On Money

"Money isn't real." 

The other month down at God's Lil' Acre those were the words that riled up my insides.  It happens more often there than anywhere, the prophetic word.  Yes, instead of reading Martin Luther King, Jr. or a radical blog of educated, mobile young adults, the razor sharp Word shows up at a drop-in populated by folks without jobs who wear their addictions on their bodies (unlike most of us who hide ours deeper down).  Every Thursday morning for four hours I sit in that little house, that little "rehumanization center" as one of our homeless friends has called it, and I listen and learn and notice what is happening to me in the process. 

Now more than once I've had to stand up for women's rights or treating others with respect and dignity, but that's no different from any old unfortunate conversation with an overly talkative seatmate on some plane ride to Denver.  (Yes, I speak from experience.)  The difference at GLA, though is that the profound mixes with the profane, and I have to pay attention and think, and wade through frustration to figure out the difference.

Of course money isn't real.  It's a socially constructed, material phenomenon, and every Thursday I sit with folks who live their lives without much of it.  What if we did everything through a barter system, eliminating the false middle idol of cash?  What if we didn't barter but gave of ourselves, our possessions, our time freely?  What if we walked the dusty road of life relying on hospitality and seeing from the margins things that those with power and privilege cannot?  What if we followed Jesus on that journey to the cross with the sacrifice and simplicity it requires?

Recently we held a memorial service for a community member who didn't seem to notice the boundaries between himself and other people.  I'd walk down the stairs into the yard and he'd say to me, "Boy I'd sure like to see you in a bikini!"  See?  No appropriate boundaries.  But he'd also get his check first of the month and start handing out money and he'd say, "They need it more than I do."

Money isn't real.  It takes someone on the very margins of this money-drive society to name such a profound truth.  So I'm thinking it's time to start listening to something besides televisions and engaging something besides mobile devices.  Or how else will we see what is real?