Life has Value

There are some people who like to provoke conversation. Peter Singer; who I rarely agree with in either his logic or his conclusions, has a knack for provoking conversation challenging his readers to bring out their best arguments to refute his writing. It's interesting to note that Singer doesn't always agree with the most extreme conclusions of his logic; but he does raise troubling questions for us as a culture.
Singer's most recent commentary in the New York Times called, "Should This Be the Last Generation" is a challenge to believers and humanists alike to see and name value in life. Singer's basic question, "Is life worth living?" invites two distinct response

1. Theological responses like comments on a discussion site frequented by Lutheran Pastors look to God as both the source and purpose of life.
2. Atheistic responses like those found in responses to Singer's article on n the Times website speaks of the chilling emptiness known in a life without God.

Singer's question is a worthy opening for us to bring both love and logic to our conversations about value, life, the environment, ethics, medicine and every other human endeavor. Meeting someone like Singer with logical arguments is good; but it's inadequate to the real task at hand for the church in our age. We have something better than logic; God's love made known to us in the person of Jesus crucified and risen.

Intesity and Faith

I came upon a great post at Law and Gospel that answered a tough question from Dave at Here I Stand

Law and Gospel's story comes from her work as a Chaplain in an ER. She wrote about watching a doctor slowly interact with a family. She wonders why the doctor seemed so slow in coming to speak to the family and ask any questions about what had happened. Was it the racial and cultural barriers that needed to be overcome. Or was it something else; another barrier.

the story got me thinking about the barriers I and others build up as emotional defenses. The past couple weeks have taught me again that intensity is a real part of any life and death situation. People are raw. They don't know what's coming next for the person they love or what to do with themselves. The old question, "Why God" bubbles up deep inside and we have no good answer to offer beyond an answer of faith and trust.

Tonight an ICU doctor came by church for the visitation of a member who died after a week in his care. He sought me out after meeting with the widow and his parents to express his condolences. I'd watched him do everything possible to keep this man alive, and it wasn't enough. He said it was just right to be there after a week of working hoping to keep him alive knowing and telling his family all the long that it "didn't look promising."

I've seen good people build barriers around themselves. I judge they push away people in hard situations in order (unconsciously or consciously) to push off some of the deep emotions that they might otherwise encounter in other people or in themselves.

What do you think?

On the Road home from Alexandria

This was first written in pen on paper in the back seat of Larry's car riding home this afternoon down I94.

3 people, a woman in her 80's, a man in his 50's, and me (in my 30's) headed together to a regional hunger retreat at a church camp up north this week. I was one of the younger, though not the very youngest participants who came along for the weekend. I came because of a hand addressed post-card I received from a retired pastor in Northfield. It wasn't to me personally but to the church and it was enough (that it was hand-written) to really get my attention.

Most of the presenters were professionals who raise funds, organize projects, and encourage people to speak up for the needs of the poor. These professional advocates come from what one of my car mates called an alphabet soup of church and para church groups who seek to serve those in need: Bread for the World, LWR, ELCA World Hunger, LCPCM, CWS, etc. They are all well known at church gatherings coming to visit each year and tell there stories and ask for support searching for ways to link the church, found always in the congregation, with the church found beyond our local congregations.

The bulk of the crowd was older and clearly politically informed and engaged in a variety of places on the left side of the spectrum. Many have been involved in hunger and poverty related issues for years. My 3 years working with a community food shelf is small compared to the years a few 80 something farmers have spent the last 30 years trying to figure out how to give from their abundance to the worlds very poorest. The professionals had pitches to make; but these guys had a common dream, that God could use there abundance to transform the world. The professionals and agencies can and do offer much globally, but the power of farmers learning to care for neighbors half the world away is to great to overlook.

There was (as can be expected at Lutheran gatherings) lots of coffee, bars, food, conversation, along with a multi hour bible study, devotions, communion, and presentations on a few new subjects as diverse as sustainable agriculture and work that LWR (Lutheran World Relief) is doing in areas hit by the tsunami in Indonesia a little over 3 years ago.

All of the presenters offered collectively (though maybe not intentionally) a different perspective on reality than what is presented in the conventional consumption/marketing driven media that shapes so many of our values and perceptions. Much of what was said, if not all, is what I've heard before from people convinced that hunger in our age is a result of human action or inaction not just natural circumstances. Statistics like, 1 in 6 people in the world live on less than $1 a day are real; they just don't make the cover of Time or Newsweek. Our culture is told more about starlets and their personal problems than the real problems of the hungry and poor. These issues are not new, and sadly neither is the audience who came. Most were repeating a journey they'd made before to talk about justice, poverty, hunger, and the best ways that Lutherans can respond in Jesus name to these situations.
On the way back we stopped at St. John's Abbey in Collegville, MN
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He just wanted someone to talk to...

This is a long story, but I've been thinking about this all afternoon and evening.

A few months ago Eric at Heart of a Pastor wrote some about the challenges of strangers calling on churches and pastors for help.

We got such a call at church today. Our office manager took the call just before noon. A man told her he just wanted somebody to talk to, a pastor or a lay-minister. He was calling from a breakfast and lunch place on mainstreet.

I serve as Pastor in a town of just under 6,000. We're not far from the Mayo Clinic and a substantial number of transients pass through on their way to and from the bigger towns in the middle-west. We don't give out cash to anybody. We help, at the pastors' discretion, with bills for local folks in trouble once a year (occasionally twice but it is my discretion) and we have one member who gives out an apartment to people in need. Its full right now (it has been full for all but 9 days sense he started giving it to people we find in need of a place to live). We help transients once a year paying for a motel room, bus ticket, or car repair. We keep records of who we help, photo copies of their ID's and of bills we pay. We host the local food shelf and many people know they can call us for help once a year.

I asked the man a few questions over the phone: his name, "Charlie" where he was, "a cafe" how he got there, "a ride." If he had any transportation. "No," he said. Knowing that the restaurant would be busy at noon I decided to go and meet this stranger having coffee. I bundled up; it was in the single digits above zero when I got there. I went in carrying 4 things: a Bible, note pad, pen, and release of information form (a social worker in the congregation helped me draft a few years ago so I could work with social workers and agencies in the area whenever people needed help).

A man, who looked about 50, was there with a pack, wide brim hat and white coat sitting beside him at a table looking toward the front door drinking coffee and sugar (there must have been 10 empty packets on the table.) I sat down across from him and the waitress brought me a cup. He pointed to the Bible. He said he carried three bibles in his pack. He was just flipping. He said was looking for something in James. I helped him flip to the right section. He pointed to James 2:14 "What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?" (NIV) I made reference to the verses after,

"Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. 16If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? 17In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

Charlie wasn't much interested in the other verses. Just the verse about faith without works being dead. I listened. His story's tough. He said people laugh at him and don't have a clue about his pain. "If they just know my pain." He'd come to Minnesota to go to Mayo to get help. He talked about hospitals in Florida, Georgia, and on and on. He complained because other hospitals had given him a morphine shot; but the folks in Rochester gave him nothing besides dye for a scan. He has no money and no insurance. Now he was on his way on the road again. He talked about a wife dying, a girl-friend dying, and now his own cancer and liver "about to explode." He showed me a Florida ID it was a younger him. It said he was born in 1969. He's only 38.

The story went on for an hour. He looked me in the eye and I took notes as we talked. He said nobody wants to help him especially church people. I said most of us have been swindled, hustled, and lied to, he went back to James. I told him we give out no cash. He complained that I ought to give to a brother and not hold his hand. He complained about shelters. He refused to go back to one after a naked man straddled his cot in the middle of the night. He went back to James. I told him we help people once a year. I asked him about a room for the night and a bus ticket for the morning. He wanted only cash. I told him no.

He turned away from me and motioned for me to go. He quoted James 2:14 again. I've met some emotionally manipulative people in 10 years in ministry. He was skilled. I didn't get up. I told him I don't give away any cash. "We only give to help when we get a receipt." He pointed to his coffee cup and asked me what I saw. I told him, "an empty cup." That wasn't his point. He said he wasn't a drunk or a drugy. I offered to pay his tab at the restaurant. He got up to tell the waitress not to let anybody pay his tab. I stayed seated. He asked me to look him in the eye. I told him again, "We don't give without getting a receipt." I have to be accountable to my brothers and sisters in my congregation. "Look at my face. This is your receipt for up above when I freeze." I told him my offer was there. I stayed seated. Charlie got up to go outside for a smoke. I said hi to our council vice president and his wife in the next room. Charlie came back in. I told him my offer was still there. A room for tonight and a ticket for the morning. But he wouldn't look at me. I left.

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A few years ago a neighboring church hosted an African Pastor for a month. He wanted to see my hometown, Minneapolis. His host, myself, and our African brother went to Minneapolis. We went to a place open for the homeless to go during the day. Our guest talked about the demonic presence he felt there. He said that there were demonic spirits at work and that the demons needed to be called out. I felt something there before he said it. I had the same feeling today sitting with Charlie about half an hour into our visit. I went home and prayed the Lord's prayer with my bride wanting God's will to be done. I told this story to a wise member. She reminded me that the Devil uses only one verse of scripture at a time and always forgetting the whole context.

Please pray for Charlie and me too, thanks.