"Charity wins awards and applause but joining the poor gets you killed... People are not crucified for helping poor people. People are crucified for joining them.”   So says Shaine Claibourne, inner city missionary to the poorest ghetto of Philadelphia.  In relation to my last blog, when I think of the economics of the Gospel of Jesus, two couples come to mind.

Bruce and Jan Willson are the founders of Hope House in Lewiston, Maine.  Prior to their calling to settle in Maine's second largest city, they were successful musicians in the early Jesus music movement.  They then settled in Lewiston to help women in crisis pregnancies not only keep their children, but raise them.  They set up programs where the moms (and sometimes dads) could get their diplomas, GEDs, job training, Bible studies, housing and financial help.  Their ministry was so cutting edge early on that it was featured on national radio programs including Focus on the Family.  They lived with the young women when necessary, gave up their jobs and raised support for what God had called them to.  In other words (Jesus' words, to be precise) they gave up everything and followed Him.

Then, in the last decade, their neighborhood began to change.  More and more refugees were moving in from Sudan, Somalia and Rwanda.  Many of these new neighbors were Muslims.  Bruce and Jan saw how the mission field was coming to them, so they expanded their work.  While still serving single moms, they began reaching out to their new neighbors.  They are peace makers, and more than that, they are neighbors.  Thus began the criticism.  Conservative pro-life volunteers left Hope House in protest of Bruce and Jan's loving outreach to their Islamic neighbors.  I've heard some of the criticism first hand: "They are compromising in order to make them feel welcome"; "The African kids don't know how to wait in line"; "This isn't what Hope House was meant to be doing"  It amazes me that people can sincerely love unborn babies yet see no problem hating people this side of the womb.  The Willson's never budged, and they continue to love their neighbors as themselves.

Another couple we know who have given up everything for the Gospel we met in Jenkins, Kentucky in 2008.  Their names are Lester and Bessie McPhee (Great names!  Did I mention they're from Kentucky?)  Sue and I led a team from our church to serve in Jenkins for a week.  We had builders, musicians, our pastor, and our family on the team.  Lester and Bessie were the couple who ran the storefront mission we worked with.  Their home was fairly large, and there was ample land, but they used every inch, it seemed, to store clothes, toys, diapers and nonperishable foods for the local poor.   Jenkins, we're told, was a coal mining town once, but when the mine went bust, unemployment sky rocketed.  Crystal meth, locals say, is now the main industry in town.  Everything Lester and Bessie did and had was to serve, in the name of Jesus,  the town they loved so much. 

Neither the Willson's nor the McPhee's see themselves as anyone special.  They realize, though, as Shaine Claibourne also said, "“When we truly discover how to love our neighbor as our self, Capitalism will not be possible and Marxism will not be necessary.”   Perhaps both Pope Francis and Rush Limbaugh could learn something from Lester and Bessie and Bruce and Jan.

Visit Shaine Claibourne here:  http://www.thesimpleway.org/shane/