Saturday, May 9
A wrestling with grace…
This is from a mass e-mail from Bart Campolo about the community he’s a part of in Cincinnati…He’s a great writer, and, as always, by telling his story he gets me to ask really tough questions…Here's the link to their community if you're interested... walnut hills fellowship
Dear Friends,
I really like Marlena, but that doesn’t mean she is a good person. She is smart and easy to talk to, but only if you are talking about her stuff. She is attractive and has her hair done every week, but every month she asks to borrow rent money. She loves her kids, but she lies a lot and has taught them to do the same. She’s been through more houses, jobs, men and resolutions than anyone I know, always looking for a better deal. So then, even though she clearly understands and openly embraces what out little fellowship is about, it is easy to wonder how long she’d stay with us if our friendship wasn’t such a bargain.
Lately I find myself wondering about that bargain, about whether the ‘grace’ my friends and I give our neighbors here is anything like the real thing. I mean, on one level offering our love without condition to broken people in a hard place sounds like a righteous thing to do. Moving into this neighborhood to establish genuine friendships across seemingly insurmountable barriers of race, class, and culture sounds more authentic than just dropping in to establish food, clothing, medical care, education, or housing programs.
For someone like Marlena, however, I wonder if our unconditional friendship isn’t just another program after all. When she comes over for a loan or asks Marty or I for a ride to the doctor, we generally treat her the same way we would Ric or Karen next door, who are our ‘real’ friends. It doesn’t feel the same, though, partly because Marlena is in no position to return our favors, and partly because so many of her immediate needs are caused by amoral, ghetto decision-making we would never tolerate in a real friend.
On Monday, for example, she called me sobbing just as I was preparing the game and a little five-minute talk about the value of community for that night’s fellowship dinner. “I just got a call from my son’s baby-mama. The girl he’s living with now stabbed him three times last night! He’s in the hospital there and he might die…oh Bart, I told him to quit that girl! I’m going crazy here!” I began to comfort her like a pastor, but she cut me off. “Can you use your computer to help me and Shonda get plane tickets to Newark tonight? I’ve been calling my family to borrow the money, but nobody seems to care enough to help…but if I come up with it, will you buy them for me?”
Remember, we don’t have a program here, just relationships. Marlena and I are supposed to be friends. So, before I headed to her house, I called my travel agent and put on hold a pair of $170 tickets, leaving three hours later out of Louisville , 100 miles away. On my way over, I called Marty to see what she thought I should do.
“What choice do you have?” she said. “Marlena knows we have that kind of money, and she knows we’d buy those tickets if it was our kid having open heart surgery tonight. If she’s really our friend, we have to help her.” She paused. “Now remind me again why we do this?”
You see the problem, don’t you? I mean, it is no big deal to help a friend when she finds herself in trouble after doing everything right. It’s a whole different thing, however, when your friend has no money because she quit her job after the boss disrespected her, bought a big purebred dog she can’t afford to feed, and drinks more beer in a week than you drink in a year. Or when her own family won’t help her because, well, they’ve all burned each other too many times. Or when the son she’s crying over has two kids by two different women and is freeloading off a third, who probably didn’t stab him for no reason. Or when the daughter she’s taking with her has already told you she doesn’t want or need a man to help raise her own babies when she has them. In other words, when this kind of ghetto drama is bound to just keep on coming.
And yet, help her I did. I bought the tickets with the fellowship’s credit card, not knowing if or when we (meaning you too, if you’re a supporter) will ever get paid back, and I got one of our young single guys to drive Marlena and Sonya down to Louisville, and I knelt on their front steps to pray with them before they left. Now, a few days later, Marlena’s son is just hanging on, and so is my confidence that I really know what I am doing here.
Giving grace? Maybe. But if it is grace at all, it certainly isn’t the same kind that God gives. God, after all, is no sucker. He may make all the goodness in the world available to anyone who wants it, but as far as I can tell, you have to actually want that goodness in order to actualize it. God makes the first move, over and over until you respond, but it takes two to tango. The gift is being shown the way, and being allowed to learn how to dance in good company, so you show up in shape for the party.
I like Marlena, but that doesn’t mean she is a good person. I gave her my friendship, but she hasn’t earned it. Now what?
Sincerely,
Bart
Mark Nelson at 11:08 AM 3comments
3 Comments
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at 11:10 AM
said... I have asked myself on a number of occasions where the line is that we move from grace to becoming part of the problem by enabling the behavior.
I struggle with this because I firmly believe that as Christ Followers, we have a Biblical responsbility to render aid to those in our society regardless of whether they are members of our church or not. I also feel strongly to be a good steward of what God gives me to work with.
I was a part of a church where a particular, rather "eclectic" member took advantage of other members and the church itself. I need gas for a job interview, I need tools for a job that I will quit in a week and then hock the tools with a pawn shop. There was always some "angle" or agenda when the telepone call came. I found myself saying that I was done helping only to be meeting the guy and his wife at the gas station across town at 8:30 at night to pay for gas. Telling myself that "it was the right thing to do" was not always an easy pill to swallow.
I have also seen churches that "hide" behind the stewardship mandate as a reason to help no one outside of their own.
I have yet to find the "right" sign that moves me from grace to tough love/accountability/ behavorial changes. If I am taken advantage of, I much prefer the latter, but I also don't want to seem cold-hearted.
Jeff-
at 5:54 PM
Mrs. Jake said... Mark, this touched a cord. Thanks for posting it.
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at 7:17 PM
Beth said...
Two things come to mind here...
Grace without truth is not really much of an incentive for heart change. Yes, Jesus extended total grace to the woman caught in adultery, but he also said, "Go and sin no more."
The other is the phrase "like a real friend." Does that strike anyone else as an odd comment? Wouldn't you tell your real friends when they are being total schmucks? Wouldn't they expect you to be honest enough with them to be real? She has to know she's not a "real friend." I doubt that any of us would like to be treated like a project...
Beth