Think Inside the Box

Harry Lenardson was well into his 80’s when I first met him and his wife, Louise. The two of them lived in a tiny house on Stone St., just a few blocks away from the parsonage that housed my dad, mom, and I in downtown Flint.

The Lenardsons attended the church my dad pastored, and since my folks believed in the power of modeling servanthood to their kids, I usually tagged along or was dragged along whenever we visited them.

Harry was tall and thin, had a quiet demeanor, and a kind smile. Louise was his compliment in every way with her infectious laugh, her boisterous personality that could overfill a large room, and her mission to make sure every man, woman, and child that entered her home always had a full glass of iced tea within their reach. Which was unfortunate for me because I hated tea as a child. But my mom made me drink it anyway ("Mind your manners, Michael!").

I loved visiting the Lenardsons because their house was full of the most interesting items. Colorful afghans, antiquated toys, potted cacti, giant photography books of historical events and exotic countries, and (my favorite) hand-carved wooden trinkets.

By the time I arrived on the scene, Harry had developed quite an issue with “shaky hands,” as he called it. He experienced constant tremors that skyrocketed the most mundane of tasks into near impossibility. As a four-year-old, I was completely fascinated with watching him eat, and one time I even imitated his unique style, to my mother’s horror, spilling my food all over my plate just like he did. Mom was mortified. But Harry just laughed and said, “boys will be boys.”

The only time Harry’s hands didn’t shake was when he carved wood. Harry was an artist to the core, and quite an experienced wood carver, hence the dozens of artifacts around his house. My favorite one was a cube that contained a ball inside that was much too big to have been shoved into the box it rested in (pictured below). It had no seams because Harry had carved the sphere out from within the block of wood, but I hadn’t quite figured that part out yet. I thought that maybe Harry was a magician, having found a way to shrink the wooden box around the ball. Harry knew I enjoyed his carvings, and he made sure that my favorites were left to me when he died. But before he passed, I worked up the courage one night to ask him the about the box's secret. He told me in a Michelangelo-esque manner that “The ball was inside the box the whole time. Someone just needed to let it know.”

~~~

When I first moved into this trailer park almost two years ago, I really had no clue what I was doing. I still don’t, actually. There aren’t many books about trailer park ministry (yet). Thankfully, God isn't clueless. I spent my prayer times asking God for wisdom. “How do I bring your Kingdom to the park?” is a question I asked him over and over. He must have got tired of listening to me on repeat, because in one of my few silent moments, He fired something back at me.

My mind raced with two images. The first was Harry Lenardson’s wooden box from my childhood. Then that image switched to faces of people on my street; people whom I had seen but not yet met. As their faces panned through my mind’s eye, a quiet voice which sounded suspiciously like old Harry’s spoke over the scene, “My kingdom is already in there. Someone just needs to let them know.”

He was right. Of course. 

Because that’s the message, isn’t it? That’s the good news.

God is on the move, and there's a place for us on the journey.

He hasn't abandoned, but rather engaged.

Jesus was often heard declaring that “The Kingdom of God is at hand,” (Greek: “here,” “now,” also “a joining together”… hmm) and even instructed his disciples to declare the same thing when they went out into the world.

God has moved in the past, yes. And in the future, yes. 

But He is also moving on these streets in the moment at hand.

And He says we belong in that movement.

The biggest party in the history of mankind is underway, and we’re on the VIP list.
Even with our addictions to porn, success, substances, and money
Even with our criminal records
Even with our bankruptcies and broken contracts

Even with our missed child support
Even with our judging of the rich
Even with our ignoring of the poor
Even with our lack
Even with our surplus
Even when we publicly dishonor our government leaders (1 Peter 2:13-17)
Even when we hurt our children through neglect
Even when we hinder our children through overprotectiveness

To a broken people like us, that is good news indeed.

And that kind of good news, the REAL good news, completely went against everything my new neighbors were expecting to hear from the white, young punk of a pastor who moved in on Mockingbird Dr.

They expected me to come into this park with my theological guns blazing. The people on my street wouldn’t even open their doors to me when I tried to give them Christmas cookies my first winter there. One such family, whose doors are now wide open, eventually shared with me that they had figured I was only there to tell them how bad they were, and how they were going to Hell, and how they needed to come to my church, where they would then be taught how to dress properly, quit smoking, and give money.

Really, they expected me to sell them the watered-down version of the “good news” that is all the rage these days: fire insurance and sin management. (One of which lends to fear-based living and the other to shiny, hollow hearts. Both of which Jesus combatted in his ministry, but I digress.)

What they DIDN'T expect to hear was that God’s Kingdom wasn’t stuck inside a church building at all, but it was already there, on their streets, just waiting to explode. 

Just like Harry's carving, something altogether different is being created inside the box.

A new kind of community, a new way of life, a hope for real freedom, an unhurtful love.

And what they DEFINITELY didn’t expect to hear was that they belonged in it. That there was a place at the party for them. Right where they were at.

So that's exactly the good news my friends and I started sharing.

What I quickly found is that the most effective faith conversations are those that are marked by invitation rather than condemnation.

I say this, because I've tried it both ways. In fact, I'm more familiar with condemnation than I am with invitation. I spent the better part of a decade joining my former churches as we knocked on strangers' doors, leaving fire and brimstone pamphlets in their hands and on their handles. But no matter how deep the wells of good intent were, the story always ended the same: after years of the same Christians and the same churches infiltrating the same neighborhoods with the same message, the number of closed doors only ever increased. It's not that there wasn't any truth within those booklets. There just wasn't any fruit from them.

And it's no wonder, really. Because if you spend enough time telling people how much they don't belong, eventually they are going to believe you.

But on the other hand, if you show them what God is calling them to be,
if you show them the kind of life He has for them both in the future and in the moment "at hand,"
if you show them how Jesus died and rose so that they DO belong, in spite of their messes,
eventually they just might believe THAT.

The question then, is, are you thinking "inside the box?"

You see, I’ve not met many people in my life who really just needed ME to convince them of how wrong, bad, or broken they are.

But I sure have met a lot of people who needed to know how loved they are in spite of their brokenness.

I’ve not met too many people who really just needed ME to teach them about what’s wrong with the world that we live in.

But I sure have met a lot of people that needed to know what God is doing right now in the middle of the mess, and just exactly how they fit into it. 

That's not a new idea, though. Jesus did this kind of stuff all the time (read: the Beatitudes)

Because God’s Kingdom IS alive and well in the moment "at hand"

Being carved out from inside the boxes of our neighborhoods, workplaces, schools, families, nations, cultures, subcultures

Or even from inside our own churches.

There's a standing invitation for us to join. There's even a seat saved for us at the party. 

And it's the only place where we ever truly belong.

We just need(ed) someone to let us know.