Faith Works 2-23-19

Faith Works 2-23-19

Jeff Gill

 

To give God the glory

___

 

What does it mean to "give God the glory"?

 

It's a phrase we say to each other in church life quite often. The clearest roots for it I find in Revelation 14:7 – And he said with a loud voice, "Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water."

 

But you can pick up the thread in Genesis 41, when Joseph, interpreting dreams, reminds Pharaoh "it is not me, but God at work in me." His gifts that so impressed the Egyptian court Joseph is quick to say are God's grace, a gift at work through him, not something for him to take credit for. Or, "give God the glory!"

 

I'm into this subject because of where I was taking us last week, asking about why people are homeless. I've seen and heard some answers, and they have taken me in directions both involving public policy, and personal beliefs.

 

One thing I hope everyone in our community has realized out of these last few weeks of dealing more directly, seeing more honestly the challenges some among us are facing, is that at the heart of homelessness and not a few other so-called social problems we have is the pain of mental illness.

 

Again, I am a parson and preacher, not a clinician. I do not have formal training in this field, but I've worked alongside of behavioral and mental health care and treatment my entire professional life. If I've learned anything from that journey, it is that mental health is health, pure and simple. And yes, addiction is a health care problem in most ways, too.

 

If you want to say "but someone chose to drink or drug and then maybe their personal biochemistry or genetics made them more vulnerable to addiction, but it's still their fault for going down that road," well, all kinds of workers can be vulnerable to back pain and related problems. They could change jobs, right? They didn't have to go into that particular line of work? So back pain is their fault!

 

You'd say that was crazy talk, and you'd be right. Look, we all have various vulnerabilities to different decisions we can make, some of them pro-social and some, frankly a bad idea no matter what the circumstances, but when one bad move can throw out your back or put you into a spiral of substance use, you need health care, not blame. You need treatment, not a lecture.

 

Most of the people who are unsheltered homeless appear to me to be dealing with untreated mental health issues. That's a personal opinion, but one shared by quite a few people working in the field. Those operating shelters, emergency shelters like the Salvation Army's or St. Vincent de Paul's or New Beginnings, or transitional housing to get people from emergency shelter to stability, like the Licking County Coalition for Housing, have to have rules and guidelines to protect their entire population being served. There are people with a run of bad luck, often with children (see last week's column for more on this), and people who have more complex needs, and when the capacity is reached, it's going to be both the simpler and younger circumstances that will have first claim on space.

 

And yes, some people get kicked out of shelters, and others choose to not go in where they suspect that's what will happen to them in time, anyhow.

 

The shelter capacity and rules/barriers discussions are complex and ongoing. They won't go away. Meanwhile, I think there's a parallel conversation we all need to be part of, and that's how we provide behavioral and mental health care for everyone who needs it. A broken brain, a sprained heart, a pattern of thought that's more illness than intention: those need treatment just as spouting arteries or the sudden onset of unconsciousness does.

 

To my initial theological point: we all know any of us could be hurt and need an emergency room. That's not in dispute. But if we look at the impoverished and dispossessed and think "that can never be me" then we're assuming our efforts, our energies, our healthy intentions are all due to our own merit. And I would say, respectfully, "no." Give God the glory. Serving those who are without is way of acknowledging that what we have is as much gift, is grace, more than the result of our earning, to our credit. Yes, good work and careful choices should be blessed, but they aren't always. When we do well, we do well to remember the source of all that is well, every good gift.

 

Give God the glory, and give thanks for the opportunity to help, to share, to serve.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he feels blessed to be able to serve others. Tell him how you give God the glory at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.