The topic was the rich young ruler. You may remember the story – the Gospel of Mark tells it this way:

As [Jesus] was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, ‘Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.” ’ He said to him, ‘Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.’ Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

And after hearing that story read, a young guy in the room – richer than 80% of the planet, born the predominant race and the most privileged gender in the most wealthiest country in the world – the very epitome of a rich young ruler to the majority of our planet – it was then that this kid said ”I think the important thing to keep in mind is to have a balanced view¹. After all, God gives us our possessions for a reason, and…”.

It was then that I lost it.

“Hold on”, I said. “God didn’t give you your possessions. You have those things because you paid money for them. You had money to spend because you are employed. You are employed because you are well educated and look trustworthy to employers, two benefits of growing up white and male in a culture built on stolen land with enslaved labor.”

To see the look on their faces, you would have thought I drop kicked a kitten² across the room.

Look – I have a friend who lives in a car. And at night, when it’s 25 degrees and she is shivering and shuddering and wanting to turn the car on for heat but knowing she does not have the money for gas – all the while crying out to God and praying for help… but no help comes.

So if you tell me that God has given this rich young ruler in that overheated living room his possessions while leaving my friend in the car to shiver, I call shenanigans. Because if that is true, then you are saying that God loves this kid more than he does my friend in her car. Or more than he does the 80% of the planet that lives on less than $10 a day.

And a God that would do that, I have no interest in.

¹That he is clearly trying to say Jesus does not mean what Jesus very clearly says is not lost on me.  But that is nothing new – we all try to tone Jesus down. Much worse to me is that he believes his good fortune is a sign of God’s pleasure.

²No kittens were harmed in the making of this post.

I blog, and speak and whatnot. And you guys hear me, or read me or whatever, and want to be my Facebook friend. At any given time I have 3-4 friend requests. You want to be my Facebook friend and, well, I don’t know you – meaning, we have never had a conversation, never exchanged emails, never shared a beer or watched a movie together. I would even count twitter interactions, and you and I have not even done that.

So, I am not going to friend you. Nothing personal. I am just trying to create a safe space for me and my family.

If you just want to stay up with my goings on, please follow me on twitter.  That is where the action is, anyway.  If you just hate twitter and only use Facebook, well, I have a page there that gets auto updates, you can read and comment on my stuff, etc.  Please feel free to become a fan.

Look, I hope you don’t take this personally. But if your ego is dependent upon whose 48×48 photo is on your page, maybe you need to reconsider some things.

There will be details forthcoming, but right now, if you are in the Raleigh area (or want to fly in – don’t laugh, several folk are), save the evening of March 21, 2010.

In Downtown Raleigh (in a venue with plenty of parking), my organization, Love Wins Ministries, will hold a shindig/party/blowout/extravaganza that will blow your mind. Well, it will be pretty cool, anyway.

We will be celebrating:

• The launch of our own, independent nonprofit status (until now, we have been sheltered under another org.)
• That book we were featured in? The author, Karen Spears Zacharias, will be here in Raleigh to sign copies and read from the book

We will have live music, Love Wins merchandise to buy, books for sale, food to eat, friends to meet – rumor has it dancing may even break out! [I have had to promise under oath that I will not be dancing, however]

More details will be coming soon – location, times, etc. – but hold that date!

And what is a visit to the Aunt and Uncle’s house without donuts?

If you are new here (my rss statistics tell me a bunch of you are), let me show you around.

As you may have caught on, professionally I minister to the very poor and homeless here in Raleigh. What gets me in trouble is my belief that God is far more gracious and loving than I could ever be. I am fortunate to be supported in this by a wide ranging group of folks – church folk, hipsters, punks, gays, lawyers, writers, artists, school teachers, home makers, atheists.

Some of these folks help us in practical work, and others support us financially and still others retweet my stuff ridiculous numbers of times. We are incredibly grateful for all of that.

My wife and I live in downtown Raleigh (but not the part most folks want to live in) – sorta figuring that it is hard to tell poor people “I know how you feel” if the gunshots did not keep you awake last night, too. We have a very spoiled cat named Felix, who was born in squalor in a trailer park until we took him away from all of that. Because of his origins, my wife says she always pictures him sounding like Larry the Cable Guy if he could speak.

This is my personal blog, so I won’t talk a lot about the practical aspects of my day to day work here – if you want to know more about that, you might want to check out our Love Wins Ministries site and blog. Also, you might want to read my disclaimers, where I remind you that the words here are mine, and mine alone.

I think a lot about the intersection of faith and culture. I believe one can live a life of faith that leads you to try to change the world. I think most people choose faith because they want to be a better person – but sometimes it seems faith makes people kinda jerky. I wonder about that a lot.

Because I spend my life among the marginalized, I am anxious to create a safe space here for those the church and culture has left behind. That means if you are pretty conservative (in the real meaning of the word – you want things to remain the same), you might be a bit uncomfortable here sometimes. But you will be respected and allowed your voice. We just ask that you do the same to others. Some people call that the Golden Rule – you may have heard of it.

Anyway, thank you for visiting. I hope you will stick around and chime in.