A painful, and embarrassing, confession

I sent this to my church's email-devotional list today. It may well be the last devotional I'm asked to send to this group of church folks.

Frankly, I'm not sure that I care. I need to share this sense of being convicted that I got, courtesy of Waving or Drowning? Several of his recent posts have hit home with me, but this one just nailed me. Hence, this confession today:

"Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me." (Matthew 25:34b-36, NIV)

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I've been pretty loud-mouthed, over the last several years, that the church is spending an awful lot of time and an incredible amount of money dealing with topics which are very, very distant from that to which the Gospel calls us to attend. I bring this particular passage up now - despite the fact that this is the season of Advent - because there are some things being done in the name of the Child we are waiting for, and they aren't pretty. And it's interesting, because the passage above is what Jesus himself said would define us - that how we addressed this passage would "separate the sheep from the goats," Matthew tells us.

I've been asking myself how to make the point - when an anonymous writer was quoted in Burundi saying what I've wanted to say all along. Read those two verses above (aw, go on, read the whole of Matthew 25:31-41), and then see how they were heard by a man in one of the ten poorest nations in the world:

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I was hungry,
And you formed a humanities group to discuss my hunger.
I was imprisoned,
And you crept off quietly to your chapel and prayed for my release.
I was naked,
And in your mind you debated the morality of my appearance.
I was sick,
And you knelt and thanked God for your health.
I was homeless,
And you preached a sermon on the spiritual shelter of the love of God.
I was lonely,
And you left me alone to pray for me.
You seem so holy, so close to God –
But I am still very hungry – and lonely – and cold.
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For the last four years, my family has forgone Christmas presents, because we just couldn't afford them. Now that my sister's home is gone, we are not spending money to keep that thing alive. And a person I work with recently said, "So now you can go back to giving Christmas presents, right?"

But reading the passage above, I just can't. Others are in need much more desperately than I, or my family do, right now. Reading that passage above, I really don't care whether the economy recovers or not. My spending won't save the country, but that same amount of cash might make a difference between starving and not starving to someone.

So I've told my family - all of them - that there won't be any presents coming from me to them this year, either. I'm not doing this (or sharing it with you all) because I think I'm some sort of goody-two-shoes; anything but, in fact. I'm simply doing this because of the guilt and shame I feel over my past actions. I have never, ever felt the conviction-of-the-Spirit in the way I felt it, reading these words tonight - not about any sin I have committed, ever (and trust me, there's a good long list of those).

So a good part of that money is going to the local food bank, downtown. Another part is going to organizations that are working to help the poorest people in the world. And my voice is going to be raised against all the people - everywhere - who still say "we can't afford to do this."

Because let's face it - we can. We have been able to do something about it, too - for a while. We, as The Church and as a nation, have simply chosen not to. Those who profess to follow Christ have spent an awful lot of money as The Church - especially in the last six months. And yes, before you say it - others have spent just as much money on those same topics. But to put it simply, they aren't the church. We are.

We have a calling. We are called to act with justice and love. But our man in Burundi is still hungry, and lonely, and cold.

In my Catholic youth (it's OK, for my Lutheran friends - Martin Luther grew up Catholic, too...), there was a phrase that we repeated during the Mass: "mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa." The English translation of the phrase said that the faithful acknowledged that they have sinned “through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.”

This is my confession to you all - that I have lived a life of excess, while others have starved. And this is my first step at redemption. I don't know that I will ever live long enough to make amends - but it starts now.

If you are convicted by this passage, as I was, perhaps this can be your moment of truth, too.

Mea maxima culpa.

Nancy Reagan's answer for iPhone owners

It started off as "the right thing to say." It became a joke, and eventually became a cultural icon.

But I'm afraid it's also the answer to the folks who are whining about the $200 premium they paid for their iPhones. I've read recently that many of them feel victimized, used and abused. They're saying that they'd been listening to the iPhone hype for two years, and when the iPhones finally came out, they absolutely, positively just had to have one. Right away. No matter what it cost.

And I'm sorry, but the simple, sane answer is, "No - no, you really didn't absolutely have to have an iPhone. Nancy Reagan was right....Just say no."

No to $600 phones, and $300 jeans, and $40,000 soccer-mom vans. No to $200-a-month cell-phone texting bills. No to $500 gaming consoles and $1,500 plasma HD TVs, too.

And in case you were thinking of calling me an "old poop," just get at the end of a long line of folks over the last 20 years. I was the same way about Air Jordan basketball shoes. In 1985. (That's 22 years ago, for you calculator-impaired folks.) And those $200 NFL team coats, back when $200 meant something.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not sin-free in this area. Techno-gadgets are my downfall. I've probably paid close to a thousand dollars, over the last ten years, on cell-phones alone. (Hell, I've probably paid $200 in those stupid corded earphone/mike attachments, alone, not to mention chargers, cases, blah blah blah). I bought the first Sprint PCS phone, when it was a specialty-green brick with the pop-up screen. I know what it's like to pay top-dollar for being an early adopter.

But that's the point. Everyone who wants to be "the first on the block" knows that they pay a premium (and sometimes, a ridiculous premium) for being first. Look at all the morons who stood in lines for this gaming console or that one, even a few short months ago.

And let's face it, every single iPhone owner got his or her $200 of instant coolness. But the fact is, Apple introduced the iPhone in a sinking market, in a sinking economy, and it wasn't a perfect phone to begin with (especially riding the AT&T-rebranded Cingular BS network). So it's no surprise that they paid a massive premium for it. It's no different than standing outside some domed stadium, paying $1,000 for SuperBowl tickets or two seats to see Aerosmith or Billy Joel or whomever.

You're paying to be exclusive. It's how God separates fools from their money. So shut the hell up about it.

No sympathy here, folks. In my mind, anyone who can pay $600 for a phone should be required to make an equal-sized contribution to the local food-pantry. Not to punish them - but because it's the right damn thing to do.

And lest you think I don't practice what I preach, I have made a commitment to contribute to charity an amount equal to what I spend at Amazon and Borders. If I can afford the books and the CDs, I can afford the contribution. Period.

I dare the owners of iPhones - who HAD to be exclusive by belonging to the first-on-the-block club - to take that $100 coupon, and take it to your local school or Head Start program, and let THEM use it.

Because they need the money a hell of a lot more than you do. Your phone proves it.

And if you want to call me up and bitch about it, you can call me on my $49 already-obsolete-when-I-bought-it RAZR phone...