This week, I watched this video about Community First! Village in Austin, Texas. Community First! Village is a 51-acre planned community for the chronically homeless. It provides permanent housing, job opportunities, arts, support groups, medical services, and education for its residents. At the core of Community First! Village is, as the name might suggest, community.
The three minute video features testimony from the founder Alan Graham, and formerly homeless, now permanent resident, Richard Devore. Graham speaks on the power of relationship. He states, “Mobile Loaves and Fishes is laser focused on lifting the chronically homeless… into a place they can call home.. It is all about relationship here. [The residents] are going to see people at the kitchen, at the community market spending time with each other… building community through valuing each other as human beings.” For Graham, the success of the housing community has relationships at the core. Hence, the name, Community First! Village. As he states, each of us desires to be seen: “In each of us there are two fundamental human desires: to be fully and wholly loved, and to be fully and wholly known.”
The community strategy seems to be working! Resident Richard Devore states that being seen as a whole person is a path towards healing. We do as a society, have a tendency to see only one aspect of a person - skin color, addiction, sexuality. And as with so many of our marginalized friends, I imagine Richard’s experience of being homeless, left him feeling like he was only seen as a homeless person, and not as “Richard.” As he says, “Here they are really trying to bring you together. They don’t make you feel like you are a homeless charity case being helped out. We are just treated like normal people and I mean that certainly helped me change a lot.” Seeing Richard as an integral part of the community, in all the roles that he plays, as a full person seems to not only be allowing him to heal, to find permanent housing, but also seems to be allowing him to thrive and grow.
In our readings for Wednesday, we read Acts 3:1-10 which also speaks to being fully seen and known. In that story, Peter and John were going up to the temple for prayer when they ran into a man who had not ever been able to walk. Everyday he had folk bring him to the temple so that he could beg for money. When the man saw Peter and John he approached them, just as he approached everyone else, with a request for money. The text says, “Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, ‘Look at us.’ And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, ‘I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.’ And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong” (Acts 3:4-7, NRSV). Christ’s healing was activated by the two parties looking into one another’s eyes and seeing each other.
As Jesus saw the Samaritan woman at the well and knew everything about her (John 4), as the residents at the Community First! see one another and know one another, Peter and John heal a man simply by looking at him and saying, “Look at us.” To see each other is to know each other and heal one another. These are examples of being fully and wholly loved, and fully and wholly known.
In the season of Easter, our community is reaffirming our baptismal vows. As part of those vows, we affirm that we will seek and serve Christ in all persons, and love our neighbor as ourselves. And, that we will strive for justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of every human being. As we do so, we are promising to see. To see, to respect, to fully know and to full love those which cross our paths each day. And as we do so, I believe we tap into Jesus’ healing power. The power of Community First!, the power of the living water, the power of disciples who can heal.
The three minute video features testimony from the founder Alan Graham, and formerly homeless, now permanent resident, Richard Devore. Graham speaks on the power of relationship. He states, “Mobile Loaves and Fishes is laser focused on lifting the chronically homeless… into a place they can call home.. It is all about relationship here. [The residents] are going to see people at the kitchen, at the community market spending time with each other… building community through valuing each other as human beings.” For Graham, the success of the housing community has relationships at the core. Hence, the name, Community First! Village. As he states, each of us desires to be seen: “In each of us there are two fundamental human desires: to be fully and wholly loved, and to be fully and wholly known.”
The community strategy seems to be working! Resident Richard Devore states that being seen as a whole person is a path towards healing. We do as a society, have a tendency to see only one aspect of a person - skin color, addiction, sexuality. And as with so many of our marginalized friends, I imagine Richard’s experience of being homeless, left him feeling like he was only seen as a homeless person, and not as “Richard.” As he says, “Here they are really trying to bring you together. They don’t make you feel like you are a homeless charity case being helped out. We are just treated like normal people and I mean that certainly helped me change a lot.” Seeing Richard as an integral part of the community, in all the roles that he plays, as a full person seems to not only be allowing him to heal, to find permanent housing, but also seems to be allowing him to thrive and grow.
In our readings for Wednesday, we read Acts 3:1-10 which also speaks to being fully seen and known. In that story, Peter and John were going up to the temple for prayer when they ran into a man who had not ever been able to walk. Everyday he had folk bring him to the temple so that he could beg for money. When the man saw Peter and John he approached them, just as he approached everyone else, with a request for money. The text says, “Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, ‘Look at us.’ And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, ‘I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.’ And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong” (Acts 3:4-7, NRSV). Christ’s healing was activated by the two parties looking into one another’s eyes and seeing each other.
As Jesus saw the Samaritan woman at the well and knew everything about her (John 4), as the residents at the Community First! see one another and know one another, Peter and John heal a man simply by looking at him and saying, “Look at us.” To see each other is to know each other and heal one another. These are examples of being fully and wholly loved, and fully and wholly known.
In the season of Easter, our community is reaffirming our baptismal vows. As part of those vows, we affirm that we will seek and serve Christ in all persons, and love our neighbor as ourselves. And, that we will strive for justice and peace among all people, respecting the dignity of every human being. As we do so, we are promising to see. To see, to respect, to fully know and to full love those which cross our paths each day. And as we do so, I believe we tap into Jesus’ healing power. The power of Community First!, the power of the living water, the power of disciples who can heal.
