Loving People Into The Kingdom
By Tony Campolo
Eastern College, St. David`s PA
Editor`s Note: This message was originally delivered to the North Carolina Baptist Men`s Conference in Charlotte on March 2, 2002.
In Matthew 22, some Pharisees confront Jesus and one of them, a lawyer, tries to embarrass him. I know what that is like to have questions, not for an explanation of ideas, but to embarrass the teacher. I know what that is like because I`m a professor. For ten years at the University of Pennsylvania, students and faculty were always after me because I was the "Resident Christian" in the Sociology Department. I remember, they would always question me at faculty meetings.
I taught in an Ivy League school but I never graduated from one personally. I went to Temple University where the poor guys go and the other school was where the "intellegincia" go. If you graduated from Temple and you teach at Penn they will not let you forget from whence you come!
I can remember being asked by one of my junior colleagues (a Harvard snot) who said, "Doctor, where did you do your graduate studies?" He knew. I would always say to questions like that, "Temple." It was my way of beating him to the draw. You see if I had just said, "Temple," he would have said, "Oh." Then you could always count on the second line. "The word is around the University that you use transcendental categories for legitimizing social order and that in reality, your categorical imperatives are mystically inspired. Is that true?"
I would say, "Yeh." That would be the signal. I would say, "Yeh, I believe in God." When the signal was out, my eight graduates would gather around because they knew that the old man was about to chew up another Harvard boy. (I shouldn`t go too hard on Harvard, because something is going on at that campus. The university, not the chaplains or Baptists or intervarsity group, but the university has invited me the week after Easter to start a series of revival meetings!)
The Pharisees come to Jesus and they are trying to expose him as a shallow teacher, as someone who doesn`t have good answers to the important questions. The scribes and Pharisees had embroidered the laws of Moses, which without comment were quite complicated. If you read through Leviticus and Deuteronomy, everything was evil. You talk back to your mother you could get stoned. They put you to death for everything. If you touched the skin of a dead pig, you got into trouble, which puts the whole super bowl into question!
They took the complicated Law of Moses and made it even more complicated. The whole thing was so sophisticated that even they could not figure it out. So they asked Jesus, "Of all the things that are written by Moses and all the things that are in the Torah and Talmud, please tell us which is the most important of all of them-we want to know."
Jesus answers with such simplicity that they don`t know what to do with his answer. You know what Jesus said: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength and your neighbor as yourself" (Matt 22:37-39). The first commandment is to love God with heart, soul, mind and strength, and the second is like it, for it is the same thing. On these two commandments hang all the law and all the commandments of God. The truth is missions must be motivated out of the love for God and the love for one`s neighbor. That is the motivation. A lot of people are missionaries out of guilt. I have met missionaries on the field and wondered why they were there. There is almost an anger against the very people they are trying to help. Someone laid a guilt trip on them and they thought they had to go. It`s got to be motivated out of love. Love for God and love for neighbor, that`s what we are talking about.
People need to know about God and about God`s love for them. Those who say that missions are unnecessary, just take a look at the world in which we live. You don`t even have to go overseas. In our own communities, the need for people knowing God`s love is crucial. The more you get to know Jesus, the more you come into a personal relationship with him, the more you know that you are loved and that you are valued and that you are of significance.
I worry about this poor woman Yates in Texas who grows up in this evangelical community and they laid such a guilt trip on her that she is walking about saying I am not a good enough mother, I need to be punished. I wonder how much of her psychological mess is biophysical or how much of it was just bad religion. I`ve got to ask that question for there`s a lot of bad religion out there that just lays guilt trips on people.
Freud once said, "The church, in order to convince people to accept the gospel and deliverance from sin, first has to make them feel guilty." The problem is we do a much better job of making people feel guilty than we do of relieving the guilt that we make them feel.
Baptists are particularly good at it. We know how to do it. When I was a kid growing up, it was always on me. Every Sunday I heard that I was a dirty, filthy sinner and that I was going to burn in hell. "Are you ready to die," my pastor would yell at me. I was twelve years old and I didn`t want to die. But here is the good news of the gospel, when you really get to know the Jesus I`m talking about, "There is therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus" (Rom. 8:1). Self contempt is evaporated.
You notice that scripture says you shall love your neighbor as you love yourself. If you hate yourself, your neighbor is in trouble. That doesn`t take much figuring because you know that those who are down on themselves are usually down on everyone else around them. You show me that church member that is always finding fault against everyone and I`ll show you someone who has a negative self-trip. You know that is true. When you are down on yourself, you feel you are rotten and no good and you are a very, very dangerous person
We all become dangerous. I have a pastor-counselor friend who had a woman in the office whose marriage was falling apart. She was lashing out at everyone and as he talked to her in depth, he came to the realization that it all stemmed back to an experience when she was very young-when she was in the fourth grade. She had a teacher that didn`t like her when she misbehaved. One day she did something that was very disturbing. The teacher called her forward to sit in front of the class and said, "Catherine, do you realize that nobody in this class likes you?" What a thing to say to a child in the fourth grade. Nobody likes you! "I`m going to ask everyone in the class to come up and write something on the blackboard that they don`t like about you." One by one the children came up and wrote something they did not like about Catherine. Mean and cruel things. This fourth grade girl sat there convulsed in tears. It ruined her life. The pastor-counselor asked a very simple question, "Did everyone come to the blackboard?" She said, "Yes, everyone did." He said, "Close your eyes. I want you to look at that classroom. There is somebody else there. Way in the back in the corner is Jesus. Catherine, watch. Jesus is getting up. He is coming to the front of the class. He picks up the eraser at the blackboard and he erases all the terrible things that were written there. He picks up the chalk and he writes, `Catherine, you are wonderful and I love you.`"
That`s the good news of the gospel. We`ve got a Jesus who comes and with his precious blood wipes out the past. "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." All of the terrible and ugly things that may or may not be true, they are blotted out. They are buried in the deepest sea. They are remembered no more. When you go to Judgment Day, don`t be afraid. The Scripture says to come into his presence with boldness. That`s how I`m going to come. I`m going to move in there with boldness, man. I walk with boldness. I`m from Philadelphia where you learn to walk bold. That`s why you people get mugged, you don`t know how to walk. You come in here with that North Carolina smile. We kill people like you. I`m going to walk in there boldly and say, "Out of my way angels, out of my way." I am going to stand before the judgment seat and the Scripture says in the book of Jude, "And he shall present you (that`s me) to the Father." I can just hear it. "Father, I would like for you to meet my friend, Tony." (I hope my wife is there).
Missions begins with a personal relationship with Jesus wherein you are redefined. You come to see yourself in a new way. You come to see yourself as one who has incredible worth and value and capable of doing things for God. You think, "Not me, I can`t do anything for God." A friend of mine in a midweek prayer meeting told of a man standing and testifying about a time when he was in Sydney, Australia. He was standing on the corner of King`s Crossing, which is a famous intersection like Time`s Square. Someone pulled on his jacket. He turned around and there was a bum. Before he could say anything the bum said, "Mister, if you were to die tonight, where would you spend eternity?" He walked away. The man giving his testimony said the question so troubled him that he had no peace for three weeks until he gave himself to Jesus. The pastor said that about two years later another man stood up in the midweek prayer meeting and gave almost an identical testimony. "I was in Sidney, Australia near the corner of King`s Crossing and a derelict pulled on my jacket. When I turned around he said, `Mister, if you die tonight, where would spend eternity?` That`s all he said. The question struck my heart, I was so upset and that night when I went to my hotel room, I got down on my knees and I gave my life to Jesus."
My pastor friend was later in Australia attending a meeting of churches in Sydney. The hotel was just down the street from King`s Crossing. He thought just out of curiosity he would go to that corner-maybe that bum was still around. As the pastor was standing there on the corner looking around, someone pulled on his jacket. He said, "Don`t say a word, I know what your are going to say. You are going to ask me if I were to die tonight where would I spend eternity." The derelict said, "Yes, that`s what I was going to ask you. How did you know?" The pastor told about the two men who had come to know Christ because of this. The old man started to cry. "I was an old drunk and I got saved down at the Salvation Army just around the corner. I got saved some eight years ago and I`m not educated. I don`t know how to do much of anything. All I could do was ask this dumb question and for eight years I have stood on this corner day in and day out and to thousands of people I have asked this question. Today is the first day I have had any evidence that it did any good at all."
But that`s not the end of the story. When the word began to get out on this man, people all over Sydney began to pop up saying, "He touched by life too." I don`t know if you were watching television on New Year`s Eve 2000, but they showed the Harbor Bridge in Sydney with the fireworks going off behind it. If you take a good look at that picture you would find a cross in neon lights with one word, "Eternity." The whole city came to honor this man who had died just a few months earlier. A man who touched all kinds of lives because he did the only thing he knew how to do, asking that question.
To love God enough to do God`s will in the world, that`s what a missionary is. And, you`ve got to love people. Let me ask a simple thing. I`m a sociologist by trade, so I`ll take a survey tonight. In terms of how you became a Christian, Why are you in church today? Here are the options.
I read a Christian Book.
I heard a great sermon.
I heard a Christian Radio or TV Show.
Somebody who really loved me kept bringing me to church and made sure that I heard the story and just kept at me until I made my decision for Christ.
There are the options. How many of you are Christians because a book converted you? That really encourages me. Second option: A sermon did it. A few of you.
Other options: I was converted by a radio show or a television show. I mean we are spending all of this money on radio and television shows. Surely there has got to be better results than this!
Now how many of you are in the church and are saved because some person cared about you and loved you into the kingdom? Those people in Nashville are always saying we need a new methodology for missions in this contemporary postmodern era.
I`ve got to tell you, the way you get people won to Christ is the same way they did it 2000 years ago. You have to love them into the kingdom. You have got to care about people. You have got to reach out and minister to them in love. That`s what missions is about-loving people. Loving your neighbor; really loving your neighbor.
I`ve got to tell you, loving your neighbor is of crucial significance. Sometimes you are afraid to love your neighbor. I can remember when I was afraid to love my neighbor. There was a kid in my high school who was gay. The word got out on this homosexual kid. We made hell for him. Those of you parents who have a homosexual son or daughter (and please, in a group this size there are at least 30 or 40 of you), you know what it is like to see your son suffer. A sweet kid, who goes to church; a sweet kid in the youth group who struggles with this; he cries at night begging God to change it and nothing changes. Roger was a gay kid. He was not happy. We made fun of him. On Fridays after gym class, boys went into the shower-but he never went in with us. He went in alone afterwards, and when he came out we were waiting for him with our wet towels and we would whip them after him and sting his little body. I wasn`t there the day they dragged Roger into the small tile shower and shoved him into the corner. Doubled-up, crying and screaming, the guys urinated all over him. He went home, went to bed about 10 p.m., and about 2 a.m. he got up and went to the basement of his house and he hanged himself.
And I knew I wasn`t a Christian. I believed the Bible-I believe as I do now in the inerrancy of the Scriptures. I believed in the doctrines of the Apostle Paul. I believed in all you should believe in to be a Christian. But if Jesus was in my heart and I loved Jesus as I should and I loved my neighbor, I would have been Roger`s friend. But I was afraid to have him as my friend because if you were a friend to someone like Roger it`s not long before people are talking about you. I wish I could go back and relive that time and be his friend. And if in my large inner city high school they made fun of me and said nasty things about me, I know what Jesus would say, "Blessed are you when they revile you and persecute you and say terrible things against you because you love the wrong people."
I don`t know all the church is to be, but I do know what it is supposed to be. It is supposed to be a group of followers of Jesus who love all the wrong people. If there is anything that was true about Jesus, it was that he loved all the wrong people. God sent his Son to us, the ultimate missionary, and they criticized Jesus because of who he loved. Check the Scripture. He loved all the wrong people. The prostitutes, the publicans, the tax collectors, and those who were betraying their own people to the Romans. All those people who were spit upon, cursed, and put down. Those were the people Jesus reached out to. And the religious establishment, those key leaders of denominational Christianity who pass resolutions to have nothing to do with the wrong people. And Jesus says, "I don`t care what they vote on and I don`t care what they say. My love is unconditional." And they rejected him. But sinners loved him. They became followers of Jesus.
It says in 1 Corinthians 1, when you look at Jesus` followers, not many were prosperous, or significant, or rich folks. But rather they were the ones whom the world called nothing. He loved them and he built a movement out of them. Look at the disciples-a bunch of losers. Peter and Andrew, fishermen who didn`t even have a decent set of nets. When Jesus came upon them, what were they doing? Then there is James and John, sons of thunder. What kind of guys in that town earned that sort of name? They probably had leather robes painted with pictures and rode around on camels with racing stripes. And Jesus says, "Come unto me all you that labor and give me the stones which the builders reject and I will build you a kingdom."
If you are going to be a follower of Jesus, you have got to let Jesus love you and redefine you as a person of worth and through you he can go out and love others. That`s what he wants. He wants to love other people through you.
I`m a sociologist by trade. Sociology and Psychology in this country are really quite distorted. They are on the wrong track. Every once in a while, you find a discipline gets caught up in a paradigm and doesn`t know how to get out of it. The paradigm that American Psychology and Sociology is caught up in is the behaviorist model. The neo-Freudians are behaviorists. If you go to the university that is what they will drill into your head. Both of those ideologies suggest that what a person is, is the result of his past. We are all conditioned to be what we are by past experiences. So much of this "pop psychology" students pick up in school, and no one even questions it. We are the result of our past conditioning, we are molded into the persons that we are today because of the events of yesterday.
People, we are not Pavlovian dogs. We are not creatures who are determined by the past. As a matter of fact, human beings have the capacity to be defined by the future. My future is more important than my past. Don`t try to understand me in terms of what I have been, understand me in terms of what I am becoming because, brothers and sisters, it has not yet appeared what I shall be, but I am going to be like him.
And day by day I am becoming like him. It is the future that impacts the present more than any thing in the past. You know this from your experience. How many kids do you know that are flunking out of school, going down the tubes, and all of a sudden they are on the Dean`s list? What happened? You say, "He`s got a purpose now, he has some direction now." Have you ever heard that? Victor Frankl developed the concept of Logotherapy. In his book Man`s Quest for Meaning, this Jewish guy in the concentration camp at Auschwitz figures out that he can use the time effectively by doing a study. He studied which of the prisoners survive and which don`t survive. Which of the people make it despite the suffering and which die. As he studies the backgrounds of the various people he interviews, he finds there are no social-psychological differences that are notable that differentiate those who survive and those who die. But this is where he finds the difference. Those who survive are able to project themselves into the future and what they dream about and what they envision is what saves them from destruction in the present. That is the basis of his study.
That`s exactly the point. When I do mission work, when I work with inter city kids, I would give up if I really believed that they were products of the past. I work with kids that armies have marched over. I work with girls who were raped by their brothers and mauled by the guys on the street. I deal with kids who have no parents to speak of and who live in an environment of drugs and promiscuity. If the past defines who they are then these kids are lost. But I can say to any kid that I talk to, I do not care as much about where you have come from-it is important and it does influence you-but I am more concerned about where you are going.
Here is what the Bible says, "And when the young no longer have dreams and the old no longer have visions, people perish." I spend most of my time on university campuses. Sometimes it upsets me because as I talk with the children, your children, they have no dreams-they have no visions. Let me tell what you have told them. You told them to be happy. "Mom, what do you think I ought to be?" I ask any father, any mother. Every mother in America answers the same way. "I really don`t care as long as he is happy." It kind of makes you puke, doesn`t it?
My family is Italian-immigrants! You say what has that got to do with it? My father really didn`t care whether I was happy. I would come down in the morning. Pow! "What is that for?" What my mother and father built into my heart was vision. My mother told me, "When you were born, I took you like Hanna did to the church and I dedicated you to the service of Jesus. You think you can be anything you want-you can`t. You were brought into this world to serve other people in the name of Jesus, especially the poor and the oppressed. Do you understand?"
People ask me, "Tell us about your call to the ministry."
I never was called. My mother decided!
The best thing she ever did for me was to give me a vision, to give me a dream to make me see that my life could count for something significant. But when I meet your kids, they tell me: "I want to be happy." Happy? Have you ever seen a more unhappy group of people?
I was in an elevator in Chicago a few months ago. I was up in my room at 10 o`clock. I realized I was supposed to be down on the ground floor in the ballroom delivering a lecture to corporate executives. I ran to the elevator. I was so upset for I was really late. The only other person on the elevator is this kid. I don`t know whether he has on long pants or short pants. You know what I mean? He is just kind of standing there. We get down to the ground and the stinking door does not open. I`m banging on the elevator door. I`m yelling, "Open up, open up out there." All of a sudden the voice behind me says, "Sir the door is open." I turned and the door on the other side was opened. It was one of those elevators with doors on both sides. I am over here banging on the wrong door. This kid did not laugh. This kid did not laugh. I took him by the shoulders and said, "Kid, laugh, this is funny!"
I meet your kids coming out of high school and I ask them, "What are you going to do when you grow up?" "I don`t know." If a kid has no goals, no purpose, no directions, what do you do with him? You send him to college. Four years later you are $80,000 poorer and you ask the kid the same question, "You are a graduate now, what are you going to do? What are you going to be?" What does he say, "I`m keeping all of my options open."
And the Bible says, "When the young no longer have dreams and the old no longer have visions, the people perish." I was a guest lecturer at UCLA and I was half-way through the morning and the discussion had started and I could just sense what these kids were about. About money! About where they were going to make money-yadda yadda. At a particular point I said, "You know, you are 23 years old and I`m 66 years old, and you know what? I`m younger than you are because people are as young as their dreams and as old as their cynicism. You guys at 23 are cynical. You are only interested in money." You say, "Show me the money."
You parents let your kids get away with this. You say, "You can`t tell your kids what to do." Of course you can. "They will rebel!" Of course they will. Your job is to carefully define for them what they are to rebel against. There will be a synthesis. There will be commitments and then individuality. Then will come your values and commitments. The tension between the two will emerge into a synthesis that will bring together the best elements of both, and that`s what every parent wants.
You don`t want your child to be a clone of you, but you don`t want your kid to do his own thing either. You have to have a sense of mission and vision. That`s what the gospel is about. It`s about vision. It`s all about the future.
Many of us have reduced faith to a theology. "Do you have faith?" "Yes, I believe in the Apostle`s Creed." That`s not faith, that`s theology. Hebrews 11:12 says, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." When was the last time you said "in the name of Jesus?" You`ve got to bring Jesus into this, kid. What is the future Jesus wills for you? What do you think Jesus wants you to do? What do you think Jesus wants you to accomplish in life? I know what he wants. There is a project!
Martin Heideger says every young person needs a project. A project that is so significant that if he dies trying to realize that project, his life will have meaning. I know what the project is. The project is to create the kingdom of God. That`s what it is. The kingdom of God. When Jesus taught us to pray, he said, "Thy kingdom come thy will be done." Where? No parting of the sky when you die by and by. Don`t let those neo-marxists say that Christianity is about deferred gratification. It`s not! It`s about the realization of God`s will on earth as it is in heaven.
You say, "Are you one of those postmillennialists that believes we can bring in the kingdom without Christ`s return?" Of course not. Jesus has got to return for the whole thing to happen in its fullness. When is that going to happen? Well, I don`t know. For that matter, Jesus didn`t know. You are going to have to ask a Baptist evangelist for that one!
I believe in Philippians 1:6, "That he who began the good work in you, (you got it?). . . he who began the good work in you will complete it upon the day of his coming."
If you had talked to the French Underground during WWII, and asked, "What are you trying to do?" They would say, "Defeat the Nazis." "They say you are a ragtime army-a few hand grenades, a few machine guns. You can`t take on the Nazi Army and win." You know what they would have told you? "Across the English Channel there is a huge invasion force gathering. We don`t know when they are going to give the signal, but in the moment that the Nazis couldn`t possibly expect, they are going to sweep across the English Channel and invade. They are going to join up with us and carry us to victory."
And you know what? When they ask me, "Do you really think that the church of Jesus Christ is able to transform the world-that is, change it into the world that ought to be, into the kingdom of God? Why, you are just a ragtime army-you don`t amount to much." I say, "There is a huge invasion force being gathered beyond the sky and I don`t know when they are going to sound that trumpet but they are going to come and join us and carry us to victory!"
For the young intellectual sophisticates that are here, the sophomores in college, you are undoubtedly reading T.S. Elliott. Of course he`s heavy. Everyone reads The Wasteland in their sophomore year and they all memorize one couplet:
This is the way the world will end
This is the way the world will end
Not with a bang, but with a whimper.
That is depressing. But I`ve got great news.
This is the way the world will end
This is the way the world will end
Kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our God.
And he shall reign forever and forever.
Let me tell you about some kingdom builders I know. A friend of mine called me about 25 years ago. He said, "I`m putting together a board of directors. I want you on it because you are good at raising money." I said, "What are you going to do?" He said, "We are going to build houses for poor people." I replied, "That`s great because sub-standard housing is one of the plagues of our country." He said, "Yea, we are going to build houses for poor people. Here`s the deal-no down payment. Secondly, they will have long term mortgages with no interest." I said, "That`s great except for one problem. Who is going to build the houses?" The reply came, "We are not even going to charge them for the land, we are just going to charge them for building materials."
"Fine. You charge them for building materials, no down payment, long term mortgages, and no interest on the mortgages? You are not going to have enough money to pay the workers."
He said, "We are going to get church people to volunteer."
Right!
Twenty-five years later, Habitat for Humanity has completed 100,000 houses. And get this. In the next five years, they will complete the next 100,000. And they are doing it without government money. Incidentally, don`t let yourself get sucked into all this faith-based stuff that they are talking about. I mean if you put government together with church programs, it is like mixing ice cream with horse manure. That`s right! It`s not going to hurt the manure, but it is going to raise havoc with the ice cream.
Some say, "Can`t you just separate the evangelical thrust from the social action?" I`ve got news for you, all of my social action is evangelical! I don`t think you can separate the two. That`s what`s wrong with the church. We have been separating evangelism from social action and now we are going to make it a doctrine of the church with the help of the U.S. government-for what?
We will sell our soul for a bowl of pottage. When will you realize that the reason why faith-based programs work is because they are faith-based! And if you separate the faith from the rest of the program, it will go down the tubes. You say, "But there is so much money in the government." Listen, there is so much money in church we don`t need their lousy money. We really don`t. Too many people are reasoning, "If the government does it, I won`t have to."
I contend that the reason to give is because it changes the giver. Why do you think Jesus said to the rich young ruler, "Sell whatsoever you have and give to the poor." Why do you think he said that? "Sell what you have and give to the poor and take up the cross and follow me." Does he say it just because the poor need help? And the poor do need help! No, he says it because he knows what will happen to the rich young ruler as he sells everything he has and helps the poor.
Responding to the needs of the poor is a socially transforming experience. It`s a psychologically transforming experience. And most importantly, it is a spiritually transforming experience.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer says, "When Jesus calls you, he calls you to come and die." And Jesus is looking for a group of people who will surrender all that they are and all that they have.
Soren Kirkegard tells a delightful story of a fireman. Everybody in town loves the fireman because he was a kind and a gentle man. One day he got on the fire truck with the other firemen and headed to the blazing inferno-a building being consumed in flames. The fireman saw about five-hundred townspeople there with little water pistols in their hands. Smiling at one another, they were going "squirt-squirt, squirt-squirt."
The fireman asked the people what they were doing. They replied, "We all believe in what you are doing and we each came to make our little contribution-squirt-squirt."
The fireman shouted, "Get out of here. This is no place for well-meaning people who want to make a contribution, this is a place for people who are ready to die to put out the flame."
When Jesus calls us, the commitments are deeper, far deeper than we have been ready to admit. We need to give ourselves for the work of the kingdom. We need to bring ourselves, our time, our energy, and our money. And those who do not go need to be supported by those who stay behind. But our commitment to missions needs to increase dramatically.
Another kingdom builder is a guy I know by the name of Al Whitaker. Came down one morning for breakfast. He has been the Director of the Mennan Corporation-the CEO. His wife looked across the table and said, "Al, is this what you want to do the rest of your life? Do you want to spend the rest of your life making shaving cream? Do you really want to spend the rest of your life making rich people richer?"
When he was having supper that night, he mentioned to his wife, "That question you asked this morning was so disturbing that you should know, when I left the office today, I handed in my resignation." That slowed her down. Whitaker set up an organization called Opportunity International. One of the reasons I teach at Eastern University rather that the University of Pennsylvania is they let us set up a special graduate program to train men and women to go as missionaries to Third World countries to start small businesses and cottage industries that people can own themselves. If we are really going to create an indigenous church, then we have got to create an indigenous form of financial support for the church. We have to help the poor as they are starving to death; but my goodness, it doesn`t solve the problem. You have to create jobs.
The Talmud says there are several ways of helping the poor. One way is to create jobs. Sounds like the old WPA. Good system. We need to rebuild America`s highways, we need to rebuild America`s schools. There are three million people who have lost their jobs since September 11. Let`s create jobs for them.
Another way of helping the poor is to give them what they need, but never let them know where it came from. That`s why I am very upset with Baptist youth groups that deliver food baskets and toys at Christmas to poor families and stand around and sing Christmas carols. Please, I want them to deliver the toys and the food. I just don`t want them to hang around. Leave the stuff on the back steps, run away, call the people on the phone and tell them, "There is stuff on the back steps. It`s for you! This is God." And hang up.
The Bible says that the God who sees what you do in secret will reward you openly. When you do your giving, your left hand is not supposed to know what your right hand is doing. You respond to people out of love. The lowest form of charity is to give people what they need and then rub their noses in it. This is why the welfare system failed so miserably. We gave people what they needed, but we take away their dignity. And when you take that away you have taken away more than you have given.
So at Eastern we started graduating students in the special MBA program. We have an MBA and MA program that trains people to do community development that gets people together to start small businesses and cottage industries that they can own themselves. The first business was a sandal factory. The sandals were made from worn out tires-very easy to do. Simple tools, simple operation. We did so well, we were selling them on the world market. We gave the children of Guatapechi in the Dominican Republic fifty-cents every time they would bring us an old automobile tire. It wasn`t long before we had used every old automobile tire in Santa Domingo.
Then we started getting "new" automobile tires. So we had to change our modus operandi a little. We have been directing young men and women into Opportunities International, the organization started by Al Whitaker. Our college has this MBA and MA program specifically for this reason. In ten years, Opportunities International has created 1,500,000 jobs for poor people in Third World countries. If you figure there are six to a family in a Third World country, you have to multiply 2,500,000 by 6 to figure out how many people are delivered from poverty, not for a day, not for a week, not for a year, but for the rest of their lives. This is the kingdom of God breaking loose into human history. People having jobs. People having homes. People having hope. People having a future. That`s what it is about.
You say, "But this is so concrete, isn`t the kingdom of God more spiritual?" No, for Isaiah 65:17 says, "This shall be the kingdom. Everyone will have a house to live in. A decent house that he himself participates in building. Everyone will have a job and will have the fruits of his own labors. Everybody will be healthy and children will not die in infancy. Old people will live their lives with perfect health coverage. It is the kingdom of God." And it is not going to be actualized in its fullness until Jesus comes again. But between now and then, the one who is beginning the good work in us will complete it on the day of his coming.
Salvation for me is the transformation of the individual. Salvation for me is the changing of relationships so that you stand up for the poor and oppressed and the down trodden, to be a voice for those who have no voice. The kingdom of God is creating the new society that God willed when he created this planet in the first place.
It is the future
