Over the weekend, the Lord brought up the Beatitudes from Jesus's first sermon, his sermon on the mount, over and over again. It came up in a Sunday sermon, a BAyUP reflection piece that I had put off reading until this weekend, and even in the section of Jim Wallis's book (On God's Side) that I happened to be reading through. Now it could have all been coincidence (naht), but I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of Jesus's words really reigning true in a man named Victor Vasquez.
On Sunday afternoon, after spending a few hours of reading, Chai-latte sipping, and journaling at the Mixing Bowl (which, I might add, was a little too hipster/cool for me, and made me feel out of place), I stopped by a long-haired Latino homeless man on my way home to drop a few coins in his cup. I didn't even give him all of my coins. Why? I don't know.
I asked him, "How are you doing?" as I let the coins slip through my fingers. And thus began a wonderful conversation between this beer-bellied man and me, about his life and the car accident going 80+ mph down University Ave. that put him in a coma many many years ago. His speech was broken and slurred, but he took the time he needed to share about himself. He lifted his long strands of hair to reveal the left side of his head, which was significantly dented inward, and he traced a line around his skull to show me where he had gotten seventy-something stitches.
When I commented that it was truly God's grace that allowed him to survive that kind of accident, he began to go off about this God that he knew, and the Jesus he met multiple times while he was in his coma. And honestly, in that moment I was struck. I was struck with initial shock that a homeless man would have such a personal relationship with Jesus. I was struck with the fact that I was struck that Victor had a personal relationship with Jesus.
In the following moments listening to Victor talk about what it felt like to meet the Jesus who saved his life, I saw Jesus in this man. It was a strangely new and yet right feeling that I experienced because I had crossed some invisible line between him and me. It was then that I understood, Yes, indeed
"blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth." -- Matthew 5:5See, I've come to recognize in myself that when a human being appears a certain amount of disheveled, carries a certain smelly odor, or speaks a certain inarticulable way, I cast them off as less than human. I dismiss them as less than able to respond with a personal story when asked "How are you?" so I decide they don't need to be asked. Truly, so many times while living in Berkeley, I made my judgments about many of the homeless people that I walked past without even a downward glance, maybe because I got used to their presence there, maybe because I felt awkward about how to react to their situation every time. Lord have mercy.
It's for these very people that Jesus came, and it's among them that he walks. Like he's actually really there with them, right now. Not just among the poor 2000 years ago, but among the poor today. Same Jesus, same ministry. And it's absolutely blowing my mind. Why didn't this occur to me before? Why did I insist that signs of following Jesus rightly was to do church and prayer and quiet time and Jesus Culture and spiritual gifts and all of that sweet stuff, and why did I look past the very words of the Christ I claimed to love and follow? Truly,
"it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God." -- Matthew 19:24I mention this because really guys, we are all rich people. And this poses us a significant disadvantage because each day, we are presented with reasons not to need God, and luxuries that sneak their way into our set of superfluous but seemingly central needs. In the 10 minutes I stood there with Victor, so much of my wealth and its influence on my flesh tugged at me to walk away from just being there with him:
- the perception in the eye of passersby that I was nothing but a naive young woman, standing there talking to a disheveled homeless man with my combed up hair and stupid "Sunday best" flowy top with gold embellishments
- the fear that one of the several tough looking Black guys who passed us would notice us and approach me inappropriately for whatever reason (still remnants of my own racial prejudices)
- the desire to just walk away to be comfortable, to lay on my leather couch in my clean little urban apartment, free from the sight and presence of a man with more burdens than would be convenient for me to listen to
- even the incessant feeling that after I touched him to pray and shook his hand that I would go home and wash my hands immediately...
These are the real things in me, and they are ugly.
But the Lord is showing me, wow, how clearly he loves and defends those who have nothing but him. I am now seeking the way to be poor, poor in spirit. For the American church, I believe we need to ask God to lead us to this kind of spiritual poverty, while stewarding our physical riches, access, and power well. How potent our ministries would be if we designated the wealth of our influence and resources to the work of his kingdom with absolutely impoverished spirits!
Today, while treadmill running, I watched will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas share about his childhood growing up in the projects of East LA. He said,
"You don't know you're poor when everybody's poor. You find out you're poor later. And then when you find out you're poor, that isn't the best thing in the world. Cause it messes up your whole psyche. You're a charity case. So you're just proud of what you have because you know you have nothing."I also didn't know I was rich growing up because everybody around me was rich. I found out that I was rich later, and now I realize that I need Jesus to teach me to be poor in the right ways. So whether the Lord leads me in the future, to move to extremely impoverished places or to live among people of wealth and influence, or both, I know that by grace, he'll show me the way to the kingdom. And I pray that in that process, I will know what it is to be poor.
