Why I'm a Terrible Person

I was listening to Steve Taylor’s “Jesus is for Losers” yesterday. It was part of a mix CD I had made a couple of years ago to sort of describe where I was at with Jesus at the time. For those who haven’t heard it, it’s a great song.

If I was driven ahead by some noble idea, who took the wheel?
If I was given a glimpse of some glorious road, when was it sold?
So caught up in the chase
I keep forgetting my place

It reminded me of a lot of grandly delusional ideas I had had a couple of years back regarding my “involvement” with “the poor” (just using that phrase now seems so condescending and trite). Jimmy and I both had reason to believe that a lot of road signs were pointing us in the direction of making some tutoring program or something for kids up in north Tulsa (for those who don’t live in Tulsa, the north is where we geographically relegate the lower socio-economic levels so that we aren’t bothered by them). We seemed to be hooking up with all the right people. We were seemingly surrounded by people who had all the same passions as we did.

It ended almost as quickly as it began. Bang. All doors slammed shut. Jimmy and Stephen look around… stare down a long narrow hall. At least, this is how I felt. I can't speak for Jimmy. But it does seem really weird now, especially seeing it in writing.

When I think about what I can be doing right now… how I would live my life right now if I took seriously Christ’s command to not worry about tomorrow… it’s totally different than this. I think it involves a lot more focus on my wife and daughter, as well as the other people who I come into contact with every day, than it does on bringing about some stupendous program that is going to save a bunch of kids.

And then I start to really get scared. I start to wonder if our society can even avoid judgment. We have so built ourselves into a quandary of a situation that well-meaning people now have to choose between loving those around them and fulfilling God’s desires about taking care of the poor. We have so thoroughly shoved them out of our every-day consciousness, with perhaps the exception of writing a check or going to a charity event, that for many people it is extremely difficult to treat “the poor” as anything but a project to be worked on. Charities and programs are necessary now to have that kind of contact, and that’s pathetic. I can’t have a relationship with people who I’m not around, and the fact is that I simply don’t have time in my life to be around “the poor”. I’m too busy trying to cram the significance of historical events and ideas into the heads of generally resistant adolescents (thank you, Lord, for blessing me with some students who want to learn or I might have gone mad). I want to be a good father and husband, and that requires time.

All of this sounds so horrible as I write it. I make my students out to be obligations, not people with value to God. And “I don’t have time for the poor”? I’m a truly terrible person, and the only reason I’m worth anything at all is Christ.

So I’m not asking for people’s comments about how they’ve made it work. I’m telling you where I’m at. If there is a balance to be struck, I haven’t found it yet, and sometimes I wonder if there is a balance to be found in this jacked-up, self-indulgent culture I’ve bought into.

posted by Stephen at 8:36 PM | |