Church of the poor - Jesus Army

www.jesus.org.uk
We have ended up the wealthiest,
most medicated and depressed
”
countries in the world
“What’s the most challenging
aspect of living in a shared
community home?
Oh boy, there’s lots of challenges!
In some way, community
is just a choice to live deeper
than the dream of independence,
which so often leads to
loneliness. It’s a chance to laugh
harder, but it also means you
also cry harder because you feel
what hurts each other deeper.
But the hurt is triumphed by the
sense of love and companionship
that you have.
What would you envisage happening
if every Christian lived
in community as you do?
We would see the kingdom
of God coming, the end of poverty,
the end of aggression and
violence in our neighbourhoods
and across the world. Dorothy
Day (the Catholic journalist
and social activist) said if every
neighbourhood had a hospitality
house and every household
a room for the stranger then we
would end poverty. What’s exciting
about what we see at The
Simple Way is that people are
not just serving in social service
agencies that manage poverty,
but they are connecting with the
poor in a way that ends poverty.
They are bringing folks into
their home, figuring out how
people can go to school and find
waged jobs.
At the beginning of your book
you talk about how your first
experiences of church were
dominated by preachers calling
you to ‘lay down your life’,
but you were never told what
to pick up instead. Is your
reaction to this still central to
your current spirituality?
Without a doubt. I saw too
many people bored with Christianity
and they associated that
with Jesus. That’s one of the
great tragedies with the sort of
Christianity we have become
accustomed to – people have
narrowed it down to a doctrine
and a belief system. That’s not
very invigorating or compelling,
even if it is true. So I have
surrounded myself with people
who have challenged me to see
how much there is to pick up.
Tony Campolo always says
that being a Christian is about
choosing Jesus and doing
something daring with your
life. I like that because that’s
what so many have done
throughout history – taken up
beautiful vocations not just
for the sake of adventure but
because the Gospel is a call to
live in beautiful ways. When
you surround yourself with
other people that are risking
their lives and loving deeply, it
rubs off on you.
Could people in developing
nations use your model of community
living?
In some ways it is even more
natural in poor countries – the
people there often already have
a deep sense of community and
interdependence – in the sense
of being a village, of each person
using their gifts, of not compartmentalising
your life in a nine-tofive
routine that sucks the life out
of you. A lot of these things are so
counter-cultural in the West.
It seems like you have quite a
pessimistic view of contemporary
Western culture. To what
extent should we celebrate the
hand that we’ve been dealt?
I am very sceptical about the
Western life and this package
that we have been sold as the
American dream. The people I
know who have bought into it
have only found it to be isolating
and it does not satisfy our
deepest spiritual hungers. We
(the UK and US) have ended
up the wealthiest, most medicated
and depressed countries
in the world – which should be
indicative for us.
But there is always something
to celebrate about God’s
gifts to us and to the world.
One of the best ways to celebrate
the best things in life is
to give them away and to share
them – there is something
more fulfilling about sharing
God’s blessings than keeping
them. As we give our lives on
behalf of others it brings us to
life as well. It’s not just about
how much the poor need us,
but how much we really need
each other. Isaiah 58 says when
we spend ourselves on behalf
of the poor, our healing comes
– I love that. We don’t heal from
spiritual poverty in a vacuum
– we heal through living our
lives for something bigger than
ourselves.
Was there a particular moment
when you came to that
realisation?
Over and over I talk to people
whose dreams have died – the
routine of life has compromised
what they feel God’s original
dreams for them were. It’s such
a hard thing to see that. We
squeeze out of life the very place
that Jesus lived – which was in
interruptions and surprises and
people tugging on His shirt and
telling Him that they messed up.
We have lives where we go to
work, come home, watch TV, go
work out… and there’s no space
for the Spirit to move. What we
do here is free ourselves of the
clutter – by getting rid of the TV,
by biking and by answering the
door when neighbours come.
Your community obviously has
a strong affinity with traditional
monastic living.
Early on we were a little
pretentious. We thought we
were doing all this for the first
time – and then we looked
around and we saw that this is
something that the Spirit has
done over and over throughout
history. Every few hundred years
there is an identity crisis in the
Church…and so there are groups
of people who are cultural refugees
– who pull out and try to
re-think their lives as followers of
Christ. For us St Francis has been
someone we really resonate with
– we started in an abandoned
cathedral and mystically we have
felt that call to repair the Church
that is in ruins.
Some people might level at
Continued overleaf
Jesus Life One/2008 Page 15