The River Church Community

The first time I organized a Living Center lunch, I was unsure what to expect.  I had asked the staff to prepare food items and join me at the Living Center for lunch and conversation.  I should also add that I had briefed them before arrival.  I explained to them that many of the Living Center’s clients had been badly hurt by the church and we were there to love them, not to preach.  Why you might wonder had so many people that were hurt by the church in one place?  The answer is simple.  They have HIV/AIDS.  I can recall many conversations with them about how they have been hurt by Christian communities, families and friends.  And our role, coming to the Living Center, was to overcome these hurts by love.  A tall order to say the least.  And yet not. 

We brought lots of a good food.  Angela served Italian sodas to each client like an expert bartender.  We chatted about everyday things, about life.  And by the end of the time, men living with HIV/AIDS were sharing us videos of their recent adventures, laughing with us.  How did this happen?   I cannot give details but I think it began with listening and sharing.  And then it progressed to a joke here and there.  And suddenly strangers became friends. 

The second Living Center lunch I organized was the same.  Students from UCSC brought food, chatted and laughed.  Strangers became friends.  It has happened again.  I find this significant because the HIV/AIDS community and the homosexual transgender communities are often the communities that the church loves the least and the worst.  The reasons are manifold.  But one lessen I learned from these Living Center lunches is that love is a simple thing.  It begins with listening and ends with laughing.  Often it involves food.

Jesus was not stranger to such love; and yet sometimes I think we forget who he loved.  He loved the people, considered by the religious establishment, to be the most distant from God.  And yet, it is so easy for us to wonder whether we should love the seemingly estranged in our context.  Why is that?   Are we afraid?  Or are we biased?

I found it revealing that many of the men with whom we talked at the Living Center asked me for my card so that they could check out our church.  They seemed surprised that Christians could be nice.  They were merely impressed that we listened and laughed with them and on occasion brought them food.  And having done these simple things we invited them to experience the love of Jesus in our midst on Sunday mornings.  I don’t know about you but it makes me sad that such simple acts could be so profound to a particular community.  Are we generally that mean?  It may be easy to excuse ourselves from those mean people, those mean Christians “over there.”  But I wonder if this is fair. 

It reminds me of the story of the Good Samaritan.  The priest who passed the man on the side of the road has not been remembered throughout history because he did something bad.  He merely did not do something that was good.  And the Good Samaritan has historically been named “good” because he helped, he acted.  When I look at us, I wonder whether we have missed the point of this story.  What do you think?