Silence Again

I've been silent again.

After the week of two posts in a row, I had another one I wanted to write, but then something came up. Then something else. Then something else.

Now two weeks later, here we are.

In the middle of a conversation with a friend this week, the three majors on my bucket list came up again. Yes, the three that have been life-goals since 2007:

1) Running a bed and breakfast or backpacker
2) Running a cafe
3) Experiencing homelessness for a week/month

The friend laughed when I mentioned the one about homelessness. He asked if I thought that experience would make me a better person, or if that was the "spiritual thing" I was wanting to do for Lent.

I got really defensive in that moment because it was something with a personal meaning for me and I wasn't appreciating being mocked. What I didn't realise then was that the issue of homelessness hit a little too close to home for him.

In that moment, I was brought back to a conversation that I had with Will a few years ago, about how some over-romanticize the "problems of the world" to make ourselves feel better that we're trying to bring about change.

We eventually moved on to something else in the conversation that happened this week, but it left me feeling slightly guilty. It's easy for me to talk about wanting to experience homelessness because I come from a privileged background. And even if I did eventually get around to that experience, I knew I was going to be able to get out of those situations at the timeline I decided for myself. It wasn't going to be real.

But then I realised my motivations for wanting to experience homelessness had nothing to do with wanting to feel good that I had experienced such depravity. No, the years in Anderson taught me that because I come from a privileged background, I have the responsibility to speak against systems that work against the underprivileged. The short time spent with the women on the streets of Berlin taught me that I'm actually not that much different from them. Their stories could just as easily have been mine, except we were born in a different time, at a different place. And my place of birth was not decided based on my own righteousness.

We don't do advocacy simply out of sympathy or because our hearts are broken for a cause. We do advocacy because Jesus himself called us to "Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons. You received without payment; give without payment." (Matthew 10:8)

And so I stop again for a few brief moments, repenting for when I have gotten self-righteous about helping with self-serving agenda. In the moments of silence in between, I found myself wrestling with these words that stumbled out of my mouth:

"I won't work in a church forever, but I'll be a pastor no matter where I go. It's the call on my life."

And in those moments of silence, I realised as much as I struggle with the "pastor"/"preacher"/"minister" titles, to deny that is to deny the very responsibility to love my neighbours.

"Preach the gospel at all times. When necessary, use words."