I woke up in church this morning, in an uncomfortable cot. Across the room, Matt was still asleep. After starting the coffee, I went back to bed, staring at the ceiling in the dark room, listening to the coffee perk. I ran through my dream. I was running against Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination. He arrived in a two-million-dollar car. I felt outgunned in rhetoric and wealth. It was an absurd dream, as dreams usually are, symbolic in so many ways, I won’t bother trying to parse it.
Our little church that averages around 140 worshippers on a Sunday is taking its turn housing four homeless families. The program is now called Family Promise. Homeless families with children work with a social worker to find work and affordable housing. They have ninety days. Over the last eight years I have worked with this program I have gotten to know quite a few people and hear their stories. I don’t know if any of the candidates have ever spent the night in a church with a homeless family, but you learn a lot. Patti finally found the courage to report her abusive husband to the police. Good choice, but now he’s in jail and she can’t afford her apartment, let alone the grocery money to feed her two kids on the $8/hour job she’s holding down.
If you make $8/hour, that’s about $16,000/year. That’s below the poverty level for a family of three ($18,530 in 2011). Try to make it on that amount. Or if you can’t, read about someone who did, in Nickeled and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich (http://www.amazon.com/Nickel-Dimed-Not-Getting-America/dp/0805063897).
My part is small. I just stay overnight once in a while. But this small church is making a big difference for these families. I’ve seen huge churches that have little to no impact on poverty in their city. Some churches are righteousness clubs. They teach that God wants you to be wealthy, and if you follow God’s laws, you will be rich and successful. The absurd implication of this is that the poor must not have sufficient faith, or be following God’s laws. The prevailing mentality is that poor are poor because they are lazy. The 46 million people living in poverty in America (15%) must be sitting on their duffs. This kind of rhetoric flies in the face of the hundreds of passages in the Bible that calls us to concern for the poor. It’s almost as if we’re reading different Bibles.
Hebrew Law required landowners glean their fields only once. Don’t go back for what you missed. The stated intent was that something should be left behind for immigrants, wanders and the poor. This way, no one starves. Today some would call this an entitlement system, or a welfare state. In the kingdom of God, no one starves. This used to be a vision in our country.
“I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies,
education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits.”
—MLK (10 December 1964, Oslo, Norway)
Nobody agrees on how to measure poverty. There are many different ways, but however you do it, it becomes pretty clear that at least half the world’s population is living in poverty. It’s pretty overwhelming, and this may be why it’s so tempting for some Christians to hear only Jesus’ statement, “The poor will always be with you,” and then ignore everything else he said and did for those hungry, thirsty, naked, stranger, sick and imprisoned.
In this little congregation’s homeless ministry, the families receive a boost, but the impact on us is what grabs me. Today I held a 3-month old child for quite some time. We’re doing our part so that she can have a bright future. I had a discussion with a preschooler about the merit of several toys. A mom from Minnesota teased me about breakfast. There is a substantial difference between dropping a couple bucks in the plate to support a shelter somewhere across town, and housing families in your church, face-to-face. One involves charity. The other involves a relationship. When you sit with people and hear their stories, your understanding increases and your perceptions change. We’ve seen cars donated, and jobs offered. Lives have been altered on both sides of this equation.
Turning Sunday school rooms into bedrooms is a small inconvenience. The ministry makes a big difference. The faceless have a face. There’s room in the inn.
