Bad Guys Too

We were approaching the twenty minute mark.  A show down of sorts.  His lanky third grade self twisted up in the corner, head buried in his folded forearms in a potent blend of anger and shame. 

"Can we talk about what happened now?"

I had been checking in every five minutes or so to see if he was ready to talk about the behavior that landed him in time out in the first place.

He didn't move a muscle, but a faint and muffled grumble escaped from the tangle of arms and legs and face.
"It's not fair.  I didn't do nothin'!   He was messin' with me first!"

I sank down to my knees, so we could  talk eye-to-elbow (and maybe, just maybe, he would uncross his arms eventually). 

"Well, he may need to apologize too, it's true, but you have a responsibility as well."

His arms uncrossed, and a fiery gaze emerged from the cavern of gangly limbs. 

"This is bigger than just 'he was messin' with me'.  God wants us to love other people the way we want to be loved.  The way you act helps people see how much God loves them.  This is why it's so important to be kind to others...even when they're messing with you."

The boy balked. 
"God doesn't love the bad guys."


Now it was my turn to sit there dumbfounded.

My mind raced and my heart sank simultaneously.


The implications haunted me, are still haunting me weeks later.  As a resident in the state that incarcerates more African-American men than any other, the idea that this young, African-American boy has picked up the message that "God doesn't love the bad guys" just devastates me.

Because our culture here in Wisconsin, the toxic lies of our ignorance and prejudice that shape our reality, that have sent over half of the African-American men in my city to prison, would say to this boy "you are a bad guy".


Heart breaking and mind racing, I finally spoke, "No, that's not true.  God loves everyone."

He looked at me in utter disbelief.

"God loves everyone," I repeated, "Even the bad guys.  Sometimes the things that people do make God sad or mad, but God never stops loving us."

The boy's expression softened.

"Really?"

There was hope in his eyes.

I thought about all the times I had lied or  flown off the handle in anger, how I had insulted others and judged, all those moments in which I had been the "bad guy."  Because we have all gone astray.  We all contribute to the brokenness that exists in the world.  Like a parasite siphoning the life out of our souls, we're born broken.

But we are also born loved.   

"Yes, really.  God loves the bad guys too."

McChickens and Generosity

One night, I was driving some youth home from youth group. Apparently, the snack that we provided wasn’t enough to satisfy the hunger of some of these middle schoolers. They were asking-begging- me to stop at McDonald’s. One of them even pulled out 50 cents and said he would pay for half of his McChicken if I paid for the other half. I decided not to mention that with tax he would probably need 53 cents to make half. 

As we pulled up to a red light near the freeway, I saw a guy holding a cardboard sign saying something about being homeless and needing help. The kid who had offered his 50 cents for a McChicken told me to roll down the window. With some hesitancy I did, thinking he saw a girl he wanted to holler at or something. He leaned out the window, and told the man holding the sign to come over and gave him the 50 cents. I said something about how nice that was of him to give up his money for the homeless man. He replied that the man he gave the money to needed it more than him and that he didn’t really need the McDonald’s anyway.

The light turned green and soon we drove by the McDonald’s in silence.

We don’t often see acts of generosity like this. Giving up everything in our pockets to bless someone else. Especially when there is something we would really like to buy with that money.

We like to make excuses and justify getting the things we want. We are really good at justifying why we can’t give to a homeless person- what if they don’t use the money in the way we want? We don’t want to be manipulated, so instead we become the manipulators, only giving our money when it benefits us or if we’re certain it won’t be used for things of which we don’t approve.

What if we learned about generosity from this middle school boy? What if when we saw a need, we gave up what we wanted and gave what we had? What if we stopped justifying ourselves and stopped making excuses for why we can’t or won’t give? What if we stopped manipulating others and stopped, as Bob Lupton says, metering out our love in exchange for the responses that we desire.

I think that we would be living out the Kingdom of God, like Jesus said in Luke 6- Give to everyone who begs from you…Love your enemies, do good, and lend- even if it’s your last 50 cents. 

Not quite "everything" he'll need to know, but...

Every Wednesday at TCC we have something we call After School BLAST. BLAST is for kids 4 years old thru fifth grade, and starts with an hour of tutoring followed by an hour and a half of a snack, game, bible story and prayer, some worship songs, and learning about a different country of our world and what God is doing there. We normally have anywhere from 15 – 25 kids from the community house neighborhood who we pick up and bring and it’s a pretty fantastic time. One of my primary roles at BLAST is that I teach the bible story to the kids each week. I have really been blessed by all of their questions, comments, and growth over the past three years. I have one story in particular that I want to share about one boy that really has impacted me.

Last spring the community house received seven raised beds from the Victory Garden Initiative to plant a community garden. We talked to some of our neighbors and decided the best place for the beds was about a block south of our house. Through planting, and watering and just being in that part of the neighborhood more we got to know some of the people who lived there pretty well. One of those people was a fourth grade boy. He came outside and helped us plant some of the vegetables and watered and picked them throughout the summer. He started coming to BLAST in the fall. He’s a pretty quiet, well behaved kid who can easily get lost in a room full of rambunctious 3rd – 5th graders, but I always appreciated the way he listened, and his thoughtful questions during the Bible story.

One day, close to Christmas, he came up to me and handed me an envelope. I asked him what it was and he told me it was a Christmas card and that they had been asked to make a Christmas card for someone they cared about at school. He had picked me. I felt really flattered and opened the card.

“Mr. Ben, thank you for being my friend and teaching me everything that I need to know about God. Merry Christmas.” 

That card really rocked my world. Some days I wonder if all the time we invest in the neighborhood is making a difference, if the kids are actually getting anything out of what we are trying to teach them. That card was a wonderful reminder for me that the kids are actually getting something out of being at BLAST, that God is working and moving even through our small efforts.