"The Least of These": an Open Letter to the Santa Barbara City Council

The following blog is a letter that I recently sent to the Subcommittee on Homelessness and Community Relations created by the Santa Barbara City Council. The council has taken on the daunting but important task of addressing the growing problem of chronic homelessness in our community - a topic that we as Christians should certainly address. You can read the subcommittee's report and recommendations as well as get updates at http://www.santabarbaraca.gov/Government/Other_Committees/Homelessness_and_Community_Relations/. In Matthew 25 Jesus himself addresses the issue and makes one of the most compelling claims for enacting justice by claiming solidarity with the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the prisoner. It's quite a list. As followers of Jesus we must take up the cause and give voice to those who are marginalized in our community. Moreover, such a stance reminds us that to enact justice is not an abstract desire but must reflect a practical effort to extend a welcome and acceptance to those who often meet with alienation and derision. Let's discover what that "welcome" might look like together and invite Jesus not simply into our hearts but our homes - our very lives. If you wish to help take up this cause then please email me and I will tell you about current efforts aimed at ending chronic homelessness in our community. Peace to you. Here is my letter:

Dear Santa Barbara City Council Committee Members,


My name is Jon Lemmond and I currently serve as Pastor for Gospel Action at Montecito Covenant Church. I am also part of the subcommittee on homelessness for CLUE (Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice). In this letter, I am responding on behalf of both communities to the Discussion of Strategies to Address Community Issues Related to Homelessness. Please know that your work is welcomed and appreciated. Your efforts bring us closer to the goal of empowering those who are homeless to a life of greater self-sufficiency and dignity. For this, we are truly grateful.
In keeping with the stated goals of the Ten-Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness we urge you to prioritize and implement the strategies that focus on intervention and prevention (recommendations 5-12). We understand these approaches to be more responsible fiscally and more effective for producing long-term systemic change. In these tough economic times, we caution everyone to remain vigilant against language and measures that serve to criminalize and alienate those who are homeless. Philip Mangano, reminds us that “the punitive approach has never worked anywhere. It’s expensive and demoralizing to everyone involved, and at best it can only hide the problem briefly.” In other words, the most effective recommendations will recognize everyone’s needs and, in turn, offer everyone justice – equal access to shared economic resources which ensures lives of dignity and respect for all.
Combining deep compassion with unflinching realism we specifically recommend that you give priority to the following strategies:

• Forty more beds annually allocated for Casa Esperanza to be made available to the most vulnerable of those experiencing homelessness: women, the elderly, and those struggling with mental illness. (recommendation #6 & #7)

• Greater coordination and cooperation between police officers and street outreach teams and increased funding for mental illness screenings, mental health staff, and restorative policing. (recommendations #5 & #9)

• Securing locations and funding for more detox beds allocated to those recovering from drug and alcohol addiction. (recommendation #8)

• Developing an education campaign (e.g. Santa Barbara Cares) about homelessness that includes current efforts associated with the Ten-Year Plan and utilizes donation boxes, in lieu of simply handing money to those on the street. Such funds could help provide hotel vouchers for those who are vulnerable as well as fund measures to move chronically homeless men and women into permanent supportive housing. Nevertheless, we caution the use of language like “panhandling” which fails to explain adequately the needs and issues of those who seek both money and connections with others. (recommendation #11)

• Formulating appropriation measures for use of the Coastal Zone Affordable Overnight Accommodation Fund to provide emergency hotel vouchers as well as aid in helping people move into more substantial, long-term housing. If the real goal is to help get those who are chronically homeless off the street, then they must be offered a place to belong, not simply be removed. We support the research and work of Roger Heroux who argues that moving people into more permanent supportive housing is both humane and a cost-saving measure that, over time, will pay for itself. (recommendations #10 & #12)

• Finally, because we desire concrete solutions rather than sentimentality we ask the council to create and implement an assessment protocol which, in six months time, will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of the above stated recommendations.

We thank you for your time in thinking through this complex and important issue. We are willing to help mitigate some of the cost by pledging the financial support of our faith communities. As people of faith we pray for you in the critical work that you do to help create a more just community. We also urge you to consider a critical element of such justice: our capacity to welcome all members of our city. Jean Vanier, the founder of the L’Arche community in France, writes, “Welcome is one of the signs that a community is alive. To invite others to live with us is a sign that we aren’t afraid, that we have a treasure of truth and of peace to share.”

With warm regards,

Jon Lemmond, Pastor for Gospel Action
Montecito Covenant Church
Member of CLUE

Cleanliness is Next to Godliness

“Cleanliness is next to godliness,” is a saying that most of us have encountered at one time or another. This well worn cliché figures prominently in those parental truisms that grubby children easily ignore and as one precocious but dirty little kid once remarked, “But didn’t Jesus play with dirt?”(c.f. John 8; 9:6). Well – I would like to renovate this phrase theologically to promote the new M-4 Project which involves demolishing and renovating the bathrooms at a local camper park in Carpinteria that is run by a fabulous local organization - Peoples’ Self-Help Housing (www.pshhc.org). This is a down-to-earth project that will involve financial support but more importantly our own time and talents as all four congregations provide volunteers to perform the actual construction work. During the month of February, every Saturday from 9-3, we will be needing workers to help rebuild the bathrooms, paint, clean the grounds, and offer hospitality to workers and residents. You don’t need to have strong skills in construction work (though we are happy to have them) because there will be a variety of jobs for the skilled and those, like myself, who are unskilled but willing. I invite you to come and be a part of God’s work in our community as we seek to give recognition and respect to those whom Jesus loves.

More information will be forthcoming but if you would like to sign-up as a volunteer in advance please contact Jon Lemmond, Pastor for Gospel Action, jonucsb@yahoo.com or 259-8450.

Sewing Machines, Bathrooms & the Homeless

Sewing machines, bathrooms, and the homeless – these are the objects, places, and people where God’s kingdom is being encountered. The sewing machine refers to the generosity and care of donations and gifts given to fire survivors reflecting our continual care and concern for walking with them on the long road back to their homes. I am increasingly trying to pinpoint particular needs and working with others, both staff and laity, in ensuring that no one is forgotten or ignored. There is still much work to be done but the donation of a very nice sewing machine by a member of another church is one more reason to recognize and celebrate God’s faithfulness expressed through His church which extends beyond our congregation. Bathrooms are equally exciting. These refer to the new M-4 project in response to People’s Self-Help Housing which has asked the four Montecito churches to fund and refurbish bathrooms at a mobile home park in Carpinteria. The project has received an immense amount of enthusiasm and energy from two meetings and we now seek to gather community support from our individual churches in terms of helpers who can build as well as those who could offer hospitality to workers as well as those within the park. I am obviously new to working with M-4 but have been so impressed with the care, concern and spiritual maturity of all of those involved – such an ecumenical move of the Spirit bears much of the good fruits of God’s kingdom. Finally, the issue of homelessness refers to my recent participation in CLUE (Clergy and Laity United for Economic justice) – this is a faith based group which seeks to respond to the needs of those marginalized by economic inequities in the Santa Barbara area. I recently attended a symposium on homelessness involving city councilwoman Helene Schneider and am seeking to represent our church as one of many who hunger for enabling structural changes for justice within our city on this difficult issue.

Doing Doubt

I was raised on "Bible drill." For those not familiar with Bible belt culture imagine a game show requiring military-like speed and accuracy where the purpose is to locate and read, as fast as humanly possible, a passage of scripture mentioned by a Sunday School teacher. All this to say, I was taught my Bible with a certain feverishness that, while at times could be stressful, has often reaped great rewards later in life. Of course, such tactics, however well-intended, can have unfortunate consequences and the main one from "Bible drill" is that it makes Scripture reading a pinpoint target where you focus on the bull's eye without seeing the bigger landscape behind it, so to speak, those verses surrounding the pericope - contextualizing it. This reality was made all the more real for me when I was caught off guard by one of those passages that I knew - memorized, believed, and attempted to walk - the Great Commission, Matt. 28:18-20. I knew the bull's eye but failed to notice the lay of the land and thus a critical context for this passage - the audience. "Wait a minute!" You're probably saying, "The audience is the disciples - everyone knows that!" (Okay, I'll drop the fictitious, rhetorical dialogue). The critical context for the Great Commission is supplied in the two verses prefacing it. I'll quote them in full: "Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, . . . " Here we find a worshiping community of the risen Lord who doubts. I find great comfort in doubt and worship coexisting together but that will have to be for another blog. What I find even more pertinent for us as a community is Jesus' response to the disciple's doubt and, I would suggest, for our doubt as well. What is that response? He give them/us something to do! What this suggests on the one hand is that doubt is normal even biblical. Those who walked with Jesus and encountered him risen from the grave were not immune to the doubts which remain part of discipleship - remember they had already encountered and worshiped him earlier (see vs. 9-10). What such a context also suggests is that when we doubt, Jesus isn't terribly interested in securing our faith through fancy arguments and incontestable proofs; no, he simply gives us something to do. You see it is in doing that doubt both matters and in critical ways dissipates. It is in doing Kingdom work that you will ultimately find God's presence and activity. It is in responding to doubt outside of yourself that you make such issues like the lordship of Jesus more than points of dogma but meaningful and critical facts for changing the lives of others and your own. Don't let doubt sideline you in the Christian life; rather, let it lead you into a richer life of service to others knowing that God has called you to participate in his work. For a final analogy (and given my bull's eye imagery earlier maybe a mixed metaphor) I simply point you to my youngest daughter who is learning to swim. She often doubts her ability to move through the water without sinking down and frets about swallowing water and sputtering and spewing chlorinated H2O. Nevertheless, you and I both know that the only way through this doubt is for her to swim - to do it. Otherwise, she would be fretting over something that didn't matter - why worry about swimming if you never swim? In the same way, if you struggle with doubt in your walk of discipleship remember its normal and then step up to the edge, point your hands above your head and dive. Otherwise, what's the point?

Bethlehem and a Bicycle

In a recent time of prayer at my church during this Christmas season I heard myself confessing to God and other staff members that I often found myself looking for Bethlehem only to find myself at the mall - crowds, consumption, etc. Well - as only God can - I later found myself at a Bicycle shop only to discover that I was actually in Bethlehem. Okay, maybe that sounds too preachy but let me explain. Recently, I was told that one of the Tea Fire Survivors at our church had lost her bike in the fire - her transportation to her job. After talking to my pastor about it he encouraged me to contact a group within our church who love to ride bikes together - you know with the bright colored, tight fitting clothes as they whiz by in a blur - called Domestiques for Jesus. A domestique (French for "servant") is a cycling term which refers to a rider who works for the benefit of his team and leader. When I approached the Domestiques with my problem they quickly pushed me out of the way and before I knew it had pulled their funds together and bought her a beautiful, new bicycle. When I arrived at the bike shop so that the Fire Survivor could be fitted for her new bike (right, it was such a cool bike that she actually had to be "fitted" to it) I had the immense privilege of watching this person receive a gift born from the faithfulness of those who had put their trust in God. I was asked to offer a blessing but have since been struck by the scene of this so-called bicycle nativity. Each of these guys, like Mary, were humbly declaring, "Here am I, the servant (domestique) of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." (Luke 1:38). These guys, like Mary, were servants who acted out of a desire to see the leader's (God's) goals accomplished. Giving gifts as God has given - unabashedly, extravagently, graciously - is what Christmas is about. I always thought you had to travel by plane to get to Bethlehem but apparently a bike will suffice.

στρἑϕω

Why στρἑϕω for a blog name? If I were honest - always a good quality in a pastor - I would say such an odd title comes from a love for words, especially foreign ones that appear educated, old and mysterious. What former seminary student doesn't love to dust off his or her Greek lexicon and hold up a Koine word in a sermon like its a precious, handcrafted object to be looked at with awe? Apart from showing off, however, the word itself is helpful for me as I enter into a new job of helping our church engage our community as agents of God's kingdom. I am new on staff at Montecito Covenant Church and along with this honor I was given a shiny new title to go with it - Pastor for Gospel Action. "Gospel Action" is a bit bombastic but nicely framed by this Greek word στρἑϕω. The word means "to turn" or take notice. If someone called my name I would "στρἑϕω," as it were and then respond. But how would I respond? Well, that's where another meaning of στρἑϕω becomes important. The word also means "the changing of cursing into blessing." We often live in a culture of cursing or ignoring - where the bruises of life often bring the curses of those whom we bump or where our cursed lives are ignored with no one who turns or responds to our needs with blessings. My prayer and aim is that I will be a catalyst for στρἑϕω in our church - to help us see the needs of those around so that we may respond and change people's lives from cursing into the blessed life offered by our Lord and Savior - that's the Gospel in action!