"Welcoming Justice" by Loving Our Neighbors

Over the course of Abbey's Mission Year, she has required curriculum discussions with her team. My friend and I are reading as many of the books as possible because they have been carefully chosen to address issues that our under-resourced communities face:  racism, injustice, poverty, subpar educational options, and more.

Welcoming Justice by Charles Marsh and John Perkins grabbed me from the beginning simply with its subtitle, "God's Movement Toward Beloved Community". Community...it's what every dissatisfied Christian I encounter is longing for. It's what God created us to crave. God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit live in community with one another in a way that we cannot even put words to. Thus, it is hard-wired into each and every one of us. 

What we wealthier Christians often don't realize is that our impoverished neighbors we condescend to "help" have much to teach us about living in community. One of the first people Abbey encountered in her new Third Ward neighborhood of Houston was a grandmotherly woman who assured her that she would look out for them and they should look out for her. 

John Perkins was on the front lines of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. Reading this book (co-written with Charles Marsh) during the recent outcry coming from places like Ferguson and New York City, helped remind me exactly whom should be at the forefront leading the charge against injustice, inequality and demeaning of our fellow man. "God's movement is the most powerful source of social change in our society." (p. 23)

Marsh reflects on where the Civil Rights Movement went wrong, lost momentum and left unfinished the work it had begun. "Removed from its home in the church, the work of building beloved community withered and died." (p. 25)

"It is unlikely that anyone has ever read Nietzsche's The Antichrist or Derrida's Dissemination and been inspired to open a soup kitchen. ...Still, my research has shown me that only as long as the Civil Rights movement remained anchored in the church--in the energies, convictions and images of the biblical narrative and the worshiping community--did the movement have a vision." (Philip Yancey, Foreword, p. 13)

One of the most profound quotes to me is when Marsh refers to Martin Luther King Jr.'s prophetic vision for the future of America: "King resolved that America's only hope lay in repentance--in a repentance that took the form of willingness to be a servant nation to the poor of the earth. Sadly, King would not live to say much more." (p. 27)

Is it too much to infer that our deeply-rooted issues of reconciliation vs. racism and forgiveness vs. condemnation could be addressed if we would handle more wisely the God-given resources, blessings and abundance that undoubtedly have been given to our nation? Almost 50 years after the assassination of MLK Jr., we have never been farther from becoming "a servant nation to the poor of the earth". In fact, our spending and misallocation of natural and man-made wealth keeps more people in the world bound in the chains of slavery and unfathomable poverty now than when slavery was actually legal in our land.

"Perkins showed that the activist and organizer will only cease to patronize the poor when they live in community with them and approach them in a spirit of compassion and the willingness to serve. "Living involvement," Perkins said, "turns poor people from statistics into our friends." (p. 29)

This is what I see happening as people move outside their comfort and safety zones and serve with Tent Day and allow God to wreck their lives. We begin to smell like the sheep that we desire to lead to the Shepherd, not because they are foul-odoured, but because we begin to recognize the fragrant offering that rises from 'loving our neighbor as we love ourselves.' (see Matthew 22:36-40)

"Patronization is a worry only when outsiders fail to discern the gifts of the poor--their loyalty, fragility, creativity and holiness--and deny the importance of black leadership. When this happens, outsiders are quick to impose their own plans on the poor and slow to see the wisdom in the local story."

Wednesday afternoon I sat across the table from my friend who this week has been immersed in our Homeless Hosting ministry at First Church. As we sipped our hot tea on that very cold afternoon, she told me stories of the men, and I could see how God is growing her. 'I think some of them are angels,' she said. Since the author of Hebrews told us that in showing hospitality to strangers, in this case homeless men, we unknowingly entertain angels...she may be right.

What I do know is that loving on, giving to, and growing with our under-resourced neighbors will draw us closer to seeing those "angels" than in any other place.

Where Do We Go From Here? #Ferguson

I'll be upfront and honest. I have no answers, because I don't have all of the facts. Period.

But this I do know:  I have been, in turn, sad, angry, frustrated, and confused throughout the course of events that has taken place since August, when a young, black man was killed on his city streets. Did he deserve it? I serve a King who loves everyone and live in a country where I've been taught that we are all innocent until proven guilty, so my conclusion is No...he did not deserve to die the way he did, without a trial by a jury of his peers.

I readily admit that I don't know much about how the world works. My world is very small. I live in a mostly white, affluent suburb of Cincinnati, Ohio. I am not affluent, but most of the neighborhoods around me are. Because of my color, my gender and my geographic location, I do not know the shame of being followed by clerks when I enter a store. I do not know the pain of seeing a woman clutching her purse more tightly because I pass her on the sidewalk. I have not witnessed a family distressingly glancing over their shoulders because they wrongly found themselves in my neighborhood. I did not attend schools that were lucky to have one beat up computer in a classroom, had 30+ kids in each class, had dripping ceilings, textbooks falling apart, and chaos running rampant throughout its halls. So who am I to tell someone that they are wrong in their anger at how they have been treated by their fellow countrymen?

Is destruction and violence a justifiable reaction to the inequality and rampant racism that pervades every crevice of our society? Again, I turn to my King who says that when we're slapped, we should offer the other cheek as well. (see Matthew 5:39) This is not a "lie down and take it" mentality. It is a defiant grace that exudes confidence in a God who will fight my battles and seek vengeance on my enemies.

Then where do we go from here? 

Wow. Honestly, I don't know. I truly wish there was a formula, a 12-step program or a book to shed some light on how we right the wrong of racism.

Oh wait!...There is! And the Author told me that the two greatest things I could do are to love my God with absolutely every fiber of my being and the second is to love my neighbor in the exact same way that I would love myself. And I can study the lives of Jesus, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Ghandi for bigger-than-life sized examples of how to flesh this out. 

What does "loving my neighbor as myself" look like in this situation? Well, when I do something destructive or horrendously stupid, do I want to be written off as a lost cause? Do I want people to say there is no hope in my restoration? Do I want people to point fingers, call names, say/write hate-filled comments, or deduce that I deserve what I get? NO! Nor should I participate in any of those Kingdom-opposing activities.

So what does "loving my neighbor who has just destroyed their neighborhood because they are sick and tired of being treated like second-class neighbors as myself" look like? It looks like reading books about race and reconcilliation. It looks like following voices that cry out for justice (i.e. Pope Francis, Shane Claiborne, Jim Wallis, etc.) It looks like embracing people of various backgrounds as friends. It looks like my daughter and her teammates making pies all day long yesterday for their mostly African American neighbors. It looks like, on these days leading up to Thanksgiving, she and her teammates going into the local prison to pray with those that want to pray.It looks like volunteering in a school where you are the only ginger and the children can learn to love this sweet little lady that looks nothing like them. It looks like attending opportunities that help you Understand Poverty. It looks like Tent Days where a group of people are breaking down racial and economic barriers because weekly they share life with people in their community. It looks like supporting organizations such as  Mission Year and CityMerge who seek reconcillation and love for all people. And it looks like putting a halt on listening to the media voices that chronically tell us one set of people are "good" and another is "bad". 

Basically, "loving my neighbor as myself" means I must question and set aside every culturally-instilled notion I have about what my life and the lives around me should look like and instead embracing a Kingdom-ethic of loving absolutely everyone no matter their color, gender, economic status or the past sins of themselves or their ancestors. 

Isn't that how I want to be loved?