allow me to spout for a minute, knowing full well that you all can bring this up to me when i am not heeding my owns words. you can all feel free to use this post as a way to hold me accountable in future days. but this is what is racing full-speed through my head since last night.
yesterday at church, i heard someone say how she was so excited that shane claiborne was coming. she talked about how radical he is, and how she wanted to be more like him but couldn't figure out how to do the kinds of things that he does in the inner city, when she lives in a "well-to-do" neighborhood (read: rich).
my heart broke. there is no imagination, no considering the creative ways to get around this. now i know that this is a process, a journey, taking the next step and all that. but so many seem unable to find a next step. i know i have next steps to take, too. we all do. but it seems that the more insulated by a comfortable lifestyle people become, the less creative they become as to how they can do that. so, for all of you living in green-lawn big-money suburbs, but saying you want to join the oppressed and live a simple just life, here's some ideas:
1)move to the inner city. sell the big house and buy a small house in the 'hood.
2)that too much? move to a middle-income neighborhood. buy a house there. don't buy what you can afford. buy what you need. and deeply consider that word, need.
3)no? how about coming into the city once a week and volunteering at a homeless shelter, a food pantry, a community center.
4)if you prefer kids to adults, become a mentor for a student in a low-income neighborhood. do more than help them with their homework. get to know their family. have picnics with them. when you find out they are in need, use your connections to get those needs met for free. because a big part of being rich is having connections, it's not just having money.
5)visit a simple-living community. stay there for a week instead of a "normal" vacation. listen to the voices that tell you what you should do yourself when you get home.
6)stop telling me how you care about the poor and the oppressed. first, it's tickin me off. i don't believe you any more. second, it's offending the poor and the oppressed because they know even more than i do that it's just all words. and when we offend those we say we are joining in God's name, that's pretty close to blasphemy in action.
7)which brings me to my last: ask yourself how much you really do care, be honest with yourself, and ask if you care enough to let it change your life, your spending habits, your standard of living, your free time. if you really don't care enough to change, stop telling me you are joining the oppressed. joining is a verb. it's an action word. it suggests movement. if you aren't ready to move closer to the oppressed and the poor, then stop saying you are. pray that you will get to that point, and say you care. say you are concerned. say you wish for a better world. but don't say you're joining unless you mean it.
"I asked participants [of a survey I did] who claimed to be "strong followers of Jesus" whether Jesus spent tiem with the poor. Nearly 80 percent said yes. Later in teh survey, I sneaked in another question. I asked this same gropu of strong followers whether they spent time with the poor, andless than 2 percent said they did. I learned a powerful lesson: We can admire and worship Jesus without doing what he did. We can applaud what he preached adn stood for without caring about the same things. We can adore his cross without taking up ours. I had come to see that the great tragedy in teh church is not htat rich Christians do not care about the poor but that rich Christians do not know the poor." -shane claiborne, irresistible revolution
