Apr
24
Written by:
host
4/24/2009 7:00 AM
Two nights each week, I work at the homeless shelter for men in my community, preparing dinner, handling phone calls, taking assistance applications, and the like. As you would expect, the conversations often drift to jobs (or more accurately, the lack of them), the inability of the government to make meaningful change, and other political and economic topics. The men who come through the doors each day see things from a very different perspective, they'd tell you, than the "average" person, and generally I think that is true.
This week I got into a long conversation with an extremely articulate, well-educated, creative guest at the shelter who has given up on the people of this country to make fundamental change. "James" didn't have many good things to say about churches and their various missions to the poor. I tried to listen carefully, to really "hear" him.
Two comments especially hit home and stung more than others.
He shared an experience in which an "important" family of a church he stayed in one cold winter night invited him to sit by them at worship. James said, "If they were living out their faith, shouldn't they have asked if they could sit with me?"
James also lamented the way churches teach youth to help others, substituting simple acts of charity with direct and intense engagement with poverty. In his words: churches are interested only in "handing out cupcakes."
The well-known parable of Jesus in Matthew 25:31-46 reveals an uncomfortable and frequently overlooked truth: it is not in the act of giving to the poor that we get to know Jesus, however well-intentioned those good actions are. Rather, it is in the poor themselves that we can discover who Jesus is, and we completely missed it while we were busily going about our helping activities.
Author and Sojourners founder Jim Wallis, in a terrific podcast, describes many folks on the theological left this way: "They don't have many friends who are poor. The poor are the object of their concern, not the subjects of relationship. Relationship disciplines perspective...if we have relationship with people who are on the outside, it changes our perception of how to live."
Think about your own life and ministry. Whom do you seek out for friendship? In what ways do your ministries treat the poor as objects, as those who need to receive "help" and "assistance"? What are you learning about politics, religion, and life from your own engagement with those in poverty? Would Jesus say about your church—or you—"I was hungry and you gave me cupcakes?"
~ Tim Gossett