Giving to the needy without Charity

A couple days ago I wrote what appears to be a controversial concept. That we need to be careful in our dealing with people who are poor, who are homeless,who are always short of food. We need to be careful in how we give to others who have learned to work the Christian system.

What frankly surprises me is the lack of understanding of what Christian Charity is. Martin Luther wrote regarding the days when the Church was wealthy beyond comprehension and the poor were starving in the streets. He lambasted a society that was heartless. Somehow that message has been carried over into bad Sunday School lessons that we grow up thinking we should just throw money and goods at a person who is in trouble and never ask why and how can we avoid your going back into trouble.

In the USA and in the are we live there are few poor starving in the streets. Yet we foist attempts to aleve our guilt for our relative prosperity by giving without any thought to any who ask. It is a selfish act. It is a thoughtless act that only serves to make us feel good and might I say somewhat superior. We at the same time we give look down our noses at the recipient. We give without engagement.

Recklessly.

I knew a man who used to go to the area under south Wacker Drive in Chicago and gave the homeless people there a hundred dollars each. He could and it made HIM feel good to do this.

I asked him if he saw the same men and women each time he went back as he did this a few times a year. Yes was his answer. Then I asked him, "By your unselfish gift are you helping them or yourself". He was pensive and said, "I don't know". He helped them that day, that hour, but his help was one of appeasement of his spirit. Those men and women had every opportunity to escape and enter society as the man or woman who crosses the border homeless and penniless from central America. Yet those people without food stamps, without welfare find the way to become a dominant economic force in the USA.

Your relatives and mine did the same when they came across the ocean in a boat penniless.

The solution to poverty is not generosity without consideration for what is appropriate but a change of heart for the person in need. You could give every poor person in Northern Illinois a hundred thousand dollars today and in 2 years those without a changed heart would be homeless, destitute and dependant once again.

As Christians in dealing with the poor we must be as concerned for the heart of a man we minister to with food as we are with their empty stomach. Feeding the body and ignoring the spirit is sin to those who have food for both. I mentioned in my prior post that the Salvation Army does this well and I endorse the approach. I wish other Christian Charities did as well.

My prime concern is we don't understand the way we should deal with the needy and so we do it sometimes in the most damaging way. The ministries who just provide food and shelter without question or intense discipleship do more damage than good. Jesus concern was with making disciples. If taking care of the needy results in discipleship we do well to do so. If taking care of the needy only results in our feeling better about ourselves we miss the point.

Paul writes to Timothy:

But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. 1 Timothy 5:8

In fact Paul instructs Timothy that if he puts men in charge of things of the Church they must be men who would manage affairs in line with how they manage their own life's: 1 Timothy 3:

1Here is a trustworthy saying: If anyone sets his heart on being an overseerhe desires a noble task. 2Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. 5(If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God's church?) 6He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil.

Does that sound like a person who willy nilly just opens a food pantry, a homeless shelter, or goes under a viaduct and hands out hundred dollar bills without discrimination?

The key to Christian Charity is it starts at home. We must first take care of our own house including the household of faith. If we don't we are worse than infidels. No man, woman or child settled in the household of faith should be in need. That giving however should come with questions and counsel.

Then need beyond that to other households of faith.

Then to the truly hungry of the world. In particular Children. I endorse feeding hungry Children. It's the men and women who use homeless shelters and soup kitchens as permanent residences because it's an easy way to live. Just go work in any homeless shelter for 6 months, hear the stories of the residents, get into their lives (it won't be easy, they really want you to give them things without question) and begin to examine who they are. You will find that there are abusers of the good hearts of well meaning people without discernment.

Most of what people believe is Christian Charity isn't true charity.

I suggest that you read the excellent essay written by Ron McKenzie called Caring for the Poor. Ron writes an excellent blog called Blessed Economist. He is just wrapping up a series on healing. I agree with much of it.

I suggest you read it, I suspect you won't. If you like the good feeling that comes from giving money or goods away without thought or prayer then you go ahead and keep getting that rush of well being that comes from it. It's not fulfilling God's purposes on the earth, it just makes you feel good. A selfish act. It's a Christian Fix. I give to a poor person, It makes me feel good, I do it again, I feel good. Addiction.

I had thought about trying to answer the Biblical examples given in comments in the former post tit for tat but decided against it. If you have this mindset I won't change it. I suggest you search your own heart. I'm trying to stop the shipwreck that comes from reckless mercy and the victims, the recipients.

The only one I might answer will be the Rich Young Ruler. Jesus knew his heart. That wasn't about giving to the poor, that was about the spirit of Poverty that ruled the heart of a man that stopped him from following Jesus. Jesus was using that expression to reveal the man's heart. Its left in the Canon to teach us not about giving to the poor but about the nature of our heart.

In every single example of Christian Charity in the new testament, every one, (I challenge you to read it carefully and prove me wrong), NEVER ONCE were goods given to needy people without them being part of the household of faith or being discipled. This isn't about who is your neighbor or good samaritianship. Of course that's the merciful thing to do. That's not Charity. Using the question about who your neighbor is to give indiscrinatingly to the poor is a misapplication of the principle of rescue. We must rescue those broken along the Jericho Road. Charity the way it is practiced in Kane County Illinois is not rescue.

I would only ask that you consider carefully the last few times you gave to poor people or ministries serving the poor. Did you help or hinder the purposes of God in their lives? I would encourage you to engage at a personal level the people directly getting this help and ask some questions. Start to turn up your discerner. Then ask, if I provided for all his or her physical needs and nothing else changes will he or she? The answer will surprise you.