You've probably heard about this story a long time ago. I remember watching it on Oprah and being really bothered about it. I saw the rerun of it again on tv today, and I just couldn't shake the same feeling off. This is why I'm typing this blog.
Basically, the Oprah episode is about a homeless man named Ted Rodrigue. As part of a Showtime experiment, he is given 100,000 dollars. The guy who came up with this idea was inspired to create the show as part of a "social experiment." He wanted to know whether or not, if you gave a homeless man 100,000 dollars...if it would change his life. He obviously didn't have 100,000, so he went to Showtime and that's how this whole thing got started.
At the end of the Oprah episode, the creator of the Showtime show "Reversal," which entails the homeless man's journey after finding 100,000, came to the conclusion that all this money was not enough to change a person's life. He said something along the lines of "I realized that if you give a person clothes, money, a home, and all the necessities, it's still not enough to turn their lives around." I felt like shouting at the tv, "DUHHHH!!" At one point in the show, Oprah asks the homeless man, Ted Rodrigue, whether he feels that he has failed the social experiment. Ted answers her question by saying, "Yes."
Let me just say...No, Ted...you did not fail this social experiment. The man who decided to create the Showtime show, who gave you 100,000 dollars, is the one who failed. This might sound harsh, but I truly believe if that man really was deeply committed to helping Ted, Ted would not be in the same place as he is, or as he says, "worse off" than before he even got the money. I'm not saying that this guy didn't want to help Ted. I'm sure he did. But did he want to help Ted more than he wanted to make a show? Did he invest in Ted more than he invested in the show? Did he want to help Ted more than he wanted his curiosity to be satisfied by this "social experiment?" The answer is obviously, no...or else I wouldn't be typing this. The part that makes me the angriest is that this man, along with many others watching the show, believes his heart was in the right place.
After all, they say...did the creator of the show not offer Ted a counselor to help him with managing the money? Or people to help him find a job? Did they not provide countless opportunities that Ted should've taken advantage of? Of course they provided all these things...and maybe if Ted did take advantage of them, he would probably be in a different place. But I highly doubt it. Instead of doing justice, as God says to in the Bible by helping the poor; the creator of "Reversal," I hate to say, did Ted an injustice. And that injustice is not showing him love. The kind of love that God gives us.
What Ted needs isn't really money at all. What he needs is love. I truly believe that if someone was really invested in Ted, as a person whom God created, he would be in a different place. Ted would not be the broken man that I see on the television screen. All these acts of "grace" including giving Ted money and a financial advisor mean absolutely NOTHING without love.
And I think it is really love that Ted actually wants. During the Oprah show, he said that his heart was hardened and that he feels he is broken inside. When he got the money, he made a lot of friends and he bought a lot of things for them. He even got married to a woman. However, as soon as the money was gone, they all left. Ted said that this experiment just affirmed what he believed. That people cannot be trusted. Why, creator of "Reversal," that when you saw all these negative things happening to Ted, did you not reach out to him? Would it have ruined your show? Your experiment? And now that it has been months since the show has aired on Showtime and the interview has aired on Oprah, where are you? Did you leave Ted, just like those others who called him their "friends," as soon as you were done with the show and the experiment?
I honestly hope not.
As I'm typing this blog, I'm curious to know what other people think. I wonder if I am the only one who saw this episode of Oprah and realized that something was awfully wrong.
I'm glad I'm not.
While searching for more information about Ted Rodrigue and the social experiment, I found another blog written by someone who also saw the Oprah episode. He titles his blog "Loveless Grace." And I believe he got it right on the mark. What he says in his blog, I cannot express more eloquently:
"$100,000 in a briefcase to a homeless man is truly a gift of grace; but there was only money in that case, no love. There was no personal relationship in which love could even begin to function ("You cannot love what you do not know"). That's why Ted Rodrigue's life was unaffected. God's grace, however, is founded upon and directed by His overwhelming love for us and is always given in the context of a personal relationship! It's a love that we do not EARN but are nevertheless WORTH because of who we are as His creation.
And ... not only does God give us His transformational loving grace, but then He invites us to take on His grace-giving ministry! 2 Corinthians 5:18 says that Jesus has "given us His ministry of reconciliation". It's His ministry of grace, to be given as it was received... flowing from our authentic love through personal relationships with those who are worth much more than their wages have earned them.
Christians are too comfortable with giving loveless grace. Writing checks is way easier than engaging messy people in loving, personal, gracious relationships. But God's grace, real grace, only functions in us when we pass it on; and we can only pass it on in the same way we received it.
Want to help the poor, broken, orphaned, addicted, or imprisoned? Then go find them, get as close to them as you can, love them authentically, and then give your gifts of grace! Meet messy people, build loving relationships, pray for them by name, get personal, give grace. Forgive the individuals who have torn your heart out and betrayed you. Let God's supernatural grace flow into and out of you, like a healing river, to the messiest people you can find. Freely you have received. Freely give. Let the river flow."
Amen to that, brother! :)
To read more of this wise man's blog. Click here.
Thank You, Lord for your endless grace and abounding love.
Thank You, Lord, for your endless grace and abounding love. May we reach out to those in the same way that You have reached out to us.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment