Real Faith

By Cal Cook

I went to a zoning meeting on Monday evening. It was to allow a halfway house to be placed in an old home that had already been zoned as a group home only now the home was to house people convicted of felonies. The organization requesting the variance already runs a Community Based Correctional Facility in the county and wanted to expand their services to a halfway house for those sentenced by the courts to a less restrictive environment. The home is behind a few other businesses and across the street from a junkyard. There is a creek that runs behind the home and on the other side of the creek is a mobile home park with mainly elderly people living there.

The township house was packed, probably 100 people crammed into an area that would normally hold 20 or 30! Many were residents of that mobile home park and other surrounding neighbors who were there in opposition to the variance allowing the felons to live there. No one disagreed with the premise that people deserve a second chance; no one disagreed with the premise that a halfway house was a better option than sending the people to prison. No one disagreed with any idea put forth that this was a good idea and program…just not near them!

One even stated some kind of comment about Christian ideals, yet then said do it somewhere else! It seemed pretty obvious early on that those who made statements against the variance had not even listened to how the facility was to be run. They stated concerns of people running around high on drugs and breaking into people’s property to steal things in order to pay for more drugs. I guess the 10 foot fence, the bars on the windows, the constantly manned security contingent and the cameras everywhere couldn’t guarantee no one would leave. But surely the inspections for contraband and repeated drug testing would identify anyone ‘high on drugs’?

The thing that had the most personal impact on me was the way the word felon was continually used. It was said with such disdain it was as if they were spitting the word out of their mouth for the bad taste it left. It was a dirty filthy word and anyone deemed worthy of wearing that word was a dirty filthy person. I say it had the most personal impact on me because I am one of those people! The stop sign I failed to stop at and the ensuing accident deemed me worthy of such a name.

For a split second I felt the weight that those whose skin is a different color than mine must feel as people refer to them with dirty filthy words. When the opportunity came for me to speak I did of course, identify myself as a Pastor and a felon, reminding everyone that we all make mistakes…

This week’s reading from Hebrews was quite a delight to see in light of the zoning meeting.

Hebrews 13:3 Remember those in prison, as if you were there yourself. Remember also those being mistreated, as if you felt their pain in your own bodies.

Now some have tried to make that verse mean only those in prison and those being mistreated for the sake of Christ…you know the good ones wrongly persecuted. Yet that flies in the face of the Parable of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritans were the most hated, most despised, most unclean people in all the land! At least the Romans didn’t know any better…the Samaritans were Jews who purposely disobeyed God’s Commandments and intermarried with others and now were a mixed up half-breed of a people! Yet Jesus uses them as an example of someone we ought to be like? Time and time again Jesus goes to ‘the least of these’ and shows them love and compassion. Time and time again Jesus is chastised by the leaders of the day for loving people who weren’t worthy of love and compassion…

Huh? I guess we haven’t changed much have we…even with our Christian ideals?