Our church parsonage had remained vacant after our lead pastor had bought a new home. The living room was gifted to the youth group so we filled it with the most expensive bean bag chairs we could slip past the budget and finance committee. I sat in the corner in what could only be described as the most comfortable rocking chair that has ever been assembled. Solid oak, but seated with a cushion that must have been filled with decommissioned angels wings. Each Wednesday, we met in that living room for Bible study, surrounded by open windows to our sides that allowed us to see the sunset during our 6:00-7:00 study time and a high arching ceiling over our heads that allowed for some wonderful acoustics as we debated the most important biblical topics of the day, such as which teacher at school gave the hardest tests.
We were studying the book of Matthew. We had made our way to the infamous parable of the sheep and the goats. As we read the text from the page, I looked up to see some blank stares. Maybe my very Baptist youth group had never read this passage verbatim. Or maybe they had just reached the age where you begin to realize the weight of certain passages. Or maybe the Holy Spirit just chose this moment to speak so some hearts. I’m not sure. But the question rang out around the room and the acoustics from that high ceiling did their job like a pro.
“So where are we supposed to find the least of these? Because if Jesus is saying serving them is what separates the sheep from the goats, I think we better be looking for them.”
We debated and all said we would take a week to think about it and pray about it. Like good Christians do.
The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats can do some damage. Actually, the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats SHOULD do some damage. We tend to spend our time in church settings worried about things that WE worry about. Things like the color of the carpet, the exact temperature the thermostat should be set on, or which songs to sing. These topics dominate many conversations in church and yet Jesus never once discussed any of them. Sure, any talk of carpet, air conditioners, and whether or not Sunday morning worship should contain a laser light show would have really perplexed his listeners. But we get caught up on the wrong things. When was the last time we visited a prisoner? Maybe the last person to visit a prison in order to share hope should get to pick the thermostat setting.
This parable was heavy on my heart the following week, whether or not I wanted it to be. And I could not help but feel like we were doing things all wrong. And that church had become something it was never meant to become.
That following Sunday, a friend I had been inviting to church for some time happened to finally visit. He enjoyed his time during the service, but not being raised in church, he had some questions.
“So you all get together on Sunday mornings, sing songs, and study the Bible. That’s cool. What else do you do?”
“Well you can come back on Sunday Night. We get into small groups and study the Bible. And don’t forget Wednesday nights when we eat and then study the Bible. And if you get up early enough, you could come to Sunday school before the service starts. Where we also study the Bible.”
“You all do a whole lot of studying. Do you ever make time to do any of the stuff you study about?”
Well. I guess when we were studying James and he told us to be doers of the word, it was brought up but then I think we got sidetracked on how funny the word ‘doers’ looks when it’s typed out. Maybe we should revisit that text.
After our study of Matthew 25 being followed up by my friends’ honest but brutal question, I decided it was time to mix things up. A housing project was located less than a mile from our campus. And I made the executive decision that we would go knocking door-to-door on Wednesday night. We wouldn’t invite people to church. We would not try to lead them down the Romans Road to salvation. We would simply offer them prayer. Whatever it was they had going on. Doctors appointments, arguments with family members, financial hardships. Didn’t matter. We would stand in the doorway and pray with them.
I announced this from the pulpit the following week and encouraged adults to come with us. This particular housing project has a certain reputation in the community and I did not want to be the only adult present in the midst of the drug deals that I was sure would go down.
As Wednesday approached, I began to feel more and more uncomfortable with the plan I had made. No other adults took my invitation to come. And this place was dangerous. Rural Kentuckians have a fun hobby where they sit and listen to the police scanner and 99% of the calls that come across the scanner deal with this neighborhood. And I’ve just told this group of teenagers we were going to March through it and knock on every door. Bad idea on my part. So I decided to make this a one time visit and we would be back in the parsonage having our Bible study in no time. I would be back in the oak rocking chair. The air conditioner would be blasting and we could pray for everyone’s pets as usual.
Wednesday finally came and, on my commute to church, I began thinking of reasons to get out of this visitation plan. First of all, it’s not like I can offer any real help anyway. If someone wants to pray about their health, I’m not a doctor. If someone needs financial help, I’m not wealthy enough to have the means to help them. What was the point of this anyway? And the danger! Oh the danger. What if one of these kids gets offered drugs and becomes an addict all because their youth leader wanted to try something different? What if a shooting breaks out over a drug deal gone wrong and I have a group of kids there and we get caught in the cross fire? It’s time to call this off.
All I could think about was my rocking chair. The cushion that had been delivered from heaven. The ceiling fan of the parsonage on full blast, drying out my contact lenses and shaking the ceiling, like an Apache helicopter was landing in the room. That’s what Wednesday night church was supposed to be. How dare I challenge that notion?
I prayed and prayed for a way out. Just give me one excuse. Anything.
I pulled into the church to find the church van was gone. Perfect. Too hot to walk. Let’s go to the parsonage.
Then the bus pulls up. They had been filling it up with gas for us (even though our destination was less than a mile down the road). They had even left the air conditioner on just for us so we would be comfortable on the way. Wonderful.
I felt a great deal like the prophet Jonah, called to do something I really did not want to do. These housing projects were surely my Nineveh, home to the rowdiest and most violent people of my community. Jonah has a rough reputation among the prophets. After all, who would not want to be the voice of God to the people? But a quick google search of the city of Nineveh will tell you that it was home to some of the history’s first terrorists. Jonah most likely feared for his own life and safety. So he flees and goes in the complete opposite direction. I bet Tarshish even had rocking chairs with angel winged pillows waiting for him.
The kids had already began pilling into the bus before I could explain that we were NOT going to do this. No excuse could leave my mouth and, before I knew it, I was fastening the seat belt in the church bus, sweat somehow dripping down my fingers and lubricating the leather of the steering wheel.
We pulled in and parked in the administration parking lot. I gave the group a firm talk on safety and on staying together, and assured them next week, my posterior would be in a rocking chair and we would continue on with our study of Matthew, like a youth group is supposed to do.
Like a pack of animals, we walked up to the first door. The sun was setting behind it, which assured me that, were we in the parsonage the way we were supposed to be, we would be wrapping up prayer requests and flipping to Matthew. I yearned to hear the pages turning. Although this sunset was gorgeous, it would also make a beautiful front page cover story about a youth group gunned down at the housing projects. A tiny brick home on the corner awaited us. So I held my breath and with the whitest knuckles I had ever had in my life, knocked on the door. What would greet us as we knocked on the door? Drugs? Guns? Both?
As My fist quickly gave the universal three taps on the door, the hinges quietly but quickly swung open. With an army of high school kids behind me, I saw a little lady standing in the dark, her blue hair with a Kentucky sunset behind it. Other than Gods natural lighting, a dim lamp in the corner of the kitchen was the only light allowing for anything to be seen. My muscles did not un-tense, however, and my fears did not subside, because little old lady’s in Kentucky can shoot a gun as well as anyone.
“We are from the Baptist church and we usually meet together for prayer on Wednesdays but tonight we wanted to see if there was anything we could pray with you about,” I shouted out my pre-planned speech with the cadence of an auctioneer.
The lady takes one step out into the light and begins to reply.
“I want you to know. I have lived here for over a decade…” and she starts to break.
Where is this going? Is she a witch about to put a hex on us? Does she have a pistol in her night gown that she’s about to chase us with? Have we interrupted her favorite game show on television and she’s about to unleash the wrath of the Greatest Generation upon our youth group?
“…and I have prayed every single day that God would send me someone to talk to. I live here all by myself. No family and no friends. Some days I just pray God would take me. I’m all alone all the time. But you people have knocked on my door today and already answered my prayer.”
Floored. All the kids fell silent. I honestly did not know how to react because my mind and body were in fight or flight mode. So we just talked. Like normal people. Not like a church group attempting to seek converts. But like friends that were trying to catch up.
It turns out, this lady moved to our area years ago, leaving behind her family in Indiana. She has a twin sister still residing in the Hoosier state and, although they talk on the phone daily, they miss each other dearly and are both too old to drive and make the trip for a reunion. I turned around to see the majority of my youth group in tears.
After talking with her for quite some time, we prayed for her and her sister and moved on to the next house. And the next house. And the next house. Time after time we found broken people just wanting connection and to find someone that someone cares. All of a sudden, I didn’t miss my rocking chair anymore.
We began to go back every week. I truly think that we saw miracles taking place. One time we were praying with a man who asked us to pray for his doctors appointment. His car needed repairs to be able to make the trip and he was not physically able to fix it and couldn’t not afford to take the car to a mechanic. One night, as we were praying, he broke our prayer circle and ran to his car. He had realized that the needed repairs could be done through the glove compartment and did not require him to get underneath the car. It was fixed before we left his driveway. Right there in front of us. On another occasion, a group of young ladies went and knocked on a door to offer prayer to find a crying mother that had just gotten some Devastating news and had just been thinking she could offer hope to her children if she knew a church in the area that could show them love.
We had no expertise in anything but hope, so that is what we offered. And it turns out, that is all that people wanted.
We fell in love with the margins. And once you get up and began to seek out the broken, you begin to find that the pews (or rocking chairs in my case) were causing some atrophy in some muscles that needed to get a workout. Once you look into the eyes and see the ‘least of these’ in your own community, the ceiling fans and bean bag chairs lose their luster. Once you begin to see the image of God staring back at you, desperately seeking hope in the midst of the housing projects, you realize that it was never about Tarshish to begin with…it was always about the Nineveh. And Nineveh has no rocking chairs.
