God of the Body

My life as a clergy person has been rather atypical from what most people probably think of when they learn that someone is clergy. My call to ordination was realized and I was ordained by a religious community in Atlanta where about 70% of the congregants were unhoused, and a majority of our congregation members had spent time in jail or prison, most often for crimes related directly to poverty. It was in that environment that I came to understand church as a verb more than a place.

After leaving Atlanta and moving to Nashville in 2007, I continued my pastoral work as a street chaplain and outreach worker. Most of my days were spent in homeless encampments, hospitals, and jails. Extreme poverty has a direct impact on the health and life expectancy of those living in the conditions of extreme poverty, as well as putting a target on one’s back. Marking you for removal because the visual manifestation of extreme poverty is offensive to the dominant culture.

My work eventually led me into prison where I served as the head chaplain of a men’s maximum security prison. My experiences there have been the subject of most of my written work, and eventually led me to spend a decade at the Tennessee Legislature fighting for the basic recognition that every person has human worth and dignity.

In all of those years of being present with people in encampments, jails, and prisons, I never went in with the mistaken belief that I was bringing God to people in need, because what I learned in all of those places is that if there is a God, then God is first and foremost a God of the dispossessed, of the caged, a God of those who cross borders “illegally.” God is a God without boundaries, always crossing borders to meet us. And because of this understanding, I have never had any interest in saving someone’s soul. I cannot fathom seeing the sacredness that exists in each person and thinking that they will be lost if they fail to follow a particular religion or creed. Those same experiences led me to become deeply invested in the physical and mental wellbeing of people. I will never forget the words of a death row prisoner asking a religious volunteer “How can you care for my soul when you don’t care about what happens to my body?”

The physical wellbeing of people must be the direct business of the church/synagogue/mosque/temple in the world. We are approaching another winter in Bennington County without a fulltime accessible shelter for those who have no shelter. We cannot claim to be a community that believes in human rights and human dignity, while failing to meet this most basic need. We are told that it is complicated, while in truth it is not. Under federal law known as RLUIPA (Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act) houses of worship have the right to provide food and shelter for those in need, when doing so is part of their religious belief system. Even for those who cannot seem to see their poor neighbors as their neighbors, it is intrinsic to Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Buddhist faith traditions to care not just for our neighbors, but also the stranger.

It is my sincere hope that the select board will take the proper and moral action of opening an accessible winter shelter this year, but if not, I call upon other people of faith and houses of worship to do what should already have been done. It shouldn’t take a federal law before we engage in moral action, but such a law does exist if we have the courage and compassion to use it. How can you care for a soul, if you don’t first care for the body.

Originally published in the Bennington Banner