the question of the undeserving poor

There is a question that has clouded the air around work with the poor for as long as such work has existed: Is there a delineation between the "deserving" and the "undeserving" poor? To the advocate for love, the latter designation might sound appalling. One might pontificate: "Well, we are all undeserving of the grace granted us by a merciful God." And such a statement would be theologically sound, perhaps stirring up some inner nobility among speaker and hearers alike. But the lines are not so black and white as nobility would wish, not even when the social service agency is a rock-solid group of Christ Followers. The question of "who deserves my help?" clouds the air of churches and agencies, a difficult and lingering haze through which social service ministries have to navigate pretty much constantly. The haze is familiar to me now, nearly 8 months into my work with the homeless. I no longer expect to see things clearly when I go to work--no, I know I'm going to walk in there and it's going to get fuzzy before I have a chance to look around.

Some examples:

1. A local pastor calls to let me know that he's considering hiring John, one of our biggest drinkers, to do some maintenance work on a weekly basis (he's already chatted with John about it). He asks me what I think, and my response is immediate: "I'd rather have you hire someoe else. John will without a doubt drink the money you pay him (I call it 'liquidating their assets'). I have some guys here who have been working on sobriety who need work, and I'd rather send you one of them, maybe Jesse." The pastor, as one who clearly lives under the call of the gospel, feels the same dilemma I do, even as I speak as if I didn't. Part of John's drinking comes from boredom and frustration. The job would give him a sense of dignity, which is half the goal for us. But I know the odds are more than overwhelming that he'll liquidate those assets. Jesse is over 5 months sober and will use the money for healthier purchases. He "deserves" the work more. What does the gospel ask me to do here? Not logic. Not even fairness. The Gospel.

2. Upstairs at the Salvation Army, requests for clothing vouchers and warm items come in at an over 100% increase from last year. The budget is tight, and many families with young children are coming in for help. Then one of our alcoholic clients from FMS walks in and asks for a clothing voucher and sleeping bag. He plans to continue camping and drinking, and responds to the urging toward rehab with an only slightly veiled version of "screw you". But he is a life, and his body will freeze to death in the cold the same way a more "deserving" person's would. What would Jesus do in this case?

Dilemmas abound: Do I buy a bus ticket to rehab for the woman who has already tried and quit twice, each timing coming back to drink and spewing hatred at us when we ask her why she left the program? Do I continue to provide services to the man who constantly disrupts the community and gets arrested, and then openly declares that he has no intention of changing his situation? Do I help with paperwork for the client who is applying for disability, even after he has manipulated every agency in town, even taking the pain meds they paid for and selling them, sometimes to kids? These questions rattle around in my mind day after day. The haze follows me home, clouds my thoughts, makes me wrestle with the gospel on a level I have never known before. I come back again and again to the story of Jesus and the paralytic (see earlier blog), and I wrestle some more.

I look often to the writings of one of my heroes, Dorothy Day (less for answers, more for companionship in the questions): "...there is nothing to do but love. There are families among us, destitute families, destitute to an unbelievable extent, and there, too, is nothing to do but love. What I mean is that there is no chance of rehabilitation, no chance, as far as we can see, of changing them; certainly no chance of adjusting them to this abominable world around them--and who wants them adjusted, anyway? What we would like to do is change the world--make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. And to a certain extent, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, of the poor, of the destitute--the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor, in other words--we can to a certain extent change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble into the pond and be confident that its ever-widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat: there is nothing that we can do but love, and dear God--please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as well as our friend." (taken from the Catholic Worker, June 1946)

Nothing to do but love. This doesn't necessarily clear up the questions, but it calls me to a default. In all the fuzziness, I will seek to err on the side of love. When in doubt, default to love. If I fail while trying to love, then I have at least ventured mightily, right?

More than this, I notice that the goal is to "make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do." This means seeking justice on a systemic level. I may have to wrestle a great deal over what to do with the alcoholic sitting in my office day to day. It is agonizing at times, and probably will remain so. But I can far more confidently seek out the systems that keep that person down and fight them outright. Then perhaps the question of deserving and undeserving poor will fade; then, perhaps, there will simply be fewer who are destitute. And that is the goal of love. I recall the prayer repeated again and again in the simple sanctuary in Green Mountain Falls: "God, we look forward to the day when sharing by all will mean scarcity for none."

Until that day, pray for those workers who face the question every day. It is just plain harder than you'd think.

crazy talk

I've been reading the prophets lately, and I am beginning to feel like a lunatic. One might venture to guess that this is because many of the prophets seemed a little looney themselves. It is not necessarily a sane man who wanders around naked for years and cooks his food over dung in order to pass on some sort of message from the LORD. As uncomfortable as it is for those of us who want to be faithful, God called these folks to act like crazy people at times, often incurring the ridicule of their countrymen, all for the sake of God's message. Yet I am still fully clothed, and I cooked my breakfast over good old natural gas this morning. It is not their actions, but the prophets' message that is making me feel a little crazy.

Th concept of social justice--of God's care for the oppressed and disadvantaged--has become increasingly important to me over the past few years. This year, as I read through the messages of these great speakers for the LORD, I began to circle and note every place where I read the word justice, as well as things like the poor, the orphan, and the widow. And it has been incredible. I had always known that such issues are important to God, but a thorough reading of the Old Testament leaves one with the impression that the issue of justice is very near the top of his list. The breaking point for me came a couple days ago in the form of Jeremiah 22:16, speaking of one of Israel's greatest kings, the young Josiah: He made sure that justice and help were given to the poor and needy... Isn't that what it means to know me?" asks the LORD.

"Isn't that what it means to know me?" What an incredible statement. God says here that to give justice and help to those who truly need it is a critical part of our even knowing him. It calls to mind the scenario painted by Jesus regarding the judgement day (Matthew 25). In the very context of calling them to account for failing to give justice and help to the hungry, thirsty, naked, and imprisoned, Jesus sends them away saying, "I never knew you." Do we hear that? "You did not actively love the least of these, and therefore I never knew you."

This is shaking a lot of foundations for me--hence, the feeling a little crazy. So many assumptions within the church are sounding off kilter. I am thinking in extremes, and it's uncomfortable. Yet I need to go there, need to question painfully before I can come around to balance. And so the doubts ring in my mind.

There's the notion that God means the poor in Spirit, so the CEO who doesn't know him falls into the category. In that case, Christians should make sure to enter that realm and minister to that kind of poor. I don't think I buy that anymore. I think perhaps God meant the poor. The oppressed. The downtrodden. Literally. There's the idea that we can most effectively influence the world by making sure we have believers planted in every realm. If everyone dedicated themselves to justice stuff, we'd miss a lot of folks right? It feels crazy, but I don't think I buy that anymore. More and more, I sense that if the Church (and I don't mean the institution) truly dedicated itself to the disadvantaged--and I mean gave up everything for that cause--there isn't a corner of the world that wouldn't have to take notice.

There are so many things I have taken as givens that I am growing completely uncomfortable with these days. It's a little scary. I feel a little crazy. But I want to answer the call of Hosea 6:3-- "Let us press on to know [God]!" Yes, let us press on to know him. If Jeremiah was anywhere near on target, I'm going to have to factor in a few things when I begin that hunt to know him. I'm going to have to consider the words of God himself:

He made sure that justice and help were given to the poor and needy... Isn't that what it means to know me?" asks the LORD.

shanty town Sunday

I woke up this morning in a house of cardboard and tarps. Inside, seven friends slept beside me. Outside, 4,000 others crawled out of ramshackle huts and sleeping bags strewn across the ground. On a hilltop in Parker, CO, the sun was rising on a chaotic mess of cardboard shanties and unshowered people, all cramped inside a make-shift displacement camp.






We were there for an event called Displace Me, put on by an organization called Invisible Children (IC). For the past couple years, IC has been beaking the silent shroud surrounding the 21 year war in northern Uganda, and has been opening the world's eyes to the atrocities being committed there. For years, rebel forces called the Lord's Resistance Army have been raiding villages, conscripting children and teaching them to kill. In this time of chaos, the Ugandan government has moved millions into crowded displacment camps, lacking ample food and water, as well as proper sanitization. Many people have been in these camps for over 10 years. IC began with a documentary on the issue, and since then has been effecting change in northern Uganda in ways they could not have imagined. Displace Me was just one small part of it.

I would like to say that my night on the hilltop was about understanding what the people of Uganda go through, but that would be ludicrous at best. I did have moments where I felt crowded-in and uncomfortable, and was stunned at the thought of doing it for 10 years. And when we were waiting for crackers and water to be distributed at the "relief station", I really was hungry and thirsty (Saltines have never tasted so good in my life). Yet I know that one night in a cardboard box, hanging out with good friends and knowing I have home waiting for me the next day, does not even come close to providing a glimpse into their lives. No, my night of displacement was about raising my voice. It was about being one more body, one more face in the swarm of people speaking out on behalf of the oppressed.






During this year of reading Proverbs, one proverb has been the most impactful:

Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,
for the rights of all who are destitute.
Speak up and judge fairly;
defend the rights of the poor and needy.
(31:8-9)

The people of northern Uganda are not the only ones around us who don't have a voice, who cannot speak up for themselves. The homeless man in the park, the underprivileged child, the refugee, the migrant worker, the sick who have no access to healing...all these people lack the power that we take for granted--the power to speak up and actually be heard.

Is there a particular group of the oppressed that stirs your heart? Do you hear the cries of the poor and orphaned and widowed? We have the power to say something about it, to effect change even when we feel like we may only be making a tiny dent. When we see the forgotten, the silenced, the invisible, we have the power defend their rights. The task seems so daunting, and at times hopeless, but I believe the gospel challenges me to overcome that.

It challenges me to stand up and raise my voice.


(for some great links to practical venues for raising your voice, check out my friend's post about the event http://ransomedjourney.blogspot.com/2007/04/raise-your-voice.html)

what my eyes don't usually see

As I have thought a lot about the poor and oppressed over the last several months, I have been challenged to think about the lens through which I understand theology and the Bible. I have been challenged to realize that I am a white, middle-class American, and that I read the Bible through white, middle-class, American eyes.

As a seminary student who is required to take several classes in Systematic Theology, I have had a chance to think through how my station in life affects my understanding of our faith. I have always heard of liberation theology and sort of passed it off as a little radical and misguided--too focused on political freedom. Some wise teachers and authors, however, have helped me to see that I have the luxury of seeing it that way. I can get away with having a theology that has nothing to do with political freedom in the here and now, because I am not oppressed. I don't really need the aspect of God as Deliverer right now, because I am not being crushed under the weight of actual, human oppression.

For most Americans, then, the foundation exists for a theology in which the enemy is understood primarily as spiritual. Our theology accomodates an understanding of the fight against oppression as some sort of cosmic reality. David cries out for rescue from his enemies, and it speaks to us in the battles we face against spiritual oppression, against the pull toward sin and wickedness. The Bible offers the promise that the righteous will not go hungry, and we feel assured that our spiritual hunger will not go unsatisfied. These are legitimate, important understandings of truth.

Yet these understandings are limited, as well. The truly oppressed and hungry are not afforded the a luxury of such a one-sided understanding. They have enemies who are flesh and bone, whose bullets are peircing the bodies of their children. Their spiritual hunger is accompanied by woefully undernourished bodies. A God who is not a Deliverer in the here and now seems irrelevant to them. Surely, God cares about their plight. Surely he is one who desires freedom for his people--not just in some cosmic sense, and not just on some distant day when we see him face to face. If he is who he says he is, then he must care about the literal orphan and widow, the literal alien and slave.

Am I now a hard-core proponent of liberation theology? No, but I'm thinking it over a little more. I'm trying to step back and ask how the words of Scripture I read might sound to a hungry child in an African refugee camp, robbed of her home and security. Psalm 10 today provided a perfect example:

"Arise, Lord! Lift up your hand, O God.
Do not forget the helpless.
Why does the wicked man revile God?
Why does he say to himself, "He won't call me to account"?
But you, O God, do see trouble and grief;
you consider it to take it in hand.
The victim commits himself to you;
you are the helper of the fatherless.
Break the arm of the wicked and evil man;
call him to account for his wickedness
that would not be found out.
...You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted;
you encourage them, and you listen to their cry,
defending the fatherless and the oppressed,
in order that man, who is of the earth,
may terrify no more."
(10:12-15, 17-18)

I challenge you to take some time and read the Word through new eyes. Try to think about God's workings in the world from a perspective that is a little foreign to you. It has been hugely challenging for me. In the end, perhaps such a practice will open our eyes to a God who is much, much bigger than our American eyes have ever seen.

one man's rembrandt, another man's rent money

I have to laugh sometimes about how a person's place in life affects the way she sees things, particularly money. Take my household, for example, given the possibility of recieving $1,000:

Roommate #1 thinks, "That's gonna buy a lot of Jimmy Choo's."
Roommate #2 is thinking, "I wonder if I could get a ticket to Uganda for that?"
Roommate #3 is asking herself the same thing, but wants to visit Russia. Dollars to rubles, that's what she's thinking of.
Roommate #4 is considering something practical, though none of us can guess what that is.
Roommate #5...that's me. And I am thinking, "Do you know how many credit hours that could cover?"

But it seems that our perspective on money goes deeper than our paricular place in life. To some extent, I think God has purposely created us with unique lenses for seeing all of life, including money. This becomes clearer and clearer in my own life as time goes by.

I spent some time in a rather expensive home earlier this week. You know the type: gargantuan spaces, leather and oak everything, patios and waterfalls and wrap-around decks. A few months ago, I was in an even crazier house, complete with a small indoor basketball court. Growing up near Aspen, I saw things that one-upped even that. Pretty exorbitant, if you ask me.

Though it's hard, I know I can't judge the heart in these situations. These people may have amazing hearts, and they may use all that money in a lot of other generous ways. Instead of judging, I am trying to learn to listen to voice of the Holy Spirit speak through my gut reactions. I want to open my ears to let him tell me how I've been made to see the world.

Tuesday morning, I sat at the table in one of these huge houses. For a while, I stared at a huge painting on the wall. It was a nice piece of art, really, complementing the room well. But all I could think was how that painting alone could pay a few months rent for a low-income family. My gaze shifted to a gizmo on the wall that tells the outside temperature and several other weather details (there was another upstairs). I sepculated about how much they had cost, and whether or not it would pay the bill to heat up a home that was as cold inside as the gizmo said it was outside. I glanced down at the large table in front of me. I wondered if it might be better used in a home where the family is too large to fit around their much smaller table.

Great art, cool gizmos, fancy furniture...these are all nice things to have. They aren't inherently bad. In fact, if I am honest I will admit that part of me would like to have them, too. Still, unless I squelch it, the Spirit's voice is loud and clear. The lens he has given me is tuned to see the poor. There is nothing superior or inferior about it; that's just how I'm made. Now, the task is to see what God wants me to do with how I see the world.

So I ask you: When you are giving the Spirit room to speak, how do you see the world? Now what are you going to do about it?

for the sake of their Redeemer

I have been thinking a great deal about the Christian's responsibility to the poor and to social justice. More to come, but for now, a few words for thought:
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"The poor wretch cries to me for alms: I look and see him covered with dirt and rags. But through these I see one that has an immortal spirit, made to know and love and dwell with God to eternity: I honor him for his Creator's sake. I see through all these rags that he is purpled over with the blood of Christ. I love him for the sake of his Redeemer."

(From a sermon by John Wesley, 1703-1791. Wesley was a leader in the Methodist movement, which made great strides in using the gospel not only to minister to souls, but to the practical needs of social justice. Wesley himself spent his life ministering to the poor.)
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"He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker,but whoever is kind to the needy honors God." ( Proverbs 14:31)
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For words from a more familiar face, I cannot more highly suggest checking out Bono's acceptance speech at the NAACP awards, posted on a friend's blog. The last two minutes are astounding.