Why?

Sometimes the most thought provoking questions are the most simple of questions.  In the Pantheon of words that lead off sentences of questions, “why” is a monster.  For what reason, what purpose, what cause are you doing something.  As little humans we learn this word extraordinarily early and use it with abandon. 

The question came at me with seemingly little warning.  Why are you doing this?

 ”This”, of course, is what the Jackson Street  Ministry does each Wednesday night in helping and hanging out with the homeless.  I fought my first reaction to just say “because” and my second reaction to answer with a question like:  “As a Christian why do you do anything?”  I think I said something like we are just following Jesus and this is our mission field we feel called to serve.  It probably satisfied the question, but it felt programmed and cliche.  It felt like a tract; heavy in truth punching you in the gut, but nothing to make you want to explore doing it yourself.  No, this question needs more thought and it needs to be more intensely personal.  I need to drop the “we” word and discover why “I” do it.

Why do you do this? 

What is the purpose?

What is the meaning of it?

What is the reason?

My first self examination is to determine if I do ”this” for selfish reasons.  Do I feel guilty because I have plenty, so I devote one night a week to go and relieve some of my own guilt for having been blessed?  It is a viable question, and there are times I feel somewhat guilty, but I am reminded that Jesus said blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek, those who mourn, the hungry, etc.  Yes, He may have been talking more in spiritual terms, but I can’t disregard the actual.  In fact, they may be more blessed than I am.  Jesus, while on earth, tended to hang out more with their type crowd than the middle class church folk of His day. 

Are there other selfish reasons?  Do I like to be able to write on this web site and have people say they like what I write about?  Guilty.  Do I get a rush from the reciprocal effect of serving in the street where the blessing comes back on us and we go home feeling strangely fulfilled.  Guilty again.  To quote Skip Mathews, “I came to fix homelessness and homelessness has fixed me.”  What’s in this for me?  Do I do it expecting my reward in heaven to be greater as though clinging to it as a “dangling promise” as Philip Yancey describes of the Beatitudes?  Possibly.

Is “this” a worship experience?  Yes!  I feel that.  The action is worship of God.  John Piper says: 

“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church.  Worship is.  Missions exists because worship doesn’t.  Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man… Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal of missions.  It’s the goal of missions because in missions we simply aim to bring the nations into the white-hot enjoyment of God’s glory.  The goal of missions is the gladness of the peoples in the greatness of God.”  

If I read John Piper correctly then serving is worship and Wednesday nights feel like a church service to me.  I hate when I miss.  I miss out on worship of God.  Biblically this aligns, as we discover in Matthew 25, Jesus says, His standard for judgment is based on servanthood.  The goats are on one side the sheep are on the other.  The sheep have lived lives where they have served the weak.  I long to know these homeless friends of ours.  I like catching up on their lives.  I adore some of their optimistic spirits in the midst of what I view as total depravity and despair.  I love praying with and for them.  And, I love it when Michael Lewis tells me he is praying for me.  It is pure worship.

Do I do “this” because “this” runs contrary to the world?  Absolutely.  The world wants to fix homelessness.  Do away with it.  Eliminate it.  But how?  Do we institutionalize the whole lot?  The world wants every downtown to be free of the eye sore of homeless people.  So they throw programs, money, laws, assistance, stuff, etc, at the homeless.  Don’t get me wrong, this is a worthwhile venture, it is the goal I have an issue with ultimately.  Homelessness will not be eliminated unless God wants to eliminate it.  Our goal is different.  I just want these men and women to know they matter to someone in the world.  I’m not trying to fix them.  I am trying to show them the grace of God.  A grace I also discover in the action.  A grace given to me for nothing I have done and all that He has done.  I can’t keep that a secret.  It has to be told.  It has to be lived out in action.  Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail, but the true blessing is in the “going”.  I attempt to surrender my agenda each week and trust He will meet me there.  He does.  And, I believe He will continue to do so.  I trust Him. 

I also do this because I sense there must be something more to our faith than just Sunday mornings, bible study and a few programs.  Practicing the presence of the kingdom out there is as real as oxygen, however, often disguised as uncomfortable situations, labor, futility, disturbing stories, etc.  When you breathe in this oxygen you are revitalized and want more of this kingdom type work.  It is an addiction, not for our glory but for His.  We wouldn’t do this apart from Him.  I wouldn’t. 

C.S. Lewis says in, The weight of Glory:

“Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak.  We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.”

Why, then?

Because, my life more resembles making mud pies, but practicing the presence of the kingdom feels like a holiday at the sea. 

-Malcolm