A while back I met with a couple of pastor friends from other downtown area churches. We meet regularly to talk and pray. One of them asked me “So, how do the elderly like having the homeless in their church service”?“Actually they don’t mind a bit,” I answered. “Everyone knows that the only reason our denomination is willing to fund us and keep our ministry going is because of our work with the poor.” “So, in an odd twist” he laughingly answered, “those little old ladies have to be thankful that homeless alcoholics and addicts have saved their church?!”
“Well, now that you put it that way—you’re right.” I mused. “I guess that would really only happen in some kind of odd parallel universe.” We both laughed.
I got to thinking about that funny insight and suddenly decided that I must be living in a parallel universe where the normal rules of social life no longer apply. Our board had come to the conclusion in December that we couldn’t financially survive past March 31. We made plans to begin the process of closing the church and dispersing come April of this year. Early talks with denominational leaders had them advising us to close. So, I submitted a plan for closure to them in early February. BUT a homeless person who loves our church and it’s ministry gave us $10,000 to keep going. Only in a parallel universe would the financial answers to a church’s crisis come from a homeless person. As a result, we could go to June. In March, with Superintendent Mark Novak’s help the denomination decided to help fund us instead. It was mostly due to our work with the poor and our signs of church growth. What church board meeting would decide that it’s answer to financial crisis and numerical decline would be to invite in homeless alcoholics and addicts? Not in our universe!
We cleaned out the church in late May and dumped 60 years worth of accumulated stuff, totaling 2-1/2 tons! I heard some of the many homeless people helping us comment, “Why can’t they clean up after themselves? Why do these church people have to be so messy?” I thought that was another parallel universe moment!
I’m finding new financial aid and having the best evangelism moments I’ve had in years, inviting others to our church by singing in the wine bar across the street. The Wine Bar helping our church grow. Mmmmm.
I recently met with a group of agency leaders who do non-profit work among the poor. I attend a lot of these kinds of meetings since I’m on the Leadership Team of the Homeless Coalition.One of the ladies on the board with me is an extremely liberal democrat-type who supports the aggressive antiwar, pro-marijuana work of the Peace and Justice Action League. She also has connections with the gay community and is very proud of her liberal position. She’s still stunned that she is actually friends with a conservative pastor of an Evangelical Church. She insists on calling me Pastor Rob rather than just Rob, because she likes to blow her friends and family away with the knowledge that we’re friends who work well together. Just to be shocking with them, she will begin a sentence with “Pastor Rob says - “.
I had been invited to this symposium because she highly recommended me. I listened while she told the other members about her recent experiences. “You know how the underprivileged clients come in to our offices very skeptical and cynical of the help we social workers offer?” she began as the group affirmed. “Well all I have to do is ask them if they’ve been to First Covenant Church and when they say ‘yes’, I tell them that I’m friends with Pastor Rob and immediately all of their guard drops and they trust me.” she laughed. It is in a parallel universe where a liberal democrat social worker has to name drop a conservative Christian to get in good graces with the poor. It must be in that same universe that the Christian and the social worker are genuine friends.
Peter addressed his first epistle to Christians who are “Strangers scattered throughout the world”. He meant foreigners, aliens, sojourners, who don’t really belong here but are only temporary visitors whose home is somewhere else. In the book of Hebrews chapter 11 the writer says this of Abraham; “By faith he made his home in the promised land, like a stranger in a foreign country; . . . . For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.. . . And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. . . .they were longing for a better country--a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.” I suppose if we belong to another reality, a heavenly realm, if our true dwelling is in God’s house, then many of the rules and expectations of how the world actually works come from a parallel universe—a heavenly one. Living in a parallel universe should be the norm for all Christians. But it’s still hard to get used to.
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