A
number of years ago I read Brian McLaren’s Everything Must Change. This book asks two simple questions: What are the biggest problems in the world
today? and What does Jesus say about these problems? As followers of Christ who proclaimed, “The
kingdom of God is here.” these are questions that we need to ask ourselves on a
daily basis. Moreover, we need to do
more than ask the question; we need to find solutions.
As
I begin to answer the first question, I find myself quickly overwhelmed to the
point where I feel powerless because of what seems to be an endless list of
problems: HIV/AIDS is an epidemic in my home city of Washington DC not to
mention the issue of HIV/AIDS worldwide; Also there are close to 6000 homeless
people in my home city. There is an oppressive occupation in
Israel and Palestine, myriad wars around the world that destroy life,
oppressive justice systems that put people to death rather than recognizing
that our Father is a father of restoration and reconciliation; Nearly half the
world’s population lives on less than $2 a day: There are multitudes without
clean drinking water on our planet and there are 30 million people either in slavery
or sexually trafficked or both. And all
of this just scratches the surface. At
the start of this year I was in a rut spiritually; angry at God for all of
these injustices that are taking place in his creation. I was also frustrated that I could not solve
all these problems—I am not God after all.
To be honest, I am still angry at the injustices that we see each day
and I still often want to point the finger at God. However, as I entered this Lenten season and
decided to only drink water and coffee for my liquids—difficult for someone who
loves Gatorade and likes to enjoy a daily beer or two or three—things began to
shift for me.
First
off, I had the thought that perhaps the enemy wants us to answer the first
question that McLaren asks in his book and actually think that it is our
responsibility to solve all of those problems individually. The enemy does this because it knows that by
doing so we will be rendered helpless knowing full well that we are just not
capable of that and therefore we will just dwell on those problems in our head
and never take any action whatsoever.
Second,
I was reminded of a couple of rather pithy statements and 1 Corinthians 12,
which discusses spiritual gifts and that each of us has a role to play. I recall Shane Claiborne sharing a brief
story of someone confronting God with the question: “Why don’t you do something
about all this suffering in the world?”
To which God responds: “I did! I
made you!” Of course that can easily put
one back with taking all of the troubles of the world on their own shoulders,
but then I was reminded another pithy statement: “Do for one what you would
like to do for many.”
The
beauty in doing for one what you would like to do for many is that it requires
relationship—generally you must know one person to help one person—when you
look at the actions of Jesus we find that he often focuses on doing something
for one person, and he does that through personal interaction. This is how Common Change works.
Our
Common Change group recently had our quarterly dinner gathering. Essentially, we are a group of 5 affluent
westerners—one of us is a South African transplant. During this dinner that took place the first
week of Lent I was amazed and challenged by the community we had in discussing
the challenges of being the hands and feet of Christ. As affluent white people we did not see
ourselves as the saviors but felt the conviction of being the oppressors. We also shared the difficulties and
challenges of creating relationships outside of our economic strata--we all agreed that it easy to put $40/mo into a pool, but not so easy to build relationships where we could meet needs with that pool of money. Most of all though, we felt that we were a
community and felt that we were the church during that time—there was richness
and depth to our gathering that I have rarely experienced. I love the epigraph on my friend Valerie Anderson’s email which I think describes our group well: “We are not thinking
our way into a new way of acting but acting our way into a new way of
thinking.”
Just
this week we were able to meet the need of a friend of ours through our Common
Change Group. My wife and I did a
homeless challenge last summer where we spent 72 hours living on the streets to
experience what it is like to be homeless.
During the evening you have a homeless or formerly homeless “guide” who
essentially stays awake the entire night so that you can sleep and not have to
worry about being mugged. Steve Thomas
was one of those guides for us along with keeping us safe we also had the privilege of having him share his story with us. Recently
we saw through Facebook that he needed a walker because of health issues that
affect his mobility. We reached out and
talked to him. The walker is currently
in a box in our dining room waiting to be assembled and we have plans to
deliver it this Monday while we share a meal with our friend Steve and our
other Common Change group members. We
will have done for one what we would like to do for many!
