HCLM BLOG

I had a long conversation with a Lake Mary Police officer today.

There was mild outrage in the office at the church yesterday as folks logged on to our new credo coffee page and exclaimed thirteen dollars for coffee? (they misread the page, the coffee is $8, if it needs to be shipped there is a $5 charge). As I was fielding their concern I realized...I've been thinking about money a lot lately.

So here's some stuff I've been thinking about.

I have been thinking lately that our capitalist culture teaches us that we are primarily consumers. That our job is to be shrewd customers, rewarding the companies that produce the products we want for the lowest cost. For most of my life, how these companies do that has not been my concern. Recently I am starting to change my mind on that. I want to try to avoid being complicit in exploitation, and be more intentional about the places where I put my money.

When I consider the life my King Jesus lived while he was here, he spent lots of his time improving the lives of the poor, I want to emulate that wherever I can. I can’t do it all at once, and can’t be sure about where all my money goes; but I’m realizing that each purchase has potential to help out. I’m trying to make changes a little bit at a time.  

It’s in this context that I’ve started to think about coffee. Where do those delicious little beans come from?

I like coffee. I didn’t always, but I learned with beauty of the bean 6 or eight years ago. It’s a treat that encourages me out of bed in the morning, and a special incentive in some slow or tough evenings. Recently I realized that people have to grow this stuff. I mean some one some where farms the beans you use to make that coffee. It’s a nice treat for you, but serious work for someone else. It tends to grow best in countries that are less developed than the united states. In fact there are people in the world growing great coffee, that are doing good to live in small shanty style homes with dirt floors.

Recently I got connected with a gentleman that imports that sort of coffee from several small farmers in Guatemala. He pays them a better rate than they could get even with fair trade. He just wants to bless them. I do too. I think others might as well. That’s why we’re going to find places to sell it. Maybe we’ll call it Credo Coffee...what do you believe?

“Why do I feel the urge to serve, why do I know it’s the right thing to do?” Until this evening I couldn’t put my finger on why. A lot of folks say it's because we are called to build the kingdom of God to to bring it in. But we don’t build or bring the Kingdom...Jesus has and does. We’ve our hands full trying to live in it. Jesus inagurated the Kingdom and invites us to enter in as citizens, born not of parents ascent but by the will of the father through the blood of the king himself. Living under the reign of Jesus involves every big decision we make in our lives and a hundred small decisions every day. The thing is that life in his Kingdom, under his reign is affected by a different ethic than this world. Jesus is not a King like this world has ever seen, and his Kingdom is not like one this world has ever known. Here, the first is the last. The greatest is the servant of all. Here justice is impenetrable and unassailable and left completely to the perogative of the King...unquestioned. As I live, a citizen only (not a builder, in my best days an ambassador) fully submitted to the king, I find myself serving. Not to bring the kingdom but because I’m a citizen of it. It is a small distinction in words but huge in my conception, and experience.

There was a short exchange in the comments section of a blog post a while back that got me thinking about the size life we are called to. I think maybe sometimes I have thought that big things are for other people, but I am starting to challenge that...at least for myself. I am realizing that I know people who know people. That I'm just about as grown up as most grown ups I know. That I don't have lots of money, but Jesus does and he'll find creative ways to get it to projects. So if anyone is going to do anything it could just as well be me as anyone else. I am thinking that Jesus might open opportunities for me to do big things, to make a real difference.

I have been thinking a lot lately about how much time Jesus spent with poor people. It's crazy when you think that the Son of God could have become a man in any segment of society. He could have come as part of the ruling class, as heir to throne. He could have come as a movie star or an athlete or rock star. But he didn't he came in a small village, in the middle of an occupied country to a family without a place to stay. I'm just saying I don't think that was an accident. When you add that to the fact that he spent his time with lower class and no class people, and then fact that when he did bump into the social elites he mostly insulted them...well it makes me think.

Lately it is making me think I want to find ways to give, help, to serve. I am thinking though that I may be a little niaeve or grandiose; because what I really want is to be part of something big. Check out this video about a company called tom's shoes. This is just a guy who was going to a church in california.

I like the vision of simply making people's lives a little better, without any strings attached.

I have been holding off all day. But I can't keep quiet any longer. Come on Magic!

Hit some free throws and don't turn the ball over. I love having a team to root for. You know where you care whether they win or not. I have watched all of the games, even though they frustrate, it's still fun. But seriously hit some free throws. Oh yeah and gimme some more Skip to My Lou.

Those of you who know me, know that I am most definitely a Capitalist! I believe that the best form of economic development is rooted in individual profit and I worry when the government takes more and more control of the economic systems of this country. That would usually be the end of my comment, "End of Story". However, I have been doing some praying and soul searching over the last few months. Here are some more of my thoughts on the economic situation.

I can't help but see some of the problems of Israel in the Old Testament in the current problems of our country. The prophets complained to the nation that they had quit worrying about anyone but themselves. As long as they had enough everything was fine. The nation never listened to these prophets and it was only after Israel was overrun and enslaved that they would stop and listen to God and how He wanted them to live!

In the recent past there were those who said that our country was becoming too segregated (the haves and the have nots) and that our rampant capitalism was the culprit. As we lived here in Lake Mary (4th best place in America to live) and contemplated which car we should buy next or whether or not we could afford a house on the beach we would respond to the detractors that this is how it should be, people should reap the benefit of their labor. Those that do not have just have not figured out how to get it yet! But now that "regular people" i.e. our parents and others we know are losing their savings and retirement while CEO's contemplate bankruptcy for their companies and a life for themselves with millions in a foreign country we look at the situation with a different eye.

Suddenly there is an outcry that we need to care for the poor and homeless, we need to make sure that people are not put out of their homes, that children don't live out of their cars! The rich need to foot the bill taxes and rules are good if they level the playing field. Now it seems that everyone should be looking out for others as well as themselves! It would seem that just like the Israelites we have come to realize that living selfishly leads to a country of selfish people!

However, our concern for the less fortunate may simply be a new form of selfishness. We are outraged that there are those who continue to have enough money to build 94,000 sq. ft. houses and sent their dogs to New York City for their styling, while we are worried about keeping our jobs and our homes! Our seeming concern for the less fortunate may be a thinly veiled cover for our concern that someone is making sure that I can keep my stuff!!!

Maybe we all need to do a self check? Have we become too worried about things? What should our standard of living be in this country? Just because I "Can" have it "should" I have it?

What do you think?
Pastor Paul