Uffizi Mission Project

Recently I spoke at a church and challenged them with the idea of a time machine.  Would they want to go back in time or forward?  Do we try to go back to the early church, or the time of Francis, or 1950 when the church was central?  No, this machine is going forward, and it is our responsibility to create the church that responds to its time.

And so what we need now are love zealots, compassionate extremists, empathetic emissaries, care commandos, and gregarious givers.  The season is jubilee – Deut 15, Isaiah 61, Matt 25.  Can’t get away from it.

Faith is not so much past as future.  We have our solid foundation to build on, not just sit back and admire the architecture.  Our buried talents won’t be appreciated.

In Santa Barbara the flock is well shepherded overall, but the streets neglected – the needs extreme.  The thing is – if we come in as love zealots, we are welcomed.  It has been my experience overall – welcomed at the library, Alameda Park, Pershing Park, The Village Apartments, The Carrillo Apartments… compassionate extremists seem to have the access code everywhere.

Let’s push that time machine forward and be willing to move out of the past into what lies ahead.  Isaiah 43:18-19.

I decided to blog this story so I can direct people who want to help here…

I met a couple of street musicians at Pershing Park this Wednesday.  I felt nudged by God to talk to them, but put it off until the end of the night.  I had never seen them at Pershing, and I knew they were from somewhere else.  I am always glad that God is persistent with me and gives me more than one opportunity.

So I talked with them Wed and found out they had a bum deal going, that they were sold on Santa Barbara by a friend, and that they can’t make the money to get back, and have nowhere to stay now.  <the story is a bit more complex!>  She is 19 and he is 27 and they are friends, and are stranded here now.  They have a van and the plan is to get back to Virginia.

I had lunch with them today and we talked through a plan.  I have contact numbers for her mom and for his cousin, where they are going next.  His cousin lives in Sacramento so they can have shelter with her, while they perform on the streets up that way to try to raise some funds.  I will be calling their contacts soon.

They have been open with me about mistakes made, and also have done everything I have asked so I can check their story.  They have family that would help but that cannot at this point because of their own financial difficulties.

I talked with them today about the idea of pay it forward, and will they do this for others as they are helped.  They understand the concept.  

They are trying to get back to Virginia soon as they can have their jobs back if they return.  They had planned on making money here, but as we Santa Barbarians know, this is not really the street musician city!

With generosity is always the risk – I talked with them about this today.  I have seen it work (such as with Mike and Victoria now in Colorado) and I have been taken as well.  I am taking a risk.

If you want more info or want to help, contact me at syncmanatns@aol.com.

Thanks to you all for reading and caring and perhaps being foolish…

***just got off the phone with her mom, and they have a place to return and be safe, and they just got in over their heads… so it will be good to get them home***

I can only claim to be a practitioner and not a theologian, but I think when we practice the words of Jesus within culture, everyone wins.  Can that be possible, everyone wins?

Who wins?

Us who have been isolated sometimes in church culture, see our city and our subcultures and our people, and we fall in love with them.  We win because we have new friends, and our eyes are opened, and we get to use those crazy gifts that God gave us.  We get to learn generosity.  We learn that God does provide.  We also gain street smarts.

The culture wins because they can receive resources that are desperately needed.  Kids receive school supplies and mentoring and wisdom.  Adults get second chances or third ones, or maybe even a fourth chance.  They absorb some truth from teachers.  Tutoring centers open for kids on the edge.  Perhaps housing becomes a possibility.  People with shame receive dignity and their Maker lifts their heads…

I believe the church and culture both win when the comes together in peace making.  Nothing seems to get better with war.

And it is the Jesus way.

Well, I was listening to the Beatles, and listened to the Ballad of John and Yoko after being away for years – and heard this line:

“Last night the wife said, ‘Oh boy, when you’re dead You don’t take nothing with you But your soul – think!’”

I can remember listening to those words in high school, when I was president of the Rabbit Tending Club (long story, but now you know where something like the uffizi mission project comes from, I just never grew up)  and putting them on my binder and writing them on the wall of one of my classrooms (and being sent to the principal as a high school senior yet).  Because I was a strange idealist but with no wisdom.  I am now an idealist with 1/4 cup of wisdom.

But this is more of a rant, because seriously I am losing it.  I told a friend of mine yesterday that there has to be something else besides communism, socialism, or capitalism.  What?  Am I kidding myself?  What am I talking about?  Do I need detox from myself for a time?

But the fact that I even use that word detox in every day conversation now concerns me?  How many of my friends now need detox everyday.

I have facebooked already four times today and it is only 9:30am.  What I put on there:

www.pleasecutthecrap.com 

something about James 2 and how mercy outshines judgement (and clicking our ruby slippers and saying health care three times to get us back home)

love everybody and making friends of everyone from a song from the Moody Blues

Do I sound like a crazed Jesus child from the 1960’s?  I know I do but I can’t help myself.

Or, really, is there a new paradigm coming (perhaps an old one just being dusted off the shelf, but appearing new)… when that train comes, I am going to jump on board.

The stats don’t seem too go for us Jesus followers sometimes.  For every church plant 7 close.  In the past 20 years a ten percent drop in those who claim to be followers of Jesus.  Bad news, or a shift in thinking – postmodernism etc… or a new opportunity?

 I believe an opportunity.  This health care debate gives us an opportunity because of the way of Jesus.  The health care advocate!  The shining example.  The God who hit the streets, lived on the streets, healed on the streets, fed on the streets, loved children on the streets, blessed blessed blessed and was cursed… shall we say showed mercy over judgment.  We all belong on the streets.  We were created and born for it.

“Last night the wife said, ‘Oh boy when you’re dead you don’t take nothing with you but your soul, think!”

I risk becoming something between like Jesus or Daffy Duck.  This is why I may need some kind of a Freudian Id/Ego/Superego detox.   So, let’s hear someone who may actually have credibility – James 2.

 ¹My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favoritism. ²Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. ³If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” ⁴have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? ⁵Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? ⁶But you have insulted the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? ⁷Are they not the ones who are slandering the noble name of him to whom you belong?

 ⁸If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,”^[a] you are doing right. ⁹But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. 

Mercy Triumphs over Judgment

It is like a high wire balancing act – living in the tension of reality and coming transformation.  I live in the midst of prayer warriors, social activists, single moms, intoxicated, injured, progressives, pastors, churched and unchurched and in between – all striving for that accurate grasp of reality.  And of course, the ANSWER – the big clue in the sky that will solve the dilemma.  For some it may be the second coming and for others becoming like Christ now – and then all the in-betweens with that as well.

I lean toward us making the decision to become like Him now.  I think I have a pretty good Biblical argument, but of course there are many others.  I think it comes in the call to “follow me,” which means to simply put into practice what you see the leader doing.

I am thinking perhaps too many wait for the “call.”  They may say that they are not “called.”  I am not sure what that means, in the face of some pretty sure directives from Jesus, that don’t seem to have any sense of waiting for God to call.

I am pretty sure it is why we have the book?  We are called people of the book I think.  Maybe it would be better if we returned to the idea of the way?  The early followers were followers of “The Way.”  I like that – it seems to suggest following in the way of life.

I think God is interested in “health.”  Shalom.

So, we should be on the side of arguing for health care for the poor.  It would be a part of the way.  Here is the argument from my perspective.

1.  Jesus came for the sick not the healthy.  This to me suggests holistically – physical, emotional, psychological, spiritual – he is involved.

2.  The practice of Jesus in the gospels seems to show that He involved Himself as much with the physical well-being as spiritual.

3.  One of His titles in the Great Physician – the Good Doctor.

4.  Isaiah 61 suggests His call to the poor.  As does Matthew 5.  

5.  Then there is the story of the Good Samaritan.  Are we still asking the silly question of who is my neighbor, or have we gotten beyond that.

Come on now, let’s go.  You can join me now on the streets and pray and be available for the sick.  You can visit with single moms at the Village.  You can work with at risk kids at kids club.  The way is open.  The way is now.

You can get involved politically if you feel so led.

The command is to give hilariously.  To laugh.  Health care in the kingdom is free. To have some generous fun.  It is heart breaking and fulfilling at the same time.  It is becoming like Jesus.

I posted something on Facebook the other day that received quite a bit of response and controversy.  I posted it as an idealist, not a realist or a pessimist or an optimist (well, maybe it was a bit optimistic).  Here is what I put on my wall…

“There is free health care for all in heaven, so it shall be on earth”

The posts of others inspired me to think it through a bit more.  And, I don’t think it is so ridiculous after all.  It should not be that ridiculous for Christ followers, if we could just remember… remember… remember our true roots.

You see, we belong to the streets first of all, where you will find the poor.  Because that is where our Lord lived.  There is a song somewhere about “nowhere to lay His head.”  And while we don’t need to sleep on the streets, we need to go there.  

And, we go there empowered.  He taught the male and female disciples about how to heal.  He was the Great Physician.  Now, ponder that one for a moment.  And He said we would be like Him – mini Great Physicians.  This is going back to our roots.

There are all kinds of thoughts about healing.  Some believe it is for today, and some don’t.  Some believe all can be healed and some don’t.   I personally have witnessed God heal friends in Santa Barbara.  We prayed for a man at North Star Coffee Company and God took away a tumor in his lung.  I prayed for a friend’s knee at Holy Chaos and the pain ceased.  Many in this city have experienced more than I have when it comes to healing.

But even if we don’t believe this, then we must know that love itself is a huge healer.  Physical contact and touch are long term proactive healers.  Prayer works – as medical studies have shown that men and women who are prayed for are more likely to be healed.  Love returns to the streets and it heals.

We can’t count on the government and we can’t hope for compassionate insurance institutions.  Seems like we are going to have to this ourselves.

But I think God heals for free.  So, I think there is such a thing as free health care.  I also don’t think it is such a bad thing to get free health care somehow to friends on the streets.

CA is cutting more programs for the poor, so you can expect more sick people on the streets.  I see them every week at Pershing Park.  If we can get beyond blaming them for their mistakes and into becoming healers, then perhaps lives can turn around.

The biggest cost to us will getting back on to the streets on a regular basis.  Because once we get there God will activate the sleeping dynamics embedded in the church.  Gifts will be reborn.  I see it happen often in individuals, when the “invisible” become their friends again.

Like Jesus, we were created to be on the streets of our city.  As He was sent, He has sent us.