A Note About My Family's Work

My family is leaving Portland, Oregon after working here for the last quarter century with folks on the street. This month, I will be switching my focus to another city in Oregon, but I've been taking a time to reflect.  I want to summarize the work we've done so those reading this blog understand a bit of the background that creates the thoughts that make this blog.

My family has been working for homeless folks in Portland and Gresham for 25 years. Beginning in 1999, Anawim Christian Community has been our official name.  In that time, we housed more than 60 people in our apartments or house, from one night to more than ten years.  We hosted approximately 1400 days of day shelters, serving more than 2000 meals and dozens of emergency night shelters.  We gave away to poor individuals, families and camps approximately 300,000 pounds of food.  We have given away thousands of sets of clothes, and hundreds of thousands pairs of socks.  We had hundreds of volunteers, most of whom have been on the street at the time of their volunteering.  We invited, trained and established a number of houseless folks into leadership positions.  We helped build and organize many camps, and helped them move when they were dismantled.  When our centers were taken away, we still delivered meals and boxes to camps where people lived outside.

What we have aimed for are places where people on the street could obtain services, wisdom and safety, with the respect due to them as children of God.  We established eight of these centers, and supported a half dozen more.  We wanted places for people to establish their stability, to work through their drama and to feel normal for a bit.   Even if people were troubled or caused trouble, we tried to listen to them and to provide fair counsel and determinations.

In the midst of this work, we learned about mental illness, poverty, addiction, and classism.  We learned about how the assumptions, disgust and hatred of the community around them kept houseless folks trapped. But we also found narrow paths of escape to stability and hope, led by people of good will and peace. 

While we were doing this work, we tried to establish a home for our family among the houseless.  We homeschooled our children until middle school, and found later that they all were on the autism spectrum, although high functioning.  We watched our kids grow in friendship and independence in the midst of some of the best people of the Northwest.

It hurts us to leave this city which has been our whole lives.  It hurts to leave folks whom we have worked beside, cried with, celebrated with..  We love them all. 

A School of Fools

Today is April Fool’s Day, the day of jokes, pranks and attempts to deceive.  A “fool” on this day, would be considered the butt of a joke, the one who is deceived or pranked.  In the range of meaning of “fool” we would include the uneducated oaf, the intelligent person who is unwise in everyday matters and the one who ignores the path of everyday society, usually to their own detriment. 

Paul called himself a “fool for Christ”, not in the sense that he was uneducated, but that he ignored the wisdom of the world to embrace a philosophy and a way of life that was damaging to himself and his very life.  He recognizes that there are those who would be “wise” for Christ, those who walks a careful path not to disturb either their religion or their society.  He was never like that.  He jumped in, both feet, into the abyss that is Christ, not looking to escape with his life.   And so he changed the world.

He was not the first.  Peter spoke out against the powerful body that killed Christ, was arrested, threatened and eventually killed.  Stephen spoke boldly before his enemies who brutally and immediately killed him.  James was arrested and killed, mostly on a whim.  All this within a year of Jesus’ death.  To continue on this path of martyrdom was foolish, but these early followers of Jesus were passionate and determined to bring justice into a world that did not deserve it.

The path of foolishness did not end with this generation.  Although the movement became more than a group of fools, there were always the minority of extremists who pursued the cross, who swam in the pond of non-conformity.

The Pilgrim

An anonymous, barely literate peasant wandered throughout villages of Russia, begging for his bread and praying a single prayer every minute of every day.  “Jesus, Son of God, Savior, have mercy on me a sinner.”  Although he seemed uneducated and worthy of mockery by some, others saw him as a fount of wisdom and his inspirational biography is read to this day.

Francis of Assisi

He began an order of monks who would own no money or possessions.  You might think, “Well that was easier in the 13^th century than today”, but it was not.  Francis was just more determined, and his followers lived in caves and what churches would allow them to sleep in pews.  He would beg for himself and for his fellow monks, singing and preaching foolishness. Occasionally Francis would be invited to a dinner and he would not even sit down at the table, but find the proudest bishop and beg that man for food, as the wealthy one sat down to eat. He finally died of open wounds that he begged from God so that he might be more Christ-like.

Ignatius of Loyola

A disciplined soldier who was injured in war, he was in bed for months with nothing but a bible and a book of saints to focus on.  He dedicated himself to Christ as his master and attended classes at the University of Paris for years, while he lived in the fields, homeless.  He collected a few followers who began the Jesuit order.

Damien of Molokai

Determined to help the needy, this Belgian priest served at a leper colony on the island of Molokai.  He cleaned wounds, buried his friends and created a joyful community.   Of course, he died of leprosy.

Anthony of Egypt

Ashamed of the “Christian” society that developed in Alexandria, Anthony chose to live in a cemetery instead, and eventually left the safety of the city altogether and lived in the desert. Some would come and seek counsel and then others came to live his hermit-like existence in nearby caves.  His foolishness became the Christian monastic movement.

Keith Green

A rock star who dedicated himself to Jesus, he sold his albums for what people could afford and wrote radical Christian articles for his very popular newsletter. He sang and spoke of radical hospitality and of self-sacrifice.  On a private plane in his organization’s property in Texas, he overfilled it with his children and friends and they all died.  But millions were inspired by his powerful message and music to follow Jesus.

So many in the cloud of witnesses we could name: Martin Luther King, Jr., Conrad Grebel, Mother Theresa, Meister Eckhart, Maximillian, Vincent Van Gogh, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Grandma Moses, Claire of Assisi, Stephen Biko, Mimosa, and more that time does not allow me to speak of.

***

I am proud to call myself a minor fool for Christ beside these martyrs and saints.  I will not boast but in my idiocy, my poor attempt to follow the path Jesus created on his way to death.  I quit my job, making me and my family homeless for months in order to better appreciate and serve the homeless.  My life was threatened and my body was attacked for wanting to serve.  I held poorly attended services, proclaiming the peace, love and power of Christ, which few wanted to hear.  I gave opportunities to serve to the poorest of the poor, some of whom were felons, drug dealers, prostitutes, addicts and thieves.  I invited some of these to live in my home. 

One of my great projects over the last few years was to transform a mostly empty church facility into a vibrant community center for the homeless, immigrants, poor and destitute.  Four separate church groups, of different denominations, met there, and for many hours a day there were showers, food, clothes, garden, shelter, work opportunities, and contacts with other services.  It was known as RedBarn (because of the large red barn on the property) and it was loved by those who used the services.

But the project was hated by many who lived around it and the police, for they saw the poor as reducing the value of their homes, as a center for criminals to gather, as enabling the very people they wanted to drive out of their community to remain.  A few worked for years to drive us out, reporting us to the city for crimes they could not actually see. 

Eventually, one of the people I helped get off the street located his drug distribution business on the property, bringing in the very criminal element that the neighbors and police were so concerned about.  I shut it down, and the city eventually fined the property 3000 dollars for not cleaning it up quickly enough.  I quit managing the property due to the stress of managing the expectations and needs of the poor, the city, the denomination who owned the property and my vision of the peace of Christ. 

I understand now.

There is a reason that the community of Christ is a community of fools.  It is because to fight to meet the needs of the outcast is to declare war against an entire society, and they will not accept it.  They will fight and eventually kill you.  If they can’t tear you down quickly, they will do so slowly.

So I will follow the command of Christ: when they persecute you in one place, go to another.  I will rest, and gather my wits.  But I have not given up on the outcast, who need support.  And I have not given up on foolishness.  No, I am in a lull, but I already feel the foolishness of Christ rising up in me again.  Watch and see. 

Why I Was Arrested

1. Jesus came into Jerusalem on a colt.

We all know that story.  If we grew up in church, it has been rehearsed and visualized over and over again.  He came into Jerusalem in a victory parade, on a young donkey that had never been ridden, just as the prophet said the king of Jerusalem would come.

But what did he do after that?  Usually the story ends with him entering Jerusalem, but it is after that we find out what kind of king Jesus is.  He went to the temple and looked.  He checked out what he wanted to see and then left the city for the day.

It doesn't seem like much, but it's important.

It was the next morning, his second day of entering Jerusalem as "king" that he cursed the fig tree because it had no fruit.  Why did he do that?  Because of what he didn't see in Jerusalem, because of what he didn't see in the temple.

He didn't see justice.  Instead he saw oppression.

It was the policy of the High Priest to allow moneychangers on the Temple grounds.  The moneychangers were significant.  They would change money stamped with the image of Caesar Augustus to temple money, which was clean to be used in the temple.  That place would also provide an opportunity to exchange funds for animals, so one wouldn't have to carry an animal for sacrifice all the way from Galilee or Egypt.  They provided a service.

The policy wasn't that they were important, however.  The policy determined where they would be place.  The moneychangers were in the section of the Temple called The Court of the Gentiles.  It is called this because Gentiles, women and those who were too physically disfigured to enter into the temple proper would be allowed to enter to worship.  It was the place where the second-rate citizens could go and make requests of their King, their God.

But since they were second-rate citizens, not the worshipers of God who really counted, they were just women and Gentiles, it would be fine to conduct business through their worship, their politics (which was the same thing in the ancient world).  So what that they couldn't even hear themselves to make their requests for justice.  They weren't real citizens, after all.  If they wanted to be heard, they should talk to a real Jew, and have him make the request for them.  That was the attitude of the High Priest.

Jesus, the new king, the new High Priest, couldn't stand for that.  So in his second day in the city, he started flipping tables, and knocking animals aside.  He didn't hurt anyone.  His protest wasn't damaging.  It was just extremely irritating.  And he said, "Is it not written that my house will be a house of worship for all the Gentiles?  But you have made it a den of marauders."

And so he was arrested, later in the week.  And so he was killed, because he acted like a king.  A king who was interested in justice for everyone.

2. I have been a pastor to the homeless in my cities of Portland and Gresham for more than twenty years.

I have heard and have seen twenty years of abuse of my congregation, of the community God has placed me in.

For twenty years I heard about police forcing the homeless to move.  Sometimes the police would give them 72 hours.  Sometimes 24.  Sometimes twenty minutes.  But the order to move would come.  Everyone accepted it.  It was a part of life, like waves of the sea, like the sun rising.  If you are homeless, then you would be asked to move.

Occasionally the police would be abusive.  One man, Mitch, was attacked by a police dog, who was allowed to go into his tent without restraint.  Another woman, Mary, was tased four times with an officer twice her size keeping her on the ground with his knee.

Sometimes they would make unjust exclusions.  One of my friends, Byron, was excluded from the city of Gresham because he was moving too slow because he had just left ICU following a life-threatening heart attack.  Another of my friends, John, was given an exclusion from the city because an officer claimed he had left his backpack, but he wouldn't touch it because it wasn't his.  Another woman, Eugenia, was given a thirty day exclusion from the city because he didn't like that she was given permission by a business to sleep on their property.

Eugenia was disabled, with three dogs.

She died before the thirty days were over, because it was too difficult for her to travel.

Her son now is living in the apartment that both of them were promised long before, wandering the empty rooms, talking to his mom who isn't there anymore.

I've heard twenty years of stories like this.  I wonder if it would Jesus twenty years to act.  I wonder if it would take twenty years for another pastor to act for their oppressed congregation.

3. What if it were your church?

What if the people in your church were kicked out of the library because it isn't "appropriate" for them to be there.

What if the people in your church were stopped by the police before they came to worship?

What if the police came onto your church property and threatened members of your congregation, although they had no evidence of wrong doing?

What if the leaders of your city would mention the name of your church as a blight in their fair city?

What if neighbors would call the city on a regular basis, complaining about how your church is a nuisance, simply because they didn't like your congregation?

What if your police chief would go to neighborhood associations, promising to get rid of your church?

What if your pastor was blamed for all the ills of your community, despite the fact that those ills existed before she or he came to the city?

What would you do?

What do you think Jesus would do?

4. This is how it went down.

The mayor of the city of Gresham had promised that he would act with "compassion" toward the homeless of Gresham.  He would move them out of a controversial area, a sixty acre property that is about half the area the homeless could dwell in the city.  The complaints were about trash, mostly,  Like the trash the members of our congregation cleans up on our property every day.

The city fenced off the property, and then put up signs saying that trespassing would be fined a thousand dollars.  Then they discovered that they hadn't acted completely legally.  So they planned an agenda that wouldn't have to be brought to the public, and planned on passing it with a simple unanimous vote.  No reason to advertise it.

We decided on a two week action.  The first week, we would sign up as many people as would come, especially the homeless, to city council to talk about listening to the homeless before they took such action.  About 35 people showed up, half of them homeless.  Ten of us testified, asking the city to listen to the homeless to alternative plans before they acted.

The next week, we showed up again, again with about 35 people.  The council politely allowed as many people to speak, three minutes each, as signed up for it.  I spoke on the city acting like an abusive father who beats his children in order to make them "obey", but they come back home every night because they have no where else to go.  A friend of mine spoke about needing a place to go, a place to sleep.  Another friend of mine spoke about how difficult it is as a father to have a secure place for his wife and baby.

Finally, public testimony ended.  A representative of the city council tried to console us, telling us that the homeless aren't being pushed around.  That there are plans in the works.  I called out, "Where are they supposed to go tonight?"

Then we started chanting.  Some of us stayed in their seats, some stood up, one stepped forward, still a row of seats behind the council.  The point of our chanting was to keep the noise level high so that the vote couldn't take place.  This worked for about fifteen minutes.  Then they started arresting us.

Seven of us were arrested.  We were held in custody only for the rest of the day.

5.  There comes a time in every follower of Jesus' walk for them to stand against oppression.  Not to harm anyone.  Not to physically fight.  But to stand against those who abuse the helpless.

Some want to stand against those who live in far away places.  Make noise against issues they barely know anything about, stuff they heard from a two minute newscast.  No, we need to speak against injustice where we are.  Some, like Jesus, will need to travel to the place of injustice to speak out.  Some find it right where they are.  But we will need to stand.

Why is this?  Because Jesus told us that if they persecuted him, they would persecute us.  Because the first act of the apostles, when the Holy Spirit came down on them was to speak out against their leaders who killed an innocent... no, the best man among them.

We do this because Jesus said that we would be taken before kings and courts to make a defense of the gospel.  What is the gospel?  Not all of it, but part of it is peace and justice for everyone, without exception.  And when we speak of peace and justice for everyone, then our responsibility is to speak justice for those who do not have it in the community we are in.

We must do this because part of our discipleship calling is a prophetic calling.  To stand before the powers and tell them to serve the poor, like the prophets before us.  Like Elijah, like Daniel, like Jeremiah, like Ezekiel, like Isaiah, like Jonah, like Amos and all the others.  Jesus said, "Act like a prophet, and you'll get the reward of a prophet."  To act like a prophet doesn't mean to have visions.  It doesn't mean to act like a jerk.  It means to speak boldly the gospel.

We must do this because the gospel is not for the powerful.  Yes, the powerful and wealthy can be saved by the gospel just like anyone else.  But Jesus said that the gospel is good news for the poor.  It is a message of deliverance from oppression, which means only the oppressed need apply.  Jesus preached a different part of the gospel, depending on one's social station.  He preached healing, deliverance and a second chance at life for the abused and oppressed.  And he preached repentance, the giving to the poor, and demanded justice and mercy from the powerful.  The full gospel isn't just a gospel of faith and of well-being.  The full gospel is both deliverance from oppression and surrender of our power.

We must do this because Jesus wasn't just about making the world change by the power of God.  Jesus demonstrated to us that we are to make the world change by our word, by our sweat and by our blood.

I can't tell you that it is your time to shed your blood for the full gospel.  Only the Holy Spirit can do that.  All I know is that the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, "This is the time."  And I stepped up.