Loose Ends... Confessions Of An Unfinished Faith
Loose Ends... Confessions Of An Unfinished Faith-December Issue, 2006
“Poor Me” by Nichole Nordeman (As Seen in the December, 2006 Issue of CCM Magazine)
On September 18th, Time Magazine slapped a photo of a shiny Rolls Royce on its cover. And in place of its trademark silver-winged maiden, was the hood ornament of a glistening Christian cross. It looked like something the Pope might drive if he was giving Snoop Dog a lift somewhere. Not exactly subtle. And for every person waiting casually in a supermarket line, or any last minute browsers at an airport news stand, it was hard to miss the big block letters splashed across the front of the Rolls, posing the faintly condemnatory question, “DOES GOD WANT YOU TO BE RICH?”
The cover story centered around the ongoing debate regarding the theological sturdiness of what is commonly called the Prosperity Gospel… a teaching in many churches today that riches and material blessings are ours for the taking, that God desires to lavish them on His people without restraint, and that we should claim and receive them for the gifts they are. This article highlighted many of the Evangelical elite (from Joel Osteen to Rick Warren) and in my opinion, painted a pretty fair portrait of the differing views from today’s most notable pastors. Honestly, it was well worth reading.
Does God want you to be rich? I’m hardly qualified to answer. But I do believe it’s a very important question for each Christian to ask oneself…and answer, all by oneself. I believe answers are generally few and foggy, like most really important questions that arise from a deep place of uncertainty. But it’s the self-examination that is the real point. And, the conviction that might follow.
I toured with Casting Crowns this past spring. It was a big group of us on the road…around 60 people, including every truck driver, crew member, nanny and guitar tech. Eric Brown took a job on that tour selling merch. CDs, hats, t-shirts, jewelry…if you left with some concert memorabilia from the Lifesong tour, chances are Eric sold it to you. Incredibly nice guy. Very quiet and laid back. I wish now that I’d spent some time getting to know him on the road…because only months later in a coffee shop in Nashville did I learn about his story…and how his perspective on wealth would begin to quietly shape mine.
Eric grew up in the church…good Baptist home. Solid Christian parents. And despite this sturdy foundation, he ventured down some unlikely roads and found himself, at age 21, already divorced and beginning an emotional and mental spiral into self-absorbed anguish. He basically had a major meltdown. Not the kind that a good vacation or a ‘chin-up’ sort of pep talk can shake you out of…but the kind that would, in a short time, lands him on the streets. Literally. Homeless. Living out of a car at times and underneath freeways at others. It was astonishing to hear his story and realize how quickly a few wrong turns can mean the difference between youth group and a soup kitchen.
I asked him about the obvious culprits that preclude homelessness…the mental checklist I go through when I’m waiting at that unbearably long red light trying to not to look at the guy with the cardboard sign two feet from my window. The same ones you’re asking yourself right now. I asked about alcohol. None. I asked about any kind of substance abuse. Nada. I even winced and asked if he was just lazy. “Not an issue,” he said, and I believed him.
For Eric, it seemed, life as a homeless person, was a part of a much bigger spiritual picture, looking back. He has a perspective on wealth that not many of us will ever have. It was painful to listen to him relate how shameful it felt to knock on the door of a church or sit in the pastor’s study with the cherry maple bookcases and the flat panel TV and beg for a job scrubbing toilets. And be turned down. Or, to watch the receptionist scrounge around in the “food bank” for a can of pork and beans that expired 2 months ago and then send him on his way. As he told his story, I felt shame too…as a Christian. Not for my part in his journey, but for my lack of one.
I could fill 20 pages of what Eric shared with me that morning over coffee. And how it has haunted me…not with guilt, but with a call to personal accountability about the importance and priority that “things” and money play in my life. That’s what I took from the Time Magazine article. I’m not necessarily that interested in Joel Osteen’s position…but I realized I MUST have my own. Apathy is the enemy here.
Eric’s journey out of that situation is probably the most inspiring part of his story. If I had to describe him in a word it would be, “unencumbered.” It’s been awhile since I’ve seen someone at such peace. Despite the outside improvements in his life (he is happily married with a good job, a nice roof over his head and plenty of food on his table), his peace will never come from his paycheck. Like anyone who has been broken, he will always walk with a limp. The good kind. He has not allowed bitterness to take root toward the church or the culture. But he has a healthy cynicism and speaks with a beautiful detachment about money and security that is enviable.
Ask about Biblical direction on this topic? He’ll send you straight to 2 Corinthians 8.
Ask if anybody inspires him? He’ll gush over Derek Webb’s music.
Ask what his worst-case scenario is…”Monetary wealth,” he says, without hesitating.
Eventually I watched his face soften and stare out the window for a time, as if he were remembering an old friend. Then, he quietly mentioned that some days he misses the simple intimacy he had with Jesus back then. “It was all I had,” he says faintly. And all he really needed.
Later that night I spent some time in the scripture he mentioned, considering what Paul had to say on the subject.
“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.”
And I wonder, this month, whether Mary and Joseph understood the same…having never seen the inside of a Rolls Royce, but understanding how profoundly wealthy they were in the middle of a filthy barn.
In Excelsis Deo,
nichole
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