We had a surprise inspection of our ministry kitchen because someone complained that “they got a soggy sandwich.” The inspection went well. We just have to keep the kitchen locked when someone certified is not present. It is increasingly difficult to do simple hospitality here in the US. One woman called to rant about how awful it is that all we offer are sandwiches at lunch. She was very adamant that people need a full hot meal and that we were the ones to do it. Never mind that there are two other lunch sites in downtown, our sandwiches are just wrong!

If they’re so wrong than why do people keep asking for them? Why is there a need for them? Truthfully, local kitchens are run Monday through Friday, as is the hotline to call if you need shelter.

But there is real pressure to become “professionalized” or shut down. Doctors won’t donate their services for fear of being sued, and yet we are accused of harming the mentally ill by offering services without a doctor.  We’ve never claimed to be a social service agency, that expectation has been thrust on us by hospitals and other agencies. “She threw a fit last night at our place and we had to put her out, can you take her in?”

Mother Teresa was accused by Christopher Hitchens of being anything but saintly because she didn’t offer professional care. The poor who she took in who were cast aside to die needed better services than she gave. This was proof that all she cared about was the glory and the donations. Whatever.

I’m all for the hospitals doing their job. I’m all for them not dumping people without insurance at our door. I’m also all for those critics getting their hands dirty. “Get a job!” should be followed up with “Here’s one right here.” And while you’re at it, offer a full 40 hours and a fair wage! How about the glorious median hourly income in MO of $14.78 an hour. That would be plenty to allow anyone in our shelter an apartment, transportation and food. Can someone tell me where they’re hiring for 40 hours a week at just under $15 an hour? I’ve got lots of skilled people here going through employment services (the best in the state) and yet they keep getting low wage, temporary jobs.

Let me give you an example from events today. A man comes in and asks to meet with me about extending his nights with us.

[We set a limit on the number of nights allowed in a thirty day period. Annually we only allow 10 nights to 14 days of emergency shelter for single individuals. In the spring we allow 10 nights, in the winter, 14. Now some might say that is just too little time. The average shelter allows up to 90 days of shelter.

In our experience, to allow anyone up to three months of shelter---no questions asked, is to create an untenable situation. The shelter gets full and stays full and all you end up doing is securing the same people, ensuring they've always got a bed to come to. There's no incentive to change there. By limiting the number of nights we have more opportunity to create incentive.]

I talk with “Joe” about the extension. Is he getting into housing shortly? Is that why he needs the extension? No. After about ten minutes its very apparent that Joe has a severe mental disorder. (He’s referring to voices in his head and his sentences are not working together very well.) He volunteers that he does have a monthly income which he spends on hotel rooms until it is gone. I learn that he is a veteran. After a while I learn enough about Joe to know that there are services available to him if he’s willing. So what do I do?

Well, I don’t force anything on Joe. I speak to him calmly and let him know that I care about him and want him to not have to come and stay for shelter anymore. I plant the thought in his mind that there is so much more available. I ask if he knows about another program a few blocks away that offers a vet program, case management for his mental disorder, and access to federal grants that can place him in housing. It just happens that he’s heading there for lunch. I ask him if I can call a friend of mine there who will speak to him about their services. He thinks that’s a good idea.

I let him know about extended transitional housing that our ministry offers for vets. He sounds interested. Now the choice is up to him. I haven’t given him what he asked for, I’ve tried to give him so much more! Five more nights of shelter or an apartment of your own?

Truthfully, all that I may have accomplished with this man is to let him know that I care to listen to him for a while. He may never actually head to the agency I mentioned for lunch, I don’t know. I’m past the point of worrying about it.

My faith in Christ allows me the freedom to let people make their own choices. The gospel is never good news when it serves to imprison people into doing what I want. People choose things all the time that are not best for them. But that doesn’t mean God is not in control.

This is something I have to remind myself of daily.

Here are some of the “points of entry” (off the top of my head) whereby persons who have no place to live enter St. Louis’ sojourning population:

A Veterans Administration caseworker relocates them to the area for services.

Greyhound Bus Station/Amtrak

The state and city correctional facilities

nursing homes

hospitals

Hitch hiking

Freight hopping

walking

With a vehicle (living out of their cars)

or they just lived here all their lives.

And how do they exit the streets?

A charity helps them with a bus ticket out of town.

Temporary work eventually secures them enough money to get out of town.

With the right ID, determination, and a lot of patience the person qualifies for all the needed services to enter housing through a multi-service organization or by eventually making enough extra cash to secure an apartment. (shelter, Employment, transitional housing,  drug and alcohol treatment/counseling, shelter + care, etc.)

Accepted for Disability after several appeals.

There are many other ways in and out. Always more ways in then out. To me the most complicating factor is an individuals fierce independence and a refusal to accept anything involving a group home or less than ideal situation.

Dear Friends,

Many people are upset because they are living a PLAN B. They’re upset because what they really wanted in life was not what they got. They had certain expectations, but now they’re living with something different from the plan they thought they were living. Duke Divinity School professor Stanley Hauerwas likes to ask the following question, “Who told you the story that you should have no story except the story you choose when you have no story?” Now you might be thinking “What does that mean?” Let’s break it down. First, the great minds of our age say that your life is a blank slate. You can be whatever you want to be if you dream big. You get to write your own story. There is no grand narrative in life except the one that you write for yourself. Because there is no reference point, no grand narrative, any story you write with your life will have the most meaning to you. You are an individual (just like everyone else). Secondly, question anyone who would question your freedom as an individual. Your ability to choose is the most important ability you have. Don’t ask “to choose what?” just keep choosing.

Herein lies the problem, you and I didn’t ask to be born. We were born in interesting times. Is life a gift or a curse? And what if I don’t want to choose to answer that question? One alternative to this situation is to simply ignore it. Become a sheep and do what you see everyone else doing. Trust in society’s collective consciousness. Base your existence on the Consumer Confidence Index. Buy what everyone is buying. Start out in your youth. Find the kid every kid likes and listen to him. Do whatever he tells you and always be on the winning side. If you are a teenager, do anything to keep from being like your parents. They’re locked into one thing, go out and experiment with everything. Later as a young adult in prison. . . . promise your P.O. that you’ll do anything to stay out, but then go back to the same neighborhood to look up the kid everybody liked. I won’t tell you how that story ends, but I’ve met a lot of people who are living out stories like that today.

For many people PLAN A, aka, “I have no story except the story I choose when I have no story” has all but played out. Now they’re living with a PLAN B. They’re not sure exactly what PLAN B is, but they’re doing their best to make it up as they go along. Just last week a man came to me and asked to join our two year leadership training program. He signed all the paperwork and then had a change of heart. Maybe he’d never made up his mind to begin with, but he had no trouble with the paperwork. But all this week we’ve been discussing the next stage with him, the one where he travels to a new place where he’s never been before. He just wants the assurance that he’ll get to come back within a short time. He’s given no such assurance, so he sits stewing over it in his mind day after day. The decision gets no easier. Can he really trust us? His mind is focused on one thing, his situation. He doesn’t see the many people who are still here after many years, who trust this place and have dedicated themselves to their story here. All he knows is that he won’t be in control of his story as it is anymore if he goes out of town for an indefinite period of time.

I don’t mean to pick on this guy. I share his story because I believe we are all in the same boat in one way or another. Who or what can we trust in, really? I don’t know about you, but for myself, I regularly struggle with a crisis of confidence. Yes, I’m a minister, but I struggle too. I work at a job where I’m regularly encouraging people to do what seems impossible: serve people who will more often then not seem less than appreciative. I tell my fellow staff members to be encouraged and not lose confidence. But last week I was standing in the woods asking God, “What’s wrong with me? Why am I so anxious and irritated and tired? Why do I feel so used up?”

I could tell you about some of my problems. My family has had three cycles of some kind of flu in the house in the last month. At work here in downtown we have a passive-aggressive property owner in the area who wanders around outside our building with a camera taking video and photos of the homeless and their belongings to regularly send to city hall. Trying to reason with this person only seems to make it worse. I’m partly responsible for two old houses that take a lot of maintenance and some old cars that break down more times than I can remember. And my dog has fleas. Oh yes, it all comes down to that doesn’t it? The final straw. My dog loves me, won’t stay away from me, and she has fleas. Isn’t that reason enough to crack up? It’s always the small things that send us over the edge isn’t it?

So as I wandered out in the woods crying out to God, and then got quiet, I heard Him say, “Cast not away your confidence.” So I went and looked that phrase up in the Bible.
“Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
Heb 10:35-11:1 KJV

So what was the Lord telling me? First, that I had a confidence that I can’t cast away, and that this confidence would be rewarded. Second, that I needed patience in doing the Will of God so that I will receive the promise. Third that Jesus is returning and is not late. Fourth, that I am just and must live by faith. I am, together with you who believe, not among those who draw back, but am of those who will be saved. Finally, that faith that I have bet my life on, and that you believers have bet your life on, is a substance, is an evidence of what we can’t see but know is coming.

What was that I said about betting your life? I bet my life on following Jesus Christ. I’m not living on a PLAN B because there really is no PLAN B. I have a different PLAN A. My story is not the story I chose because I learned there was no story. My story is that Jesus Christ has conquered death and hell and died on the cross to reconcile all things to God. He died for all my sins, he died for your sins. Jesus is returning and he’s not late. He will be right on time. My confidence is not in my abilities. I’m a jack of a lot of trades, but the one thing I can really do right is confide in Jesus. So if I’m getting frustrated and angry, you remind me of that will you? The ONE thing I’m really called to do is confide in Jesus.

I’m just getting started. We ARE having church today. Jesus is here today with power to save. That word for confidence in that verse is translated from a koine Greek word, parrhesia, that is loaded with history and meaning. The philosopher Michel Foucault wrote an entire book about the word. It is usually used in reference to speaking openly, holding nothing back. The Greeks loved their freedom of speech in the polis, and this word is not just a word, but it refers to the right of free citizens to speak their mind, especially when they were threatened by an intolerant ruler. That should stick in your mind because we find the word used throughout the New Testament in a way that says, “you will face opposition, but you better not back down”. Acts 4:13-14 gives an example:
“When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. (NIV)
Here the word for parrhesia is translated as courage. In John 18:20, when the Pharisees asked Jesus about his teaching and doctrine, he replies using parrhesia, saying that he spoke openly to the world.

Jesus promised his disciples that they would be hauled in before the authorities in Matt 10:18-20:
“On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” (NIV)

So what’s really different about this word courage in the New Testament is that it is a courage not based on a citizen’s position as free or slave, or on one’s great oratory skills. It is a courage given by the Spirit of the living God, specifically for doing the will of God. God knows my heart. He knows that I’m a coward when it comes down to it. I’ll run away before I’ll defend myself every time. But he took a coward like me and called me to tell sinners everywhere that if he can turn someone like me into a witness, he can save anyone.

I know a lot of you sitting in this room today. I saw some of you when you first joined this ministry last year. Confident is not a word I would use to describe you that day. Some of you were crying. Others were scared to trust anybody. But I’ve been here for a little over a year now and I see God doing in you what you could not have done for yourself. You never thought you’d be setting people back on a straight path. You never thought God would use you to save someone’s life—but he has, and he is. Not because of your great abilities, but because of Jesus’ power over sin and death that is real in you. I’m so grateful to be a witness to that.

Before I came back to this city I was on the run from doing anything like this. My secret fantasy as a young man was to stick out my thumb and hit the highway to anywhere else where no one would know me. Anyone here ever done that? Well I met a few folks who had done that and it didn’t play out for them well, so I thought better of it. Anyway, I was scared to death at first of doing what God wanted me to do. So for a while I wouldn’t tell my wife that God had put moving back to St. Louis on my heart. But God kept pushing me. Then I grew more and more dissatisfied with my work because I knew God was calling me elsewhere. Then I went to my pastors in Chicago, hoping they would tell me that God hadn’t really said that. But they did no such thing. Finally, I gave in and told my wife about it.

Now I’m sorry for running from God. I’m sorry because it is the supreme joy of my life to see what God is doing in all of you. God is doing miracles everyday here one person at a time. And I believe that for someone in this room today or listening to me at home, you want to know that there is a PLAN A. You want to know more than anything else that, sick as you are with sin, God has a life for you. I can say with all confidence that He does. Here is what you need to do:

Learn the Will of God. What is God’s will for you? Believe in the One he sent. (Jn. 6:29)Jesus Christ. What do I mean by believe? Place your trust in, cling to, forsake all else, and bet your life on the fact that Jesus Christ’s death on the cross sealed for all time your future. You can know for certain that God’s will is not for you to be selfish, but to love Him with all your heart, your soul, your mind and strength. God’s will is for you to love your neighbor (that person you notice because you despise them) as much as you love yourself. That’s a start.

Abide in the Word of God. “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” John 15:7 (KJV) Jesus Christ is the Logos of God. Your confidence in him is a confidence in the PLAN A he has given you. This Word is not for you alone but is also for all the other children of God he has surrounded you with. They may not be people you would choose. But abiding in Christ means loving them and being loved by them. It means living by the Scriptures together come what may. It means humbling yourself daily. (For me it meant getting up at 5:00AM to take a woman and her daughter to the train station so that my sister in Christ wouldn’t have to.)

Know the Truth, That Truth will set you free. John 8:31-35 says,
Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can You say, ‘You will be made free’?”
Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. (NKJV)
You may or may not feel like a slave on any given day. You may feel quite comfortable, actually. You live in America, land of the free, home of the brave. But your social and political freedom can’t free you from your sins. Nothing you do can free you from sin. Pretending they’re not there doesn’t work. You need Jesus, the way the truth and the life. Knowing Jesus is true freedom.

Without Christ there is no way to stand against the powerful social, political, spiritual and personal forces that oppose us in this world. But just where we are weakest, God is determined to have His way in us. In the end our story is not about our ability or inability. It is about God’s plan.

Romans 8:31-39 says,
“What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect?
It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,
‘For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.’
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (NRSV)

Life is struggle. Martin Luther said, “To have no temptation is the worst temptation.” May God save us from imagining the spiritual life as a comfy bed of roses. As long as we desire God’s will rest assured we will need courage and holy boldness. The way of Jesus leads us into confrontation. We don’t have to pick fights, God’s eye for the poor ensures that the powers that be will come looking for us. God’s love is controversial because it insists that money and things are temporary and relative to time. God is patient. His love is eternal. He cares deeply and does not lie. This kind of truth exposes many persons for what they have become as paid liars. If you imitate God rest assured life will be an adventure and you’ll turn your body in well worn from intense grief as well as real joy.

Yours in Christ,

Rev. Chris Rice

“In general, a chronically homeless person is an unaccompanied disabled individual who has been continuously homeless for over one year.”

In 2001 HUD estimated that there were 200,000 chronically homeless people. As of 2009 the estimate is at 112,076. That’s a drop of 87, 924 people over 8 years. That doesn’t suggest that, with five years to go, we’ll meet the goal.

Maybe I’m not reading this right. Please comment with your ideas and suggestions.

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

“Fear then is the beginning, because “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Fear, we may say, prepares a place for love, but when love begins to dwell there, the fear that has prepared the place for it is driven out. As the one grows the other decreases; as love becomes more interior, fear is driven outside. The more love there is, the less fear; the less love, the more fear.”

—-St. Augustine of Hippo, quoted in Love One Another, My Friends, translated by John Leinenweber, Harper and Row, 1989.

Love cannot be forced. In giving and receiving love we have to trust that an all powerful God desires us for himself and will in the end mend all that is broken in our lives.