Part II – A Liberating Liturgy: How The Eucharist is Related to Gentrification and Why Urban Housing Is Sacred

Urban Housing and Gentrification

Before we begin to examine elements of the church’s liturgy and look for its connections to our urban neighborhoods, some introductory matter is necessary. We must first define the terminology, describe the setting, and understand the demographic which will provide the context for this paper’s thesis.

Defining the Terminology

Gentrification is a relatively recent phenomenon that began in the 1950s and 60s in London, England, and in numerous U.S. cities. It can be defined as “the transformation of a working-class or vacant area of the central city into middle-class residential and/or commercial use.”1 However, it should be noted that there are other nuanced definitions of what gentrification is; moreover, gentrification is not necessarily limited to urban centers, but is currently being experienced in rural settings as well.2 Yet for our context the above definition adequately describes the process of transformation that the proposed community is currently experiencing. And although there are differing opinions concerning gentrification’s positive or negative effects upon a community, we will only focus on the most prominent consequence of displacement, which Rowland Atkinson and Gary Bridge outline as “Displacement through rent/price increases; Secondary psychological costs of displacement; Loss of affordable housing; and Homelessness.”3

Describing the Setting

The setting for this paper will be Dallas, Texas, and particularly a community in the northeast quadrant of the city-center commonly known as “Knox-Henderson.” In recent years this area has undergone significant redevelopment due to its close proximity to Uptown Dallas, a burgeoning community of White, young professionals who may occupy any of the numerous upscale apartment buildings or condominiums that have recently been constructed in the area. Interestingly, Uptown Dallas was historically known as Freedman’s Town or North Dallas. Beginning after the Civil War freed slaves began to buy small tracts of land, which now borders the Central Expressway, and to develop its own burgeoning community. However, this all changed in the 1940s and 50s when the the city of Dallas began to institute particular changes that transformed the community into what it is today.4 The Knox-Henderson area has been slower to change, maintaining an ethnically diverse population, which now incorporates a significant percentage of Hispanics. Yet transformation is occurring in the form of upscale residences and restaurants along N. Henderson and N. Fitzhugh Avenues.5 

Understanding the Demographic

The population of the Knox-Henderson/Fitzhugh section is predominantly Hispanic and it forms the western boundary of East Dallas that lies between the Central Expressway and I-30 including the area surrounding Fair Park. The Dallas Independent School District (DISD) demographics for this section are overwhelmingly Hispanic with averages from most elementary, middle, and high schools maintaining Hispanic percentages near or above 75%. For example, Robert E. Lee Elementary School is an elementary school within the the Knox-Henderson/Fitzhugh section and its demographic is 75% Hispanic, 11% African-American, and 12% White. Nearby Ben Milam Elementary School is 87% Hispanic, 7% African-American, and 4% White. The entire district’s percentages are 67% Hispanic, 25% African-American, and 5% White.6 Another interesting statistic is the percentage of students that are eligible for free/reduced lunches. DISD states the following parameters for qualification: 

“Children in households receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits (SNAP–formerly Food Stamps) or TANF may be eligible to receive free meals regardless of household income. Also, if your household income falls within Federal Income Chart limits, your children may be eligible to receive free or reduced-price meal benefits.”7

According to Robert E. Lee Elementary’s demographics, 78% of their students qualify for free/reduced lunches, while the entire district is at 87%.8

These statistics are important because they indicate the ethnic and socioeconomic disparity between Uptown Dallas and the Knox-Henderson/Fitzhugh area. And they are particularly important in considering the gentrification that is already occurring in this section of the city. The demographic of Knox-Henderson/Fitzhugh indicates that as gentrification continues it will displace poor, Hispanic families, many of whom have emigrated from Mexico and Central America.9 There’s a particular liminality that accompanies poverty and especially poverty within immigrant families where home and permanence have been left behind in Central America. However, that is exactly what is being threatened by gentrification that is occurring within this area through rent/price increases and the displacement of social capital in the form of family, friends, and neighbors who are forced to move.

1 Loretta Lees, Tom Slater, and Elvin Wyly, Gentrification (New York: Routledge, 2008), xv.

2 Ibid, 135.

3 Rowland Atkinson and Gary Bridge, eds., Gentrification in a Global Context: The New Urban Colonialism (New York: Routledge, 2005), 5. 

4 Marsha Prior and Robert V. Kemper, “From Freedman’s Town to Uptown: Community Transformation and Gentrification in Dallas, Texas,” Urban Anthropology and Studies of Cultural Systems and World Economic Development, 34 no. 2/3 (Summer-Fall 2005): 183. 

5 Steve Brown, “Fitzhugh’s Gentrification Moves Into Retail Site Makeovers,” The Dallas Morning News 25 June 2010. 

6 “Scorecards,” Dallas Independent School District, http://www.dallasisd.org/scorecards (accessed December 8, 2012). 

7 “Free and Reduced Price Meals,” Dallas Independent School District, http://www.dallasisd.org/Page/931 (accessed December 8, 2012). 

8 “Scorecards,” Dallas Independent School District. 

9 I understand this to be indicated by the percentage of students that are “Limited-English-Proficient” students in the district. For example, 31% of the students at Robert E. Lee Elementary are “Limited-English,” while the district as a whole is at 38%.

vocation & living up to one’s potential

Vocation. Over the past few years I’ve (Joshua) been thinking a lot about this word and what it means for me. Vocation. Is it a job? A calling? Can I even speak of “calling” anymore? What is vocation? Merriam-Webster define it quite simply:

“a summons or strong inclination to a particular state or course of action; especially : a divine call to the religious life.”

That’s basic enough, right?

Ever since I began trying to follow Jesus I’ve struggled with what it is I’m supposed to do with my life. A missionary? A pastor? A professor? A priest? A monk? But not until these last two options became real did the word vocation come up (most of my life has been spent in evangelical churches where the word “vocation” is scarcely used for some reason). Now, as an Anglican, we talk a lot more about vocation (I suppose “calling” is the evangelical’s way of saying the same thing).

For quite some time I have felt a keen awareness of the desire within myself to live among the marginalized. I have engaged in different “experiments,” if you will, in order to try and live out this desire. But never did I think about this as something springing from my vocation. I just assumed I didn’t have one. You may be tempted to ask at this point what it is I do “for a living.” For the past three and some odd years I’ve done behavioral therapy. I work with people, mostly kids and teenagers, with autism and other developmental disabilities. It truly is a blessing. I love what I do and I love being able to be so involved in the lives of people that feel isolated and often times helpless. I also like my job because it pays well enough that I don’t have to work a full-time schedule, so I’m freed up to spend my energy elsewhere. I say all this to make one point: Never have I considered therapy as my vocation. It’s something that I do. Yes, it’s incredibly meaningful and I enjoy it. But no, it’s not my vocation.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I’ve been reading a lot about Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement (CWM). I have also been reading folks like the desert fathers and many other spiritual leaders who have followed in their paths. When I read these men and women of faith I really get the sense they understood what they’re doing as their vocation. Now Dorothy loved to read the desert fathers and mothers, and many of her favorite saints were those that lived isolated lives completely devoted to God (through work and prayer). But Dorothy also loved the poor, the hungry, the sick, and the destitute (I’m not saying these others didn’t love them). And her love for them led her to believe that she couldn’t see herself isolated in a monastery, but had to be living in solidarity with them. Dorothy’s lifelong struggle would be, to use biblical language, to live in the world but not of it. In other words, to make progress regarding her “interior life” but remain with others. This was her vocation, her “summons or strong inclination to a particular state or action.”

Now, at the risk of never being able to tie this all together (I may already have crossed that point!), I beg the reader for a little more time as I move on to the second part of this blog title. The other night I was having some drinks with a good friend of mine and we stumbled upon the topic of potential. What a messy and strange thing potential is! If someone is not doing all that well at something you may tell them, “You have potential.” Ouch. I never really liked hearing that, or using it for that matter. But I digress. This friend has a good job by many standards. It is regular, challenging, and allows him to interact with people. There have been many times he and I have likened it to a sort of monastic lifestyle: work (manual labor) and prayer. So I asked him the other day how it was going. “I don’t feel that I am living up to my potential,” was essentially his response to me. So we began talking about what that means for him. All in all it was a great conversation (bourbon certainly helps).

He told me about a book he was reading. This book talked about how people are self-limiting. He concluded that indeed he was self-limiting, and this conclusion has led him to think about how he may pursue something that will let him reach his full potential. This is all well and good. I encouraged him to do so if that’s what he felt was best. But it got me thinking about my life. Am I self-limiting? Am I living up to my full potential? In other words, what is my vocation and does that allow my full potential to be reached?

After thinking a few days about these questions I realized something: I don’t like these questions at all. At least for me personally, they’re the wrong questions. In my mind, “potential” is not something I should be too concerned about. Take my job, for example. I could go back to school for just a few more years and get some different letters after my name which would qualify me to make more money as well as have more of a voice in the autism community. That’s good, right? Sure, but it’s not for me. Because for me vocation and potential are very different things.

You will all be very pleased to know that I have discovered my vocation (hallelujah!). It’s a vocation not unlike that of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, as well as the countless Catholic Workers that have gone after them. And to be honest with you, I’m not sure my vocation allows for me to reach my “full potential,” what ever that is. I have a divine call to a certain religious life. But not a life that will lead me inside the walls of a monastery, but one that will lead me to the slums of east Dallas. One that will lead me to maintain a lifestyle where I do not make much money (according to typical standards) and what I do make I count not as my own. A lifestyle that will allow me to live monastically, giving great importance to the “interior life,” while constantly struggling with just how to do that because of my surroundings. I dare say a life where I embrace Lady Poverty, that beautiful companion of so many who have gone before us. I hesitate to use the word “poverty” because it’s so very relative. Perhaps “simplicity” is better? I don’t know, these are things I’m continuing to have to work out, and thankfully, I don’t have to work them out alone.

Not giving up, because God is bigger than me (Part 2)

So here I was, alone and beaten. All my ambition was gone, all my trust that life in community could actually work, gone. Essentially I was dead. I remained like this for quite some time. Over the course of the next two years I would be involved in two more “home churches.” I did not have nearly the involvement in these as I did the first. Of the two, one is still going, though I am no longer a part of either. I have since shifted my ecclesiastical standpoint and became a member of the institutional church, the Episcopal Church, to be precise. This was quite the drastic move from home churches. Liturgy? What was that? The Eucharist? Isn’t it an actual meal? These were all things I had to think about (and I still think about). But in the Episcopal Church I felt like I had found a home. Perhaps what I found was a Body of which I could be a part, but also be able to stand a safe distance away (I’m not saying this was a good or bad thing). At the risk of making an unnatural chronological leap to the present, I want to begin to talk about what was to be the topic of this post in the first place.

Remember how I mentioned reading Wendell Berry and Dorothy Day earlier? Well over the next two years, leading up to the present, these two people would come to influence me perhaps more than any others have. And, through my interaction with the works by and about Dorothy, I would come to learn about a poor French peasant named Peter Maurin.

Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day began what is known today as The Catholic Worker Movement (CWM). As a contemporary Worker says, “The Catholic Worker was and is a lay movement without official status in the church and without formally defined leadership.” (The Catholic Worker Movement: Intellectual and Spiritual Origins, Zwick)

I don’t intend to give a history of any sorts of the Movement, but only to say what is necessary to get my point across. Peter believed that the rise of industry (among other things) had stripped the worker of his/her God-given dignity, and that the only way to recover this was to once again engage in meaningful work (those familiar with Wendell Berry will see here the obvious connections). Peter and Dorothy would work together to make this possible. Peter had a program made up of basically three points:

1) Roundtable discussions for the clarification of thought

2) Agronomic universities (farming communes)

3) Houses of Hospitality

Essentially, the CWM seeks to create a space, not unlike a monastery, where individuals can live and work together, relearning our connection to the soil (as well as manuel labor in general), scheduling their lives around prayer, and seeking to engage in the Works of Mercy.

There are CW homes all over now, and because there is no official tie to the movement, they all look quite differently. It is my hope to see one emerge in east Dallas. Despite my many failures at these kinds of “experiments,” I remain idealistic and hopeful. Like Peter and Dorothy, I see voluntary poverty (to be distinguished from destitution and perhaps better called “simplicity”) as the ideal way of life. Like Peter, however, I also believe that it is the right of every person to have land. But this is only possible for a few these days, for those with money. Unless! – cries Peter and Dorothy – it is done in community.

Stephen and I, when we started Life on Lindsley had very similar ideas as the ones I’ve briefly described here, without labeling them as such. But I think what Peter and Dorothy began, which is very much drawn from the lives of the saints of the Church, is what is needed today. We’re along way, I’m sure, to seeing this happen here. But movements begin with ideas, always. Peter’s advice to Dorothy, when she was asking him about these same things, is just as applicable today as it was then: “Just use the methods of the saints – pray, and tell people what you are doing and they will help.”

Possession in the Kingdom of God: St. Mark 10:17-31

“The Homeless Billionaire” – this was the title to an article about Nicolas Berggruen, chairmen of Berggruen Holdings, a New York-based private equity firm. Berggruen considers himself to be a self-made billionaire with present ownership of over thirty companies worldwide and a personal worth of $2.5 billion. However, this is not what made the article interesting. What is most compelling about Berggruen is that he is labeled “homeless”. As I continued to read the article went on to describe Berggruen as having sold his Manhattan apartment in 2000 along with his other home on an island off the Miami coast which left him essentially homeless. Berggruen remarks in the article, “I’m not that interested in material things, as long as I find a good bed that I can sleep in, that’s enough.” Remarkable, isn’t it? 

I thought that I had stumbled upon the perfect illustration of Mark’s Gospel! A rich man that had sold everything!

Well, I continued to read on – and wouldn’t you know it, the article became somewhat misleading. As I read, I learned that although Berggruen did sell his Manhattan apartment and Miami, island home, he wasn’t exactly a homeless man thankful to simply find a bed. No, I learned that Berggruen’s beds were to be found in some of the most exclusive hotels in the world, and that his transportation was nothing less than a Gulfstream IV! From hosting the poshest of parties to meeting with the cultural and political elites of the world, Nicolas Berggruen is anything but homeless. 

So, I suppose that we’ll have to leave this failed illustration where it lies, and simply return to the text. 

Jesus, in Mark 10, has just left the company of little children and is preparing for his journey to Jerusalem where suffering and ultimate death await him. And he has just told the disciples that to receive the kingdom of God, they must become like one of those little children that he had held in his arms. And in the midst of all this, there comes a man to Jesus who kneels before him and asks, “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 

Later Mark will tell us that this man owned much property, that he was quite wealthy. And later Jesus will comment on the great difficulty for the wealthy to enter the kingdom of God. But in his response to the man, Jesus simply lists six commandments: 

• Do not murder; Do not commit adultery; Do not steal; Do not lie; Do not defraud; and Honor your father and mother.

The man exclaims to Jesus, “I have kept all of these since I was a child!” It’s as if he is saying, “I can inherit the kingdom of God, because I have possessed righteousness from my youth!” 

At this, Mark tells us that Jesus looked at the man and felt love for him – such a beautiful image of the compassion and love of Christ. He neither condemned the man nor hated him, but rather commanded him to sell everything and give it to the poor. 

At this point, I think that we might be able to salvage our opening illustration. Because like Berggruen, this rich young man had done something quite interesting – he had kept many commandments from his youth; perhaps, he had sold some of his property and established organizations for the underprivileged. Perhaps, he had invested in charities worldwide. And Jesus felt love for him. But he was still thinking in terms of “possession”. He was failing to understand that the kingdom of God was not a possession as he understood it, but rather it was a kingdom or world that could only be entered through humility and simplicity – as a little child. He had sold his Manhattan apartment and island home, but had failed to truly understand the radical nature of homelessness in a world of possession. 

So this rich young man went away saddened and grieving for he possessed much property. 

Mark 10 may sound something like an overture for a Christian Communist Manifesto, but at its base, I think that it teaches us that the kingdom of God proclaims a radical re-estimation of what possession means. 

Possession in the economy of God’s kingdom is not exclusive hotels or Gulfstream IV’s, nor is it keeping or possessing the commandments – no, it’s radically different from that. As Jesus explains to the disciples – “You may forsake many possessions in following me, but you will receive so much more. Truly, it’s the greatest investment, but radically different from what you have known… you will receive houses and families and eternal life, but you will also receive persecutions.” In God’s economy, possession is the house of God and the family of God, brothers and sisters living eternally with God; however, persecution is also listed and it becomes the shiv in our side, the pang of reality that reminds us of the radical nature of the kingdom of God. A kingdom where possession is turned upside down. A kingdom where children are received and the powerfully wealthy are turned away. A world where the truly homeless will be welcomed as first and foremost in the kingdom of God. Amen.

Life on Lindsley: The Unfinished Agenda

The front porch is barren; no more empty Tecate bottles and smoldering cigarettes. Those two invasive white boys have moved elsewhere and onward to something different; somewhere new.

If Life on Lindsley were a dream, then we have already heard the faint, yet growing sounds of the alarm clock; it beckons us to wake up and once again live in the “real world”.

Yet I am not ready; I want to keep dreaming. I miss the street and our neighbors (vecinos). I miss Rosa and Jaime and Sergio and Liz. It would be good to see our roving friend who sold the paletas all along the sidewalks of our neighborhood. I miss Lindsley.

I suppose that in some ways I question all that happened this summer and I question whether or not anything really happened at all. What did we accomplish? We cooked a lot of tacos and Josh became quite proficient in making guacamole. There were some very enjoyable evenings spent on our front porch talking to friends and listening to the blasting sounds of Latin music that our neighbor so generously shared with us. But what, if anything, did we accomplish? We talked a lot in the beginning of living intentionally and of all the things we were going to do; however, in retrospect the clarity of the glass through which I perceive our time on Lindsley is uncomfortably honest. We did nothing.

And yet, it’s okay.

In a Christian culture that is consumed with doing, perhaps it’s good to stand and reflect on the power of simply being.

If you visit any church website, you’ll likely see at the top a tab that says something like “Outreach,” “Missions,” or “Community Involvement”. And if you scroll through the listing of ministries you’ll see all sorts of wonderful programs that are all about doing. And this is good, really, really good. However, where do we witness ministries that center on being? For example, a few months ago, on Christmas Day to be specific, I went to a homeless center in Dallas. I served food to people that had no family or food for this most special of holidays. And as I placed the food on those flimsy, styrofoam plates, I thought about how this was wholly unsatisfying and then reprimanded myself for even thinking in those terms; however, there was something true and important about my feeling. My doing on Christmas Day simply wasn’t doing it! It was accomplishing something that was only immediate and it wasn’t bringing me to a fuller sense of life and homelessness and who those people actually were.

This is where I should note that doing is good, insofar as it is couched within the greater context of being.

Our Christian culture must reclaim a proper understanding of incarnation, a proper understanding of mission. Sometimes we go and we work, building something or beginning a program; however, we fail to be. Sometimes the very best thing is to simply sit and listen, even if it’s only to the sounds of passing cars or the bells on the ice cream cart being pushed along the sidewalk. Maybe we do something, maybe we don’t, but perhaps, we’ll begin to see the beauty of finding ourselves within the greater mission of Christ – a mission that doesn’t depend upon our doing, but rather upon God’s. Sometimes we need to rest in his work, listening to his voice as it comes to us through the conversations of unlikely friendships.

And this brings me back to Lindsley Avenue. Josh and I may not have established any sustainable community programs or seen dramatic transformation in the neighborhood (whatever that means), nor were we able to even get one of neighbors to join us for a cookout! However, we were simply there, simply being.

In some ways, Life on Lindsley has ended and in others, Life on Lindsley will never die, for it speaks to the spirit of our lives and remains central to our understanding of the Gospel, to our understanding of Jesus Christ.

So wherever we may be, may we seek out and find those Lindsley Avenues that are in every city and in every place on earth, and may we truly be there listening to the voices and conversations that fill the void of meaninglessness and inspire change on the most unlikely levels.

An Exercise in Sermon Prep

Stephen and I have decided to begin a weekly exercise of writing sermons using the Revised Common Lectionary. We will rotate week from week and post our sermons here. We figure it’ll not only be great practice for sermon prep, but will also give us opportunity to continue to articulate our thoughts, as well as provide just another outlet for conversation. As always, we covet your interactions.

blessings!

Settling In

We’ve been in our new home now for two weeks. I wish I could say that it’s been amazing and we’ve had all these heavenly experiences…but I can’t. Life doesn’t work that way, even onLindsley Avenue. But a few things have happened that have greatly enriched our lives. In this short post I (Joshua) want to simply share some of these experiences, as well as a few thoughts that have had time to marinate.

The only thing we sought to do initially was befriend our neighbors, as the title of this blog conveys. We’ve had a great time doing this! There is a great couple with three kids that share our duplex with us. We’ve greatly enjoyed getting to know them. The process is slow-going, but there seems to be a seed of trust there. One of our highlights with them is all of us sharing the front porch while we both complain about how many bugs and mice we’ve seen/killed. While this is going on Stephen is out in the front yard throwing the football with their 7 year old, A.J. It was during this time that we both had a surreal experience of life together.

We’ve enjoyed getting to know our other neighbors as well. There’s Rosa, the “grandma” of the street. She’s been in her little house for 30 years. She speaks really good English so our communication is pretty in depth. Her husband, Jaime, doesn’t speak a word of English. The only way we can communicate is by waving, holding up our beers to “cheers” one another, and the like. Thankfully, Stephen speaks Spanish so they are able to talk a bit more.

Stephen and I have talked a lot about why we’re here. We’ve read and reread our first post and wondered how, if at all, we’ve further developed our thinking. We still believe that our calling is to “live life together” with the folks on Lindsley Ave, to create a community that displays peace, justice, and reconciliation. This, we believe, is where liberation must begin. Whether or not we get involved politically in the issues surrounding this neighborhood is to be determined. We first must get to know our neighbors to understand what needs they have, if any.

This brings us to a few of the most pervading questions regarding our move into East Dallas. Questions regarding purpose and more particularly, need. What does this community need? And are we even capable of perceiving any supposed needs? Or are we too far removed from their context and story to be effective? Josh has written on the theoretical motivations for our move; motivations that are rooted in some tenants of Liberation Theology, yet placing that theory into practice has been a different thing entirely. A simple example of this is that theologians like Gutierrez, Romero, and Union Seminary professor, James Cone, have developed their theology within a context that they know well; Gutierrez inPeru; Romero inEl Salvador; and Cone in the Southern US. Their theology is born out of personal hardship and suffering; and that’s why it’s so compelling.

And this causes me (Stephen) to continually question Josh on the purpose of our move. For unlike Gutierrez or Romero or Cone, we do not come from contexts where there was overt oppression of “our people”. No, “our people” were white, middle-class families that provided stable environments wherein they raised their children. We are well educated and well connected in our respective fields and monetarily stable. In short, we belong to a demographic that reflects nothing of the lives of our neighbors on Lindsley Avenue. So again, what are we doing?

I suppose that this is a good place for me to end; however, our hope is that this blog becomes a conversation, not only between me and Josh, but with the wider community of people who are committed to these same ideals and passions.

A New Start

Liberation theology.

Depending on which side of the theological, political, and even social spectrum you fall, this phrase may mean many things. Not only may it mean something different intellectually, but it may evoke many different emotions as well. It is not our purpose here, nor the purpose of this blog, to present arguments for the validity of a theology of liberation, though at times subtle arguments may find their way in. Stephen and I are starting this blog with the presupposition that liberation theologies (for there are quite a few of them out there, some of which we disagree) have a valid and needed voice in the church today. And, as we hope to make clear, not only in the church but in the wider community as a whole.

Now, a bit of explanation of what all this has to do with “Life of Lindsley.” Stephen and I are committed Christians. We want our readers to know this from the outset. We believe the gospel of God calls us to live radically devoted lives in the service of Jesus and the marginalized for which he demonstrated such profound love. Stephen is soon to wrap up his theological training and hopes to be ordained into the Episcopal church in the near future. I have completed my theological training and also am working towards ordination, though in the not so near future.

“Life of Lindsley” is our (feeble) attempt to take what we have learned, both in the classroom setting, as well as those many hours spent on the front porch smoking cigarettes, and respond to the message of Jesus. If you read the gospels this message is a message for the poor, the outcast, those pushed to the margins. We’re not saying that God doesn’t love the rich and the privileged. Surely he does. But there is no denying the fact that, when you look in general throughout the narrative of the Bible, and in the gospels in particular, God shows a special preference for the poor.

In a nutshell, liberation theology sees the liberating (saving) message of God, most clearly seen in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus as a message that cannot be primarily about a liberation of the soul, but must be rooted in political, economic, and social liberation as well. In other words, the gospel of Jesus Christ is meant to bring liberation for those that suffer injustices, poverty, and violence (cf. Lev. 25:35-38; Lk. 1:51-53; Js. 2:5-7).

Gustavo Gutierrez sums it up better than I ever could:

“The definitive reason for commitment with the poor and the oppressed is not, consequently, in the social analysis that we employ, nor in the direct experiences that we may have with poverty, nor in our own human compassion. All of those are valid motives that without a doubt play a significant role in our lives and reason for our solidarity. Yet for Christians this solidarity is based fundamentally in faith in the God of Jesus Christ. It is a theocentric and prophetic option that sinks its roots into the gratuitous love of God and is required by it.”[1]

These are the convictions that have led Stephen and I to Lindsley Avenue, an old, run down, forgotten street in East Dallas. We will be moving into this community not with the attitude: here we are, we have something to offer you. We are moving into this community to share life with a people that have largely been pushed aside. It is, as stated above, a theocentric and prophetic option. It is our hope (and I do not think we are being naïve) that our lives and their lives become one. Not in some esoteric union, but in a union that takes on flesh and bones, a union that we have seen most clearly in the incarnation of the Son of Man.

---

[1] From Liberating the Future: God, Mammon and Theology (Fortress Press, 1998), p. 102. Italics mine.

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