“How can we worship a homeless man on
Sunday and ignore one on Monday?”
– Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne
Jesus was homeless, imagine if you realized you refused to
acknowledge Jesus when he was trying to talk to you on the streets of downtown
Portland? Here’s the thing, we are told to treat everyone like Jesus, so that
is exactly what I have done many times. This book has convicted me like CRAZY. This
blog is harsh, but I have come to a lot of self realizations and convictions.
Oh wait, it gets more convicting…
I’ll paraphrase. There are so many of us who get pissed off at
God and complain angrily and say “WHY does God allow devastation,
poverty, homelessness, war, and suffering to exist in the world? But here’s the
thing, he might ask you the same thing back. We are supposed to be his hands,
feet, and body. Why do WE allow for those things to exist in the world?”
BAM! Talk about convicting. I am only 22 (23 in on month, woot
woot), and yet I can think of SO much stuff I have sitting in my room that I do
not need, truly do not even use or want that is collecting dust on my shelves
and in my closet. Jesus asks us to sell EVERYTHING and give it to the pour
(yeah Robin Hood), and I can’t even manage to sell the stuff I truly do not
need or use, seriously?
I am learning lately how much I do not follow the bible. Do
I really love my neighbor as myself? Are my treasures really in Heaven? Would I
be mad if someone stole my phone and my laptop, heck yes I would, and if I
could I would want to run after that person and snatch it back. Here’s the
thing though, the bible says if someone takes something of yours, do not ask
for it back but to even give more. Okay, don’t make fun of me too much, but you
are welcome to laugh, but I remember that lesson from a Babysitters club book
back in the day. There was this lady who owned a bunch of surf boards and she
just left them stand in the sand every night instead of lugging them back to
her house. Someone asked her if she was worried about someone stealing them.
She said, “Nope. I figure it means they are having a good time, and they must
need it a lot more than I do.” There is this amazing girl, Tara, on my squad.
She is down to a small backpack and barely anything in it and is still giving
things away. If someone has a need and she can fulfill it, she does. She is
living it out.
I’ve heard many statistics before about ending poverty…which
would likely lower the amount of stealing for survival/desperation, which would
lower the amounts of war because usually war is over money or something they
want that others have…basically, ending poverty would dramatically change our
world. The thing is, we have the ability. WE, not just the government, but we
do. Do we really need a huge big screen TV, the new nice car, the clothes we
forget about owning and maybe wear them once every few months (I have been
living on 10 items of clothing the past 8 months…you can do it), all the HBO channels
when you could instead be playing cards with the family or going out to a rec
sporting event to hang out, or the countless other things that we consume?
I am not saying this next part to get any pats on the back
but instead to highlight some things. These last eight months at varying times,
sometimes all at once, I have lived without electricity, no toilet, no running
water, in my tent, no means of transportation, eating on $2 a day, sleeping in
the back of a truck or on a bus….but here’s the thing, every single time I have
had it FAR better than the locals around me; far better. Yes, I have put up
blogs asking people to be thankful for what they have. But lately I have been
thinking even further beyond that. Jimmy McCarty, an AIM staffer, said
at a conference we attended “When is it
that people will not just look at something and be grateful for what they have,
but look at the devastation and say that this is not right, this is not okay,
and something needs to be done about it?”YOU have the ability
to do something.
Have a spare room? Let someone sleep there. Do not know your
neighbors needs to help them out? Have a block party and get to truly know them.
Tutor children. Foster children. Guzzingly gas? Ride your bike.
This blog is harsh, but so is our world. In America we spend
billions on Starbucks, movie rentals, cars, icecream (yes, billions on
icecream), pizza, overpriced jeans and shoes, handbags, TVs…and the list goes
on. For those of you who know me, I despise shopping. As my grandma heard from
me at age 12 “Grandma, I am not the shoppin’ kind of girl”, but yet I am SO
guilty of this needless spending.
The church body is NOT a building, it is a community. Shane
quotes Don Everts saying, “Referring to the church as a building is like
referring to people as two-by-fours.” We have the ability to do something. We
can go out and bring hot pancakes to some people who happen to be homeless on
Christmas; and hey, maybe even sit and talk to them like they are a human being.
I’ve been wrecked by this book because Shane was wrecked by
the bible. Here’s the thing though, if we truly take the bible seriously, it
will wreck our lives in such a hard, but amazing way.
This is me reaching out to all of you asking you to hold me
accountable to these things. Right now, I have so much work to do it’s not even
funny. Here’s the thing though, it’s because I love Jesus, I love who He is and
what He stands for, and I want to jump on board of the way He intended the
world to be. Love our neighbors as ourselves. That means no one is better, no
one is less. The homeless man on the street, that’s my brother or sister, Mom or
dad sitting there, would I really walk by them?
Thank you Lord for
speaking so clearly to me about so many things and the unconditional love you
have for me even while I have had this veil covering my eyes. Lord these are
hard truths, truths that scare me because if I really live them out my life
will change dramatically. I want that God, wreck my life for your people, help
me to get on track with how you intended it and to say that the way things are
is not okay, and to actually do something about it. God you do not need me
because you could use someone else to help those in need, but I am a part of
your body, and I want to be used! I love you Lord.
