Back when I posted my spiel for Pastor Mark, Mindy asked me to elaborate on my sentence: "We aren't happy with the 'welfare' model of church assistance to the poor." I can't say that I've really thought this through completely, but I do owe her an answer, so here goes!When I am with a group of Christians, and there's a great sermon/teaching/whatever telling us to help the poor, there is always a general stir to action. "Oh, yes, we really must do something about all those starving children in Africa!" "We have so much, we should give something to those less fortunate!" And busy-bees set about coming up with a solution. Which generally involve two types of activity: fundraising and short-term missions.
Fundraising doesn't just have to be about money. It could be a canned-food drive, or a sock drive, or an actual money drive to provide aide for some fantastic organization. It's about skimming some extra money/stuff off of the top of our blessings and then sending it off to somehow help someone.
Then there's short-term missions. I don't want to insult short term missions (or fundraising for that matter), but I do have some issues with it. Why is it that most short-term mission trips are to some foreign country? And I know that many people's lives have been deeply impacted by missions, but I know just as many who come back home and then can't see the poor in their own streets because the their associations with the poor were in the streets of Haiti. Somehow, I feel like people use short-term missions to sort of "do time." Like, once you've been on two missions trips, you can check off the little box that says "Helped the poor" and move to the next step of your Christian to-do list.
What bothers me most about these two forms of helping the poor (although both still valid and necessary) is that they tend to distance us from the actual people in our own community. It's more like government welfare. Have a problem? Here's a check or a pair of shoes. Maybe I'll even make a "house call" and check out your situation, pat a few heads and hand you a can of soup. But then I'm out of here.
In the early Christian community, everyone sold everything they had and pooled their money. If you suggested such a thing now, you'd be labeled communist. But they did it. And then they took care of each other. In fact, taking care of the widows and orphans became such a big deal that they finally had to make it an actual office in the church. Someone had to administrate and oversee the care. Of the needy with them.
Somehow, we've lost that sense of community with the poor. Now, we hand out money as a church. We support organizations that help others. When people in the community have a need, they know they can ask the church. Which is good! But is it enough?
In the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31-46) Jesus said:
"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me."
All of these things are highly relational. They involve two people in actual physical proximity, doing things that invite the building of relationships. So, while I understand that "welfare" type assistance is necessary (I mean, we can't all up and move to Sudan!), I still feel that there is a surprising lack of inter-community relationship. We stratify into lower-, middle-, and upper-classes, and most of us are very comfortable that way. And extremely uncomfortable if we are asked to mix.
I have to admit that I'm just as guilty as the next person in this area. My experience of helping the poor has mostly involved food drives and the occasional volunteering at a soup kitchen. I don't think I've ever sat down and had a conversation with a homeless person. And how tragic is that? Am I really clothing people? Or visiting them in prison? Do I know their names and their children and their hopes for the future?
I think the church should be more than a supplement to governmental welfare. I think we should literally be out there caring for the widows and orphans. Not just sending money to someone else who will take on the task. I can't really preach too much about this until I start to put my money where my mouth is, so to speak. But I think it's something important that I haven't totally got my head around yet. And I think it's a concept we should all be pondering.
2 comments:
I was reading some CS Lewis the other day and thought I'd quote from "Mere Christianity," the chapter called "Social Morality" which is awesome and revolutionary.
One more point and I am done. In the passage where the New Testament says that every one must work, it gives as a reason 'in order that he may have something to give to those in need'. Charity--giving to the poor--is an essential part of Christian morality: in the frightening parable of the sheep and the goats it seems to be the point on which everything turns. Some people nowadays say that charity ought to be unnecessary and that instead of giving to the poor we ought to be producing a society in which there were no poor to give to. They may be quite right in saying that we ought to produce this kind of society. But if anyone thinks that, as a consequence, you can stop giving in the meantime, then he has parted company with all Christian morality. I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words,' if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusements, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our charities do not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say they are too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot do because our charities expenditure excludes them. I am speaking now of 'charities' in the common way. Particular cases of distress among your own relatives, friends, neighbours or employees, which God, as it were, forces upon your notice, may demand much more: even to the crippling and endangering of your own position. For many of us the great obstacle to charity lies not in our luxurious living or desire for more money, but in our fear--fear of insecurity. This must often be recognised as a temptation. Sometimes our pride also hinders our charity; we are tempted to spend more than we ought on the showy forms of generosity (tipping, hospitality) and less than we ought on those who really need our help.
(The whole chapter is here:
http://www.philosophyforlife.com/mc13.htm
I understand now where you are coming from. I definitely made the wrong assumption about what you had meant by your original remarks from the other blog.
I have often wondered if the money it takes to do a short-term mission (just the costs of flying alone, for instance) couldn't be better used simply passing it along to someone already on the ground and established in these areas.
Another thing that kind of bothers me is that church pastors usually speak of "giving to our neighbors in need" but not actually acknowledging that those people are in our very congregation. Thus, pride gets in the way and the congregation member may feel too embarrassed to ask for help when it's needed. It's always "someone else out there." And we should all revel in how we've been able to help.
Yes! I love that quote! C.S. Lewis is definitely more eloquent and pointed on the topic than I. :)
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