MOCKING THE POOR

 Every once in awhile I see an article or hear someone speaking about all the money the government spends on the poor, citing statistics that make it seem there couldn't possibly be any poor left in this country.  I read comments suggesting that compared to the undeveloped world there is no real poverty in America. One of the most consistent comments seems to be that if we added up all that the government spends on the poor we could give each person or family (in the poverty group) a really great income every year.  The end effect of this seems to be that we do too much, that we don't need to do anymore.  Other conclusions seem to be that the poor have no business complaining, that they in fact are non-producers and are living off of the rest of us.

    I wonder of course how it is that in my life and ministry I have been poor, been in the homes of the poor, and see people still suffering from poverty.  The reality on the ground mixed with the observations of statistics seems to be incongruent.

    Let me state that I am not afraid of statistics, I have no desire to waste any money or time if there is actually no need.  I certainly don't want to defend governmental waste or incompetence, or to advocate any continuation of strategies that aren't effective in helping to change people's lives.  I hope that my desire is to tell the truth, to believe the truth, and to act on it.  It is also my desire to be obedient to Jesus, to truly love people, to minister to them in effective ways so that they come to love Jesus, follow him, and have their lives changed.

    I have lived in Africa and I have seen poverty in some of its worst forms.  I have come to realize that poverty has different forms and effects around the world.  I know that being hungry, being at risk from unclean water, being at risk from freezing to death, being at risk from dangerous living conditions, having little or no access to medical care, being at risk from exploitation sexually, economically, and environmentally are real and hard measurements for poverty.  Whatever opportunities and progress may be within walking distance of the poor, those hard measurements are still real and will end their lives too soon.

Proverbs 17: 5 says, "Whoever mocks the poor insults his Maker; he who is glad at calamity will not go unpunished."

     This is my concern with those who seem to use statistics to deny the reality of poverty in this country.  It is a mocking of the poor.  To despise the poor because seemingly so much is spent on their behalf and to then blame them for our national difficulties I take as mocking of the poor.

    Some of those who cite these statistics seem to miss the obvious, while stating we spend all this on the poor and then simultaneously deny we have poor people is to lose the connection between the reason for the spending.  If we have little poverty compared to the undeveloped world it is because we have spent this money.  Wouldn't it be a scandal if the 49 million or so folks considered under the poverty line actually had to live such destitute lives as many in the undeveloped world do, while living in this blessed land of economic properity and opportunity?

    The overall cost of poverty programs also has this constant reality; delivery of such services to the poor doesn't directly go to them but to the vast cadres of middle class workers who deliver those services.  This is always frustrating but just as we can't send astronauts into orbit without a delivery system so we cannot even get checks to elderly Social Security recipients without a Social Security Administration.  Another reality is that though there might be an "average" of how much money is spent for poor people there are plenty of those below that "average" which create the statistic.  Not all states give the same amount for the relief of the poor and not all costs of living (or surviving) are the same across the country.

    A vast amount of our poor populaton happen to be children.  Whatever the fraities of their parents many children in this country suffer from poverty.   If we mock them because so much seems to be allocated for them by way of food stamps, school lunches, section eight housing, medicaid, Head Start, etc.,  and yet they still don't seem to rise above their situation, we might not be taking into account that not all of those children receive those benefits and would be in much worse shape if those services weren't provided.

   It is always intersting to hear people making comments that if the church were just doing its job then the government wouldn't have to be spending all this money.  Well, I certainly applaud any effort to get God's people to be faithful and obedient and to love the poor as Jesus wants us to do.  I think such comments reflect some ignorance of the proper Biblical role of government to protect the rights of the poor, to coerce the wealthy to share their surplus with the needy (scary thought that not harvesting the corners of your field was a kind of tax to help the poor).

    I agree that if more churches were being obedient to God many poor people would no longer be poor, or be a burden to anyone but their own brothers and sisters.   Of course churches would have to start evangelizing among the poor and plant churches among them, which they don't like to do because poor people can't seem to pay the bills for the church like the middle class can.  Even then churches would have to start practicing love to their own members through acts of mercy, and they might have to realize sacrificial giving from their members to be effective at that mercy.

    There are a lot of reasons for poverty, and certainly if we had better marriages, more of them, and less divorce or abandonment of children then we would have less poverty.  If we had less drug abuse, and alcoholism, less explotative pay day lending, better schools, more job availability for low skill workers, etc. we would have less poverty.  All of these are compelling reasons for me to support preaching the Gospel to the poor, and demanding just laws to protect them so it doesn't get worse.

   Yet, we have poverty, and I personally think it is cruel to deny it exists because it means God's people settle for doing less, we shift the blame to the least among us, and we therefore refuse to help Jesus (Matthew 25) and we mock the Maker.  As for me, I don't want to face the implications of that.

URBAN CHURCH PLANTER PROTO-TYPE

   If I could pick the kind of man I would want to come and be a church planter in the inner city, how would I describe him, what would he be like?  My wife and I often say if we had been assessed before we began to plant a church in Chattanooga many years ago we probably would have been rejected.  There were so many issues in our lives, so much baggage from our backgrounds in growing up in the projects of Newark, NJ, and a lot of immaturity.  I hope we can say with all integrity that God used us anyway, in spite of our weakness and even our sinfulness.
    I pose this question not because I think there are any perfect people, and nor do I think the "perfect" would necessarily apply for this kind of calling or assignment from God.  I pose it to articulate the challenge of what kind of character, gifts, and skills could make someone more effective.  Having gone through it I believe we would still have to admit that God can make a jackass talk, and make the stones praise him if no one else will.
1.  A man desperate for God, who seeks to be close to Jesus, who loves Christ and is forever mindful of his dependency on the power of the Holy Spirit, the washing of the blood, the finality of the cross, and the power and hope of the empty tomb.
2.  A man of humility, who is able to learn from those who are already in his community; who listens to them, who receives them into his home, his time, and his friendship.  A man who can be trusted as a friend.
3.  A man who loves his city, who sees its promise and its delight, who yearns for its success.  A man who can see the potential in grit, toughness, and the people who come from a hardscrabble past.
4.  A man who understands grace, and what it can do for someone who seemed to have no chance at all.  A man who believes not just in second chances but in seventy times seven of them.  A gracious man who gives grace especially to those who seem to offer no benefit to him, or who oppose him.
5.  A man who spends time with the poor, who loves them, who speaks to them with respect, who thinks, prays, and studies how he can help them without hurting them.  A man who delivers mercy to them, who leverages their own resources with them, who engages them in ministry alongside him.
6.  A man who loves boys and girls, who delights in the children of the community, who understands and knows they can have faith, and is willing to stay in ministry with them as they grow up.
7.  A man who is angry all the time; at injustice, at poverty, at racism, at ignorance, at violence.  A man who prays against evil, seeks to right wrongs, stands up for the helpless and weak, but does it with wisdom, faith, and an ability to not lose his love for persons.
8.  A man who challenges those with money and resources to be radical in their faith, to not live for themselves but for him who died for them and gave himself for them.  A man who prophetically calls on the rich to be rich in good works, sacrificial in their giving for ministry to the poor.  A man who loves rich people without sucking up to them and refuses to manipulate them for his own enrichment.
9.  A man who is innovative,  entrepreneurial, energetic in his networking to create social and economic solutions to the poverty that surrounds him.  A man who can see economic and vocational solutions without surrendering himself to the idolatry of materialism.
10.  A man with a wife who is with him in the mission.  A wife whose face reflects the reality of his love for her as they pursue their joint calling.  A man who wins the battle to balance his passion for ministry with a passion for her, who is present for his children, and engages them in the ideological struggle of justice without bitterness.
11.  A man who humbles himself to learn cross cultural skills and pursues relationships across racial, ethnic, and linguistic boundaries.  A man who listens to the voice of the people, refuses to be their messiah but points them to the real One, who seeks their advancement and does not use them for his, who feels their cause, their hurt, their hopes, and celebrates with them in their joys.
12.  A man who loves the Church of Jesus Christ, who will not abandon it for seemingly quick or pragmatic solutions. Who is willing to endure ambiguity in the twilight of waiting for movement and growth; in the newly converted, from the congregation, help from outside, or change in the city.  A man who has joy in the worship of God's people, and sees it as the fountain of hope for those engaged in the struggle of life and justice.

POSSIBLE REASONS WHY CHURCHES DON'T PURSUE BEING CROSSCULTURAL

   As I was ruminating on cross-cultural ministry I began to articulate several reasons why it is not more assertively pursued by church leaders.  I will not claim that the reasons I give are comprehensive.  These are some  problems or obstacles that I have noticed.

1.  RACISM - It would be naive to think that this is still not a problem.  It would also be in error to think this is the only reason or always the reason for the avoidance of inter-racial and inter-cultural ministry.  Many folks do not pursue reconciliation between races and cultures for other reasons, some of which I will soon articulate.  However, racism still exists in our hearts and minds and affects our decisions.

     Racism is a sin, and it is the sin of (racial)pride and thus becomes idolatry.  It is the dehumanization of others by despising the image of God in people and this becomes the sin of hate, (thus murder), and the failure to love.  Some folks are racist and know themselves to be so and speak and act with hatred.  Others are racist and don't know it, but speak and act with a sense of racial superiority and entitlement and often fail to realize how hurtful their words and actions might be.  Recently I have read comments from some white Christians with the implication that black people were happier or in some way better off in slavery.  This said alongside the complaint that they voted for Obama and thus they are causing trouble for the whole nation.  It seems to me that this is racial arrogance, that one can declare slavery better for another group while glorying in one's own heritage of fighting for our nation's freedom, laying claim to all the slogans of the Revolution as if feeling the oppression from the British king.  I don't confine racism to any one race of people although racism tied to power is far more dangerous.  All of it is equally stupid and disgusting.

2.  CULTURAL AFFINITY OR ETHNOCENTRISM - there is a reason people don't jump ethnic lines to go some to other ethnic church. They feel comfortable with what they know, there family and friends are still in their home church, they understand the language, if not linguistics they get the cultural language.  The music is usually in their "heart language." This is true for most every ethnic group when it comes to religion.

      I often tell white pastors that black folks in this country were forced to create a unique cultural kind of worship service since they were shut out of white churches.  Without going into a commentary on ethnomusicology let me just say that most black folks who come from the traditional or even contemporary black church find most white churches to be utterly boring.  Most black folks don't like stilted or even Celtic music styles, they don't get into lectures that pose as sermons, they don't appreciate a worship that seems to stifle emotions and is almost martial in approach.  While many black believers have been blessed by coming into a deeper ministry of the Word, when they come from congregations that neglected Biblical teaching and pursued simple emotionalism or prosperity preaching, there is no doubt that black religious experience in America has been rich with depth and feeling; and often relevant to their social condition.

    So why should any minority come to a majority race worship where their concerns are either neglected or even despised?  Why should they make the effort, and why should anyone do that which is uncomfortable in crossing cultures?  I think there are several sound and good reasons, but they are not always apparent.

    It is difficult for any ethnic or cultural group that feels oppressed or marginalized by the majority to be confronted with an invitation to join the majority religious culture with the requirement to give up all of their own cultural identity.

3.  SPEED OF GROWTH AND CONVERSION - This was a sociological reality that Dr. Donald McGavran and Peter Wagner articulated with a concept known as the Homogeneous Unit Principle.   Conversions seem to come faster when you reach people in their own cultural context using their own cultural affinities.  Leadership, language, music, and methods that are familiar, safe, (and might even seem heroic in  opposing assimilation), help to bring about conversions within an ethnic group at a faster rate than if it is attempted going across ethnic or cultural barriers.  If we are going to plant churches and win people to Jesus why shouldn't we do what is faster and frankly more palatable?  What is of course shameful is to use this apparently truthful sociological analysis as an excuse to continue with our own racist proclivities.  One of the things church growth students have also realized is that is not simply homogeneous affinity that helps churches grow but something called "cultural congruity."  When a given culture thinks it is a high value to be cross cultural, than those kind of churches grow quickly as well.  When churches think they have a right to step over one racial group near their church to reach their preferred demographic target they may think they have a "missional" mentality, but it still looks racist to others.

4.  THE LACK OF A COMPELLING BIBLICAL VISION - When Christians are not confronted with the Biblical teaching of justice, mercy, reconciliation, (or concepts of what social righteousness ought to look like in the Kingdom of God) then it is no surprise that we continue in the isolation, self-satisfaction, and cultural stagnation of our separation.  If we don't recapture the passion of the Apostle Paul to "by all means win some" and are not willing to pay the price of "being a slave to all men" then we will not achieve reconciliation.  If the majority race population isn't willing to be servant to the minority population, and pursue them in their own cultural forms, then all the minority will hear and see is assimilation (and thus disintegration) and not love.

     If Christians aren't caught up in the passion of Jesus that we be "one" they will continue to be many, and not demonstrate the power of the Gospel to build us together as living stones.  If minority population believers cannot trust God to preserve them, and guard their dignity, and give them complete fulfillment in who God created them to be as they worship with the majority population, then their fears will deprive them of a fuller unity in Christ.  Without that unity we lose the strength and care we would have for one another, not just as individuals, but as people groups and thus we leave the marginalized at risk of further injustice.

    It is the Word that ought to trump everything, but I continue to see people who claim it as their authority simply interpret it through a cultural and racial lens, and it usually has to do with ego and power, or the illusion thereof.

5.  THE LACK OF CROSS CULTURAL SKILLS - These of course come from learning and experience and intention.  Most minorities learn such skills in order to survive while living in a majority context.  Missionaries learn these skills intentionally in order to serve the people group to which they are called.  We speak here of learning cultural cues, language, the history, glory, hopes, and fears of a people group.  We speak here of "friend making" across racial or cultural lines. In a country that is filling up with minority groups for the majority Christian population not to pursue these skills by intention reveals a lack of concern or love.  Might I also suggest it reveals a lack of common sense nor a will to survive by failing to accommodate to reality.

6.  THE LACK OF LEADERSHIP - Pastors, College Presidents, Seminary Presidents, Mission organizations, Sessions, and leaders at all levels are the ones who need to cast a compelling Biblical vision and to lay out a plan by which cross cultural ministry should and can take place.  Leadership, when done well, enables people to make sacrifices for a greater goal; it does not simply pander to their fears or comfort.

    Leadership sees the future and is able to integrate the past into a progressive plan that preserves Biblical principle and values while engaging new opportunities.  Good leadership looks around their institution and sees what he or she doesn't have and who or what is missing. Good leadership will pursue the recruiting, the training, giving of scholarships, the inclusion, the raising to partnership levels of leadership, the proactive pursuit of door opening for gifted minority individuals.  In cross cultural ministry we are forced to love our neighbors as ourselves and as John Calvin said there is no such thing as loving your neighbor without sacrifice.  Everybody gives up something to gain something more in ministries of reconciliation.

7.  BENIGN GEOGRAPHICAL SEPARATION -   There are people who cannot readily participate in cross cultural ministry because they live in a place where there is just "them"  Sometimes of course this is not really true because they have refused to see the Indian reservation or the trailer park or the migrant camp not too far away.  Yet, we know there are those folks who are not going to start a bus ministry that goes two hundred miles.  If you live in a place where no one is different from you, and you didn't go there to get away from the rest of us, well then please pray for the rest of the church of Jesus Christ.  Pray that we would stop running away from our future, which is to be with all these other kind of folks around the throne of heaven, where all our fears of losing, or desires to win against others, or to be self-authenticated will finally be eradicated, expiated, and propitiated from and for us by the blood of the Lamb who was slain.

RESIST THE MUZZLE

    Recently there has been a media storm concerning the Patriarch of Duck Dynasty and an interview in a magazine wherein his views about homosexuality were solicited, and he expressed them.  A gay advocacy organization demanded that A&E fire the man, and A&E complied by suspending him indefinitely.
    I offer that very brief review of the situation just in case the reader is ignorant of my reason for writing.   The reactions of Christians have been varied.  Many have been vehemently agitated and angered at this attempt by an organization to censor someone's free speech based on their personal religious beliefs.  Some were angered that a group dedicated to the defense and advancement of homosexuals should have such power to cause a believer to lose his job and ironically to actually declare him not to be a Christian.  Some were concerned that he may have indeed insulted homosexuals by calling them "sinners".  Others didn't think this was a very serious issue at all since it involved fairly wealthy people who were part of the television and media culture.
    I am concerned about how people have responded to the situation.  While some have brushed the incident aside as not really having anything to do with it being a threat to freedom of speech (usually citing that it was not government that objected to it), others have been alarmed.  Freedom of speech in not simply a governmental issue, actually it is the role of government to defend it in the private sector.  Certain governments in the world proclaim that they have freedom of speech and religion, but culturally everyone knows that certain things cannot be said, lest you lose your job, your home, your family, even your life. 
    Some Christians seem to think the answer to this kind of situation is to be quiet and seek in every way not to be offensive.  In case the reader hasn't noticed not all Christians are actually the same type.  Some believe the Bible and take it as true and authoritative in all to which it speaks.   Others have felt they can reinterpret the Bible, lessen its offense, make it more culturally acceptable based on the idea that the words themselves are not literally the words of God.  Bible believing Christians think that idea is heresy and not true Christianity.  My concern in this writing is to speak to Bible believing Christians, and to help those who are not believers to understand a little about them.
    Many Bible believing Christians have had family members or friends who were gay.  This has presented a real challenge of love for them.  Some have decided that the way to love gay family members was to accept their behavior as normal and thus have re-positioned themselves on what the Bible teaches.  Others believers have refused to accept such behavior but have still sought in some way to show love to homosexual members of their families.  Some families have been torn apart.
    Bible believing Christians have some very real challenges here.  I would like to encourage believers to rise to those challenges. I want to exhort all of us to love homosexuals, whether they be in our families or in our community.  Obviously if their behavior is immoral then our stand against such will have repercussions for them.  The gay community has striven to overturn those repercussions which include everything from the dismantling of laws against sodomy, changes in prosecution for contributing to the delinquency of minors, and gays openly in the military.  None of those changes allows believers not to show love to homosexuals, though we may hate their cause.   As in the struggle against alcohol as a public vice Christians have had to come to grips with the allowance of whiskey; loving alcoholics while preaching against drunkenness.  However, this is not the same thing as being made to shut up about our view of such behavior.
      I think our future in this country, and in fact the future of this country, depends on whether or not we will continue to demand the freedoms for which our forefathers fought and died.  Freedom is not something we should easily relinquish.  I doubt the problem is that someone will snatch it away all at once, this is a progression (or regression) and something we must be aware of and actively resist.  It is not unchristian to stand for these principles; the manner in which we stand will either be loving or not.  Loving is what Jesus demands of us, nevertheless, we must stand for freedom or we will eventually find it compromised and taken away from us.
    If we allow fellow believers to be shouted down, shut out, fired, ostracized because they simply answer "ambush" questions and reveal themselves publicly as actually believing that what the Bible says is true then we will have a hard time maintaining our ability to practice our religion in this country.  Those who want to stay on the sidelines in this struggle will one day find a muzzle over their mouths, blogs, books, and pulpits. Gay advocacy groups are asking for nothing less than for us to change our religion or refuse to ever acknowledge what is means.  We must let the world know that is not going to happen.  This is not simply an issue for Christians, but for anyone who has an unpopular view, or who actually believes in the freedom of speech and religion.    
    Contrary to the propaganda so prevalent concerning how these old fashioned views of Christians will change and fall away gay organizations and their supporters should realize that Bible believing Christians find no Biblical evidence that this issue is the same as civil rights for racial minorities.  Therefore believers cannot see this as an issue of justice but rather one of morality.  Any act of disobedience against God's Word cannot be justified as a right or a lifestyle no matter what public opinion might say.   In fact, we see this as an issue of the allowance of public immorality, which leads to injustice, and therefore should be resisted.  As long as people believe that the Bible is true in how it was written then their views will not change.  Surely anyone familiar with the history of Christianity knows that will continue to be so, no matter the cost.  Racial justice partly came about in this country not because Christians stopped believing their Bibles but because they were convicted by what it does teach.
    Christians have co-existed with sinners in this country for a long time.  We see ourselves as very much in this category ourselves.  When it comes to dealing with social issues, whether of justice or morality, Evangelical Christians seem to go to one of two extremes.  Evangelicals either want to become aggressively political and abandon principals of love and gentleness in the process or they think that it spiritual to abandon the political arena.  This abandonment of politics can come about due to the belief that the way to change society is through personal conversions on a grand scale, or that changing society ought not to be our concern at all.  For me the quest for public justice is part of my Christian responsibility, whether I see it achieved or not.
    We must love those who consider themselves homosexuals.  Our country has often tolerated their mistreatment and Christians have often been silent about that.  We must not allow them to be abused and mistreated and we must give to them the same protections given to all other people.  At the same time how can it be loving for us to not tell them the truth?  A truth they may not want to hear is not the same as "hate speech."  This is the ground we believers must not surrender.  If I believe the whole Bible I must love everyone and compelled by love tell everyone they are sinners (and the practice of homosexuality is one of those sins) and need to be saved, and can be saved, by the grace of God. How can I love someone and not warn them about their need to repent and turn to God if indeed there is a judgment which is to come? If persecution comes to me on that account so be it, I understand that price as a Christian.  Yet I am not just a Christian, I am also an American, and that means that persecution is not my only option here.
    Every Christian who is also a citizen of this country owns the country along with all other citizens.  My understanding of American democracy is that we the people make our government.  If it fails and I have not sought to affect change then I am partly responsible.  Our views may not always win but abdication of the defense of our freedoms is not a legitimate option. I can still be a Christian without freedom, but it would certainly be a betrayal of all America has stood for and for which it was founded if I allow that to happen. Gay organizations have exercised their freedoms to pursue a cultural and political agenda with which I completely disagree.  Yet, I believe they have the freedom to speak about what they believe.
     What we must not allow is for them to silence us in the statement of our beliefs because it hurts their feelings, or because they have attempted to redefine our beliefs as hateful toward them.  This redefinition has now taken root in almost all pubic media and social and public culture.  Homosexuals don't want to consider their behavior to be evil or sinful though we say it is sin.  Ironically, we say the same thing about moral, legalistic, self-righteous, religious people.  They don't like hearing we think they are sinners either, and those are the ones that nailed Jesus to the cross. While the present imbroglio might be dismissed because it is concerns television personalities, and one may not share all the views of the individual, nevertheless this is a dangerous threat to the free practice and proclamation of our religion, and therefore should be resisted by all Americans, not just Christians.

ITS EITHER HERE OR THERE

  Jesus said, "But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.  Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.  Sell your possessions and give to the poor.  Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."  (Luke 12:31-34) NIV
   I have been reading Tim Keller's book, "Ministries of Mercy: The Call of the Jericho Road."  It is a source of great information and challenge about the call to minister to the poor, and how to do it.  As I was reading some of his comments about the Kingdom of God I began to reflect on the idea that living for the Kingdom costs us something.
    We believe in grace, we preach grace, and hopefully we live in the power of grace.  Our salvation is not earned by our efforts and certainly not deserved by any innate righteousness of our own.  So, I wonder what it means when it seems as if Jesus makes things conditional.  Jesus makes me uncomfortable, and since I know he loves me and I love him I am thankful that he does this to me.  I seem to get the feeling that Jesus is saying the more we live for this life, and this world's stuff, the less we enjoy of the power of the Kingdom of God.  It is almost as if discipleship would cost me something.
    Yet, I also get the message from Jesus that if I give to the poor, if I am compassionate in the disbursement of my material wealth, he will take care of me and provide for me both in this life and the life to come.  I wonder how much I have let my Reformed and Evangelical faith make me deaf to the call of Jesus?  I would never surrender my confidence that we are saved by grace through faith.  I am so glad for the rediscovery of the Gospel in the Protestant Reformation.  I might be sad though in the loss of a radical repentance in the call to follow Jesus; especially when it comes to materialism in this modern day of a rejection of anything painful as if it were legalism.  
    The necessity of obedience is not legalism, for surely if we love him we will obey what he commands. Our confidence in being able to obey is our confidence in the power of the Holy Spirit as he gives us grace to live the Christian life. He commands love, but love is not an abandonment of doing something as if it were replaced by a feeling or a sentiment.  Love is a sacrifice.  The spiritual kingdom, it seems to me, in the teachings of Jesus are dependent on a forsaking of the kingdom of this world.  It is precisely in the area of materialism that he strikes to our heart's idol.  "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (Luke 12:34) NIV 
     We either have treasure here in this world and in this life, or we have treasure in heaven.  Evidently we are not allowed to diversify our investments, we make deposits in one bank or the other.
    Christmas gives me envy and coveting problems.  I covet enough money to give presents to my loved ones.  I envy what others have to give.  Covered behind my wanting to give to others is the reality that it is still for my enjoyment, my pride and ego, a sense of power to be able to distribute to family and friends.  The poor don't really come into my coveting, since they seem faceless and won't be able to give me much back.
   Christmas is probably the most hedonistic, materialistic, envy and covetous holiday that we have.  I absolutely love it, but my envy of sinners is real. (Proverbs 23:17) It is not necessarily personal.  I am not jealous of any particular sinner.  It is just my walk though a department store and breathing in what I might look like, how I might feel, and how others might see me that keeps screwing up my heart.  The cashmere coat, the velvet blazer, the British tan slacks, the BMW to ride the clothes around in, the wide screen TV (wider, wider, more pixels, sound to surround the universe).
   We leave here with closets so full  we can hardly walk into them and souls so skinny Angels are hard pressed to notice.  The call of Jesus is to make purses, women's or men's is not the issue, but whether they will wear our or not is the point.  The only way to make a spiritual purse that lasts is to empty the physical one in our pockets.  We must choose to do this, because we love Jesus, and we don't have to be afraid of losing anything.  We must choose to be merciful, we must choose to give to the poor, and we need to be powerful, over the top, and determined in the doing of it.  May God us grace to escape christmas, (with the small hearted "c" and find Christmas!

WITH THANKS FOR MUSIC, MUSICIANS, AND CHRISTMAS

  I have a gift from God. It is not mine alone but one he seems to have distributed quite broadly.  It is the gift to hear music, to feel it, to move to it, to weep because of it, to sometimes feel the joy of it right down to the bones.
    Part of that gift to me has been to be around people who love it, who know how to share it, who have the talent and "chops" to make it music and not noise.  I come from a family that always loved music.  Part of our Christmas was having an Aunt or my mother playing Carols and Christmas songs, and the rest of us trying to remember the words.  I enjoyed school programs with music.  I enjoyed the radio.  One of the coolest things I had as a kid was a record player and a gift from some family member of some 78 speed recordings of George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.  I listened to it every night that I could.
    I never had much facility or talent for music myself.  It seemed like I just couldn't learn to accurately read music, nor to play an instrument.  Yet I know that music has been one of the great enjoyments of my life.  I am blessed to have a wife whose voice was almost magical.  It has called out an emotional response from me many, many times. I first heard her sing in a group in elementary school, and then heard her sing a duet from West Side Story at a High School assembly.  I wanted to change my name to Tony so she could have been singing to me.
    During our high school  years we were formed into a singing group and it was there that I began to learn and to mature in my singing voice.  I was never spectacular, like my wife, but I began to enjoy being part of the joy of participating.  In College I was part of the Chorale and I felt blessed so many times singing songs of such beauty and depth, often beyond my real ability to master it.  Now, at Christmas, music just breaks out all over the place, and it is the kind of  music that contains such great ideas, such wholesome fun, such sublime truth.  It sweeps up in nostalgia, love, and most of all worship.  Romance songs are fun, but Christmas finally eclipses all the nasty ideas, all the gratuitous sexual allusions of modern pop and secular music. Christmas even eclipses a lot of tepid contemporary Christian music as well.
   So I want to say thank you to God.  Thanks for the gift to make, perform, hear, and enjoy music.  Thanks so much for worthy things to sing about.  Things for all the people in my life who have made music great for me.  Fred Means, John Hamm, James Ward, Oliver Trimiew, Joan Nabors, Jim Crumble, Getrell Watkins, Kirk Ward, Marci Ndiritu, Juliet Akinyi Nabors, Juanna Roberts, just to name a few; thanks to all of you.  Thanks to Handel, thanks to Luther Vandross, thanks to Stevie Wonder, thanks to Eric Clapton, thanks to Carlos Santana.  Thanks most of all to Jesus, for being born, for being the King, for fighting darkness and death, and winning.  Thanks be to God that he sings, and he gives songs away, and he made sound, and  he made it sweet, and puts a new song in my mouth.  Life has a sound track and poor is the life that won't hear it.

   

Progressive Social Policy

   We  have a fight going on in our city and it is about extending benefits to the unmarried partners of city employees.  A new city council member, who is gay, has appealed for these benefits to be given to both homosexual and heterosexual city employees who have an  unmarried partner living with them in a domestic relationship.  We used to call this "shacking up," or "living in sin."
   At first it looked like the momentum was all on the side of the gay council member.  The City Council took up the issue, several religious types came and made some fiery statements about immorality and sodomy, and it seemed as if the media and comments by public officials had marginalized them.  The mayor decided to back the new policy, and the Council approved the new measure by one vote.
    Then the folks opposed to the measure pursued a petition whereby the issue would be placed on the public ballot at the next election.  In a town where politics on the local level is a fairly lazy moving stream, where not that many citizens actually vote in local elections, where signatures for petitions seem to take a long time to be gathered and then approved, this one came together quickly with more than double the needed voters asking for the chance to vote.  It looks like the momentum has swung the other way.
    Comments made by various individuals seem dismissive about the success of those who want to stop this new policy.  One of the consistent themes with the LGBT crowd is the inevitability of the acceptance of their lifestyles, the moral and legal legitimacy for their marriages (and divorces), along with the turning of public policies to be gay favorable rather than gay averse.  There is a triumphalism in one court decision after another, one legislative change after another.  The power of the White House has been unleashed to push this as a new civil right through the State Department in our relationships with other nations.
    The shouting down of opponents, the highlighting of anything that smacks of prejudice against not just a homosexual lifestyle but a gay political agenda so as to censure contrary opinions has become commonplace.  Whereas at one time religion seemed to be universally against such behaviors, let alone its advocacy, it is now divided.   Clerics, denominations, and religious sounding arguments are used to proclaim the acceptance of gays and gay marriage simply an issue of love and freedom.
    This modern gay movement has some distinct advantages.  It is focused, it is well funded, it has some very intelligent, gifted and talented people as its advocates.  It sounds like freedom, it sounds like love, and everyone likes those things.  Those opposed to it have some disadvantages.  They are not organized, they are not usually focused on this one issue, they often fight back with an emotional response and are easily caricatured whereas it is seen as not only impolite but downright scandalous to make fun of gay people.  Those opposed to homosexuality usually have a religious reason for being so and in America that seems to be a non-starter.  If your reason is religious it must be personal and feels like it should be wrong to impose on other people.
      Not only that but one can't very well accuse homosexuals of hypocrisy, but all religious and straight people who proclaim this to be an issue of morality can be accused of hypocrisy.  It seems like  homosexuals can be as nasty as they want to be and still be seen as legitimate champions of their cause, whereas those opposed to such behavior seem to eventually be seen to have their own problems with sexual lust and therefore must be hypocrites.  If they never fall then they must simply be self-righteous.
    It would seem to make for a much more gracious environment for this discussion if we all admitted we were fallen creatures, but that there are still some things wrong and some things right, whether you can live perfect or not.  I take it as a given that no one can.
    It has taken a long time for me to get to my point.  I would like to disagree with the decision of the City Council and the Mayor.  I think they have failed terribly in their responsibility to set sound economic and social policy.  I do think that we should expect that of our leaders, to do that which is truly progressive so as to improve our city.
    In a city where so many of our problems arise from the destruction of the family how does this policy help us?   If more than 80% of African-American children are born out of wedlock, how does the discouragement of marriage and stable families help us?   If communities with large numbers of single parent homes translate into ungovernable schools that fail to educate and teach, and those same homes translate into the majority of inmates in prison, how does their new policy help us?  It seems to me that wise social policy would do everything to encourage marriage, between a man and a woman, and not destroy it.  Children raised by two parents of opposite genders have the best chance at progress in their lives.  It is hard to consistently and continually love a person of the opposite gender, in order to do that life has to be about so much more than sex, and so many things are improved in humans by the effort.  We become better people, more human as it were, if we love well, faithfully, and for an extended time.
    To make citizens subsidize with their taxes a lifestyle of employees that they radically disapprove of for moral reasons is a touch of tyranny.  When funds are needed to provide adequately for the salaries and pensions of other city employees but are rather given for this it smacks of theft.  For city leaders to think that those citizens who are opposed to this are part of a fading crowd whose views will change with time and education let me encourage them to not be so naive.  There is no moral high ground, as there was for civil rights, when it comes to the destruction of marriage and the proliferation and endorsement of homosexuality.  Religion deeply felt and believed for millennia, though it seems challenged by religious liberals, will not go away.  It has a way of being revived over and over again, and sometimes rises up to draw lines which its opponents had thought to be fading.