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| Making new friends in Los Angeles |
I didn't take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I've become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn't just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it! - 1 Corinthians 9:22-23, The Message
Only in Hollywood, and perhaps only in front of the Chinese theater, would you hear this: “we had a Macarena dance-off with Donald Duck and SpongeBob got mad at us.” The context was this: some of our Discover participants were challenged to become resourceful one evening, and this was the outcome of one of their solutions.
Over the course of this year, we’ve had over 400 youth and adults come to Los Angeles and serve and learn throughout our city. This week alone, we have more than 60 folks from Sunnyvale, San Marcos, and Poway, California. In numbers, this means that somewhere around 16,000 hours were spent in outreach and relationship building and probably an equal amount in reflection and prayer. Here. And I’m not even a person who is moved by numbers, but when I think of that collective, it gives me significant pause.
But even more so, are the slowly learned lessons, and the one most prevalent on my heart today is this: homelessness is not a role, it’s a circumstance. In other words, there’s not a “homeless” personality despite all our memories of characters in movies like Home Alone 2, The Family Man, or others; but rather a phenomenon of factors that open the door for homelessness to happen. Yes, there are poor choices; yes, there are personality flaws; but yes, there are real compounding situations that push a person, no matter how resistant they are, into a time of living without stable shelter. It ultimately becomes overwhelming. Like “drowning,” a friend who’s experienced it has told me many times.
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| Reverend K.C. Wahe shares his testimony. |
So when we get asked, as DOOR, “are we doing something wrong if the kids respond to some of our challenges by ‘playing homeless’?” I come back to this: homeless is not a role. It’s a circumstance. The stereotypical images and adjectives that we conjure of “the homeless” are actually the effects of the situation and the diverse resourcefulness of those living it. The signs, the picking up recyclable materials, the locking oneself in a Starbucks bathroom for 5 hot minutes to try to get a handle on the musty smell of showerlessness. When I see our participants making signs to solve the challenges we put upon them, I see them doing what they think will work best in the time allotted. Most of the folks I know who’ve experienced homelessness explain their awakening into the notion that they were actually homeless in the same way. “I don’t know how to do this, but I see those people trying that, so maybe that’ll work for me too.”
Homelessness is not a personality type, it’s a convergence of situations and choices. I believe there is value in walking in another’s shoes. I believe we have a good role model in our own God, becoming fully human and fully experiencing the challenges of humanity. Our “fallen-ness” is, in essence, another convergence of choices and situations. And through Jesus, I believe that God shifted the core of who we all are from “the fallen” to “the beloved children who’ve lost their way and need a shepherd to come along side us, walk us back to the pasture in which we were always intended to reside.”
Jesus turned the “them” of us, the fallen creation, into the “we” of the Kingdom, a community between Creator and Creation.
What if we could dissolve the “us” and “them” in the arena of homelessness, too? Could we have more dance-offs with Donald Duck, could SpongeBob find himself at the same table as Superman? Could we break bread together after you allow me to take a shower, give me clothes, throw out my urine-soaked ones, and share stories of the heart-ache and joys of both of our lives? Could I allow you to help me, even if you’re the one sitting on the side of the road asking for money, but I’m the one who, right now, feels more lost?
Reverend K.C. Wahe, head pastor of Community Presbyterian Church of Littlerock, CA and father of Discerner, Kyle, came by during our closing worship to open up his testimony to our friends from out of town, focusing on this verse: Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well. - 1 Thessalonians 2:7-9 NIV His challenge to everyone was this: would we be willing to love someone so much that they were compelled to fall in love with Jesus? That was his story, set primarily in the very room he shared this sermon with us. Despite some incredible odds stacked up against him, it was people from Hollywood Presbyterian Church sharing their lives with him, walking alongside him, loving him when nobody else seemed able to do it, that really mattered and changed his life.
Community. Walking in each other's shoes. So that God's Kingdom might grow. So that lives might be saved.
Good night, and God Bless you all.
Matthew
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| Celebrating stories of reconciliation at Homeboy Industries |
