Responsibility?

Do I have any moral obligation to pick up someone else’s trash along the side of the road? Often my precious wife will go out of her way to pick up trash while we are walking on the canal. She especially gets infuriated when a fisherman leaves his left over line and hooks. I know that my son will have a cow if his mom goes out of her way to help someone whose car is broken down. If I live in a family setting and someone else doesn’t clean up their mess should I take the time to rinse off dishes, take out the trash, etc… The obvious reality is that the answer to this question is seen readily by the fact that the trash in the parks has to be cleaned up by city workers. The person broken down on the freeway usually has to wait until the highway patrol stops, if there is any within their area.

Here is a more important question that deals with people, not trash, dishes and a pile of dirty clothes left on the floor. I had a great meeting connecting with the director of Prison Fellowship for Arizona yesterday. He actually contacted me and wanted to meet to find out about the type of work New City does. He was a very well dressed African American man who was very polite and polished. He brought his new assistant, a gal with a multitude of degrees who wanted to be involved in doing real life transformation type of work. William shared about PF’s in both a general context and also on a local basis. I was surprised to hear that there were only a handful of churches in Phoenix, a city of 3.5 million, helping with their ministry to prisoners, their families and then helping an ex-con transition back into the real world. Bill shared about the typical scenario of how someone will be involved in a Bible study in prison and have great fellowship. This person gets out and then in a few months is back in prison back involved with the same fellowship group worshiping, studying the Bible but back behind bars. Obviously something is missing is the make up of the discipleship or training that would see someone commit a crime after being involved with other believers behind bars.

My question I face all of the time is do I have any spiritual moral responsibility for the ex-con, i.e. sex offender, gang banger or drug dealer, who had been in my neighborhood but gets arrested, serves time and then is released? Here is a true story that brings this home to me and is scary but I believe is what the gospel of Jesus Christ is all about. One of the houses we did recently painted, I won’t mention names, had a couple that were living with the family we helped. We got to know all of them over a month or so while we painted the house. They actually came to church a couple of times. I know that the gentleman who was living with the family who we helped had just gotten out of prison. Originally I was under the impression that this was for not paying child support. This is a horrible crime but for some reason wouldn’t be as difficult to handle then if maybe it turns out that he is a felon who was arrested for _____________. (This actually happen and we discovered through our block watch updates that he is a felon.)

Presently New City works primarily with young kids and teens that are mostly girls. So I have to be especially careful about volunteers and even circumstances around what we do. So as I listened to Bill from PF and shared my story which just reinforced in my heart that I am called to stand both for justice, the plight of the victim but also the plight of the offender whose only true hope is in Jesus Christ. I believe it is so easy for most people to walk by those in real need who are hurting and look through them. So what if I do give a dollar to a guy who goes out and buys another beer instead of a bottle of water or McDouble? (This week I had a New Testament handy to give to someone on the freeway off ramp in addition to a dollar and bottle of water.)

I share this not to say I have any answers or quick fixes but to express my own fears of being in the middle of circumstances that are bigger then me. This is actually a good thing because it forces me to trust the Father and ask for His Spirit’s empowerment. I know that at times I want to scream or hit someone who is be a totally zero when it comes to caring for a child who they are neglecting to the point of abuse. Yet, my heart doesn’t jump as quickly for the typical ex-con who abused or robbed some senior. Jesus help me see people as you do and be able to take steps to follow Micah 6:8 by standing up for the injustice being done in a way that shows your mercy and grace. The challenge is that I can do this to ‘show off’ and get attention for New City or myself instead of acknowledging your work in my midst.

Thanks Bill from PF for e-mailing and buying me a tall passion tea to listen, learn and be challenged about how I live today and tomorrow.

Dave