Father's Day nap time

By Jeff Long

It's Father's Day. I don't want a card or a gift or lunch from my loved ones. I want to tell my wife and daughters to save their money. I mean it. You want to give me something? How about a nap?

As the start of the seventh decade of my life fast approaches, I'm more interested these days in conserving my energy. Midday sleep helps. I'm also more engaged in directly helping others than I've been at any previous time in my life.

Yes, I spent a lot of my adult life in ministry. But pastors devote a remarkable amount of time as administrators, as managers of the small business that is the local church. Finding money for salaries, for utilities, for upkeep and maintenance, for occasional capital campaigns, and if there is anything left over -- for program expenses, including money for missions.

In clergy retirement, I've turned my attention to a wonderful mission, the Christian organization known as Habitat for Humanity. "A world where everyone has a decent place to live" is Habitat's vision statement. When those words are said at every board of directors meeting of our Cape affiliate, I frequently think of Jesus' words: "Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." (Matthew 8:20) Jesus, in a rare moment of self-lamentation, indicates that his itinerant lifestyle has left him essentially homeless.

Habitat, engaged to help lower-income working folks get a no-interest, no-down payment mortgage and thereby escape the often lifetime trap of paying rent -- gives a hand up, not a hand out. Applicants are vetted for income and their credit status is carefully checked. If they qualify and are accepted, they must do hundreds of hours of sweat equity before ground is even broken on a house and even more hours before they are handed the keys. It's not a gift; it's a partnership between Habitat and its homeowners. I find Habitat a fitting supplement to my work as a realtor and I'm blessed to be part of it.

Distressingly, I occasionally find some folks looking down on Habitat homeowners. I was at a meeting at Cape Girardeau City Hall some time ago in which a few derogatory comments were made. I won't dignify them by being any more explicit. I tell myself that if the naysayers knew what I know about Habitat and its work, those statements could never have been made.

I do wonder if some folks look down on Jesus because he was, for all intents and purposes, homeless during his three years of itinerant ministry. Probably not.

Homeless and dependent on others for material sustenance describe some people who walk our streets today. Those words also describe the most revered man in history, whom some -- including this author -- consider to be Lord, the second person of the Trinity, and the one who showed the way to life eternal.

A homeless Jesus, with no place to lay his head. This is on my mind as I lay down for a nap in my own home this Father's Day.