Good News (and Football) in Full

I’ve had this unyielding burden to transform an urban neighborhood from the ground up, in the name of God, for over a year, and our movement has at times inched forward with the swift flight of a beached whale or endangered tortoise. The spiritual books talk about patience, God’s calling often being one of a 40-year desert. But am I wasting my time? Suburbanites are not exactly falling over one another to follow me as I lead them into a dangerous neighborhood. Christians like comfy church chairs, not dirty streets.

Many of my nights as volunteer at the neighborhood recreation center have been me and pool stick waiting for one of the fatherless kids to show up via bus or worn walking shoes. As the weather improved and the nights got longer – and as the center’s staffing issues added further deterrent – kids seemed to prefer the streets to the center. I even thought of doing something else with my time (bilingual Bible study at the bar?).

Which made it delightful when I showed up tonight and about eight boys were hanging outside the center, with skateboards and a bored sort of pre-teen nervousness. I hadn’t seen most of these guys in weeks. God may have stirred them out because I had a new friend with me. She quickly began speaking their language. (But she’s a story of her own.)

Soon we were playing four-on-four football in the grass between the baseball field and the jungle gym. True to form some of the younger boys were a bit testy and foul-mouthed. Which added to my amazement when we were joined by young men, two in particular who skillfully encouraged the boys in the game. They would make good fathers.

Eventually we had a game of seven-on-seven, with several others watching. Me and my friend were the only Caucasians. She was the only woman (remember, a story of her own). All the rest were from the neighborhood, a mix of boys and young men who all hung out on the jungle gym after the game – some smoking – passing the time away.

This was a bit of a breakthrough for me. In all my time in the neighborhood I had not spent so much time with so many young men. I was wondering if they existed. They do. And they are good. You can tell when someone has a good heart. I could see this as we played ball. But for my suburban comrades driving by this park on their way to dinner at the nice Italian restaurant across the street, these men are invisible.

We are born to different worlds. Poverty is not about laziness. Sometimes it is. But more often it is a birthright, a reverse lottery. Without the interruption of an outside force these seven-year-olds will grow up to be 30-year-olds smoking on the jungle gym, passing the time away. They need a blessed outside force to break generations-old inertia.

That force could (should) be the church.

So I will not give up on these people as I play in a park deemed dangerous. And I will not give up on the church that has basically abandoned this neighborhood even as a century-old steeple looms high above the ball field like the antiquated top on a ghostly museum. These young people are our Invisible Children. As the church sends money all around the globe I am a voice crying in the wilderness, “Send it home!”

When I got to my house this evening I resumed my dual reading of Isaiah, an Old Testament prophet, and Clement, an early church father. I had chosen to read these two in unison before realizing their similar message. But this is no coincidence, it is the timeless voice of God. All throughout the Bible he is a God of compassion for the needy ones, a God of social justice. And more amazing than anything is how the church can seemingly miss the message – no, edit it out.

When I was at my first seminary, in evangelism class we had to memorize Isaiah 1:18. The passage summarizes the evangelical message of the past decades: Your sins have been forgiven. What the evangelicals do not quote is the larger passage of Isaiah, namely 1:15b-20, which Clement quoted in entirety.

It is no wonder Jesus quoted Isaiah more than anyone. The time has come for us to speak of the good news in full.