What is it you do here?

Where else can a guy rant than on his own blog? So here I go. NLEC’s headquarters have been located at 1411 Locust Street since 1976. For thirty-seven years at this location, the church where I pastor has been sharing its resources with poor and homeless people. Since 1982 we have been bringing this poverty into viewer’s homes through KNLC-TV Channel 24. Thousands of people of all races, sexes, ages, and classes have passed through these doors. But right now the city of St. Louis can’t figure out what it is we do. There’s a name for that. It’s called willful ignorance. I learned yesterday that an attorney for residents in Downtown West has filed with the city attorney to declare our property a nuisance and have its operating license revoked.

This morning I’m standing in the lobby at this location staring at a note from a doctor at Barnes Hospital that tells me his patient cannot take the stairs, and needs a lower bunk. Amazing. Prescribing how to care for a patient who is obviously not sick enough that he can’t be sent here.
Yesterday I assisted in arranging a bus ticket for a young pregnant woman back home to a northern state. We payed for more of the ticket than originally anticipated. But what were the months of shelter nights worth? Not much to 160+ residents in the area.
A disabled man with an added mental disability stayed every night through the winter and into spring. I know he gets a check. I refer him to a nearby PATH agency that administers state mental health funds. They meet with him many times but he stops making his appointments and says he doesnt want to use his check for housing. When I find out I give him a letter that lets him know his last night is coming up and that he should accept services.
He asks me if I like him. I tell him yes, and then remind him of his appointment and his last day.
What is it we do anyway? We can’t shelter people forever. There aren’t enough beds or space. People belong in their own houses, not shelters.
But the number of doubled up families and people barely getting by is not reflected in annual federal shelter counts. The number of homeless children in city and county schools is in the thousands, but they are tucked out of public view. $1000 a month to stay in an extended stay hotel room keeps a family out of the shelter system and off the street, but it also ensures they’re trapped paying way too much for one room and a bathroom.
Social workers easily remark about clients many barriers, but I am sick of this dirty rotten stinking system. I’m tired of the apathy over how people become homeless. The shoulder shrugging over where or if shelters should be placed. This region conveniently forgets its homeless and helps reify the stigma that only lazy, ugly, useless ppl need be homeless. Thats a lie. The visible poor are our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, grandfathers and aunts. They are being beaten, raped and murdered while we shrug and imagine our leaders must be doing all they can. Convenient lie.
I’m so grateful for the many courageous people I know who are sick of this and are telling the truth about their situation. Come join the Metro St Louis Coalition for the Homeless on May 18 at Soldiers Memorial from 1:30-3:00 PM. http://stlouishomeless.org

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.

Death and new beginnings

Something is happening to me. My mind is being expanded. The horizon stretches yet further than I had imagined.

I’ve been very busy lately, finishing up a newspaper called “The Forgotten’s Call”. Preparing for Saturday’s event in Belleville, IL in Hough Park. We’ve been making friends in East St. Louis with the Lessie B. Davis Neighborhood House and the Continuum of Life Center.

I’m excited that Lewis Reed is running for Mayor in 2013.

In the last three weeks I’ve been affected by the death of three different friends. Slim Cox, David Douglas, Cindy Walburn. Life is so precious and so short. I’m learning to be gentle in these last days. The time is too short not to speak the truth to each other, but in ever new and careful ways. In a world of spin doctoring and new levels of conniving, I want to be the kind of person with patience for truth telling. Even where it really hurts. God help me.

In search of Sugarloaf Mound

For some reason I tend to think it’s my job to carry all the world’s troubles and problems on myself. I worry about what people are doing around the property where I work, how many times the police are being called, and the local politics involved in defending the rights of unsheltered homeless people to camp outside without being hustled along or arrested or doused with gasoline and set on fire in an alley somewhere. So during one crazy moment wherein I was angrily unburdening myself in the basement to my wife at the top of my lungs so the whole house could hear it, she simply replied, “You need to go on a walk and talk to God about it.” So after my apologies to everyone for my language, which the children know we’re not supposed to use, I set off for a sacred spot I learned about on the internet. Perhaps my favorite recreation thing to do is to get out and walk. I unburden my mind in prayer, saying things to God that he knows already.

I walked up Broadway past the exit onto Hwy 55 north and then on to Gasconade Street. I realized I had gone past the right road and I needed to be on the other side of the highway. So I looked at the map on my iPhone and thought I could hang back south down 1st Street. It became clear that I was in an area of South St. Louis not welcome to pedestrians. Look at these pictures. They look like nowhere else I’ve seen in the city. They don’t look like the city at all. From the signs I learned I was on private property and so I had to head back up to Gasconade and retrace my steps.

Back on Broadway on the east side of the street but heading south, there’s an empty storefront.

I finally made it onto the right road I had passed. There’s some kind of art factory here.

A little further up are two acres for sale.

And as I get closer to Sugarloaf Mound there’s a billboard for personal injury lawyers hanging right over the spot.

You can tell from the giant concrete planters at the entrance, this is an important place.
Sugarloaf Mound was purchased in 2009 by the Osage Nation. My pilgrimage here caused me to question myself. What was I expecting to find? It has become more overgrown than it was three years ago. I watched this video about the site days previous.

And now as I encountered it myself with my dog, Daisy, I was grateful to be witnessing something primitive and secured in the modern world. No one lives in the house on the mound anymore. There are other residents nearby who saw me walking by, but this little mound remains unremoved. Why should it be removed? Primitive space. The high point of the city overlooking the river.

Jesus asked the crowd, “And what did you go out into the desert to see?” Matthew 11:7 There was something wild and primitive about the Baptizer preparing the way. They were looking for a prophet that the ancients spoke of. Here on this lonely hillside, a patch of ground is secured by America’s indigenous people against what would surely become a new development that would in turn be sold and discarded in time. A little mound remains to warn us about what it is we do to the land, to each other, and to our future. That it remains is an anomaly. All thirty nine other mounds in Mound City were gone over a century ago. This is all that remains of a once great civilization.

My walk with Daisy made me feel better. The site of this preserved place brought me reassurance that there are still sacred places and that many still remember. I have much to learn about listening and seeing and remaining still. I have much to learn about sacred space and appreciating all of God’s creation. And I know I am still far more the contrarian than I am a prophet of the Kingdom of God. I have a sermon to preach on Friday. Speak Lord, your servant is listening.

 

And how I feel now

Integrity Village lasted a few hours in St. Louis County. How does a small community of believers defend the rights of the homeless when every move is blocked by local government? Zoning keeps the undesirables out, who, incidentally, are desirable so long as they have money. All the good wishes in the world doesn’t create the political will to do something about the crisis. Neighbors everywhere in Metro St. Louis say, “Absolutely not” to a homeless anything in their area. If the folks have income then we can talk, if they’re the kind the hospitals and police dump, well dump them somewhere else. Hello! Knock, knock! You’ve run out of “somewhere else’s”. Downtown St. Louis has lost its tolerance too.

A meditation on Psalm 146

Psalm 146

1Hallelujah!

Praise the LORD, O my soul!*

I will praise the LORD as long as I live;

I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.

2Put not your trust in rulers, nor in any child of earth,*

for there is no help in them.

3When they breathe their last, they return to earth,*

and in that day their thoughts perish.

4Happy are they who have the God of Jacob for their help!*

whose hope is in the LORD their God;

5Who made heaven and earth, the seas, and all that is in them;*

who keeps his promise for ever;

6Who gives justice to those who are oppressed, *

and food to those who hunger.

7The LORD sets the prisoners free;

the LORD opens the eyes of the blind;*

the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down;

8The LORD loves the righteous;

the LORD cares for the stranger;*

he sustains the orphan and widow,

but frustrates the way of the wicked.

9The LORD shall reign for ever,*

your God, O Zion, throughout all generations.

Hallelujah!

1. Do not put your trust in rulers, there is no help in them.
2. Happy are they with the God of Jacob for their help. He made everything.
3. He gives justice to the oppressed, food to the hungry, freedom to prisoners, sight to the blind. He frustrates the way of the wicked. He loves the righteous and cares for the stranger.
4. His kingdom is without end.

I love the Lord! I love His word. All of it. Rulers (even democratic ones) assume too much. Here in the USA they represent a society that robs the poor, oppresses the poor. And God says, “I made everything and I feed the hungry.” And here in the US city after city has said, “Don’t feed the homeless on the street here, it is unsanitary.” If we are a nation that hates who God loves and drives them away, we oppose God.
God will feed the hungry and give justice to the oppressed. The church’s wealth belongs to the poor. It does not belong to men but to God.
This text is so liberating because it is saying that even when rulers stand in the way of God he will care for the needy. One way or the other God will provide.
This passage cuts through all the arguments of “what the poor need” and “who is enabling poverty”. God’s is an endless rule. If I seek to do His will, he will provide. Does this promise we will not suffer? No. Sometimes cities oppress and scatter a work of God. But it goes on His way. We don’t stop being disciples because rulers don’t like us.

In his nobel prize acceptance speech Dr. Martin Luther King said,
“The well-off and the secure have too often become indifferent and oblivious to the poverty and deprivation in their midst. The poor in our countries have been shut out of our minds, and driven from the mainstream of our societies, because we have allowed them to become invisible. Just as nonviolence exposed the ugliness of racial injustice, so must the infection and sickness of poverty be exposed and healed – not only its symptoms but its basic causes. This, too, will be a fierce struggle, but we must not be afraid to pursue the remedy no matter how formidable the task.”

Prayers: for our mayor, Francis Slay, our governor, Jay Nixon, our president Barack Obama, and all who are entrusted with serving the public good. That all may live in peace and treat each other with dignity. That we stand up for the rights of all those oppressed, whose right to autonomy is smothered. We are a city that believes in the moneyed persons right to be entertained. But we were not created to amuse ourselves, but to glorify you. Change our hearts O God. Call us back from an economy of greed to an economy of care. Teach us hospitality again Lord.

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.

“Perfect”

I’m looking at all the instances of the greek word “Teleios” in the NT. Here are the references: [ Matt 5:48,19:21,Rom 12:2, 1 Cor 2:6,13:10,14:20, Eph 4:13, Phil 3:15, Col 1:28,4:12, Heb 5:14,9:11, Jm1:4, 1:17,1:25,3:2,1Jn4:18]
It seems that “perfect” has less to do with task oriented thinking and more to do with enduring as a witness through trial. Becoming true children of God, what we are by faith, involves transformation. How well we love our enemies and go the extra mile when put upon demonstrates the difference.

For the sake of our children

“For the sake of our children, please stop!” “Because the city is doing such a good job of providing homeless services, please stop!” I read these messages recently and something inside me just said, “Give up.” No one wants a tent city for the homeless anywhere. Aren’t you tired? No one is listening. But all this makes me think of the Kris Kristofferson song, “To Beat the Devil“

“If you waste your time a-talkin’ to the people who don’t listen,
“To the things that you are sayin’, who do you think’s gonna hear.
“And if you should die explainin’ how the things that they complain about,
“Are things they could be changin’, who do you think’s gonna care?”

—-

You see, the devil haunts a hungry man,
If you don’t wanna join him, you got to beat him.
I ain’t sayin’ I beat the devil, but I drank his beer for nothing.
Then I stole his song.

And you still can hear me singin’ to the people who don’t listen,
To the things that I am sayin’, prayin’ someone’s gonna hear.
And I guess I’ll die explaining how the things that they complain about,
Are things they could be changin’, hopin’ someone’s gonna care.

I was born a lonely singer, and I’m bound to die the same,
But I’ve got to feed the hunger in my soul.
And if I never have a nickle, I won’t ever die ashamed.
‘Cos I don’t believe that no-one wants to know.