You Will Always Have The Poor with You…

One of the transitions for me over the past year is dealing with constant presence of the poor. In Abilene people were poor. Annette worked in an elementary school that provided free breakfast and lunch for 95% of its students. A small group of homeless men and women lived in a camp near a railroad bridge. Ministries of various churches focused on the poor, the working poor, the homeless poor, the aged poor, the mentally challenged poor, even the poor from other countries who were settled there. So we did have working knowledge of the poor and ministry to the poor in Abilene.

But...Austin. In Austin the poor are much more among us and in ways that I have not yet learned to deal with. The men and women asking for money at the intersections raise questions in my mind about doing the temporary good versus doing the best thing for them over all. Is it really good to make intersection begging a viable career choice? What circumstances would put me in their shoes? WWJD? I feel confused and vulnerable in their presence.

The people standing in the crowds of day laborers waiting for work make me wish I needed something built or hauled or painted. Every time I ride the bus I find at least one man or woman who is using the bus for self-directed adult daycare. My wife Annette is working at an elementary school where 98% of the students qualify for free meals. Add to this list of the persistent categories of the poor, those whose good jobs have ended and who have been forced to live through their savings toward a day where the impoverished life begins. Always. The poor are with us always.

The rest of that story is that God loves the poor. God loves those who love the poor. The poor in spirit and the poor in stuff are high on his list. We are invited to have a heart for the poor. We are not expected to eliminate the problem of the poor. The poor are always present. We are expected to have a constant ministry of compassionate sharing with the poor. The poor inside the fellowship of the Body of Christ get to stand at the front of the line. The poor, in all the ways they present themselves, are never outside the ministry heart of Jesus or his church.

So a part of the Christian experience is to be troubled by the troubles of the poor; to be moved by the pain and need of the poor; to act in selfless and compassionate ways for the poor; to serve the poor as we would serve Jesus if he were poor, to serve the poor as if Jesus were in our skins making the choices about how to serve the poor. And we will never get through. The fallen nature of our world guarantees a few things and one of them is "you will always have the poor with you."

God bless us all.

On the Brink

The recent series "Living on the Brink" from 2 Timothy received responses that were sobering. Person after person thought it was time we stopped whistling through the graveyard and say out loud that things in this world are crazy weird dangerous right now. 

Many of us have had some sweet years with things going along pretty well. We know what our faith was like during those times. We got to dabble with this or that idea or imagine a ministry initiative of one kind or another. The thought process was calm. The stakes were manageable. This thinking at the shallow end of the pool was comfortable. And nothing much had to be done in the near future. No crisis loomed. 

To be sure we have all had various crises in our personal lives and families. Still all those difficulties took place against a backdrop of relative comfort and ease for most of us in middle-class in America. Now the world of worry and want that the poor have long known has become a world that threatens to dominate. A sane and sober man has looked into my eyes within the last 24 hours and said, "I think that we may see levels of need and people in situations within the next two or three years that we never thought we would see here." 

Hmmm. What to do? What if the life that folks on the margins of life have always known becomes more the norm? What if more and more of us take our place living on the margins of life where money, work, time and comfort are scarce? What becomes of our life and faith then?

What we found in 2 Timothy is still a good place to start when framing a faithful answer to how to live on the brink. 

The first thing we do is recover our weak flame of gift and calling and claim the power of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, standing unashamed in this world with all of its challenge and trouble. 

The second thing we do is focus with greater clarity on the word of God — the God-breathed word that is unchained, powerful and life-shaping in all situations. 

The third thing we do is lift our eyes from the immediate and urgent and lock our vision on the promises of God that stand today and stretch out into a richly satisfying and rewarding eternity. 

This life may indeed become more uncertain. We may see the sand on which many, and perhaps even we ourselves, have built their lives for what it is. This wild, raging sea of a world is the right place to stand on the ever moving wave of the present as it absorbs the future and leaves the past. We are on the edge, the brink, the wave. Let the metaphors roll and tumble to describe where we are, but … really this is where followers of Christ have always stood and demonstrated their faith to the world. 

Don't be afraid.

God bless us all.

Standing on Holy Ground

This summer I got to perform a wedding for dear friends in Rome, Italy. The couple was beautiful. The setting at San Saba church and at the reception on the old Appian way made the wedding unforgettable. The cab ride back to the city also etched itself into my memory. 

As a part of being in Rome, Annette and I walked through the Colosseum and the palace grounds of the Roman emperors. While the buildings were magnificent, I kept hearing the voices of the Christians who had lived and died in those places. Tacitus says Nero lit his gardens with the burning bodies of Christians. He entertained his guests by having Christians sewn into the skins of animals and letting the dogs tear and devour them. The Colosseum floor often ran red with the blood of multitudes of Christian men and women. 

Those ancient, faithful ones would not renounce their faith in the face of sure and tortured death. They affirmed the reality of their faith rather than succumb to their fear in the critical moments of their trials. In Colosseum a cross stands victorious in the ruins. The empire is gone. The Colosseum is in ruins. The cross and resurrection still stand. Those who died, live. 

It was good to stand on that holy ground. I could hear their voices. I could hear another voice, my own, asking, "Eddie, what would you have done?"