The Myth of a Christian Religion Part 7

I now understand why. My perspective on the world and my way of doing church were entirely white. While I had many acquaintances who were nonwhite, I had no deep friends.h.i.+ps that enabled me to genuinely "get on the inside" of other cultures and appreciate how different they are from my own. As a result, I didn't realize that, while we said said we welcomed all people, we were actually requiring people to check their nonwhite culture at the door and join our "white" way of doing church. we welcomed all people, we were actually requiring people to check their nonwhite culture at the door and join our "white" way of doing church.

Even more importantly, because I wasn't "on the inside" of the non-white experience of American culture, I naively a.s.sumed my "white" experience was pretty much "the norm." I was largely unaware of the systemic racism that continues to permeate American culture. I was oblivious to the fact that I, as a white person, sat at the top of a hierarchy of privilege that allowed me to hover freely above thick but largely invisible walls that restrict opportunities for nonwhites.

Over time I've developed honest, trusting relations.h.i.+ps with nonwhites. Sharing experiences with these friends has opened my eyes to a hierarchy of privilege that advantages me and disadvantages them. I envision this hierarchy something like the diagram on the following page.

The walls that restrict others are invisible to most whites because we never have to run up against them. It's why the whites who called in on the radio talk show could so easily dismiss the study that exposed racial profiling. It's why whites can honestly believe the slogan that America is a "land of equal opportunity," despite the fact that all the evidence indicates that it is not.

Why are whites three times more likely to own homes, four times more likely to earn a college degree, and five times less likely to end up in prison than African Americans? Why do whites tend to earn significantly more and own significantly more than non-whites? Why are most of the top positions in major corporations occupied by white males?

Faced with statistics like this, many whites simply appeal to individual choices. "People choose to commit crimes and so end up in prison rather than in college. It's that simple."

Well, it's not not "that simple." Of course every individual must take responsibility for his or her actions-but individual choices alone don't explain group behavior. To understand why the group experiences of whites and nonwhites differ so radically-and why whites happen to usually "come out on top"-we have to understand the ongoing destructive effects of America's racist past. And the most important effect to consider is the hierarchy of privilege we've inherited and that we who are white continue to benefit from, usually without knowing it. "that simple." Of course every individual must take responsibility for his or her actions-but individual choices alone don't explain group behavior. To understand why the group experiences of whites and nonwhites differ so radically-and why whites happen to usually "come out on top"-we have to understand the ongoing destructive effects of America's racist past. And the most important effect to consider is the hierarchy of privilege we've inherited and that we who are white continue to benefit from, usually without knowing it.

If followers of Jesus in America are going to make progress manifesting the "one new humanity" of the Kingdom, this system of privilege must be acknowledged and revolted against.

LISTENING, LEARNING, AND FOLLOWING.

In this light, I believe the first step to manifesting the "one new humanity" Jesus died to create is for whites to humbly acknowledge that we don't know what we don't know. The only way we can possibly learn about the walls we are privileged to hover above is by listening to the life experiences of those who run into them.

So, for example, rather than normalizing our own (privileged) experience and thus denying that racial profiling exists-accusing all who claim otherwise of "playing the race card"-we who are white must humbly listen to and trust the experience of nonwhites whose experience suggest that it does.

To wake up to the systemic racism of our culture, we who are white need to cultivate relations.h.i.+ps with nonwhites that are deep enough to allow us to "get on the inside" of a nonwhite experience of the world. Not only this, but where it is appropriate, we who are white need to submit to the leaders.h.i.+p of nonwhites. Individuals, small groups, and predominately white churches must pursue these submitted relations.h.i.+ps if we're to make headway in manifesting "the one new humanity." I've become convinced that, as helpful as books and seminars on racism are, they are in most cases not enough to bring about permanent changes in the way white people view the world. On this matter, whites need people of color to teach us and to lead us.

This is frankly challenging for many whites, even for those who sincerely believe they want to be agents of reconciliation. Our privileged status has conditioned us to a.s.sume our perspectives are normative and to expect to have things our way. Because America was established by and for whites, nonwhites have to deal with our our culture, but we don't usually have to deal with culture, but we don't usually have to deal with theirs theirs. The decision to listen, learn, and follow people of color requires whites to place themselves in a submitted position they aren't accustomed to. But if the systemic racism that has characterized the American church throughout its history is going to be subverted, this is the first step that must be taken.

AN EXAMPLE OF BLOWING IT.

About three years after Woodland Hills Church started, we asked an African American man named Norm Blagman to be our wors.h.i.+p leader. Norm was a relatively new Christian and had no background in leading wors.h.i.+p, but the man is (no exaggeration) a musical genius. He has the equivalent of a photographic memory when it comes to music. He can hear a song once and then ten years later recall what every instrument and voice does in the song. He can also sing and play congas like n.o.body's business. And most importantly, Norm has a pa.s.sion and gift for wors.h.i.+p leading.

About six months after Norm joined our otherwise exclusively white pastoral staff, a young white man in our congregation began to persistently write letters and leave voice messages for Norm and myself about a number of theological matters that bothered him. Among other things, this man thought it was unbiblical and offensive that Norm sometimes wore a cap while leading wors.h.i.+p. In several of his contacts with Norm he made reference to "you people," which Norm took to mean, "You black people." (I've since learned that "you people" is often used by whites to stereotype blacks.) Over several months Norm expressed his concern that this guy's behavior was at least partly racially motivated and that he saw trouble brewing. He suggested-and then pleaded-that I and others in leaders.h.i.+p do something to address this problem before it grew into something bigger. Instead of humbly following Norm's lead on this, I encouraged him to just ignore the guy. In my view the man was crazy, but not a racist. After all, I was getting more letters and phone calls than Norm, and most of this man's messages were bizarre ramblings about end-time prophecies or megalomaniac p.r.o.nouncements about how he was G.o.d's anointed prophet. The issue of Norm's cap, in my view, was almost incidental.

So It old Norm that in large churches like ours we should expect to occasionally have to deal with crazy people. Norm was new to ministry, and I was just trying to toughen him up for the years of ministry he had ahead of him.

Well, my advice didn't help. Norm's concern grew to the point where he asked me and other pastors to consider getting a restraining order barring this guy from church and from contacting Norm. I agreed to meet with the man and tell him to stop ha.s.sling us, but everyone in leaders.h.i.+p except Norm thought that taking out a restraining order on a man who hadn't made any threats was unwarranted. "You just have to learn how to deal graciously with crazy people like this," we kept telling Norm.

Then, several weeks after this, the disturbed man confronted Norm after one of our church services. He pushed a lady to the floor and shoved a Bible in Norm's face while screaming something about how Norm wasn't fit to be a wors.h.i.+p leader. Norm instinctively responded by pus.h.i.+ng the man back and pinning him up against the wall. There was a crowd of paris.h.i.+oners around who intervened to break up the altercation.

When the pastoral staff processed the event the next day, it was decided that we needed to take out a restraining order on the disturbed man. It was also decided that Norm, being a pastor, needed to confess to the congregation that he had "lost his cool" and that he should not have responded to this man so forcefully.

At the time-and for a good while after this event-I felt like we handled the episode pretty much "by the book." The problem, I now see, is that the "book" we were going by was written exclusively by, and for, white people.

Here's the side of the story our "white book" didn't include.

Norm was raised in a New York City ghetto, and like many other inner-city black youth, his early life experience and social conditioning led him to have a certain mistrust of white people-especially white people in positions of power. Over the years Norm had several experiences working in white establishments that reinforced this mistrust. Among other things, he found that white bosses tended to believe white employees and customers over black employees and customers. So, whenever a white employee or customer raised an issue with him, Norm found his job was on the line-regardless of how frivolous the complaint may have been.

I lacked the capacity to appreciate this at the time, but I now understand that it took tremendous courage for Norm to accept a leaders.h.i.+p position in a church that was almost completely white and run by all white people. The question on his mind was, "Will the white leaders.h.i.+p of this church believe me and cover my back if a white person in the congregation raises an issue about me?"

This question was put to the test when the disturbed white man began raising the issue over Norm's cap. As a white person who never had to worry about losing my job for frivolous racial reasons, it was easy for me to dismiss the man as just another example of the kind of disturbed people pastors sometimes have to put up with. But as a black person who had lost several jobs for just such reasons, it was not so easy for Norm.

Indeed, my well-intentioned advice to Norm that he adopt a dismissive att.i.tude toward this man actually intensified his worry that, if push came to shove (no pun intended), the white leaders.h.i.+p of this church would not believe him or cover his back. Norm rightly discerned that his black perspective on this issue was simply not being taken seriously.

When the disturbed man aggressively accosted him after a church service, Norm felt like he had felt so often in his life: he was completely on his own in a white-run organization. No one believed him , and so he felt he had no option except to take matters into his own hands and defend himself. He later told me he felt like a wounded badger backed into a corner.

While it helped that we (finally) got a restraining order against the man, the fact that Norm had to publicly apologize to the congregation reinforced this sense of aloneness. Far from feeling like he was believed and understood, he felt like he was once again being made out to be the bad guy. It 's true that Norm didn't model Christ's teaching on turning the other cheek in the way he responded to his aggressor. But had we listened to Norm, matters never would have come to this. We failed Norm.

Now, I'll admit that it took me several years of being friends with Norm and working through a number of difficult race-related issues before I could fully empathize with Norm's perspective of this episode. I now realize that, as sincere as my intentions were, I, and the rest of the white leaders.h.i.+p of the church, responded to this event poorly. Sitting at the top of the hierarchy of privilege, I was simply unaware of the radically different world in which Norm lived. I responded to this event from a strictly white perspective rather than allowing my perspective to be stretched by Norm and humbly following his lead on this issue.

I now try to humbly listen, learn, and follow when I need to. This doesn't mean I consider a nonwhite perspective to always be right while mine is automatically wrong if we see things differently. But it does mean I try to remain open to the possibility that our disagreement may be due to the fact that our lives have been conditioned by where we're positioned in the hierarchy of privilege.

Reconciliation is profoundly difficult even with a full awareness of the hierarchy of privilege and the historical and social influences that have constructed it. But without this awareness and without a willingness to listen, learn, and follow, it's not even remotely possible. Without this awareness, many sincere, well-intentioned white believers won't even see that there's a problem that needs to be overcome.

RECONCILIATION FOR ALL PEOPLE.

So far my comments have been directed entirely toward white readers. The reason for this is that I believe the main obstacle to reconciliation in the body of Christ in America is that most whites don't really see a need for it, as I said above. Not only this, but as a white person I can only address this (and every other) issue from a white perspective.

Still, the call to be a reconciled and reconciling community applies to all all Kingdom people, so we need to address what reconciliation looks like for non-European, nonwhite Americans. Here I have had to rely entirely on insights from my nonwhite sisters and brothers. There are three things that need to be said. Kingdom people, so we need to address what reconciliation looks like for non-European, nonwhite Americans. Here I have had to rely entirely on insights from my nonwhite sisters and brothers. There are three things that need to be said.

First, I encourage people of color to embrace Paul's teaching that the Kingdom struggle is never against "flesh and blood" but against the Powers. We conquer them by refusing to hate, choosing instead to follow Jesus' example of extending outrageous, self-sacrificial love to all people-even those who are intentionally or unintentionally oppressing us.

Second, it's important for people of color to extend forgiveness, both for things done to their ethnic group in the past and for things that continue to be done in the present. Jesus reflected the att.i.tude Kingdom people are to have when he prayed for our forgiveness before we ever dreamed of asking for it. Only this kind of love can tear down the hostile walls that have been built up over centuries and empower us to manifest the "one new humanity" Christ died to create.

Third, Kingdom reconciliation is impossible without Kingdom relations.h.i.+ps. I therefore encourage people of color as well as white people to revolt against our tribal instincts to remain in the security of our own ethnic group and actively pursue relations.h.i.+ps with people whose ethnicity is different than our own. Cross-ethnic relations.h.i.+ps are, by their very nature, revolting against Powers that have installed and aggravated mistrust between different ethnic groups for centuries. Racial reconciliation is spiritual warfare, so we must not naively think forging such relations.h.i.+ps is going to be easy. But they are are always worth it. always worth it.

THE UNIQUENESS OF KINGDOM RECONCILIATION.

The world's way of achieving racial reconciliation focuses on equalizing power and privilege. It tends to have an adversarial quality to it as those with less power and privilege confront those who have more. A central goal is to achieve a fairer society. This is a good and necessary endeavor in the broader society, and all fair-minded people should obviously pursue it.

Reconciliation in the Kingdom looks very different from this, however. Our focus is not on equalizing power and privilege; it's on following the example of Jesus by abandoning the quest for power and privilege. Our goal is not to achieve more fairness; it's to manifest Christlike submission to one another. And our adversaries are not other people who have more power and privilege than ourselves. Our adversaries are the Powers who keep humanity in bondage by fueling our hunger for power and privilege while enforcing social structures that give more to some by robbing it from others.

Our Kingdom call is to revolt against the Powers by dismantling the hierarchy of privilege, rejecting all racial stereotypes and judgments, forging meaningful relations.h.i.+ps across ethnic lines, and submitting ourselves to one another as we listen, learn, and follow one another.

As we do this, we partic.i.p.ate in the Kingdom that Jesus unleashed into the world. It's a revolution that manifests the beauty of G.o.d's dream for a united humanity while revolting against all forms of racism and the ugly Powers that fuel it.

Viva la revolution!

CHAPTER 11.

THE REVOLT REVOLT.

AGAINST POVERTY POVERTY AND AND GREED GREED.

Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.

MOTHER TERESA.

Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.

ERICH FROMM.

MEET "THE RICH"

Some time ago I got into an animated conversation with a man who I knew had sacrificed a good deal to live in solidarity with the poor. At one point he claimed, "There's no way a Christian living in a two-million-dollar home can say they're following Jesus' example of self-sacrificial living."

"Really?" I said. "How about a million-dollar house, or a quarter-of-a-million-dollar house? Or how about a little run-down fifty-thousand-dollar house?" I asked. "After all, such a house would be considered a mansion by a large percent of people around the globe."

The man smiled because he was aware that I knew this was about what his house cost-and he was feeling a bit self-righteous about it.

When we hear about Jesus' teaching on the dangers of wealth and the evils of greed, I'm guessing many of us a.s.sume the teaching applies to other people, not ourselves. We tend to identify "the rich" as those who have more than we have. Few people identify themselves as rich, let alone greedy.

By global and historical standards, however, the majority of us in Western countries are rich-extremely rich. Only the wealthiest people throughout history had anything close to the standard of living middle cla.s.s westerners enjoy today. When Jesus offers warnings to "the rich," therefore, he's talking about most of us. And his warning is that riches have a way of entrapping us.

All indications are that most Americans have become entrapped in wealth. Studies have shown that the wealthier people become, the lower percentage of their income they tend to give away. For example, in 2000 the gap between the average wealth of Americans and that of the poorest 25 percent of people on the planet was four times greater than what it had been in 1960. During this same period of time, the percentage of our country's GNP (Gross National Product) that went to providing a.s.sistance to the poorest 25 percent of people on the planet decreased decreased to about one tenth of what it had been in 1960. to about one tenth of what it had been in 1960. 1 1 While there are many incredibly generous Americans, as a nation we've clearly become entrapped by our wealth. While there are many incredibly generous Americans, as a nation we've clearly become entrapped by our wealth.

It's sobering to compare America's spending on the military with its aid to the poor. In 2005 America spent twenty-seven times more on its military than it did on alleviating global poverty. Some estimate that the amount spent on the Iraq war alone in 2006 could have fed and housed all the poor on the planet six times over. Its also sobering to consider that Americans spend enough money on entertainment each year to feed all the hungry people on the planet for a year.

What does G.o.d think about all this?

JESUS, THE POOR, AND THE GREEDY.

There are literally thousands of pa.s.sages in the Bible in which G.o.d warns against greed (h.o.a.rding more than you need) and in which he emphasizes the need for his people to share with the poor. In fact, the number one reason given in the Bible for why G.o.d brings judgment on nations is that they h.o.a.rd food and wealth and neglect the plight of the poor. Not surprisingly the condemnation of greed and call to care for the poor also permeates the life and teaching of Jesus.

Jesus gave us an example to follow when he set aside the riches of his divine status and entered into solidarity with the poor. "Though he was rich," Paul said, "he made himself poor." Followers of Jesus who are wealthy by global and historical standards (most of us Americans) are to consider the poor our sisters and brothers whom we are responsible for.

Jesus repeatedly stressed the danger of riches and the need to live generously. He criticized the religious heroes of his day for being preoccupied with maintaining a nice religious exterior while their hearts were full of "greed and wickedness." These people meticulously followed religious rules, but because they loved money they "neglected the more important matters of the law," which include "justice" and "mercy." In other words, their religious appearance notwithstanding, these people consumed and h.o.a.rded resources and didn't share with the poor. Clearly, in Jesus' view, this omission rendered the rest of their religious behavior irrelevant.

Along the same lines, when a man wanted Jesus to settle a legal dispute with his older brother over how much of the family inheritance he should receive, Jesus said, "Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?" He was basically asking the man, "Do I look look like your lawyer?" Jesus hadn't come to settle legal and political problems. He had rather come to manifest the reign of G.o.d and revolt against everything that is inconsistent with it-including things like greed. So Jesus warned the man, "Watch out. Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions." like your lawyer?" Jesus hadn't come to settle legal and political problems. He had rather come to manifest the reign of G.o.d and revolt against everything that is inconsistent with it-including things like greed. So Jesus warned the man, "Watch out. Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions."

"However you work out your legal and political issues," Jesus was in essence saying, "make sure you're not being motivated by greed."

Jesus taught that while pagans naturally chase after material things, Kingdom people are to remain worry free as we trust our heavenly Father to provide for us. He repeatedly warned that those who try to store up treasures on earth and neglect the poor will face G.o.d's judgment. By contrast, Jesus told his followers they weren't to consider anything they own as their possessions. "Those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples," he said. Since we have no possessions, we're to share all we own with everyone in need.

When we throw a banquet, Jesus says, "invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind." Then "you will be blessed," he says, for these people "cannot repay you"-but G.o.d most certainly will. If we come upon anyone in need, we're to follow his example of "the good Samaritan" and offer what we have to help them. Even if our enemy is in need, Jesus taught, we're to share what we have with them. According to the New Testament, we can't claim to love G.o.d if we ignore the basic needs of people around us. James says that anyone who ignores the needs of the poor has a faith that is "dead."

LIVING WITH OUTRAGEOUS GENEROSITY.

If you've been conditioned by the typical, Western consumer mindset, the example of Jesus and the teachings of the New Testament regarding our responsibility to share with the poor may feel impossibly onerous. We're conditioned to think that living with as much luxury and convenience as possible-attaining "the American dream"-is what life is all about. Whatever we may theoretically believe about G.o.d, Jesus, and the Kingdom of G.o.d, we're conditioned to instinctively try to find our happiness, worth, and security in things.

Not only this, but we're conditioned to feel as though we never have enough. The average American watches over 20,000 commercials each year and almost every single one of them is designed to convince us we need need whatever's being sold. For all of its economic advantages, capitalism thrives on people remaining discontented with what they have. If the American population as a whole ever adhered to Paul's instruction to be content with what we already have (1 Timothy 6:8 9), our economy would collapse overnight. whatever's being sold. For all of its economic advantages, capitalism thrives on people remaining discontented with what they have. If the American population as a whole ever adhered to Paul's instruction to be content with what we already have (1 Timothy 6:8 9), our economy would collapse overnight.

And so, like the pagans of old that Jesus talked about-but undoubtedly with a much greater consumer vengeance-we westerners tend to addictively chase after things. Held in bondage to our consumer conditioning, the biblical teaching to own nothing and to sacrificially give to the poor may feel like absolute torture.

The truth is that the Kingdom call to live without possessions and with outrageous generosity is a call to freedom freedom. While the Powers delude us into believing that possessing things gives us Life, the truth is that whatever we think we possess actually possesses us. The truth is that owning things doesn't give Life; it sucks Life out of us. The truth is that the perpetual hunger for more that fuels capitalism is a form of demonic bondage.

We never experience more joy, and never feel more fully alive, than when we are sacrificially sharing with others. Possessing things may bring momentary happiness, but only sacrificing for others can bring true, lasting joy. The paradox of the Kingdom-and it applies to all of life-is that the best thing we can do for ourselves is to decide not not to live for ourselves. to live for ourselves.

BEWARE OF GUILT AND JUDGMENT.

Some who become aware of the ma.s.sive discrepancy between their comfortable Western standard of living and the deplorable standard of living of the world's poorest people become ridden with guilt. Judging from the statistics about how most Americans spend their money-98 percent of it on themselves-there's no question that most of us Americans should should feel guilty about our self-indulgent lifestyles. At the same time, we need to be very clear that guilt is not a Kingdom motivation for sacrificial giving. feel guilty about our self-indulgent lifestyles. At the same time, we need to be very clear that guilt is not a Kingdom motivation for sacrificial giving.

We're supposed to be imitators of G.o.d in all things. G.o.d didn't set aside his advantages and enter into solidarity with us out of guilt. He did it out of love. So too, Paul says, everything followers of Jesus do is to be motivated by love.

When a person sacrifices for the poor out of guilt, it's very easy for them to project their guilt onto people who haven't made the sacrifices they've made and to become judgmental. Honestly, some of the most judgmental people I've ever met have been people who have walked away from comfort and convenience to enter into solidarity with the poor. They developed a disdain for people who haven't made the sacrifices they've made. Several I've known have become so judgmental they've sunk into a hole of cynicism toward the Church, and even toward Christianity as a whole.

Our job as Kingdom people is to obey what G.o.d calls us us to do, not judge others concerning whether or not to do, not judge others concerning whether or not they they are doing what G.o.d calls them to do. As each servant answers to their own master, Paul says, each person must answer to G.o.d on their own. If we're in a covenant community with another who has invited us to hold them accountable, then it is appropriate to be concerned with how they steward their resources. But outside of this sort of relations.h.i.+p, our only job is to agree with G.o.d that each person we see-however rich and self-indulgent they may appear to us-has unsurpa.s.sable worth, as demonstrated by the unsurpa.s.sable sacrifice G.o.d was willing to make for them. are doing what G.o.d calls them to do. As each servant answers to their own master, Paul says, each person must answer to G.o.d on their own. If we're in a covenant community with another who has invited us to hold them accountable, then it is appropriate to be concerned with how they steward their resources. But outside of this sort of relations.h.i.+p, our only job is to agree with G.o.d that each person we see-however rich and self-indulgent they may appear to us-has unsurpa.s.sable worth, as demonstrated by the unsurpa.s.sable sacrifice G.o.d was willing to make for them.

Related to this, while all Kingdom people are called to live sacrificial lives and share with the poor, the particular way we do this must flow out of our sense of what G.o.d is telling us and our community of fellow disciples to do. It can't flow out of a set of ethical rules about wealth that we think apply to all Christians at all times.

There are no such rules. There is no absolute standard against which we can a.s.sess whether another individual is giving "enough" or not. The same judgmental logic that would rule out a two-million-dollar home could also rule out a fifty-thousand-dollar home. In fact, as long as a person has anything anything another doesn't have, one could accuse them of not caring enough about the poor. another doesn't have, one could accuse them of not caring enough about the poor.

The call of the Kingdom is not to create rules that we think everyone should conform to. It's simply to seek G.o.d's will as to how he would have us live out Jesus' self-sacrificial lifestyle.

WHERE SHOULD WE PLACE OUR TRUST?.

In the same way that the Kingdom call to serve the poor can't be reduced to a set of rules about wealth, it also can't be identified with any political or economic program to rid the world of poverty. Kingdom people have no special wisdom about these things, for the New Testament is silent about such matters.

This isn't to say that governments shouldn't help relieve poverty or that Christians shouldn't sometimes help them do it. Sometimes they can, and sometimes we should. Any clever political ideas about how people and resources can be better mobilized to relieve hunger and poverty are to be welcomed and, if proven effective, embraced.

But our confidence as Kingdom people should be rooted not in smart political and economic programs, but in G.o.d, who promises to use our individual and collective sacrifices to revolt against, and ultimately overthrow, poverty and the Powers that fuel it. Hence, our primary time and energy should be invested not in debating the relative merits of competing political and economic programs, but in individually and collectively imitating Jesus by bleeding for people who are in need.

If significant numbers of Kingdom people lived like this, it would in fact be politically revolutionary. But it would be so in a way that looks like Jesus rather than Caesar.

Along these same lines, it's crucial we remember that the criteria for success in the Kingdom is not effectiveness, but faithfulness. Our job is to obediently "plant" and "water" as G.o.d leads us. It's G.o.d's job to "give the increase."

Jesus made this point one day while he and his disciples observed wealthy people putting huge offerings into the temple treasury. They then saw a "poor widow" put in "two very small copper coins." Jesus told his disciples, "This poor widow has put in more than all the others." The reason was that the wealthy people "gave their gifts out of their wealth" while the widow "out of her poverty put in all she had to live on."

The world would certainly be more impressed with a thousand dollars dropped in an offering plate than with two pennies. Obviously you can do a lot more with a thousand dollars than with two pennies, right? Yet Jesus tells us we're not to a.s.sess things this way, for in the Kingdom what matters is not how much much one gives, but how much it one gives, but how much it cost cost one to give it one to give it. The widow gave all she had and thus advanced the Kingdom more than all the wealthy folks whose gifts were larger but didn't cost them as much to give. The widow gave all she had and thus advanced the Kingdom more than all the wealthy folks whose gifts were larger but didn't cost them as much to give.

So too, our confidence in addressing poverty must not be in things the world thinks are effective but in what G.o.d can do when people faithfully imitate Jesus and make costly sacrifices for the poor.

KNOWING WHAT YOU ARE-AND ARE NOT-RESPONSIBLE FOR While most American disciples need to be challenged to a.s.sume more responsibility for the poor, some need to be challenged to a.s.sume less less. I'm serious. It's a lesson I had to learn the hard way.

My first visit to Haiti twelve years ago was emotionally and spiritually overwhelming. I knew the statistics about poverty in Haiti, but knowing about dehumanizing poverty and experiencing it are two very different things.

Cite Soleil, a seaside slum, exists on about one square mile of garbage-infested land and is home to over a quarter million people. It 's among the most impoverished places on earth. As we were driving through Cite Soleil, at one point I caught the eyes of a young child rummaging through a three-foot-high pile of filthy, smelly garbage, looking for food. He glanced up as our van pa.s.sed, and for a timeless moment our eyes were locked on each other.

I was immediately overwhelmed with grief and jolted by an acute sense of how grotesquely arbitrary life is. There was absolutely no reason why I was me me instead of instead of this this boy, I thought. Nothing but sheer luck allowed me to be born in a nice American home rather than in this stench-filled Haitian dump. Nothing but sheer luck placed me inside this air-conditioned van looking out rather than on that smelly pile of garbage looking in. The absurdity of the situation made me feel nauseated. boy, I thought. Nothing but sheer luck allowed me to be born in a nice American home rather than in this stench-filled Haitian dump. Nothing but sheer luck placed me inside this air-conditioned van looking out rather than on that smelly pile of garbage looking in. The absurdity of the situation made me feel nauseated.

I couldn't get this sense of absurdity out of my mind once I returned home. I saw this boy's malnourished face on every dollar bill. Whenever I was going to purchase anything, I wondered, "Is this purchase more important than feeding a Haitian child?" And of course, the answer was almost always no. If I purchased the item anyway, I felt like I was virtually killing a starving child!

That dollar could have been used to feed him.