of his inheritance, not quantified with money or parties but in belonging. All three men have a shared story.
Klyne Snodgrass writes, “If Scripture seeks to give us an identity, which it does, this parable is a prime identity-shaping text. It says, in effect, that humans are not legitimately inhabitants of the far country, that they are not prodigals or slaves. Rather, they are children of their father and belong with their father. The prodigal declares that he is not worthy of his own identity and wants something less, but he is no hired hand. Grace lets you be who you are supposed to be even though you do not deserve to or may not want to. The elder son is suspicious of joy and sees himself as equivalent to a servant, but the father insists that he is a son as well.” (Stories with Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus, pg. 141)
Now we come to your part in the story. Have you spent time “in the far country” running from your true identity? Or have you stayed at home and worked hard nursing resentment that you are not noticed and are just being used? It’s time to learn your true place in God’s narrative. To do that you’ve got to share yourself. Begin to write down your thoughts. What do you aspire to? How have you already helped someone else along the way? What else can you do?
Heavenly Father, we thank you for the good work you’ve given each of us to do, beginning in sharing our story. Our stories are full of many things that seem to lack meaning. Poverty and displacement are so painful and so disempowering. Loose our tongues and our pens to speak wisdom to each other. Jesus you are the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We want to grow strong roots in your wisdom. Grant us the courage to tell our stories and tell the truth even to the powers that be. Thank you for hearing us Lord, and for granting what we desire according to your will. Amen.

Yours in Christ,
Rev Chris Rice

I desire His Kingdom here

So much of the sin in this world so palpable on the radio comes to our attention long after it began. We feel powerless from its effects. Hate crimes, corruption, murder, and kidnapping—all come to our attention and then are forgotten within moments. God knew long before and with complete knowledge. As sick with sin as we humans are, God is neither silent nor helpless. My cry is simply, “Do you see, God?” and “lead us not into temptation”. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Today Father we long for your Kingdom.
There are those who say to do nothing to shelter and stabilize so that government will do its part. Let the people freeze outside, or go elsewhere. I would agree if people were simply thinking bones and organs. If there were no reason for society and culture. If within every person there were not worlds of joy and pain. If God were not present in every moment—but He is! All is not lost. We are not alone. And with every “welcome” we herald the victory of Christ over sin and death.

New Sermon: How Can We Live This Way?

“How can we live this way?
Five Principles of Faith Based Community” by Chris Rice

As followers of Jesus Christ we believe that He did not come to establish a new religion, so that in believing certain things good members of society could feel better about themselves in a troubled world. Neither is the Christian faith some attempt simply to reckon with our mortality. To follow Jesus and partake in the Spirit of God is to be transformed completely for the purpose of knowing and doing the will of God. That will of God involves doing what Jesus said, expecting that if the powers persecuted and killed Jesus and his disciples, we ourselves must face opposition, misunderstanding, and hatred. We consider ourselves blessed in such circumstances. But how do we live this way? How do we make a life for ourselves and our families? How do we disciple others when we encounter such opposition and endure privation?
A friend of mine left the ministry recently, and she left a note in the form of a prayer. In it she related that she felt like there must be a way that we can live together under better circumstances, so that people would not mistake us for the homeless. Surely God doesn’t want his children mistaken for social rejects, does he? That’s a good question. And I believe the answer lies in God’s Word. I want to teach today on Five Principles of Living in a Faith Based Community. We live in an age where people are constantly on the move. And many Christian faith communities endure regular transitions in their membership. I am often teaching a new set of people, as the others travel to our other NLEC outreach locations. But even more people feel that after a short period of time, they don’t want to live in this faith based community anymore.
In introducing these principles I want to inform you who are new about what you will encounter in seeking to live your life for Jesus in close proximity to other believers. New Life Evangelistic Center is different from many other churches in that we are a residential program. Most of our staff are people who serve as full time volunteers, receiving room and board, relying on daily donations of money, food and clothing to meet their needs. NLEC is also an evangelistic nonprofit that relies solely on individual donations for income. It owns and operates TV stations, radio stations, and websites to spread the message of the gospel and educate about the Christian life. We operate a small renewable energy business and teach how to live sustainably through Missouri Renewable Energy. We pray and advocate for prisoners and those on death row. For us the Christian life is about being present for others. It is about creatively and spontaneously sharing as any have need. But truthfully, we ourselves are ever in need.
Sometimes I have people walk in off the street and assure me, “Rev. Rice, don’t you worry. I’m about to get millions of dollars, and as soon as I do I’m going to write you a check so that you’ll never have to ask for money again.” But they don’t understand that for us, to be alive is to glorify God, not to witness to wealth. Glorifying God means finding new ways to share with people in need, so to spell this out: even if God pays all our bills off miraculously tonight, it means he’s going to open up new areas of ministry tomorrow.
The first principle of living like we do is faith in Jesus Christ. It all begins with a Calling from God to follow Jesus. Faith is only as great as what it is placed in. We are faithful only by being true to Jesus. We are faithless when we trust anyone or anything else instead of him. Jesus is the object, Author and Perfecter of our faith. (Hebrews 12:2) We must not assume that our faith is too weak or too strong, too small or too big. Jesus says, “if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matthew 17:20).
This faith is great because of who our faith is in, who we are faithful to. If you are feeling powerless, don’t blame your faith, turn to Jesus. Center yourself on who He is and what he is doing. “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” (Hebrews 12:1-2, NIV)
The second principle is precarity. What do I mean by precarity? It means a condition of existence without predictability or security. It can mean intermittent employment or underemployment, having barely enough or just enough of everything. Another example of precarity is having to live with difficult people. Here at 1411 Locust the women staff live together on the same floor with the guests who come in off the street. They share the same bathroom and shower facilities. They eat the same meals. They often wear the same clothes they picked out of the free store. The guys here also wear donated clothes. Sometimes we laugh and point knowingly at each other’s shirts because a big donation of those just came in.
Now the only way this life can be beautiful in the long term is if we have a point of reference. Who is our reference point? Say it out loud: Jesus Christ. Jesus is himself the bread of heaven, the true meat and drink given for the life of the world. In Numbers 11:1-23 we get a picture of the kind of striving Moses endured in trying to live in tents with lots of people and provide for their needs. He spoke his mind to God: “The people I am with number six hundred thousand on foot; and you say, ‘I will give them meat, that they may eat for a whole month’! Are there enough flocks and herds to slaughter for them? Are there enough fish in the sea to catch for them?” The LORD said to Moses, “Is the LORD’s power limited? Now you shall see whether my word will come true for you or not.”
Here at NLEC our paid employees who have their own bills to pay, have learned like the volunteers, that faith based ministry is about precarity. We all get on our knees and pray for daily bread, and payroll finally gets made. Faith based living involves precarity. It is the now and the not yet. It is the posture of gratitude with the expectation of deliverance. The refusal to bow followed by the flames of fire and resignation to the will of God. We come to understand that God knows our needs before we ask, but he wants us to ask and not assume we know where the money comes from.
Dorothy Day was a Christian woman who lived as a full time volunteer in the Catholic Worker community. She lived in old farm houses and run down tenements in the slums with other volunteers. She did this for around five decades. She left with us writings from herself and others that demonstrate what we’re trying to live. She wrote: “True poverty is rare,” a saintly priest writes to us from Martinique. “Nowadays communities are good, I am sure, but they are mistaken about poverty. They accept, admit on principle, poverty, but everything must be good and strong, buildings must be fireproof, Precarity is rejected everywhere, and precarity is an essential element of poverty. That has been forgotten. Here we want precarity in everything except the church. (…) Precarity enables us to help very much the poor. When a community is always building, and enlarging, and embellishing, which is good in itself, there is nothing left over for the poor. We have no right to do this as long as there are slums and breadlines somewhere. (“Poverty and Precarity” by Dorothy Day, The Catholic Worker, May 1952)
In a precarious faith based life I learn these things too:
1. I am much more than what I possess.
2. Money does not make leisure. I don’t have to spend money in order to have fun.
3. Learning to serve lets me receive love and be loved.
4. When the heat is on I learn what I am made of.
5. I choose in the moment whether to believe God or fear the worst. God is enough, fear says run or fight.
The third principle of faith based living is trust. Whenever you become part of a group of people the first thing you should expect is to not know what is really going on, and secondly expect that it will take time to learn to trust. The inverse is true also. If someone new joins the group, don’t think you really know them, and allow them time to get to know you. All of us get hurt. We are vulnerable. Being alone is more comfortable than sharing yourself, know that about yourself and others.
When Jesus said, “What ever you desire men should do to you, do this for them” I believe he understood that trust is fostered over time. Trust can be destroyed very quickly, but it takes time to be won. Working with the homeless and poor, you come to understand that many people have so many wounds inside that they cannot bring themselves to trust another person. The question for you is not whether others will trust you, but whether you will trust that God can use you.
I have had a unique life, in that I grew up in this faith based community and then spent fourteen formative years growing up as an adult in another one as well. I am learning that when my trust in another person is violated, my faith in Christ lets me continue to serve in community. It’s a beautiful fairy tale that no one gets hurt emotionally and spiritually in church. The beauty is in the reality that God forgives and heals the very same people if they will stick around. But ours is the age of mental and physical banishment. We break off from each other over the silliest little things. In Christ we develop the courage to live together and establish trust.
The fourth principle is Submission. The idea of submission is nearly always felt to be subjection/punishment. Biblical submission is to Christ and then mutually to each other. Submission liberates me from the tyranny of always needing my own way. In faith based community leaders know they too submit. Taking responsibility for wronging another and confessing one’s sins, regardless of the response, is a powerful example of submission.
One of the first acts of submission a person endures in faith based living is telling their story. To give away my story to you, in complete honesty, can be a harrowing experience. You might take part of what I tell you and use it against me. But in following Jesus, no matter what we’ve been through or have done, we now have a common story. Our new story is that we’ve been redeemed by Christ, and that we are now completely set free from the power of sin, the devil, hell and death. The act of telling that story is more powerful than any other kind of story. But it is only the beginning of sharing our lives together.
By submitting I learn that my way is not the only way of doing things. I also learn that my way is open to question. I might work on something for a very long time and you might come along and question it and it might hurt my feelings for a while. But if we are both submitted to Jesus Christ and are committed to one another, the project itself doesn’t belong to me or to you but to Jesus, and however it turns out, Jesus gets the glory.
The fifth principle is Acceptance. To remain in community you must come to accept yourself and find peace. Peace is found in trusting Jesus over your own fear. Accepting life as it is, not as you would have it. Believing that God is doing in you what you cannot do alone. The Grace of God is here now, in the chaos of the world as I perceive it. Many people learn a version of the serenity prayer in recovery circles. Reinhold Niebuhr penned this extended version:
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace.
Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it.
Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His will.
That I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with Him forever in the next.”

The Apostle Paul wrote the Church at Philippi, “ I rejoiced greatly in the Lord that at last you renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you were concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. 11 I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” In a faith based ministry, where we live off of donations, we too can lose the true value of gifts given and received. If we forget that all things are from God, even life itself and all of our abilities, we can get angry at God and become very self-centered. It is not just rich people who struggle with greed.
No matter what you have, without acceptance you will never feel secure. The desert fathers and mothers teach us that even deserts and caves, in isolation from the multitudes in cities, fear is very present and demonic temptations are ever present. No matter what you possess or lack, where you reside or where you wish you lived, unless you are convinced that Christ is Lord of all in your life, you will never find peace.
I hope that something I’ve said today will offer hope and courage on your journey of faith. I believe that living this way is a biblical and healthy expression of faith. It is an encouragement to thousands of souls on a monthly basis. NLEC is known as a staging area for newly homeless individuals from through out the metropolitan area. If only for a short time, as a family of faith we can make strangers feel welcome. We do this not because of how great we are, but because of the awesome Grace of God in Jesus Christ.
In review, the only way to live together and help people with contentment is through Faith in Jesus Christ. Precarity is simply a part of our faith commitment. Everything we have belongs to Jesus and he always provides just enough. Trust is essential, and wherever trust is broken we should pay attention and take the matter to God. Submission, like all the other principles, is something we wrestle with, but laying down my will is necessary to getting along with others. Acceptance is a principle that leads us right back to faith. We are ever finding and needing acceptance at the same time. For today I can accept that God is doing immeasurable more than I can see, ask for, or imagine. When we live by these principles we can be ever demonstrating the love of Jesus to everyone we encounter.

Welcome them home

Welcome them home: toward a shared economy of care in Metro St. Louis

Last night I was at City Hall in Overland, MO for a meeting of the planning and zoning commission. They voted to approve our conditional use permit for a new administrative building on Woodson Rd. This morning I met a woman who is homeless and staying at our downtown location for shelter. She is from Overland, MO. Overland is fourteen miles from downtown St. Louis where she is staying.
She was receiving her medications from the clinic on the very street, Lackland, where I had been the night before. At this clinic she could get all three of her medications for a $2 copay each. She has no insurance and is not on Medicaid. She qualifies for assistance because she is homeless.
Now that she lives in downtown at our shelter, she has to go to Grace Hill Neighborhood Clinics for assistance. We write a letter proving she is a resident in our shelter.
We offer her a voucher at a local Schnucks to cover the cost of her medication. She has three refills, but because she is not at the clinic anymore she goes from owing $6 dollars to owing $4 per prescription, and one of the prescriptions, the one she needs the most, is $95. So now she’ll have to have the prescription rewritten by someone at Grace Hill so that hopefully it will be more reasonably priced and we can afford to pay for it for her.

If Clara (not her real name) were to have a place to stay in Overland, MO or in an area closer to where she gets medical care, the cost of serving her would go down. She could be stabilized in the hopes of, in time, letting her build up an income and get back into housing. This is what neighborhoods are for right? When someone buys a house in an area, and commits to maintaining it, they pay taxes in that area, they get to know their neighbors, they contribute to the security of the neighborhood, and in return they have a voice in the neighborhood over what decisions get made. This is the American Dream isn’t it?

But what’s happening right now in Metro East, in St. Clair County, in Madison County, and in St. Louis County, is that there are not nearly enough shelter beds for the homeless. These homeless individuals learn that the nearest space available is in St. Louis city. They are referred here or are brought here by area municipalities. Now this isn’t a new thing, this has been going on for many years. What is new is that the federal government has been phasing out its funding for Emergency Shelter Grants, making even less money available for shelter. While homeless services in St. Louis city continue to grow, existing services in surrounding municipalities and counties have become overwhelmed and many people are referred into the city.

Why are shelters necessary anyway? I get this question a lot. Emergency shelters are such a hassle. Isn’t staying in one more trouble than it is worth? Far more people get by without them, staying with friends and family. What purpose do they serve? It seems like a dumb question in one way, but in another way the question reveals our expectations as a society. We Americans are a hardy bunch. We fall on hard times and we get by the best we can. But everyone has a place to stay and a plate of food at the end of the day, right? There are enough soup kitchens, church basements, and people of good will around that nobody goes hungry and everyone has a roof over their head.
But the truth is, no, there are not. Existing shelters stay full year round. Many new immigrants to this region are surprised to learn that, in reality, it is very easy to lose one’s home and end up sleeping on the cold ground. Failure to pay one’s bills on time can make your life hell.

I am really shocked and saddened by the response of so many in the Metro St. Louis region about those who are homeless. Homelessness is a joke on the internet. Many people believe that nobody in the area has to sleep outside. These people are obviously not calling the Housing Resource Center looking for shelter. This disdain for the homeless sickens me. Not having a source of income or any means by which to obtain services, is a daily reality for hundreds of people in the region. Transportation services, a means of accessing medical care, food, and shelter is a big need. But according to local media it’s a St. Louis City problem. Meanwhile more and more formerly middle class people are learning first hand the plight of the desperately poor.

The true cost of the St. Louis region’s broken homeless service system, is reflected in the number of 911 calls by the homeless in the region. It’s reflected in the number of persons from the greater region seeking shelter downtown. The fact that the Metro area can’t effectively keep people in their own communities puts the burden of cost on St. Louis city tax payers. But City homeless services continues to lie about how broken the system really is. Why would it do that? Because if it told the truth, that the $60 million collected and spent in the area is not actually ending homelessness in the region, HUD would invest less in the region, just as it is doing in other states.

What we have in St. Louis are some of the best Community Development Block Grant writers in the nation. Monies for mental health, veterans, and addiction related needs flow in abundance. In fact, grant writers here know more than anyone what funds are trending from HUD, and they know all the right catch phrases like “no wrong door” that really appeal to grant providers. What we have a lack of here, are donations for direct services and transportation. I am amazed that in a region this size, Greyhound gives all stranded travelers the runaround, sending them to three or more charities in a mile radius rather than just offering Travelers Aid in the station itself.
Think about it. When someone lacks basic services, food, shelter, transportation, is it really cost effective to pay for a cab into the region’s city, or just to try to keep them local? Is it cost effective to pay the police to transport them out of town? People make up your city’s census population! Why would you want them to leave? If you mistreat them do you think they’ll want to come back? It makes no sense.

As Illinois makes deep cuts to its human services, and the number of homeless in St. Louis county continues to grow, the problem is only going to worsen in the city. The metro area has got to awaken from its collective denial about poverty. It needs to focus regionally on transportation, health care, and emergency shelter for its most vulnerable. What would this look like? Municipalities can each issue proclamations that remove the stigma associated with no income. The right to health care and housing are human rights. They can welcome their impoverished home, back to their own neighborhoods. In this way they would be discouraging mistreatment by neighbors and effectively placing a ban on classism. The proclamations would make a powerful statement that municipalities believe in the power of their citizens to reenter the work force or the volunteer force and give back to their communities.

What role should churches take in restoring the voice and dignity of those without income? Just as many churches are working to combat racism, ageism and homophobia, they must work to protect and affirm those without income into their community. The scriptures outline an economy of care in which no person, regardless of gender, ethnicity or family history is excluded. All are welcome in the house of faith. Together we are living sacrifices, a transformed people who show the world what it means to love one another. (Romans 12:1-2) Rather than judging one another for what we can and cannot produce, over time and through much travail we come to understand each ones unique way of communicating and giving to the other.

The church is meant to be the birthplace of a new society, rather than the expression of a culture’s sickness. The fact that any public expression of care for those without income, (such as letting them sleep overnight, or offering cooked food in the open air) is considered a risk to public health and unnecessary should cause us to question how much of a light we are allowed to be in the area. Why is the church allowed to care for the soul but not the body?

When we look at the history of social welfare in this country, we see that it was churches and social workers who prophetically called the government to care for its most vulnerable people. Many are saying now that the prophetic voices of social workers and churches has itself become choked out by government funding. Churches wait for the political will and the right grants to begin to do the needed work at all. Social workers struggle under the load of too many cases, and look for better paying jobs with less trauma involved. Over time, the population in need becomes so resistant to churches and social workers, that only peer based support and influence (help from fellow homeless people) tends to benefit. The amount of time it takes to navigate the system increases and the problems become much harder to solve.

As bad as it is, this trend can be reversed. Every local community has something to share in bringing those without income back home. There is still so much hope, reflected in the faces of hundreds of homeless people who want to work and who regularly transition back into stable housing and good paying jobs. It is not an easy journey, but they are making it. From their journey they have strength to share in their local communities. If welcomed back the homeless can lead the way into future economic opportunity. The St. Louis area needs all of its people. Instead of trying to coax new people to the region, we need to rebuild with what we have. Instead of trying to reinvent ourselves, we should change our minds about our greatest assets, our people.

Guest Post: “Who are the Real Criminals?” by Larry Rice

[Here is a guest post by my dad, Larry Rice, an advocate for fair housing rights and the right of the homeless to form an organized tent city. He was recently arrested in the Botanical Heights Neighborhood for attempting to use private property leased by his church, NLEC, to worship and allow the homeless to sleep. The city came and condemned the property and then told him to leave within a few hours. When he and three others refused, they were arrested, charged with a misdemeanor, and released the next day. The ACLU of Eastern Missouri publicly condemned the city's actions, saying it was an abuse of power on the basis of what might be done in the future. ]

Who are the real criminals? It is not those who have had their tents and structures bulldozed along the riverfront and are now forced to violate the law as they sleep in the parks after 10pm or in the alleys, the storefronts or on the sidewalks.

Who are the real criminals? It is not those who have their land condemned within hours after trying to put their tents on lots they had legally leased at Vandeventer and North of Highway 44.

Who are the real criminals? They are not those seeking to have the city of St. Louis provide one acre of ground where they may legally reside while members of the Board of Alderman can provide one hundred acres of ground to just one developer who is also give the right of eminent domain to take the homes of the poor and elderly.

Who are the real criminals? They are not those who panhandle a few dollars at the intersections but those who in return for tax abatements get political contributions and remain in power without term limits as they continue to pass laws that make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

Who are the real criminals? They are not those who “occupy a premise” illegally condemned because they want to worship God in word and deed on ground He has given them to use for His glory. The real criminals are those who will not obey the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act that declares federal surplus property like the Abram Building on Market is to be used to provide shelter and affordable housing for the homeless. Instead of following the law they will steal it from the homeless and then put the Director of Human Service’s office in that building from which he can control the Continuum of Care and federal dollars for the homeless in order that his boss the mayor may remain in office forever.

Who are the real criminals? It is not the homeless who are living in their cars or like vagabonds going from shelter to shelter because of gentrification policies that have randomly destroyed the low income housing provided by private landlords for over a generation now. The real criminals are those who lie to the homeless and tell them if they leave their tents at Vandeventer and North 44 and get on their bus and go to the shelter they will be getting housing vouchers only to be denied such the next day and told to call the Housing Resource Center. It’s a fact, this Housing Resource Center, because of over crowding in the shelters turn away more homeless people every day then they place.

Who are the real criminals? We will let Jesus Christ determine that as He promised in Matt. 25:31-46 when he said “as often as you have done it to the least of these even so you have done it unto me.” In the mean time, we will continue to fight for a civil rights issue, the right to housing, so that veterans, the elderly, the unemployed and the homeless of all walks of life will have the freedom to have a place to lay their heads at night even if it is a tent.

Enough is Enough

A meditation on Matthew 5:38-48 and Matt 25:35

How many times do I have to turn the other cheek? How many times do I have to forgive? How many times do I have to welcome the stranger? How many times do I have to give drink to the thirsty? How many times do I have to feed the hungry?

I know very good people who grew very worn out by working with the homeless and poor and just got into safer occupations. The stress was just too much. I also know people who bought a gun to defend themselves because the stress of living in their neighborhood was just too much.

But when Jesus said “love your enemy” he didn’t mean one time. When he said “turn the other cheek” or “go the extra mile” he didn’t mean until you get tired of it. He said do it as a child of God. Do it because your heavenly father is perfect. God’s perfection is enough to absorb all the hatred and fear and fatigue in the world. His perfection keeps his children from ever exhausting His love. Notice I say His love. Knowing what Jesus wants means knowing we don’t have it on our own. We are never enough alone.

 

Being an advocate in the area for tent cities means being lied about. It means standing up for the unsheltered while the city says “there are plenty of shelters and space available.” It means being called a lot of names and having to be patient through a lot of confusion. Being an advocate in addition to being a pastor to the poor is exhausting. This morning I was up at 5:30am and on the radio live at 7am to answer call in questions patiently. I feel like I say the same things over and over and it still seems to be so confusing. But God’s supply is not exhausted. So I gotta just go back to God on my knees.

 

I can’t love my neighbor let alone my enemy but God’s perfection is never exhausted. I can’t give enough to all the poor to keep them provided for until they die, but God’s supply is never exhausted. And being anything less than a son in God’s family is not an option. Some people say of themselves, “I’m a bad Christian” but I say, leave it up to God to judge. Jesus came to set you free and if you want freedom then don’t settle for anything less. This world will eat you alive and leave nothing left of your memory. But God loved this sinful world and doesn’t consider it so far gone that you can’t be saved.

 

In a world where people couldn’t care less, be someone who couldn’t care more. Be someone who inspires hope in people that there are Christians trying to do what Jesus said, in the Spirit of Christ.

Is there a place for anger and outcry in the Works of Mercy?

Notes from my journey toward understanding the needs of the homeless, and the social services available in St. Louis, MO.

This weekend I took a spiritual retreat out of town to pray and read and renew with God. Now I want to take the time to answer Rev. Mike Kinman of Christ Church Cathedral in downtown St. Louis on his three points regarding NLEC’s involvement in a protest that took place last Friday:

Here are his statements from his blog, Come Together:

1) The city’s closing of the encampments and relocating of the residents is a good thing. 

NLEC has always made clear that we support all those who want to take the city’s offer to get into housing. We are further under no illusions that somehow we will get the city to not close down the encampments because of our protest. We brought forward a robust, very nuanced appeal, wanting a discussion about a study done by the Continuum of Care itself. Rather than discussion, once again we face misunderstanding and the Mr. Seidhoff’s old line: “Larry Rice is on his own while every other agency in the city is on our side.”

2) Movements for change run off the rails when they treat potential allies as enemies. 

I agree with this. Was my making nearly every General meeting of the Continuum of Care from September of 2010 to 2011, and working to befriend so many hard working case managers all over the city in order to place people in housing the work of an enemy?

3) Well-conceived band-aid measures are necessary, but until we take a systems approach, urban poverty and homelessness will persist. 

I also agree with this, however I don’t call providing basic human necessities a band-aid, but part of the Corporal Works of Mercy, these include:

to feed the hungry,

to give drink to the thirsty,

to shelter the homeless,

to clothe the naked,

to visit prisoners,

to visit the sick,

and to bury the dead.

and when I do them for strangers I’m doing them for Jesus Christ. I don’t consider this half a solution, I consider it obedience to Christ. I don’t do it for cities or for systems, but for persons, in whom resides the imago dei. Now, for the systems approach, I hope you know that we are in agreement. It is a livable wage, a steady income, and safe affordable housing that ends homelessness.

I am constantly checking HUD’s federal data and the National Alliance to End Homelessness’s website to understand what’s taking place.

And this is why we believe it is duplicitous for the city of St. Louis to destroy affordable housing quietly, manage many properties through LRA that could be more easily made available, do away with SROs in downtown, and then at the same time claim to be ending homelessness.

I asked Mr. Seidhoff in a Continuum of Care meeting why the city did not release information as to how many units of affordable housing disappear annually. He called it a separate issue. I asked him about foreclosures and whether those numbers account for the newly homeless and he said emphatically, “They do not.” So to say that NLEC sides with band-aids and opposes a systems approach is obscuring the truth. I like to think that together (myself of NLEC and other members of the Executive Board of the CoC) we pressured the city to lift its 90 day residency restrictions on shelter for the homeless for the first time since the late 1980s. That happened in January of this year. The Chair of the CoC kept talking about doing it for a solid year. But you should notice that when the press got the word, officially it was the city’s idea all along.

I’ll say it again and again, NLEC wants the homeless in homes. But we also know from working daily with the people, doing case management is difficult work. Many people do not trust nursing homes, landlords, even hospitals, and so encouraging them to do the next right thing is part of the Spiritual works of mercy. These include:

to instruct the ignorant,

to counsel the doubtful,

to admonish sinners,

to bear wrongs patiently,

to forgive offenses willingly,

to comfort the afflicted,

and to pray for the living and the dead.

It is here, in the spiritual works of mercy that I locate our place for protest as a form of worship. Dorothy Day saw picketing with unions as “instructing the ignorant.” She said,

“These men, inarticulate men for the most part, because they are used to using their hands rather than their tongues, have all too few leaders and all too many critics. Christ was a worker, born by choice into their class, used to hardship and poverty. Because His feet walked where theirs have trod, because His hands also were broadened and soiled by tools and sweat, because we want to be close to Him, as close to Him in this life as we can possibly get, because through love of Him we love our brothers, we were at Bethlehem [KY] (so strangely named) this past week.”

Far from attempting to shame the city and the Continuum of Care, which is how this tends to be taken, we are pressing the city to consider all its citizens and all its practices. We fear that the city is using one service (the TIP program to place encampment residents) even as it continues to lose affordable housing in other places. By its very definition affordable housing allows someone to only have to spend 1/3 of their income on it, period. Across the nation millions of people are severely cost burdened with housing. It is harder and harder for so many to be able to afford housing in the long term.

The other thing that we oppose is a ban and future criminalization of encampments. Do we have a chance to keep the city from closing this property? No. But must we speak out that tent city models work across the nation? Yes, I will. I’ll go further and suggest that living in a tent city myself for a while to help it get started would not be out of the question for me.

If anything the encampments on Mullanphy have proven that encampment communities do not work when the leadership and outside support do not have the same ends in mind. Sadly, the things we want for people and the things they want for themselves aren’t always the same even when verbally agreed upon. We all knew that it was only a matter of time until the city moved to close the area. We cannot however agree that no good has come out of this experience or that everyone there as you suggest, “demeaned themselves and others,” by living there.

Now onto your other statements:

“The encampments are dangerous- a public health and safety hazard. People living outside in filth and subject to assault and robbery is neither safe nor dignified.”

Having spent considerable time at Hopeville, I have to agree or disagree depending on the day. I don’t think anyone needs to defend them or their history. They’ve been living in public for two years. Many different people have come and gone and have stories to share. You tell me how anyone can live sustainably without money and do it safe and healthy. A few of my friends on Facebook were there for it and they have good and bad memories to share. This is kind of like some neighborhoods in St. Louis I know. Should people only pick the nice neighborhoods to live in to make the city a better place?

“The people are not being evicted but are being relocated into safe housing.”

However you want to put it, the camps are being closed down. I’m not going to argue over the words “eviction, relocation, etc.” except to say that on May 4, OG, who did a video on youtube saying, “We will be carried off these fields in body bags, that’s what we vow” will actually be leaving the structures he built at Dignity Harbor and relocating elsewhere.

“In humility regard others as better than yourselves.” Phil. 2:3

OG put a lot of time and love into what he built, and to not get to know the man or his reasons is, to not humbly respect his work. He had the right to build it and spend three years nurturing it, and he has the right to accept the city’s offer and call it a day.

“Finally, we do need to provide band-aid measures that give compassionate care to those who are currently homeless. It’s why we have our Miss Carol’s Breakfast Program on Saturday mornings. It’s why we support The Bridge both financially and with volunteers for their Sunday lunch program. It’s why when City Director of Homeless Services Bill Siedhoff asked me yesterday if we would allow a portapotty to be put on the NE corner of 13th and Olive to try to alleviate the annual warm weather public health problem of outdoor urination and defecation (of which our own buildings are often a target), my answer was, “If you think it might help … absolutely.” But none of these things do anything to end homelessness.”

I can only reply as I have before that the Works of Mercy are not band-aids any more than worship is a waste of time this side of eternity, or that building the Kingdom of God is a meaningless struggle in the modern age where our leading minds believe in a closed universe. HUD is not advocating that emergency shelters disappear in place of Permanent Supportive Housing, but by the rhetoric used locally, many believe that there is no more need for shelter in the county or metro east. Permanent Supportive housing works with people who have been stabilized in shelters. I regularly get calls from case managers begging me to allow their client to stay longer in our shelter until their voucher kicks in. Our shelter is part of the solution. But, as you said, you wouldn’t know it from the rhetoric.

You know that I spoke with you about the portapotty issue just the other day, asking how we might work together to, in your words, a systems theory, to deal with public safety and health issues in downtown. Regardless of how many meetings I go to with you or developers, it tends to come back to me that NLEC is the source of the health and safety problems in downtown.

Which leads me back to the hardest of the Works of Mercy for me to practice personally,

Bear wrongs patiently

Forgive offenses willingly

Sometimes all the “he said, she said” in this whole process of communication is more than I can take. I’m meeting new people all the time. I go to county and city and Metro East meetings. But mostly I meet with people every day who need comfort in their affliction. They don’t ask for it in so many words, but somehow I try to offer the assurance that they are heard and that yes I care, and Jesus Christ cares.

Working with the sojourning community (as Kathleen Wilder likes to call them) is teaching me that love and faithfulness are spiritual things that are hard won in the stuff of life. I don’t have the patience for this, but there is no easier softer way to love God and neighbor. I don’t have the patience, so I know where I need to go for it everyday.

I don’t consider you an enemy in this struggle Mike, but an important ally. I have no enemies in Jesus Christ. My dad suggested recently that maybe I could arrange him a lunch with Bill Seidhoff to bring them together. But despite what you may hear, I already know that Bill and Antoinette and the CoC are not our enemies. We are working together all the time off camera.

Now let me address the idea that we spread dissension toward the city, or slander potential allies. I believe that slander is a sin, as is misrepresentation. In Celebration of Discipline Richard J. Foster has a quote from Bernard of Clairveaux:

Bernard of Clairvaux said, “Learn the lesson that, if you are to do the work of a prophet, what you need is not a scepter but a hoe.”

He warns us that the spiteful tongue “strikes a deadly blow at charity in all who hear him speak and, so far as it can, destroys root and branch, not only in the immediate hearers but also in all others to whom the slander, flying from lip to lip, is afterwards repeated.” Guarding the reputation of others is a deep and lasting service.

Slander and gossip are some of the worst sins in community, whether in my church or in the larger city. In our frustration with the present realities of poverty, violence, sickness and fear it is so easy to be tempted to write each other off, spread lies about each other, or assassinate each other’s character. My father, myself, and all of our staff and volunteers are constantly called fools. “Larry Rice needs his head examined.” That sort of low blow comes with the territory. But I have never said, nor will I ever say, that my sojourning neighbors should become enemies of the city. God knows my heart, and he knows I often say things that get me into trouble. I need the very mercy I hold out to others.

I’ve included a recent photo tweeted from the city’s coc account at the top of this page. And here is the line above it:

“Bill Siedhoff (City, DHS) and Larry Rice (NLEC) agree that the solution to homelessness is housing! That’s a start!!!”

________________________________________

Update: May 1, 3/30pm

Mike Kinman replied on his blog:

Chris,

Thank you so much for taking the time for such a prayerful and thoughtful reply. I consider you a partner in ministry, a brother in Christ and a friend, so I am glad you responded and I am sure we will have much more of this conversation face-to-face.

At this point, it would easy for us to get into “dueling tomes” … and I don’t see much point in that … particularly because we agree on a great deal of what you are talking about. I just want to clarify some things I believe you either misunderstood or I didn’t express well enough, agree that there are some “agree to disagree” pieces here … and then point out one thing you wrote that does illustrate a significant difference.

First on the value of the encampments. I believe we will have to agree to disagree on this one. I’d love to continue that conversation face-to-face.

Second, when I talked about “band-aid” approaches, I think you took that as a pejorative, when I didn’t mean it that way. We need band-aids. Band aids are the binding of wounds and we need to do that lovingly and generously. They are loving works of mercy. But they are not sufficient alone — and I know you know this and you have said this. Band-aids do not prevent new wounds from occurring … and so a band-aid approach by itself is not enough. I did not presume you disagreed with this when I wrote it, nor did I mean to indicate I thought you were not interested nor working toward this. If that was inferred through my own unclarity, I apologize.

In terms of NLEC’s relationship with the City, you must know that the narrative that is played out publicly is that you are two oppositional forces. You wrote:
“Far from attempting to shame the city and the Continuum of Care, which is how this tends to be taken, we are pressing the city to consider all its citizens and all its practices.”
Regardless of your intent, you are right that this kind of action will be taken as an attempt to shame the City and CofC. It’s a cliche, but perception becomes reality. As I said in my piece, I believe both NLEC and the City (at least the people in the HOmeless Services Dept) are interested in ending homelessness. But as a relative newcomer to downtown, it feels like there is a Montague-Capulet thing going on here that neither one of you can get past. I haven’t walked the miles you all have walked together, but I can tell you it just seems intransigent and a huge barrier to getting anything done and protests just seem to make it worse and cement the oppositional narrative in people’s minds.

OK … I promised I wouldn’t do dueling tomes so I will stop now. I truly am grateful for your response … and any time I have a chance to re-ponder Dorothy Day and Bernard it is a good day. BLessings to you, my friend.

May 1, 2012 3:06 PM

Do you want to be wise?

Do you want to be wise? Do you want to know the truth?

 

Dear Friends,

Do you want to be a wise person? Do you want to be someone who is known by your conversation and your behavior to others as wise? We need more people like that in our neighborhoods, don’t we? We need more friends like that, don’t we? There’s a big difference between knowing a lot and being wise. Words like sagacity (sage instruction), discernment, and wisdom have fallen out of favor. It’s very popular to talk a lot and to presume to know a lot, but this is not the same as actually being wise. The Bible has a lot to teach us about true wisdom.

Let’s look at the difference between the words wisdom and knowledge. Here are two definitions from en.wikipedia.org:
Knowledge is “a familiarity with someone or something, which can include information, facts, descriptions, or skills acquired through experience or education.” Wisdom is “a deep understanding and realization of people, things, events or situations, resulting in the ability to apply perceptions, judgements and actions in keeping with this understanding.” Everyone has at least some knowledge of this world unique to their own life and circumstances. But this isn’t the same thing as having wisdom.

You can know facts about yourself and other people, and you can talk a lot about these, but this doesn’t mean you have the skill to apply your knowledge in a way that benefits you or anyone else. For example, let’s say you’ve watched a lot of Bear Gryl’s episodes on TV. He’s the man who goes around the world from the arctic tundra, to deep remote jungles, and vast deserts and demonstrates what to do to stay alive.  You bought yourself a survival knife with his name on it. Because you love his show are you ready to book your trip to remoteChina? I hope not.

Remember Steve Irwin the crocodile hunter? He had a lot of knowledge about animals and safety, but one misplaced tail from a stingray ended his life. In the same way, knowledge and facts can’t protect us from temptations and trials in this life. We need wisdom, and good relationships with wise people in order to thrive and be all that God desires. So many people have never met a wise Christian who demonstrated God’s love in a way that drew them into faith. How can you become such a person?

In the letter from James to the churches of the diaspora we are given a guide to lead us from confusion, distraction, and ignorance, into the reality of thekingdomofGod. James, the brother of Jesus, once a doubter himself, became a pastor in the early church inJerusalem. He wrote as one informed by the genre of Jewish wisdom literature. Here’s a taste of that wisdom:

“My son, do not forget my teaching, but keep my commands in your heart, for they will prolong your life many years and bring you peace and prosperity. Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart. Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones. Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine.

My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline, and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in. Blessed are those who find wisdom, those who gain understanding, for she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold. She is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are pleasant ways, and all her paths are peace. She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her; those who hold her fast will be blessed. By wisdom the Lord laid the earth’s foundations, by understanding he set the heavens in place; by his knowledge the watery depths were divided, and the clouds let drop the dew.” (Proverbs 3:1-20, NIV)

James is fluent In this wisdom and yet his faith in Christ as the Messiah extends it beyondIsrael’s obedience to all who are in Christ. At one time the path of wisdom was only for some, and others were sure to be left ignorant. But James writes that God’s wisdom is now for all.

“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. (James 1:5, NIV) Wisdom is a free gift but its fruit is worked for. The fruit of wisdom takes a community and it takes time. We can’t be wise in our own eyes. Jesus said that wisdom is vindicated by all her children. (Luke 7:35) So each of us has to learn and live wisdom within the Body of Christ.

“Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.  But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.  Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.” (3:13-18)

So what we’re told here is that this world full of selfish lusts, ambition and envy is not just all around us, but can actually come from within us as well. We can’t presume that we’re ever experts in wisdom, because we continually have to submit ourselves to God and humbly accept it as a gift. Standing in a garage does not make me an auto mechanic. And if my garage has a lot of car manuals offering the wrong information, I’m no expert, I’m actually a guy with a lot of tools, the wrong information, and enough experience to make sure my car never runs again.

This is what happens when in our pride we tell God how much he knows about being God in our lives. Everyday I have to submit myself to God, silence the thoughts and temptations that make me want to take back control, and seek out the true wisdom James talks about.

Listen to some of the wisdom found in James:

• The wise consider it a joy to suffer in trials of all kind, knowing that perseverance is growing in them. (James 1:2-8)
• The wise don’t favor the powerful over the vulnerable. (1:9-11, 2:1-11)
• The wise are eager to listen. (1:19-20)
• The Wise know when to shut up. They know the power of words and weigh them accordingly. (1:26)
• The wise are slow to anger. (1:19)
• The wise are merciful, knowing that they are judged by the freedom law. (2:12-13)
• The wise know that their faith is real because they act on it. Hearing the truth is not enough, they obey it. (1:22-25, 2:14-26)
• The wise don’t presume to teach. They know the tongue and fear God. (3:1-12)
• The wise submit to God and humble themselves. (4:6-10)
• The wise do not slander or judge others. (4:11-12)
• The wise do not boast but say “If it is God’s will we will live and “. (4:13-15)
• The wise know that riches are not here to stay and that oppressing the vulnerable results in God’s judgment. (5:1-6)
• The wise learn from the prophets and Job and look expectantly for God’s future. (5:10-11)
• The wise believe in the power of prayer in sorrow in joy in suffering and sickness. (5:13-18)
• The wise confess their sins and receive healing In prayer. (5:16)
• The wise know that those who stray can still be brought back, be saved from death and have their sins covered. (5:19-20)

So here are four things you can act on right now that are really wise.

1. Wisdom is a divine gift (1:5, 3:13-18), Acknowledge the gift.

2. Wisdom must be implanted. (1:21) Get rid of the evil, welcome the Word.

3. Must be received humbly. Humility involves submission. Submit to God.

4. Good fruits are produced. (3:18) Harvest of righteousness for those who work for peace. Let God use your speech and behavior for His glory.

 

We have such a good God. While we were sinners he reconciled us to himself through the death of resurrection of his son Jesus Christ. He did this allowing all of us who are willing to receive the gift of wisdom from his Holy Spirit. Within the Church we welcome the Word of God planted in us. The Church helps us rid ourselves of the evil and be ready for wisdom. Together we learn humility and mutual submission. We learn to shut up, to bite our tongues. We become better listeners and able to overlook little irritations. In this wisdom of Christ God is producing a harvest of righteousness as we work for peace. The world learns that we are Christians by the love it sees in us for one another. Let’s go to God now and ask for his wisdom.

 

Heavenly Father of the heavenly lights, you do not change like shifting shadows. You chose to give us birth through your word of truth, making us the firstfruits of all you created. Every good and perfect gift comes from you Lord. Perfect in us your will. Help us keep a tight reign on our tongues. Keep us from the sins of slander and character defamation. Forgive us for showing favoritism to the rich and powerful. Forgive us for neglecting those in need.

We pray all this in Jesus name. Amen.

 

Yours in Christ,

 

Rev. Chris Rice

Will you give into the longing or live in Christ’s love?

Dear Friends,

In every one of us, no matter who we are, there is a longing, an insatiable desire to claim more for ourselves. We want more acceptance, more money, more influence, more friends, or more esteem. It seems against our nature to settle for any less than everything at once. And yet, no matter what we receive, the longing does not decrease. Often times, our longings seem virtuous and spiritual, like when we desire to share ourselves with people around us. We want to love and be loved in return. It’s very important that when we invite friends to dinner that everyone have plenty to eat with more to spare. “Are you still hungry? Take some more!” We may even long to help the less fortunate, simply out of a desire that all stay right in our own neighborhoods. We can’t bear the thought that we are warm and they are cold. And so setting things right becomes an extension of ourselves. I fix my roof, I mow my lawn, take out the trash, and I write a check to a local nonprofit to ensure that the homeless stay downtown and not in my backyard (NIMBY). Or I may show up in my car as the great white well-off savior ready to clean up every addict, house and support every miscreant and employ and educate anyone willing. But all will still not be right, and the longing will remain.

You may notice that within all of this longing I have not even mentioned God. That is because, God or not, the desire for more and better is ever present. The divine will need not be consulted in order to dream bigger. And the question becomes, where will this longing lead? I’d like to look at two words used in the Greek New Testament, one for longing or desire and the other for love. Epithumia, is the word for desire that could be for evil things, or for good things. But most often it is used to describe the kind of desire that is overpowering and against the will of God. Jesus warned against the longing in this world that chokes out the Word of God in those who have faith in his parable of the sower and the soils.

“ And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.” (Mark 4:19, KJV) But then he told us what we should desire in Matt. 5:6, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled.” That righteousness is justification before God, to be right in God’s sight. And Jesus can tell us what we should and shouldn’t desire, because he came not as a great moralist but as the world’s Savior. In laying down His life for us on the cross he did just what was needed for our justification. There is nothing we can do to make ourselves right, any more than we can finally satisfy the longing in us for more, better, faster.

There is another word in the New Testament, Agape, that translates into a very  confusing word in the English language. . . . love. In English when we say love it can mean any number of different things in poetry, literature, psychology, sociology, or religion. But in the New Testament it has a very unique meaning. It is usually a reference to God’s relationship with Jesus, and the gift we are given when we obey God and live with each other. Even when the New Testament is read, take for instance 1 Corinthians 13, (known as the love chapter), the common reaction is to apply it only to persons we most easily share space with. It is assumed Paul must mean between husband and wife, or between good friends. But Jesus made it clear in the gospels that the love of God is meant to be practiced even toward our enemies! (Matt. 5:43-48)

This enemy-love has been deemed impractical, apolitical, and even suicidal by many people. They think that Jesus has set up an ideal that’s impossible to practice and so these gospel sayings are often ignored by Christians. But this Agape love has the power to turn this world upside down. It is the only power capable of overcoming evil with good. This love is what God wants for us and is the missing treasure that all of our desire-longing-lust cannot seem to find. So many adults consider themselves survivalists. They feel they must make the most of a bad situation with nothing but the very little they have. They’ve been through the school of hard knocks and graduated with honors in the art of self defense. Whatever they get they win by keeping themselves free of messy entanglements with other people, and so long as most contact can be controlled or avoided, life won’t quite be so bad. This would all be fine if they didn’t need more. And so, together we all scrape and struggle along to get more, better, faster.

It was about two years ago now that my fifteen year old son decided he was going to be like his hero Bear Grylls from the show Man vs. Wild and go live in the woods for a while alone to see if he could survive on his own. I don’t remember exactly when it started, but at school his scout leader had been showing the boys these programs about this former British SAS trooper who leaves himself stranded in uninhabitable places like jungles, deserts, and arctic areas. He demonstrates how to survive with nothing but a nice knife. Chris Aaron became so taken with survival that all he wanted for Christmas one year was survival books and a flint and steel kit with char-cloth so he could light fires. The local army navy surplus became his favorite haunt and he’d use any excuse for me to walk him over there.

So by the spring following that Christmas he was convinced he was ready to go it alone in the woods. I’m sure he would stay up late at night thinking about how he was going to do it. He’d been reading his army survival manuals about how to set up a shelter made of only materials collected in the immediate area. He had his knife, he had is backpack, he had his flint and steel and charcloth. But as the days grew nearer to our vacation he began to doubt himself. We’d have these conversations where he’d openly worry about being alone without mom and dad in the woods. What if he got hurt or something? Would his knowledge of first aid be enough? He made a new friend who was visiting from Germany, and this new friend had an interest in survival too. They encouraged each other in it, and the boys decided they’d survive alone together.

The first night we arrived on our vacation in rural Illinois the boys decided to demonstrate their fire starting ability. Now bear in mind, Chris Aaron had lots of practice using the kit. It was all we could do to keep him from practicing in his room on the seventh floor in Chicago. Starting a fire was basic, even beneath his abilities, so he didn’t have to give it much thought. But that night when we all sat there together, for some reason, the flint and steel just couldn’t get the fire going. He was growing increasingly frustrated. His fingers were red from gripping the magnesium bar so tight. But he wouldn’t let me do it for him. He was so angry at himself that here, in front of his sisters and his best friend, he couldn’t get that fire started! What was wrong? He had all the book learning! He’d seen Bear Grylls do it in one simple stroke in the jungles of Vietnam where everything was soaked with rain. His anger and frustration at himself finally turned to tears and he stomped off for the night. There was no more talking about it. He’d have to overcome this frustration if he was going to continue on with his plans with his friend. But for now the we all had to let him be.

He had a longing to perform what seemed easy on the television and in books. His longing was to demonstrate an ability not everyone had. He had a passion that would give him something to talk about with his friends, something different. But now all of that seemed to be falling apart. The next night he actually got that fire started, and what seemed impossible went back to being common place. He and his friend built their own shelter and didn’t use a tent, and they stayed out there for twelve hours, nowhere near anyone else who could help them. In time he finally came to see enough Man vs. Wild episodes that he didn’t have to watch them everyday anymore. And gradually the survival books weren’t referred to anymore everyday.

We moved down here to St. Louis last year and Chris Aaron’s big request was that he be able to transfer his Boy Scout membership to a troop down here. We did that and he took to the regular meetings and camp outs easily. A few months ago he was actually inducted into the Order of the Arrow, a local honor society for scouts. He is now considered leadership in the local troop, teaching newer scouts to start fires, set up their tents, and learn skills from the book. His love for scouting has proven much more than a passing interest. He’s fully invested, and can be counted on to be on time in uniform, willing to do whatever is needed. The beautiful thing to me in all this is that my son has followed a longing, and it has grown into a love for something that is bigger than he is. If he had given up on himself that evening when he couldn’t start the fire, and had just thrown away his interest in survival, he would have never continued Boy Scouts and certainly would have never excelled in it. For my part, I could not force him to keep trying. Demonstrating the right way to hold the striker and the magnesium didn’t work. He had to come to it on his own.

There is a big difference between longing for something, and becoming the kind of person capable of self confidence, patience, and faithfulness in Christ. It takes time, it takes commitment, but most of all it takes a willingness to admit I need help. Jesus does not expect me to take on my enemies alone. I am only capable of loving my enemy in the context of a loving Church that is obedient to God. One of the most amazing love passages in the gospels is where Jesus looked at a young rich man and loved him. (Mark 10:17-31) Why is this so amazing to me? Well, let’s look at the story.

A man suddenly falls on his knees before Jesus, calling him a good teacher, asking him what he can do to inherit eternal life. And Jesus asks the man why he called him good, because only God is good. He directs him to the law, saying “You know the commandments,” do them. The man replies that he always has done them, since childhood. This is where Jesus look at the man and the text says he loved him. Jesus said, “OK one more thing. Go sell everything and give it to the poor so that your treasure is in heaven.” Then we are told that the man’s face was fallen. He came to Jesus on his knees, willing to do anything. But he went away empty. Why? Because, as the story goes, the man had great wealth.

Jesus looks at his disciples and says that it is very hard for the rich to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. And his disciples get the message. They got it and we today very often miss it. His disciples were not rich, but they asked the question, “Who then can be saved?” And Jesus words are the ones on which we pin our hope. “With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”

Jesus loved the young man so dearly even though he could not get past his longing for more, better, faster. And today we must realize that we are all like this rich man, desiring eternal life but not at the cost of losing everything we’ve achieved, earned, fought for, and accumulated, certainly not at the cost of getting more. Some of us lose everything and are convinced that its only a matter of time until we get it back again. But Jesus is saying, “Your treasure is in heaven.” But don’t forget that Jesus loves us even with our misplaced desires. He’s calling out now, “Forsake all the longing and receive my love.”

There is a price in longing for things that are not God’s will. If we want it bad enough, the love that is in us that is meant for God becomes a love for this world’s order instead.  “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.  For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.” 1 John 2:15-16 (NIV) In the gospels Jesus says similarly, No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will stand by and be devoted to the one and despise and be against the other. You cannot serve God and mammon (deceitful riches, money, possessions, orwhatever is trusted in).” Matt. 6:24 (Amp)

There is a spiritual reality behind the American Dream. The four freedoms outlined in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1941 State of the Union address: Freedom of Speech and Expression, Freedom to worship God in our own way, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear, reflect a modern liberalism that is an end in itself. There is no need for an all powerful God within these human rights. We may have freedom to worship, but no need to worship anyone but ourselves and the freedom itself.

Now that statement might make me a lot of enemies, but I would submit that the longings inherent in this expression of the American Dream have no real limits, because we humans have no way of curbing our appetites. We can live with a guilty conscience, knowing a lot about ourselves, but refusing to change. And this is the predicament we’re in today.

We are rich with rights like no other nation in the world. Everyone is entitled to everything, and yet our prisons are full to capacity, the gap between rich and poor has never been greater, and there is no end in sight for the War on Terror. Nothing can save us now, but the Agape love of God in Jesus Christ. But in order to receive it we have to give up looking elsewhere. The economy of God is all that we need. It is an economy of abundance for all who would work within it. This economy has the whole person in mind because we love God with our whole person. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” Matt. 22:36-40 (NIV)

This kind of love is not possible when we’re only partly present. There was a time in my life when I was so overcome with self pity, shame, and fear that I could not be present physically. I went to my factory job and put in up to fourteen hour days and I came home and slept and got up and did it again every day. I didn’t talk to anybody, I just wanted to be left alone. And alone was what I got. The money didn’t make me happy. All I wanted was to watch TV and movies and be left alone. And my life was a living hell. For six months I was walking in a daze. I drove a forklift in a daze, I soldered galvanized gutters and scuppers. I cut myself and bled and laughed about it. And then one day, when confronted with my true self by my coworkers, I admitted that I had a problem and I started on the road to recovery. I dare say there are many people today who live that way. Numb in their senses, no context for right or wrong, living in their heads but calling it freedom to be what they want.

I don’t ever want that kind of life again. I’m learning that the kind of life worth living takes a lot of work and a lot of help. I’m becoming the kind of person willing to receive help. I’m not a terribly patient person, but I’ve had a lot of patience shown to me and I want to become that kind of person.

If you want to be what God wants for you, pray this prayer with me now, based on 1 Corinthians 13.

“Father, I receive the fullness of your Love in me today, for without your love I am nothing! Regardless of all I do or all I give, without your love I am nothing!

I receive from you, a supernatural love that is patient and kind – a love that is not envious, jealous or boastful – a love that is not arrogant, conceited or displays itself haughtily or rude.

I receive your love in me that does not insist on its own rights or way, for it is not self-seeking, it is not touchy, irritable or resentful, it takes no account of the evil done to it. I receive your love that does not rejoice at wrongdoing and injustice, but rejoices when right and truth prevail.

I receive your love that bears up under anything and everything that comes – it is ever ready to believe the best of every person – its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances and it endures all things!

Father, I receive your Love in me that never fails!”

—Nita Weldon

Yours in Christ,

Rev. Chris Rice

NLEC

New sermon: “Systems Failure”

Systems Failure                                                             6/16/11

 

Dear Friends,

 

There are two things I’m certain of: There is a God, and I am not Him. Every day that I pastor here brings me new awareness of my limitations. I do not wear a cape. There’s no super on my outfit. If I had a super power I know just what I’d want it to be. I’d want people to use their brains to their God given potential. By sheer force of will I’d look them in the eye, reason sense into them, and then cause them to forever change their way of thinking. The trouble is, I’m sure my wife could tell you she wishes she had that same kind of power over me! No matter how hard she tries, she can’t force me to pick up my clothes on my side of the bed, or desire to do the dishes instead of leaving them for her today.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if maybe just a few people had all the answers and all the power to heal addictions, grant work and housing to the poor, and make our society truly righteous? And what about God? Didn’t God create something perfect at first? How did He let things get so bad? God the creator of all things is very unlike us. He does not create things without a will of their own. His design involved the possibility that the people he loved could choose to reject Him and the very order for which they were designed. And this is exactly what happened. We humans are stubborn people. That can be a good thing, but it’s very often a bad thing. The strength behind stubbornness can be seen in love and loyalty, or it can be turned to fear and self destruction.

In the beginning God gave the first humans a very important task. Genesis says,

“God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. (Gen. 1:28-30 NRSV)

Now, anyone who has ever been to the Grand Canyon, or the source of the Nile, orYellowstoneNational Park, or has ever opened a National Geographic magazine knows that the earth is a vast place. Scientists are still cataloging species and mapping the ocean’s depths. So how were these two humans supposed to accomplish this task? We’ll never know. Because we know from the Bible that things took a bad turn two chapters later.

The earth was meant to be a place of harmony. A place wherein God dwelled with his creation, humans and animals and all plant life, and together in innocence they had everything they needed. It’s clear that in such a paradise humans had everything they needed. They had more work than they could accomplish, but they didn’t have to worry about it. Their rule over creation was given and sustained by a loving creator. They had no need to kill thousands of fish for a meal, or club dozens of baby seals to stay warm. Such thoughts, no doubt, would have never had to enter their minds.

Then came sin and punishment, and with it WORK as we know it.

“And to the man he said ‘Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it, cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return. The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them.” (Gen. 3:17-21 NRSV)

So, right here along with the Fall and the Curse, comes the possibility of a better future. Man names his wife and God offers covering. Because of this curse the very things that are meant to complete us as humans, namely the ability to provide food and shelter for ourselves, to be industrious and enjoy the fruit of our labor, can never really satisfy. We were meant for more. We were meant to rule with God, but instead our ways are full of thorns and thistles. We wrestle with the knowledge that no matter how hard we work, this world will still be a mess when we leave it. Perhaps we fear that each of us will have left it a little bigger mess than when we came.

Scientists and other theorists have been saying for years that the earth’s population will soon outgrown it’s “carrying capacity.” They say that the earth’s ability to grow enough food for billions of people is vastly insufficient and in a matter of decades our misuse of lands will lead to devastating consequences with many millions dying off. Some hope that technology will allow us to miraculously feed, water, and shelter everyone before we completely destroy the earth with our use of it. Technology has made us more acutely aware of the world’s needs and our lack of supply.

After the Garden of Eden was placed off limits, the Scriptures recount that Adam and Eve and their children did a lot of fruitful multiplying. They lived far longer than we can imagine humans living today and they had far more children than we think possible. So many children in fact that the Scriptures are rather vague about how and where all the people were coming from. Nevertheless, these children drifted further and further from God in their thinking. It got so bad that we might say it was a “system failure.” God decided, in computer language, to do a clean REBOOT. He was ready to wipe the whole earth clean and “reinstall” as it were. “The Lord said, ‘I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.’ But Noah found favor in the sight of the Lord.” (Gen. 6:7-8 NRSV)

So he gathers a community of righteous persons and a few of every kind of animal and then judgment falls the likes of which we have never seen. Everything died in this massive flood. Then he reinstalls with a promise never to do that again. It’s going to be right this time. He sets a rainbow as the sign of his covenant that regardless of what happens, he will not judge like this again. Noah and his sons are given a similar mandate to Adam and Eve. And then they go about repopulating the earth. Nations develop from these few people and everyone is still speaking the same language. And we see one of the first experiments in technology. A group settles in a plain and makes begins forming a city. The planning committee decides, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” (Gen. 11:4) This is an odd little story. They built their tower and then God confuses their language and scatters them all over the face of the earth. It’s an odd story because it seems like the city was meant to unify them and be a monument to their power. And yet it happens at a time when their purpose is to spread out all over. Some read what God does here to be an angry reaction, a punishment out of fear that humans will threaten His power. He confuses their language and then they spread out further and abandon the city and tower. Rather than an angry reaction, I look at the birth of different languages as a means for new civilizations. God likes diversity. Homogeneity stifles true creativity, and God appreciates our differences. The story of what happened here atBabelfurther illustrates the frustration of our collective creative intent since the Fall. No matter how well we work together as humans, we still don’t know what’s best for us apart from God’s will. Building great edifices doesn’t make us better humans. It just reminds of us of our yearning to reign with God, and the fact that until Christ returns, everything we do is temporary and partially effective.

Rev. Ray Redlich recently brought to our attention the similarities between theTowerofBabeland the birth of the Church in Acts 2 in our men’s morning bible study.

“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. ²And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.³Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. ⁴All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. 5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. ⁶And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.⁷Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? ⁹Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, ¹¹Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.’ ¹²All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’ ¹³But others sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine.’” (Acts 2:1-13)

Whereas in Genesis God confused the people’s speech to fulfill His purpose, here God gives the disciples of Jesus the ability to speak in order to be understood by different peoples from all over the vast reach of theRoman empire. And their speech had real content. They were witnesses of God’s deeds of power. The result of this sign was that 3000 people from all over the known world became the first recipients of the kind of life God intended for all people.

This new life lived by the Spirit of God caused the first believers to worship differently, live in proximity differently, consider their time differently, and use their money differently. The Fear of the Lord was on everyone and gratitude marked everything they did. Work was apparently losing its curse because it was not full of fear and selfishness. Believers held all things in common. They sold their possessions and gave as any had need. And day by day God was adding to their numbers.

This vision for work has been called “a new society in the shell of the old.” In Christ God is changing us humans first and then reordering the systems we inhabit accordingly. William James once said, “I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success, and I am for those tiny invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which, if you give them time, will rend the hardest monuments of man’s pride.” God chooses to use the least likely sinners, men and women who can’t succeed at doing right though their lives depend upon it to make all the difference in this world.

One such example is the Apostle Paul. Saul of Tarsus was a renowned hit-man for the ruling opposition. Word traveled fast among Christians when Saul was heading to town. “If you mean to stay alive, be somewhere else!”, they probably said. And yet God chose this man of wicked reputation, this man few Christians could believe, to suffer for Christ and spread the gospel to the Gentiles.

In his Epistle to the Colossians he shared this insight for reversing the work curse: “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” (Col. 3:17 NRSV) You have to understand this wording “in the name of the Lord Jesus.” In these days all action with authority was done on behalf of Lord Caesar. Caesar was the highest authority in the Roman empire. The Roman household was set up in honor of authority. Slaves and servants acted under the authority of the head of their household. If you came as a herald for a particular household you would speak your message and act under that name’s authority. And Jesus Christ is the name of the Lord under whose authority we all do everything. In doing this we are saying that the household we are apart of does not belong to any one of us. We don’t act under our own authority. We are all humble servants of Jesus Christ.

Paul proclaims aloud our freedom from human systems fraught with failure. We live not to pay bills, and not to buy things we don’t need, but in order to serve one another in love.

¹³”For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. ¹⁴For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁵If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.” (Gal. 5:13-15 NRSV) In theUSA we love that word freedom. But it doesn’t ring well next to the words “slaves to one another.” How can you be free and a slave at the same time? The key is in that word love.

The only thing that can break that cursed thinking that says, “I am valuable in so far as I work hard and provide for myself and owe nothing to anyone” is a willingness to acknowledge that everything you have is a free gift because of Jesus Christ. I know so many men who walk around feeling half their size because they don’t have cash in their pocket at the moment. They’ve been taught that buying power is true freedom. I know many others who have learned and are learning that true freedom is not in cash but is in being loved and loving in return. I’m privileged to know some men who have renovated room and after of this building in voluntary service, and the love and work they put into those rooms makes them feel responsible for this place and the people in it. That, brothers and sisters, is true freedom. The freedom to give of yourself willingly, and allow others to care for you in return.

I wish I could say that everyone we serve is ready for that kind of freedom. Many others, its true, find this church’s hospitality stifling. They don’t want to be part of any environment where they have to change. I learned of a mother who came here with her kids and after getting all checked in announced that there was no way she could make it through the whole night without a cigarette. She got her kids and shuffled back out into the rain. Another woman could not bear to be without her cat and so tried to sneak it into her suitcase hoping it would not be checked. And many others have to choose between thirty or more boxes in storage and living next to other people. There are a thousand little things that make serving the poor uncomfortable. For this reason, many people try it out for a little while and then get away as soon as possible. We can accept that. But at the same time, someone has to learn a different way of life, you know?

Too many people are getting theirs and not giving back.

I love Paul’s simple admonition: “Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labour and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy.” (Eph. 4:28) I love it because, compared to the way our great grandparents lived we all take much more than we give back. We have much more of everything, but we don’t work for it like they did and so it means a lot less to us. Their lives were simpler, you know? They had far less to distract them.

St. Francis De Sales once said, “Every moment comes to us pregnant with a command from God, only to pass on and plunge into eternity, there to remain forever what we have made of it.” With hearts that wait and lean on God’s commands we can live life to its full. Without God every moment propels us back at the curse of doing without meaning.

Would to God that we could learn with St. Therese of Lisieux that all is gift, and all is grace:

“Everything is a grace. . . everything is the direct effect of our Father’s love- difficulties, contradictions, humiliations, all the soul’s miseries, her burdens, her needs- everything, because through them she learns humility, realizes her weakness. Everything is a grace because everything is God’s gift. Whatever be the character of life or its unexpected events — to the heart that loves, all is well.”

 

Yours in Christ,

Rev. Chris Rice