Overview. Well the overview of this post itself is, a theological puzzle, a story of true generosity, humility and the rejection of shallow community, and a hot job. In general it was another great week. I got to hang out with Erica (my friend from UNH who lives here) this weekend and we rode the trolleys and buses around Ybor, saw a movie, and went to the aquarium downtown. I ran out of gas in the van we call Savanna because the gas gauge is broken. While we were out the van Erica and I were mistaken for the band that was supposed to be playing at a bar in Ybor haha. I went to the beach. I ate Chick-fil-a for the second time in my life. I picked up the Haiti team from the airport. I lit a doghouse on fire intentionally. I turned the wrong way on a one way street. And I had my first Cuban from the legendary sandwich shop on Palm Ave.
Here is the theological thought/ puzzle for the week. This comes right out of my pastoral care class and I warn you now it is tricky and ground to be treaded lightly. Take all that I say with a grain of salt and don’t forget the context of this discussion is focused on pastoral care to someone who needs it. I am not going to take a stance but sort of overview the discussion and thoughts so you can wrestle with it yourself, and if you would like give some feedback! Ok here goes.
Is Sin a crime or an illness?
What we talked about in class is that we typically understand sin as a crime. This means that when we advise or pastor people we see them as law breakers and our attempts to help them get back on track usually look something like telling them to follow the rules. In some ways as American Christians we get very stuck on rules. The problem with this is that Jesus does not focus on the external law, but instead he intensifies it, and internalizes it. He says in the Sermon on the Mount, “You have heard it said, but I say...” as he redefines the purpose and heart of the law. Anger in your heart is the same as murder, lust with your eyes and mind is the same sin as adultery. Here my teacher explained he thinks that “Jesus did not die to make us Christians [or simply “righteous” rule followers like the Pharisees], he died to make us true Human beings back in touch with our creator... there is one thing deeper than original sin and it is original glory.” Taking the view of sin as a crime further, what Jesus did on the cross was show us a good example. He displayed the punishment that is equal to sin and that as sinners guilty of crimes against God we all rightfully deserve.
On the other hand if sin is an illness than what Jesus did is he cleared the way for us to get back to health, to be justified with God, to return to how we were created and created to be, “very good.” One important note here is what the word justified actually means... If I push a book to the edge of a table so that they line up perfectly and there is no longer an edge what I have done is justified the two things. This is what it means to be justified, to be made perfectly aligned with.
The problem that this view creates is the question whether or not God would send a sick person to hell. The answer to this question we are talking about in class next week, but so far here is what I think. Sin is an illness that results in crimes against God. However the real crime of this illness is the rejection of the Holy Spirit. If a person is sick, but, there is a cure that works 100% of the time and results in a full recovery and they refuse to be well they are choosing illness, and they are willingly choosing death over life. At the end of their lives they will have rejected grace and healing (and the Holy Spirit’s conviction) and will remain unjustified with God and separated by their own choice.
So with all of this in mind as we pastor people we have to think about the end goal. Are we trying to only to get people back to the rules and a law that is perfect and in so doing destine them to fail, or are we trying to help them get well not to keep all the rules, but to be truly alive? Like a doctor my professor argues that the thing that is needed is not to heal, but to discover the impediment to healing. That essentially is what doctors do and the body heals itself. Likewise pastors seek to find the impediment to right relationship with God and he takes care of the healing!!!
Ricky Gives
6.23.11 Today we went to move some bags from one shelter in Tampa to a motel where a woman was staying with her four kids. This woman named Sarah has been all over to different shelters and having run out of options she was going to be out on the street and lose her kids.
Ricky is paying for a woman and her four kids to live at a shelter for a week. That costs him the last two weeks of his own pay, which amounts to literally all of his money until his next paycheck. On top of this, currently one of the main things he needs to do is pay off some outstanding debt from his own past. Money is not something he has to give, or even to pay his own debt, and yet without hesitation he saw a woman and her four kids that would have been on the street, and then broken apart as the kids were taken from her, and he responded and sacrificed for her. The story doesn’t stop here.
Last night at the weekly Timothy Initiative bible study Ricky asked the other ten guys if they would be willing to put some money towards helping Sarah and her kids. None of the guys have money to give, they live on food stamps and whatever work the Initiative can provide while they look for more permanent work. Overall they collect 160 dollars which is enough to put Sarah and her kids in a motel or a shelter for at least another week. These are the type of men I work with. They are judged and looked down on by society. They have lived on the streets, in the woods, and in numerous shelters and rehabs. They have been disowned by family, dislocated from the places they know as home. They have been close to death at their own hands and the hands of others. They have lost everything including control. And yet while they are still in the process of recovery, they give from the little that they have, some of them giving all that they have when they see a need in someone else’s life. IS THIS NOT THE FULFILLMENT OF THE KINGDOM ON EARTH! These men have answered Jesus call to come and die to themselves even as they have to daily make a conscious choice to stay sober. They give sacrificially, not from abundance and it reminds me of a story in the Bible.
Mark 12:41-44
41 Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. 42 But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins,[a] worth only a fraction of a penny.[b] 43 Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. 44 They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.”
I just listened to a sermon from the Underground today that talked about poverty. Here is some of what it included. Poverty is mentioned over two thousand times in the bible and it breaks the heart of God. Twenty percent of the world’s population has about 75% percent of the wealth. The middle forty percent has 20 % leaving the bottom forty percent 5% of all the wealth in the world (that is almost half of the world’s population). Even if you hold the belief that those who are poor are there because of their own bad choices you have to consider the children, “the lower class of the lower class.” For every two of the 2.4 billion children alive right now, one of them lives in poverty... How beautiful is it that the men of the Timothy initiative see this need AND act, and how challenging it is for us! God cares about the poor. Will we? Even in the little things. We can spend less, we can consume and waste less, we can use things until they break, we can live simply and with the money we save we can give more!
Real Community and a Step in Humility
6. 23.11 Last night I got to participate in the “Giddens House” house meeting. There are six men living in the three bedroom house and the meeting was called by the two leaders of the house Ricky and Danny to try and resolve some issues that had come up. The guys have open space to bring up issues and talk through and resolve them so that there is no lingering animosity and the issue is totally squashed. As the meeting went on there was one guy who was consistently brought up in issues with the other guys in the house. As everyone tried to talk to him it was obvious by his body language that he wasn’t listening and didn’t really want to even be a part of the meeting at all. This guy is fairly new to the house and the biggest issue that they more senior guys brought up was that they felt he was guarded to the point that they were not able to develop a relationship with him. The real issue that they wanted to get at was that they refused to have community that is shallow, and they rejected partial life conversion to Christ (how awesome is that). They were lovingly calling this man out of his shell and to be willing to initiate community and as brothers to live in grace for one another.
As it went on the meeting really turned into a time for everyone to talk to him about how community is an opportunity to serve, and that he himself said he wanted to move into the house to be around good people and positive influences. At this point I was thinking to myself how I would respond if I were in this man’s shoes and I know that I would have felt ganged up on, defensive and in my pride not have been willing to listen. But, as a surprise to everyone all of a sudden his body language changed an in an incredible step of humility he agreed with what was being said and explained that it was really hard for him to open up and to let anyone in, but he knew that he needed work and wanted to commit to real community. Though I had been silent the whole meeting at this point I had to speak up. When he had finished the meeting started to dissipate as a couple side conversations started. Before everyone ran off I called out to this guy across the room and just told him that I wanted to affirm what he had just done and that I gained a lot of respect for him in the way that he ate his pride and in humility took criticism. All the other guys chimed in to agree and in what was a cool moment for myself they said, “that’s why we invited Kyle.”
As I reread I realize that this might not seem like a big step for some of you reading, but let me set up the scenario a little bit for you. First of all, every man living in the house is a recovering addict. Secondly, whether it is from living in the streets or having spent time in prison most of the guys who are new come in with a prison mentality in that they feel like they have to look out for themselves and that they can’t trust anyone else. On top of this I mentioned that this man was new to the house and though they are pursuing real community it doesn’t happen overnight. A critique from a brother and a critique from a new friend are two very different things to try and stomach. The Giddens House is a complicated and diverse community with some of the guys fresh off the street and others having a job doing international banking, but all of them are choosing to recover together.
Hard Work
6.24.11 and 6.25.11 Over the last two days I helped out at the “Hub” (which is the Undergrounds main building) by painting the roof. Essentially the goal was to coat the black and grey shingle on the flat roof with a reflective white pain to cool off the room below. Total we were painting about a fifteen hundred square feet of roof and there was intermittently two or three of us painting. What I do have to say is that for the first time Tampa was hot in a way that really lived up to the warnings I got from just about everyone I talked to about coming down. The heat on the roof was intense, and since we were on a roof there was no shade or protection from Florida’s tropical sun. But, it was good to help, and actually it was good to have some hard work to do. I had a good conversation at lunch the other day about how it is good to do work. A lot of the time we do work in order to rest, and I wonder what it would look like to rest in order to get back to work. Honestly in the world around us there is plenty of work to do and even looking back to the garden God has given us work to do as a blessing! It is always when I am idle that I get myself into trouble or seek after things that I shouldn’t, but after I work and created and accomplish I feel alive. I rejoice in doing work and even more so in doing God’s work!
Things to be praying for:
Pray for me as I lead the morning devotion Monday through Wednesday next week. Pray for me as I prepare, and as I deliver them. Pray that God will direct me to the topics and scriptures that the guys need to hear and that he will speak truth to them trough my words!
Please continue to pray for my housemate David and I was we continue to pursue a weekend homeless as an opportunity to learn about and be humbled by poverty.
Pray for the scientology complex in Ybor and the people in it. I am going to get their free tour sometime next week and I am going to try and have a conversation about Jesus with my guide. I will most likely get kicked out if I do, but I have nothing to lose.
Pray for Sarah as the Timothy Initiative guys try to help her get more long term help.
Pray for the Giddens House as the men living there pursue real community and real recovery in Jesus name!
As always thank you so much for your prayer and support. It is the end of week three and I feel like I have learned an incredible amount and have been blessed with month’s worth of experiences. It has truly been a blessing to come and serve in Tampa!
In His Love,
~Kyle
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