An express invitation is extended to the needy to share in the Passover, in accordance with the original command ׳which emphasizes that no family unit, no matter how destitute, should be excluded from its observance (Ex 12:4, 47). In another sense, everyone is needy, and awaits redemption, and prays that it soon will come.
Because my brain is all about networking and making connections, sometimes one thought trips my brain to go in a certain direction, which may seem to other people to have nothing to do with the original thought.
I have been thinking about the topic of this post for a long time. I did not seem to be able to put into words my thoughts. But when I read the above quote from John at Ancient Hebrew Poetry, (sorry, I don’t have the link to the exact post) thoughts started to come together. Where my brain went with his quote had very little, if anything, to do with the bigger point of his original post. But, the connection happened, and now I think I’m finding words to at least begin exploring what has been on my heart for a while.
For many months, I have been troubled by one explicit statement and several implied ones along the lines that it is the responsibility of Christians (or at least that it should be one of our goals) to eradicate poverty or at least to fight poverty.
Several questions, maybe even concerns, have been niggling around in my brain as I think about this line of thought (and I know there will be some overlap and redundancy in the questions):
1.Who are the poor and needy, and who determines who falls into that category?
2.Is something missing when “eradicating poverty” is the starting point or the goal? And, if so, what is it? (This is a question I’ve asked myself in a variety of ways, based on my feeling/assumption that something is wrong, but I’ve not been sure what)
3.Is the point the poverty or the poor and needy? And what are the implications of the point or focus being one or the other?
4.Who is missed and what needs are overlooked by an insistent concern only with the poorest of poor? (I am not questioning this on the personal level. That is, if God has called you, personally, to minister to the poorest of the poor, or even to fight against poverty (or fight for its eradication), I feel no need to call that into question. On the broader level, however, what part of that is a mandate for the body of Christ as a whole, on the corporate level? What needs do we miss right beneath our nose, because we rank neediness according to standards of poverty and human suffering?
5. In trying to “help the poor” (or, for example, Save Africa), do we end up demeaning needy people in the process?
6. What is our role as followers of Jesus in the face of extreme suffering by people around the world, most of which certainly is exacerbated by poverty?
7. What is our role as followers of Jesus in relation to wealthy people? If the focus is on fighting or eradicating poverty, how do we view and relate to spiritually needy people with sufficient or even excessive physical wealth?
8. What are the responsibilities of followers of Jesus who ARE wealthy?
9. Who draws the lines of when a person is sufficiently needy to be “worthy” of serving? (I hate even saying it that way, but sometimes it is what I wonder when I hear the criteria for ministry being tied into a person or group of people’s poverty)
10. Who draws the line for how much wealth and materialism, how much luxury is allowed in ones home before a Christian is judged to be selfish or living too excessively when there are so many people living “in poverty”?
11. Where is the line drawn for consumption becoming a contributor to someone else’s poverty?
Helping the poor and fighting poverty seem like noble causes and also spiritually important. But, when they are the focus and starting point, something seems to go askew or awry or get messed up.
I have, in small ways lived on both sides of the coin. As a missionary, I felt the tension of living extremely simply compared to what I was accustomed to, and yet, by nature of being able to pay for my airfare to get there, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind in the village we were living in that we were extremely wealthy. Yes, we had an outhouse. No, we had no running water. But, we had a tank to store water. Which put us in firmly in the luxury lifestyle. When the pipe to to the storage tank at our house sprang a leak, our immediate neighbors went out into the potholes in the road that were filling up with water and did their laundry. Were we selfish and extravagantly wealthy because we had stored water, while our neighbors still went to the center of town and waited in line every day for water? Possibly.
As a single mom, I have received much charity and help. Sometimes I have felt awkward and dehumanized in the process of trying to get the help I qualify for. Mostly, though, I have felt real gratitude at the generosity of others. Am I poor? Sort of. Not really. Don’t know. Depends. If you knew my income, you’d say yes. I qualify to receive food from the food pantry, four times a year (that’s the total amount any family is allowed to go), plus Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. I have a nice car–purchased by my church. My computer was a gift. As was my second computer when my first one started having troubles.
I’m embarrassed when people come into my bedroom/office, because there sits a very large screen TV . And we all know that if you can afford a large screen TV, you shouldn’t be living off of charity.
Only, it was a gift from my neighbor when he upgraded to a flat screen TV for the Super Bowl. He thought my kids would like his old TV. Even though I told him we don’t ever watch real TV, and only occasionally watch DVDs. Still, he wanted us to have it. So, there it sits, a mockery. You’re poor? You need financial assistance? But you have a big screen TV.
I read this article, called Charity Tourism, and the rather controversial dialogue that followed out of it with interest, because, again, I’ve been on both sides. (I’ve fed the homeless at Christmas before. This past year, lots of people generously brought food and gifts by for us, just because it was Christmas and because our finances are really limited. This year, to many people, I am the poor.) The article was posted in December, and the questions raised, especially in the comment section, continue to rumble around inside of me.
Do we criticize and judge the poor? Am I poor enough to receive such charity? Who is or isn’t? Do we criticize and judge the benevolent? Was I serving my own purposes when I fed the homeless? Was I helping or making things worse? How and when do we decide who fits in which category–truly poor vs. leaching off the system; truly generous vs. arrogantly throwing trinkets to soothe ones conscience?
First, I think it is not too wise to draw such blanket conclusions and make wide assumptions as were made in the Charity Tourism article. If (being wildly speculative to the extreme), 99 percent of all people who helped the poor were doing so out of pride and conscience-soothing attempts, would that negate the sincerity and humility with which the 1 percent truly gave from their hearts and made a difference? If (being just as bizarrely speculative), 99 percent of the poor just weren’t trying hard enough or were lazy or were using their resources frivolously, would that negate the neediness of the 1 percent?
Of course, I’m being ridiculous in these numbers. I hate stereotypes, though, and it feels like when the talk turns to poverty and generosity, stereotypes, even well meaning ones, abound. And being a literal person who cares about details, I wonder what important realities (and more important, what actual needs of very real people–both the poor and the generous–who do not neatly fit the stereotypes) are missed.
I read another quote from an article on the Lutheran perspective on vocation. The author is talking about “the common order of Christian love.”
This is the realm of the Good Samaritan. People of all three orders [church, household and state] come together here, ministering to each other and “to everyone who is in need.”
“To everyone who is in need.” I guess where I’m at right now is preoccupying less about who is needy and who is not, who is suffering and who is not. I still care about those who are suffering, and I hope I am passing a great compassion on to my children. But, I do not want to define or limit compassion according to specific criteria. I want my children to have eyes that see suffering and need in the lives of people whose paths they cross, regardless of the degree of the lack of wealth or even the presence of great wealth. Yes, I hope my children have a part in alleviating the suffering in the world. But, mainly I hope that they make a difference by caring for specific people who suffer, by loving people where they are, and by communicating the love, peace and salvation Jesus offers, in the place of suffering, whether or not they effectively relieve suffering or knock down poverty. If my son were to take in a homeless family, and my daughter were to show kindness to Britney Spears, is only one helping a truly needy person?
Even as I write this, I’m aware of injustices, of extreme poverty, of great suffering, far away and nearby (and yet, even as I say that, I hear the disqualifiers that are often used to minimize the suffering and poverty nearby: how can an American, after all, be really, worthily poor? Even the poorest is wealthy compared to the rest of the world). I do not want to make light of the realities that people are living in and with. I do not want to live blindly or so comfortably that I neglect those who suffer from great poverty. But neither am I comfortable with rigid standards and elevation of certain types of poverty or suffering above another as more worthy. Nor I am comfortable with blanket judgment of wealth and individual resources as innately bad when there is any inequity left in the world.
I hope this doesn’t sound like I have answers. I really don’t. And I also hope it does not sound like I am judging in a blanket way those who are committed to helping the poor and fighting poverty in big, corporate ways. I am not. Again, I don’t have answers, but I do have lots of questions.
I was thinking–I don’t want to be ashamed of either my resources or my need. But, I have struggled with shame because of both. Are my needs really important in the bigger scheme of things? Should I spend money on this or that when people are going without food someplace else? Do I need this new refrigerator? Is it wrong for me to buy this thing? Can I really receive this gift of charity? Am I truly needy enough? A jumble of questions, all over the map, in the mind of someone who is both poorer than many and wealthier than many more.
Okay, maybe I’ve just realized how the opening quote ties into this rambling topic for me. At Easter, I want to be able to take communion next to you. If you are rich and live in a mansion and have no debt and seven cars and paintings that cost more than the total value of my house which I can’t afford to buy, I want to be able to drink the cup after you and not have you feel guilty on my account. I am your sister. We are in this walk of faith together. Feel guilt when God convicts you, but not because I am kneeling next to you. Give when and where God shows you. Keep your eyes open to needs around you. But, please don’t focus on my neediness or poverty. Please, let’s share the bread and wine together, because in Christ there really is no rich and poor. And before the cross, we are all needy.
And if, at Easter, you who kneel next to me, are homeless, I want to be able to take communion with you. I want to be able to drink the cup after you and not have you feel pitied by me. If God moves me to give you the coat off my back, I hope I will do so. But, more than that, I hope when we are there at the table together, that it is not your needs that move me and draw me to you. I want to join with you, there sharing the bread and wine, because I am your sister. Please, let’s share the bread and wine together, because in Christ there really is no rich and poor. And before the cross, we are all blessed beyond imagination.
Together we go out–I, along with the one who is loads wealthier than I and the one who is loads poorer than I– singing a hymn, joined by our shared neediness and poverty, rejoicing in our shared blessing and wealth. Ready to bless those who cross our paths, no matter the need. Ready to receive whatever generosity another is moved to pour out onto us, regardless of where we fall on any standard of need.
Idealistic? Probably. But, it’s the cry of my heart, and this picture, dream, longing (not sure exactly what it is) is in the place of my heart that longs to make a difference in the lives of “the poor and needy” while simultaneously feeling quite turned off by that as an agenda.
I recall from our time in the Solomons, that same feeling you describe here, that of simultaneously being the richest and the poorest person, just depending in which context you viewed yourself. That experience does a lot to change one’s view of poverty.
And you also allude to another thing–there is more than one way to be poor.
Thanks for understanding these things. It is hard to try to put into words, and I’m not sure how much I’m actually communicating what I mean. Living overseas was disorienting in a lot of ways. In the end, it is good to feel those tensions and live with some of the confusion and uncertainty. But, it certainly does not leave one with many answers (which stands in contrast to the answers I thought I had before going overseas
)
We discussed this topic last night at our home group after reading Lingamish’s post about the African church and his western friends and family. We really didn’t come to any definite conclusion about what our responsibility to the poor and needy is. Each of us needs to determine why we do or don’t want to help those less fortunate than our selves.
I recently spent a week in Louisiana helping people rebuild their homes after the Hurricane Katrina. Many of them drove better vechiles than I do. At first it bothered me, then I realized that really didn’t matter. I had come to help in the name of Jesus, and that was the important thing. When Jesus fed the 5000, He didn’t ask them if they could afford to buy their own food, but he fed them all. We, our group that went hope and pray that what we did will impact the lives of the people we helped, their neighbors, the places where we shopped and ate, and the pastor and family that accomadated us while we were there.
There are many ways we can help believers and nonbelivers alike. Food, water, medical, translating the Word for them, but we just need to allow the Holy Spirit to guide us and be sure we are doing it for the right reason. I believe ther is always something we should be doing. Don’t miss the opportunity!!
Thank you, MtJeff.
, but thinking in a lot of words is how my brain seems to work).
I agree with you (and just wish I could have it articulated it so succinctly
Truly, it is more about following the Holy Spirit and not preoccupying with the “rules” of who we can help, who we should help, who deserves our help, that is important. The “rules” and the “pressure” I sometimes feel when I hear salespitches and appeals to “my moral responsibility” for this type of need and then that type of need and then three more types of need are part of why I am wrestling through this.
[...] has a thought-provoking post on The Poor and Needy, basically asking what defines someone as poor and needy or as a worthy recipient of charity. See [...]
e–
i forgot to tell you as well–excellent post. you and peter have both clanged me hard. but in a good way.
or maybe not.
but definitely in a thought-filled way.
more later.
scott
Scott, you have my sympathies
My heads still kind of clanging from all of this, too. And I’m also hoping it’s in a good way.
[...] 11, 2008 by eclexia I’ve had a lot of second thoughts since that last post. I knew I would, as I was exploring questions, so my own uncertainty was built into the fiber of [...]
I’d like to remark on an idea you touched on at the end of the post. You wrote “Feel guilt when God convicts you,” and “If God moves me to give you the coat off my back…” I apologize if I’m reading too much into your semantics, but I want to say that we mustn’t minimize the written word. We certainly need to be sensitive to God’s convicting and moving by His Spirit, but not in a way which negates or weakens what the Spirit has already had written for us. Thoughts?
I’d also like to split some hairs on “conscience-soothing.” I certainly feel what you’re getting at, and articulate it in similar ways. But now that I’m thinking about it, I’m wondering if seeking to sooth the conscience isn’t a good thing. I mean, shouldn’t we want to sooth it, after all? Maybe the fault in fact lies in allowing our consciences to be soothed to easily; in silencing the conscience before we meet its demands. This could perhaps be seen as not wanting to actually soothe the conscience itself, but wanting to be comfortable and unbothered; like wanting a painkiller rather than a medicine; wanting to be numbed rather than healed; wanting a feeling alone apart from what the feeling rightly points us toward. Thoughts?
Thanks, Phil, for your thought stirring response. I appreciate the challenges you bring to my own thinking on this topic and others interrelated with it.
I think the distinction you make between silencing the conscience versus meeting its demands, as well as the medical analogy, is helpful.
About your first point, I don’t think I disagree, although I was coming at it from a different angle. I believe I agree with what I think you are getting at, that if what we call the “leading of the Spirit” contradicts what the Spirit has written for us, trusting a “leading” will lead us into disobedience.
Let me try to articulate the angle I was looking at this from (I’m a very linear thinker, and sometimes it makes it hard for me to communicate from the big picture, so forgive me if what I’m saying doesn’t seem connected or make sense. Let me know if this is irrelevant to the concern that you are expressing.):
I am, in part, reacting to what seems to me to be people trying to be their own Holy Spirit. I am not minimizing the need to take seriously all of Scripture. I am not sure that the specific application of everything contained in Scripture looks predictable and uniform. Of course, something like “do not steal” seems straightforward enough. (even then, I think I have seen a danger of formulizing straightforward rules in ways that promote adherence to the letter on every jot and tittle, but cold and disobedient hearts, even in the very area being focused on. But that is another topic for another day
).
I think if I take every principle and even every command and try to spell out exactly how that looks and what exactly it requires of me ahead of time, I am placing an impossible burden on myself. And, in a sense, I do also believe that I would be trying to be my own Holy Spirit and walk the spiritual life in my own strength and wisdom. I can hear that it may sound like I am trying to slip out from under a burden that I should not be slipping out from. I do not think that is what I am doing, but am aware that I could be. I am not saying it is for me to randomly decide what commands and principles I’d like to follow, but I am saying that how the living out of those looks may indeed be very different from person to person and even moment to moment.
I am not trying to promote relativism. There are absolutes, but I do believe those absolutes, stand in some degree of tension with creativity and freedom that God gives each of us and leads us in, as we live out our faith (in words and actions), in incredibly broad and different situations, cultures, personalities, etc. I do not think the tension is contradictory, but I’m also not convinced the tension is adequately addressed or resolvable by spelling out obligations ahead of time, which then become burdens of guilt or even “conscience prickers”.
Every single day, in every single person I meet, I encounter needs. If I go into it saying every need I encounter is mine to meet as long as I technically have the resources available to do so (both literally and figuratively, if I have a coat on my back that someone else likely needs more than I do, then I am to give that to the needy person), I will probably do a great deal of good, I will probably also do some harm, and I will probably also very soon be without resources myself.
I’m also thinking of how many needs we are aware of, globally, today. And often these needs come presented, not only with the realities of the needs, but with a Scriptural command or principle that would support my obligation to meet or be involved in meeting that specific need.
There are women who will choose to abort their babies today.
There are babies who will be aborted today.
There are young children, neighbors to somebody, who will be violated and abused today.
There are women, dependent on and trapped by violent men.
There are homeless men and women who have not been able to get a job, for a variety of reasons.
There are families who will go without food.
There are prisons full of individual, hurting, lonely and broken prisoners, right in my community.
There are mentally ill people, alone and wandering the streets in my community.
There are filthy rich people desperately searching for answers in work, clothes, art, drugs, you name it.
I may run into any of these people today. If I encountered all of them today (or perhaps this week), would the appropriate response be a pricked conscience to be responded to with action each time? I don’t know. I tend to think the appropriate response would be compassion. How that compassion looks is where I mean that I think we should listen to the leading of the Holy Spirit and not respond out of guilt. Guilt or predetermined “always” kind of responses (such as if I’m kneeling next to a homeless person and I have a coat, I am always to give them my coat) may give me (1) more certainty about what my obligation is and (2) also a way to evaluate whether or not I’m doing what I should be doing.
I think, though, it also can lead to pride (along the lines of the Pharisees, who were excellent at keeping the law, above and beyond). But it can also keep us so busy with our own expectations of what is required of us that we do not, indeed, have space for listening to or following the Holy Spirit in the more natural ways he leads us.
If I’m focused on exactly how much money and resources I can have in comparison to those around me, I may, indeed, become a very generous giver. But, I also may miss the point altogether. I do not want to be drawn to someone only because they are needy and I have a solution to their need. Need and compassion as a response to need are important parts of being followers of Christ. And, obviously, meeting the needs of others can be an important expression of love. But, I think, when need and a focus on what my response is to be to it is the watershed issue or foremost in my mind, I think I am (1) a bit less likely to listen to the Holy Spirit and surprising ways he may lead me to be involved with the needs around me and (2) like the Pharisees, it is very easy to slip into a checklist mindset of giving away coats and feeding the poor, but missing out on the bigger picture or knowing and loving and relating/connecting to people without need being the defining point.
If, indeed, the Holy Spirit is pricking my conscience, then I do not need to cover that up or take a spiritual pain killer. At the same time, though, if I decide, in my own strength and wisdom, to meet the needs of the poor, the lonely, the hurting, the prisoners, those treated unjustly, I am not only going to be overwhelmed, but I am going to inevitably be experiencing guilt from every side, no matter how much I do. If it is up to me to decide who are the ones I am supposed to help, who the truly needy are, how much resources I can have and not be living selfishly, etc., I will likely experience nonstop guilt, no matter how much I give. There will be those I help who I will later find out were not truly needy, and there will, inevitably be true needs that I find out I left unmet, even though they were right under my nose.
That kind of guilt and conscience pricking, I do not believe, would be from the Holy Spirit. It would be from me trying to obey the words of the Holy Spirit without the leading of the spirit.
I’m having a hard time articulating these thoughts. Feel free to dialogue back and disagree with me, or even to point out where I’m not making sense
Thank you for your thoughts! I apologize for not responding sooner – I neglected to bookmark this post, and then as I just daydreamed while studying I realized that I hadn’t checked back for a comment from you.
You bring up very true and very difficult points about the impossibility of meeting all needs. I don’t think I have anything to add at the moment, but those are definitely things that I have been thinking about, and will continue to think about.
Your discussion of those things seemed to show that you did get exactly what I was trying to say. But you initially summarized it as “if what we call the ‘leading of the Spirit’ contradicts what the Spirit has written for us, trusting a ‘leading’ will lead us into disobedience.” But I was thinking not of following a leading in contradiction of scripture, but of waiting to follow scripture until we have an additional leading. Just in case I wasn’t clear on that.
Thanks, Phil, for clarifying your intent with that statement. I had misunderstood that.
I’m not sure that’s it a good thing that I was contributing to your daydreams distracting you from studying
And I want to thank you again for the thoughts you have brought up here and other places. I do not have definitive answers as I wrestle with these things, and I’m glad for the ways you contribute to my thinking process and challenge me and help me ask questions of my questions. I quote you and stand in agreement with, “…those are definitely things that I have been thinking about, and will continue to think about”.
I don’t know if you saw my second post, thinking and questioning on the same topic. The link for it is right above your first comment in this thread (I’m not so great at remembering to link to my own related posts in the posts themselves and only recently realized that someone who stumbled on this post wouldn’t necessarily find my follow up (thought not conclusive) thoughts.
I have a lot to contribute even how I rescued a mentally retarded, crippled person with cerebral palsy from a mental center. She had been sexually abused since a little child and by four high school boys who gang raped her. Two had continued to do this up to the date that I rescued her. She had attended church all her life, her family had deserted her but she continued going to church.
I did research and found out that that area of society is the most abused sexually then any other society. Recently, there was an article about elderly in nursing homes. The police officer said it is so much that they cannot keep up with it.
It is a society that has not been obedient to GOD’s plans for the poor and needy. I am developing a nonprofit but wish that we could all pool together to make a difference. We should be angry as GOD is angry. He warns in the book of Amos about those who neglected the poor and needy and cared about their idols and material possessions. How we would be accountable.
I have researched the Lord’s words and he has much to say in this area of helping the helpless. We have an obligation to take care of his people first then go without. I need help with this and know of Brothers and Sisters in Christ that are suffering.