PLAN B

Third in a three-part series

Dear Church,

I recently read Sarah Raymond Cunningham's book, Dear Church: Letters from a Disillusioned Generation, and, I have to say, I just love the idea of writing letters to you. So, on we go with the third and final part of my letter.

III. THE WORKERS ARE FEW

“Cuz when you're broke, ya’ break, check it ouuuut…”

-Snoop Dogg, “Lil’ Ghetto Boy”


In Matthew 9, Jesus tells us the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Sadly, Church, I have lately begun to see some of the reasons for this.

When I was thinking about moving to the neighborhood where I once prosecuted, I found comfort in the example set by the disciples in Mark 1. I loved how they didn’t think for a second about how or whether to follow Jesus. They didn’t think about their careers or how they would pay their rent. They didn’t care about how they would find a new job or apply for jobs in the new places they would be going. They didn’t care that they were leaving a profession behind, or that their nets were still in the water and their friends were still on the boat when they took off after Jesus. They only cared about following him; the financial and career costs simply did not matter.

I took courage from this when I left a career in law and moved here without any idea how I would get by. I had no idea how to apply for grants or raise support or incorporate non-profits. I only knew that I wanted to do a lot more than prosecute young people growing up in some very toxic urban environments. I had no idea where I would work, or how I would make a salary; I just knew that I needed to do more than continue to put people in jail cells that too often only made the problem worse.

So, partly as a kind of experiment to see if one could up and leave everything as the disciples did, and partly because I took God’s promises to provide for me (Malachi 3 & Luke 12 are two of many examples) literally, I jumped in. I figured that, even if it meant somehow forwarding a blank check from the outskirts of the universe, God would find a way to make good on his promises. If it meant he had to rain magic money into my bank account so I could buy groceries, pay my phone bill, and maybe, if I was really lucky, somehow start paying down my credit cards and student loans, he would find a way to do so.

At the time, I had no idea that God’s plan to make good on these promises was his people. I never suspected that if his people, including me, did not fulfill those promises, that I could potentially go hungry. Or barely be able pay my phone bill and put food on the table. I had no idea that my clothes might become worn out and that my shoes would have holes. No idea that I wouldn’t be able to go to weddings, on trips, or join my friends for simple outings I never in my life imagined would be unattainable. I had no idea that the day before my 30th birthday, when my friends went skiing, I might stay behind, exasperated, wondering in agony when God was going to commence plan B. I always thought that if I could just keep going, persevering each day in my work here, sooner or later God would notice and send relief.

I thought God would honor his promises whether or not his people paid me one second of attention. Well unfortunately, as you may have guessed by now, this is not how things work in the real world. As Mr. Brehm said, God fulfills his promises through his people; there is no plan B.

And this makes sense. Because if God had a plan beyond us to intervene, innocent children would not be living in grinding poverty in a country full of resources. They would not be exposed to toxic levels of stress that they have done nothing, except being born in the wrong zip code, to deserve.

Sadly, when we stand by, God is not going to send children in troubled neighborhoods blank checks from the ends of the universe. Nor is he going to rain magic money into our accounts when we decide to work in these neighborhoods for free. Even if each one of us works six thousand hours a week, it's just not happening.

The truth is, Church, that until we learn how to spread around the time, talent and treasure God has given us so that none among us live in poverty, then children will continue to suffer in some of the most toxic environments imaginable. Not to mention that, in a country like ours, where incarceration is more important -- and our budgets more than prove it -- than prevention, the few workers that try to reach these children in time are going to have a hard time making their way as well.

And I have to admit, coming to terms with all of this has been hard. Really hard. But perhaps even harder than that, at least for me personally, is that people in the church have actually looked down on me for coming to work here.

I have routinely been asked, “Do you have a job,” and when I reply, “yes,” people respond, “No, I mean a real job?” Once, after I explained my frustration at working so hard with no pay to someone, he responded, and even slightly disdainfully, “Well, maybe you need to just get a job then.”

I once had a friend call me to tell me how inappropriate it was for me to promise some of the high-risk boys we work with rewards if they got good grades and good behavior on their report cards. He told me that I had no money and that I shouldn’t be making promises to anyone. The question, he told me, that I should ask myself is the same, I noticed, as one Jesus fielded from the disciples in Mark 6, “Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?” Or, to put it another way, “We can’t possibly afford this, can we?” He also told me that such an irresponsible promise was indicative of a larger character problem, i.e. making financially irresponsible decisions such as moving to the inner city with no salary, income, or other means of supporting myself.

In my experience, and maybe this is my problem, I have always thought the proper question is the one Jesus was likely asking himself when he saw 5,000 hungry people that needed to eat, and that’s, “What is the cost going to be if we don’t do this.” Or put another way, “We can’t afford not to do this, can we?”

Recently, in fact right after I posted the first part of this letter, a different friend responded,

“You have the ability to provide for yourself, as Paul did with his tentmaking, and I think wisdom dictates you take responsibility for your finances, using the gifts God has given you to provide for your needs. If, at some point, that looks like full-time inner city ministry, funded by various foundations, grants or individual giving, praise God. Until then, I think you should scale back some and spend some time doing work that provides an income.”

And, the truth is, from the point of view of my sanity, this is a persuasive argument. And that is why I am so upset, Church. I am upset because if he is right -- if I want to avoid bankruptcy, and, perhaps more importantly, keep my sanity -- I need to go work somewhere else. Fast.

This concerns me. A lot. Because somehow in a place where hundreds, if not thousands, more full-time workers are needed, and needed now, the course of action that makes the most sense for me is to leave and go work somewhere else. It is a scenario that sounds like Luke 16:13-14, but instead, a nightmarish backwards version.

Imagine a scenario where there are holes in a damn that holds everything together and water is pouring through and causing a lake to rise much too rapidly. Meanwhile, none of the workers are patching the holes in the damn because they have been paid to bucket the water and carry it out of sight somewhere far far away.

And, if it's awful to imagine how much energy, time and water are being wasted in this scenario, it gets worse. Because in the inner city, where in reality things are actually quite similar to this, we aren't dealing in energy, time or water. We are dealing in lives.

And if it's true that the young people in the inner city are just as important to God as we are, then, quite frankly, there is no time to go and work somewhere else. Each and every second of each and every day young people growing up in neighborhoods full of drugs and violence and crime are learning what they see around them; they are normalizing things that are not only not normal, but as far from normal as can be. And naturally, it is only a short time before they start to follow the planes they can see.

Every second that we wait, while one of us goes to work somewhere else for extra income, or delays a year or two to raise enough money, or waits to pay off student loans, or to find the right job, or plug into the right organization, or a million other arguably valid reasons to hold off a little longer, another child becomes a teenager, another window to intervene closes, and another generation of young people inches just a little bit closer to the precipice.

And so I am writing, Church, because I guess I just don’t understand how this can be. When I think about how few the workers are around here, and how urgent and vast the needs are, it just seems like it should be easier. It seems like it should be a lot easier. And if this is how hard it is for the workers in these places, where people are constantly telling them they should leave and make money because it is too hard to make a living where there are so few resources, or deriding them for not being "responsible" and making money, then I can’t even imagine how hard it must be for the people that actually live here. You know, the ones that can’t bail out and leave when times get tough.

Recently, a Buddhist from a temple in Boston approached me and told me that he works with a foundation that wants to give financial assistance to families here. He told me that he wants to use the relationships we have made in the neighborhood to help families with children that are struggling to get by. And, I have to admit, Church, my jaw dropped when he said this. It literally hit the floor. I just couldn’t believe that a Buddhist actively sought me out and offered to tour the neighborhood, meet the families and give financial assistance to the children that Jesus instructed us to serve as him.

When I said that I am writing because I am scared, well, this is what I was talking about. Because, though I have told hundreds, if not thousands, of people, both big and small, about the work we are doing in the inner city, a kind Buddhist man I never met before was first in line to offer assistance to families struggling to make ends meet here.

Part of the body is sick, Church, and if Paul is telling the truth, this means that even if it doesn’t hurt, or isn’t visible, the rest of the body is sick too. If the least of these in your midst are suffering, Church, and I am writing to let you know that many of them are, then you are suffering. You are suffering because your least are suffering, and in the places where they suffer most -- the poorest, most destitute, most toxic places -- the workers are few because there are hardly any resources to back them up.

It doesn’t have to be this way, Church. There is still time to make this right. There is still time to tell your leaders that you want your money spent on more workers instead of more prisons. There is still time to advocate for the sending of those workers and to send workers of your own. There is still time to help them and train them and support them. There is still time to hold up the disciples as an example; time to let your people know that they can go and serve the poor without having to worry how they will eat or pay their phone bill; that they can pick up and follow Jesus without looking back because you and your people, as God's plan A for justice in the world, are going to support them -- spiritually, emotionally, physically, financially, etc. -- when they take that first step.

Final Word

Now, Church, in the end you know I can’t only be critical of you. Before I say farewell, I would like to take a minute to say that there are wonderful things you have done and are doing for this city.

Your people at Park Street Church helped our church lead a team of four teenagers from our neighborhood and four from the suburbs to South Africa last summer, which was an unimaginable dream for them. The same church started a small group of men that did service projects every week in the neighborhoods around here. Your people at the Church Home Society helped us obtain funding to hold a summer program for the 7-12 year olds here. You sent us fifteen mentors (and more are joining daily!) from churches all over the city to work with the children and teenagers here. And all of this is amazing.

I want you to know that I am grateful for this and that I write because I care about you. And because your real friends will tell you the truth. I write because I want you to be healthy. And that goes for your entire body. I want you to know that I don’t think the problems I discussed are intentional. I honestly think that we are all so busy trying to help, and in so many ways at once, that it is easy to miss a few things. We can’t always be perfect, Church, and I do realize that. Believe me, I do. In all honesty, I myself am far more of a wreck than you are. I would be terrified if you ever decided to write me a letter. It scares me just to think about it.

In the end, though, I am writing because, though I am grateful for all that you are doing, I know we can do better, Church. I know we can do a lot better.

I am writing because what we do for the least of these in our midst is what we do for Jesus. And right now, when I look around, I am scared that given how much he put on the line for us, though we won't ever be able to repay him in kind, we nevertheless aren’t trying our best in return.

I hope you know, Church, that though I may be hard on you, I love you as much as I ever have. I mean that, and I very much look forward to continuing our work together.

Sincerely yours,



Bobby Constantino

PLAN B

Second in a three-part series

Dear Church,

I recently read Sarah Raymond Cunningham's book, Dear Church: Letters from a Disillusioned Generation, and, I have to say, I just love the idea of writing letters to you. So, on we go with part two.

II. UNITY

“My tears were not for Bailey or mother or even myself but for the helplessness of mortals who live on the sufferance of life. In order to avoid this bitter end, we would all have to be born again, and born with the knowledge of alternatives. Even then?”

-Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings


Church, many people have asked me, when the subject of social programming comes up, why young people from the inner city do not go out and tackle the opportunities that our society offers them.

The answer it seems, sadly, is that young people cannot go out and tackle what they cannot see. They cannot follow the adults around them to the land of milk and honey if few of the adults around them know where it is.

In To Own a Dragon: Reflections on Growing Up Without a Father, Donald Miller, in addition to positing a statistic that 85% of youth in prison come from fatherless homes, uses a metaphor that explains this. He explains that when planes fly across the country, they are constantly radioing information back to the planes behind them. If there is turbulence or choppy air along the route, the pilot in front tells the planes in back how to avoid the bumps along the way. He explains that the planes that do not get this information will have much rougher rides than the ones that do.

This is a wonderful metaphor; one that also applies to economic and racial division. Youth that are cut off from the resources of mainstream society receive few, if any, helpful radio signals. They do not know how to find the best route because they aren’t receiving the radio signals that all of the other planes in the mainstream are receiving. Many of the planes in the inner city are flying along the most turbulent routes imaginable. And, with few other sources of good information, young people follow the planes they can see.

In the quote above, Maya Angelou explained this phenomenon. In fact, her observations are still at play today. Essentially, as long as people with few alternatives in sight live separately from those with many alternatives in plain view, this will not change. In Black Like Me, John Howard Griffin explains further:

“ ‘It looks that a man could do better.’ ‘It looks that way to you, because you can see what would be better. The negro knows something is terribly wrong, but with things the way they are, he can’t know that something better actually exists on the other side of work and study. We are all born blank. It’s the same for blacks or whites or any other shade of man. Your blanks have been filled in far differently than those of a child grown up in the filth and the poverty of the ghetto.”

What is, perhaps, the most disturbing part of this is that these commentaries were written thirty-seven and forty-seven years ago, respectively. In spite of some progress, Church, things sadly haven’t changed much.

In Divided by Faith, Emerson and Smith write:

“In 1993, reviewing the state of the unequal racial divide twenty-five years after the Kerner Report, the Eisenhower Foundation Committee concluded that the assessment of the United States as ‘two societies, one black, one white--separate and unequal … [is] more relevant today’ than in 1968.”

“Well,” we might argue, “that was in 1993. Things are different now.” In 2000, when Divided by Faith was published, Emerson and Smith continue:

“As many race scholars note, not having to know the details or extent of racialization is an advantage afforded to most white Americans. All this helps us understand why two-thirds of Americans (and evangelicals) believe conditions for blacks are improving, while just one-third of African Americans believe that. It also helps us understand why African Americans are nearly three times as likely as white Americans to feel conditions for blacks are deteriorating.”

It seems clear that even today, in spite of some very real forward progress, there is a yawning disparity in the way different races experience life in America. And segregation is at the very center of this. According to the last census, in the Dudley neighborhood section of Boston, a core area that includes some of Boston’s toughest streets, only 4% of residents are white. In the Bowdoin/Geneva and Uphams Corner sections of Dorchester, Mattapan and Roxbury, three of the neighborhoods that traditionally bear the brunt of youth violence and crime in Boston, only 5.75% of residents on average are white. When I ride the buses that go through these neighborhoods, go jogging, or patronize local businesses, I am often the only white person around. Conversely, in the Back Bay - Beacon Hill, two of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Boston, 3% of residents are black. One might expect this kind of division in the Deep South, where the Civil Rights movement began, in Johannesburg, where apartheid ended much more recently, but in Boston? In the 21st Century?

That the writings of those describing America fifty years ago remain an accurate analysis today is a pretty serious indictment of us -- especially, Church, those of us that profess a faith in Jesus.

In John 17:23, Jesus prays for those that believe in him through the message of the disciples, “May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”

If we take this prayer seriously, and given who is praying, it is important that we do, we are told point blank that we show the rest of the world God’s love by uniting with our brothers and sisters in Christ. Not just the ones that look like us, or live like us, but all of them. In complete unity.

And after reviewing the above statistics, or just walking through any inner city neighborhood in America, it is fairly clear that we as a society, and sadly, a church, are falling short of the unity Jesus envisioned for us. And in our failings, and this is the worst part, our divisions, whether racial, socioeconomic or both, are preventing us from showing the rest of the world God’s love. Put another way, John 17 puts us on notice that the divisions in our church effectively undermine the entire purpose of it.

This is why I am scared, Church, and why I am writing. Because there is still time to bring our cities and churches together. It’s not going to be easy, but it can be done. There is still time to take planes from the mainstream through neighborhoods where young people are isolated from good signals; time to show them how to avoid turbulent routes. There is still time to become brothers and sisters with people that are different from us; time to stand up side-by-side with them against the forces that oppress and divide. There is still time to show the world God’s love with our unity.


(Part III soon...)