Christmas Devotion - Day 2
To kick off the Christmas Season, The Field's Edge is creating a storyboard about serving those that experience homelessness. We asked ten Midlanders to write a short devotional about their personal experiences which we will post each weekday through Christmas. Today's devotional is written by Dr. Raymond Morehouse who is devoted to full-time ministry amongst the homeless population in Redlands, California.
Dr. Morehouse spoke at The Field's Edge luncheon on December 12, 2019.
Day 2 by Dr. Raymond Morehouse
In Luke 12:16–21 Jesus tells it like it is. God calls a rich man a fool for all the wrong reasons. He’s rich because he’s business savvy. His land is so productive that he has a storage problem. His success is quantifiable (lots of crops, lots of goods!), and so is the solution (bigger barns!) His plan makes perfect sense: Store up in quantity so that the future will be secure, and the present full of ease and pleasure. Count what’s on the surface and he has a sure-fire plan.
There’s one big problem, though: his story is almost at an end.
Behind the scenes, under surface, we learn that he doesn’t even have one day left. The rich man’s tragedy is that he sought a secure future and a pleasant present by and through his accumulation, and he was not mindful of the ledgers being kept behind the scenes. Quantifiable success can’t make up for the fact that he’s got no stake in eternity. Riches on earth don’t necessarily translate into riches towards God. As Jesus warns, “A man’s life does not consist of his riches, even if he has abundance.”
What does this mean for our work with the homeless? We can’t be like the rich man, caught by the stuff we can count. I had to learn the hard way that the “homeless issue” can’t be “solved” with mere material solutions: more and more stuff. In the first year of my ministry I helped give away tens of thousands of dollars in clothes, backpacks, food, and blankets. I realized that this approach wasn’t just unhelpful, it was something I had to repent of because this approach, from the Jesus-perspective, does double damage.
First, because my service ended with the transfer of stuff I never had to go the distance to the real heart of matter. All I needed to see was the dingy clothes and dirty hands. The stereotype wasn’t a person I had to come to know. I don’t have to know you or let you know me to hand you a bag of things. If the “homeless” are a set of quantifiable problems then they are an equation that can be “solved.” They aren’t very human.
Second, I had to repent of preaching the false gospel of the foolish rich man: the “good news” that life is made secure and pleasant merely by the presence of productive fields and more barns. A lot of approaches to poverty teach the homeless and ourselves that the more stuff we have the closer we get to a life worth living. We teach the world that Jesus is wrong: Abundance of belongings is the “abundant life,” and your life does consist of the things that you have.
So what’s the alternative?
“But seek His Kingdom, and these things will be added to you.” (Luke 12.25)
Father, during this season of giving, may your people seek first your kingdom. We pray for the success of ministries like The Field’s Edge that are embodying the reality of the Kingdom in lives of those that desperately need to know your love, that is, in the lives of all of us. Give us the courage to give courageously. Even more, give us the courage to welcome others into the joyful community of our homes and churches.