Ordinary Faithfulness

Humans of New York is one of my pleasure reading stops. As a general rule, it's amazing picture and story, rooted in the very ordinary. A few days ago, the story of Vidal appeared. After talking with Vidal, they did what any good journalist would do; someone went and found Ms. Lopez. You can easily read all of the story that unfolded as a result. In a middle school in a neighborhood with the highest crime rate in New York City, there's a principal who believes in her kids. She and Vidal met President Obama as a result of the story. Today is the last day for the crowdfunding campaign set up by Humans of New York to send kids from Vidal's school to Harvard. No, the kids won't necessarily be enrolling; visiting alone is a chance to say, "You can do even this!" The campaign far exceeded the goal and now money received is being used for a scholarship fund for that school. It's a story worth following from beginning to end.

So why on earth am I bothered by it? I confess, I spent some time mulling over why on earth I was bothered by this amazing outpouring of over a million dollars to help a struggling school help struggling students. I mean, really, that just seems wrong on my part. 

And maybe it is. I did figure out what was bothering me, though: this school needed something extraordinary because the ordinary was so bad. More than a million dollars infused into a school's budget in a meaningful way likely feels unbelievable to the entire school, including Ms. Lopez. I also think they'd trade it all for solid school funding and strong support from the immediate community. I could be wrong, of course.

But I'm pretty sure it would benefit the school more to have a steady stream of reliable funding to go beyond basic needs to dreams. It would benefit the school more to have a few dozen of Ms. Lopez--people who believe in the kids, are there for the kids, and will keep showing up with them and for them. Along the way, I realized I believe that because of the dollar I put in the offering plate every week as a kid. Go figure.

I didn't know that dollar made so much of a difference until twenty years later. In church world, we call that something like teaching stewardship. More often than not, I call it faithfulness. Faithfulness is one of the things I struggle with most on an intellectual level and believe most deeply all at the same time. Faithfulness is, well, boring, a lot of the time. It just is. In my case, in my church, it meant showing up each week, going to class, giving my dollar, and sitting very quietly in worship. It also meant being dragged along when my mom took food to sick people or dropped off fruit baskets to people in nursing homes.

Mostly boring, sometimes inconvenient, rarely exciting faithfulness in all things, just like putting my dollar in the offering plate. Now that faithfulness means yes, I give money intentionally, but I also show up at school plays and band concerts, anniversary parties and birthday parties. It's faithfulness to a community, called together by God. It's exceedingly ordinary and I'm learning to be ok with that. It means there are probably a few people who think fondly of me, but it won't earn media attention.

So I'm settling into my faithfulness, trusting that it does more than I think it does. Of course, I'll still read about Vidal's trip to Harvard.

Your Church Is Really, REALLY Big

I'm much, much, much better with self-control than I used to be. I can effectively step back, calm down, and talk about it later. That's not to say that there aren't things that make me, shall we say, irrationally angry. I feel my heart beat a little faster. I need to talk, even if it's only to the air (usually it's a text message). It's a sort of negotiation with self that usually lands in a pretty healthy place.

Most recently, it happened when reading a book that several friends and colleagues have enjoyed. It falls into the realm of Christian writing about how you can follow Jesus better. I totally confess that I'm more into the sort of Christian writing that helps me think about Jesus in new ways. That's what makes me come alive, even though I know that faith requires far more than intellectual assent. But I digress. Let me tell you why this book set me off in the manner it did. There was a line that I shall not quote directly but roughly was, "I'm a Christian! I know about all these things so I'm a Christian!" And the list of what the author knew about was a slew of evangelical Christian conferences.

No, actually, knowing about those things doesn't make you a Christian. It marks you as a specific sort of Christian, or at least identifying with that culture. At the end of the day, knowing about those things makes you a Christian just as much as being in a garage makes you a car. That's not the point either, though.

The point is too many of us have a narrow view of church. We live in our own congregations, in our own denominations, in particular traditions, and assume that's what it means to be Christian. Everyone on the Christian spectrum is guilty of it. I almost murdered one of my seminary roommates a few times for failing to see beyond the United Methodist Church. (I worked a few times to state the problem without profanity as I usually do.)

In our culture of church-shopping, we're used to approaching church as another product. We like it, for the most part. We have brand loyalty, for a few of us. There is value, though, in hanging out at a church that is neither the brand you normally enjoy or a church you don't enjoy. Maybe, just maybe, that's not the point.

Go to a Roman Catholic community and enjoy the mass. If it's your first time, you probably won't be able to follow along, but that's ok. Go to the megachurch down the road and see what it's all about. Find churches with electric guitars and others with acoustic guitars. Find churches with old white guys as pastors and young women as pastors and head to a church where you'll be the only person with your skin color there. Go to churches that break into a sweat if the service goes for 61minutes and churches that are worried that Spirit has abandoned them if they can't measure the worship time in hours. Go to everything in between all those parameters, too.

You don't have to make this your new mission and spend a year visiting all the churches you can find. You should absolutely be rooted in a single faith community. This is one of those occasional things. This is one of those things you do because the love of Christ compels you.

It won't be easy. You'll likely find your blood boiling at some point, be bored stiff at some point, be terrified at another and, again, everything in between. You'll find a vast array of not only worship styles but theology. You'll find a vast array of people who, like it or not, are your family, too.

And you'll find out that no matter where you normally worship, if you let it be, your Church is actually really, really big.

Buying a Car: A Reminder About Poverty

This past weekend, I traded in the pickup truck I got when I graduated high school. That's right, I've been driving the same vehicle since 2002. It was traded in with over 170,000 miles on it. Those 170,000 miles represent plenty of life transitions. But as hard as it was to see the truck go, this isn't about the truck.

It's about buying the car. More specifically, it's about financing the car. I've thought about replacing the truck for a while now. On Friday, the weird rattle became a weirder thump. That noise, combined with a need for new tires, meant that I made the decision to get a different vehicle. Within 24 hours, that mission was accomplished. 

And here's how financing worked: I filled out three out of five blocks on a one page application. No one called my bank or any of my references. No one blinked when I said, "Yeah, I don't remember my last address." They ran my credit and gave me a low interest rate. I signed my name about a hundred times in the course of a day and spent several hours at the dealership, but the process was mostly painless. 

Here's why that's true: I had parents unable to pay for my education, but willing to help me through college in a lot of other ways. Generous people gave me scholarships so that I have a single, federally subsidized student loan. That's it, from seven years of higher education. In college, I worked on campus where we we made our work schedules after we figured out our class schedules for the semester. In seminary, both my employers were flexible in hours and workload. No one expected much from me during finals week. At age twenty, the only credit in my name was a credit card issued by my small town bank, a bank that has now expanded to seven offices and nine ATMs. Small town banking meant I didn't need any credit history to get that credit card. 

All of that means that I have limited credit history, but a good credit score. All of that has a lot to do with the world I was born into and opportunities given to me as a result. Yes, I worked for some of those opportunities, but I was given a great deal in return for my work. And the good credit score has reaped more benefits than I care to admit. Each time I move, I'm approved for a new apartment within minutes. In one case, I was a student bringing home under $1,000 a month. When I open a new utility account, I have the option of paying a few hundred extra dollars up front or letting the person on the other end of the line run my credit. I tell them to run my credit and don't put down a deposit. 

It's one of the things we don't like to talk about much at all. We charge poor people more money for things than we do people who already have money, or have been taught to manage money and done so effectively. I understand that logic behind this system. It doesn't mean it's right. 

It's just another way we exploit the poor, forgetting that it's one of the things that actually, really ticks God off. Jesus, too, in case you were wondering. "Do not exploit the poor because they are poor and do not crush the need in court, for the Lord will take up their case and will exact life for life" (Proverbs 22:22-23). I can't decide if the NRSV is better or worse: "Do not rob the poor…"

For Jesus, yeah, read the Gospel according to Luke. I'm not joking. The first time I preached through that Gospel, I wrote a Facebook status that read, "I get it, Jesus, care for the poor. But I need another sermon." If you actually read the Gospel, you can't miss the fact that Jesus cares deeply for the poor and gets more than a little ticked when people screw them over.

Back to the system. I get that previous behavior is an likely indicator of future behavior. However, maybe, just maybe, the previous behavior has to do with the fact that a person was already charged more because of when, where, and to whom they were born. Maybe their inability to make a car payment has something to do with the fact that it's $50 more a month than mine is for the exact same car. Maybe it has to do with how much more they pay for insurance because of that same credit history and the zip code where they park their car on night. Maybe it has more to do with a system that works to keep poor people poor at every single chance.

It's one of the most immoral things we do and one we avoid talking about. The realization of what we do to the poor is quite possibly the only thing that makes me worry that God is going to rain down fire and brimstone. It's one of those things that we're getting completely, overwhelmingly wrong.

Bill Cosby & Lying to Ourselves

I love Bill Cosby. Actually, I love Cliff Huxtable, but in all honesty, those two names are pretty much synonymous in my world. I grew up watching The Cosby Show. My planned parenting technique is to make my kids watch the show, then say, "I watched this when I was your age. I've had thirty years to think up something even worse to do to you." Watch the episode where Vanessa gets drunk if you want to understand how terrifying this concept truly is.

The Cosby Show was part of our household routine. My sister and I got to stay up a half hour later on Thursday nights to watch The Cosby Show. We had popcorn that night. When I was still young enough that my parents (well, my grandmother) worried about me choking on husks, I had puff corn instead. When my mom, who started college when my sister started kindergarten, had a night class, my sister was charged with making the popcorn. The Cosby Show is culturally embedded not only for me, but an entire generation.

I confess: I haven't read a single story about the allegations against Bill Cosby. I can't bring myself to click on them. The illusion of who this man was is gone, but I don't want to know any more. I believe the allegations are true. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the appropriate response to any claim of rape is, "I believe you." The number of women coming forward scares me.

In this week of the Epiphany, a week when more women have stepped forward, I'm reminded again of how difficult it can be to face the truth. Christ coming upset the world and rulers so much that King Herod opted to kill toddlers and infants as his way of dealing with the new, tiny king. I like to think of myself more like the magi--excited, joyful, glad something new had come.

Here comes the more difficult confession: I prefer comfort.

I prefer the lie that comforts. I prefer to ignore the harsher things in life. I prefer the view of the world that doesn't challenge who I am or what I do. And I don't think I'm much different from most people.

That's why our world is so broken and why we need a savior. We need a savior who promises to redeem what we have done wrong and points us to something different.

It's amazing how sobering that confession still is. I know it. Most of us, in fact, know that something's off and we need some help. Still, it's sobering, and terrifying, and overwhelming to say, "I'd rather believe the lies than deal with the truth."

God help us. Because the truth is hard to face.

Praying for Ferguson

Last night, I went to a vigil for Ferguson. I went as a faith leader rather than a person of faith, stole in hand, ready to wear. I prepared my 2 minute statement in advance, even though I felt very weird talking about racism given my very white skin. Yes, I preached about the events in Ferguson in church, including why it's so important we say, "Black lives matter." For some reason, though, this felt stranger.

I ended up not sharing my carefully prepared words. Others had things to say that I wanted and needed to hear. I don't regret remaining silent. But I still need to confess what I chose not to publicly confess last night. So here's the statement I didn't share last night:

I am 30 years old. You need to know that for what I’m about to say to really sink in. I was born in 1984; I have always lived in a world with CD players, air bags in cars, and a channel devoted only to weather.

I am 30 years old, but when I misbehaved as a child, my grandfather said to me, “If you don’t act better, I’m gonna go get me a little nigger girl instead.” I was an adult and he was dead by the time the meaning of those words sank in. My grandfather was born in 1917; he never lived in a country with legal slavery. But more than a hundred years after slavery was supposedly gone, buying a person with dark skin was a joking matter. He never thought twice about using the racial slur.

And I don’t know where to go after that. Because I know there’s a part of my words that are purely a confession—I was taught hate by one of the people I love most. I was taught to be racist as a byproduct of the culture I grew up in, even as Black History month and Martin Luther King Day were part of my education.  

All I have is confession: I confess that racism is beyond me, beyond Michael Brown, beyond Eric Garner, and beyond Shawn Brown—the little boy I used to babysit, the first young man I saw lectured about the penalties he would face if he screwed up while being black. In my tradition, it is Advent, a season of repentance as we await the Christ child. We read the words of the prophet Isaiah during this time, so I offer his words about when God’s reign finally comes, “They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks…neither shall they learn war any more.” I confess, I pray to God may it one day be so.

A Specific Sort of Christian: A Response to That Pastor

A pastor in my neck of the woods has made headlines this week for a sermon in which he said that the solution to AIDS was to kill all gay people. The epidemic would be solved by Christmas that way. I won't link to the news stories or to his church's website. The media attention has already amplified his feeble voice too much. Google if you must. Chances are, you've heard this sort of thing before. You might even have run away from church because of it.

My first instinct is to play the whole "Not that kind of Christian game." And I'm not that kind of Christian. But as much as I prefer saying what I'm not to what I am, especially when it comes to churchy things, here's a quick shot at saying what kind of Christian I am--or at least hope to be--, and what sort of Christian I believe we are called to be.

We should be engaged in the world. Intellectual curiosity, study of all sorts, people of all sorts, places of all sorts should be part of our lives. Ignorance is a far greater sin in many churches than we often admit.  Ask questions. Keep asking until you get an answer. Seek out balanced sources; this applies to news and theology. Insulation and isolation are both dangerous and manipulative. Need some Jesus proof? Why do you think he talked with the (Samaritan) woman at the well? Or went to Zacchaeus' house for dinner? Or told the parable of the good Samaritan? Why do you think the apostles traveled to all the different places preaching the Gospel? Why do you think the Ethiopian man with whom Phillip spoke was such a big deal? Christians are called to be engaged in our world. Coincidentally, that also means don't get to be afraid.

Our mission should be productive and turn us outward. In other words, what we do as church should make us worry less about ourselves and our own lives. We should be able to name something or show something we've done that makes a difference in the world right now. Jesus fed hungry people and healed sick people. When he forgave the sins of the paralyzed man, other people became angry because they questioned his authority. So Jesus forgave the man's sins and healed him. Yes, there are many intangible things that come with church, but you better believe we are called to do the tangible ones as well.

God's voice matters more than ours. This one gets a little tricky. Churches and pastors are absolutely called to speak on God's behalf. But God moves and acts beyond us, not limited to us. I firmly believe that we study the Bible and share in church to learn the characteristics of God so that when God speaks to us, we will know it's God and listen. If we can't confess God's authority beyond our own, then we're doing something wrong. God speaks and moves in ways that are unsettling and maddening and life-giving. At least once in your life of faith, you should have a moment when you realize you've been getting something all wrong and realize following God means doing it differently. That's the story of pretty much anyone in the Bible who decided to follow Jesus. The biggest mistake we've made is thinking that's a one time thing. It happens over and over again, usually inconveniencing us in major ways. God's funny like that.

That's who and what I believe we are called to be as Christians. It's not everything, but it's a good start. For me, it's a litmus test. And finally, just for the record, the Church should be involved in the fight against AIDS--through things like providing healthcare, supporting research, helping educate people about transmission, distributing condoms, and refusing to be afraid of people with HIV and AIDS. That's a start at least.

Learning Abundance

Is chaos the right word for the last few weeks in my own corner of the world? Maybe.

On the first Sunday of this month, I shared the results of our fall stewardship campaign with the congregation. We lit 105 candles, one for each thousand dollars pledged. Seventeen of those candles were gold instead of white, representing $17,000 in new or increased pledges. For some churches, those numbers would mean hand-wringing and moaning about budget cuts. For my church, these numbers represent a newfound abundance of life and Spirit among us. There were gasps and applause at a number so high.

We'd been challenged to raise $5,000 in new funds, with the promise of a matching gift of $5,000 if we did so. No one thought we'd get to $17,000.

That day, I also shared news of a generous gift from a person in the community who simply believes in our ministry.

Between that gift and the match gift, it was one of the largest offerings ever given at my church.

Some time later, despite everything being done as it should have been, that offering was stolen.

As a result, there have been many emails and phone calls with all sorts of people: parishioners, police, insurance agents, insurance adjusters. I have a whole list of things I learned from this process that I would have been quite happy to never have known.

The people whose checks were part of that offering all diligently canceled their checks. They were gracious about it. They were even more gracious when they re-wrote those checks.

Maybe I shouldn't be so surprised about that last part. Maybe I shouldn't be quite so surprised that, across the board, a new check was issued to the church, replacing what had been lost. But I was incredibly, wonderfully surprised by both the reactions and the giving of the gifts, again.

I was surprised because, sometimes, more often than I'd like, stories of fear and scarcity win. It's taken me a while to write this partly because I've spent the last days trying to wrap my head around what happened. And what happened is that my church believed the Gospel.

They believed they have more than enough and can give some away.
They believed what they have isn't really theirs to begin with.
They believed that fear doesn't win.
They believed that one thing going wrong doesn't throw everything off course.

It's the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 (or the 4,000). It's the story of a widow bringing an offering that she couldn't afford. It's every single time--and there are many--when angels and Jesus said, "Do not be afraid." It's the woman caught in adultery to whom Jesus simply said, "Go, and sin no more."

I shouldn't actually be surprised that we've learned abundance instead of scarcity and fear, but I was. As it turns out, we've been transformed by the Gospel after all. For that, thanks be to God.