"I decided that I should pray for the housed."

[Sapphire Blue]

On Giving and Receiving
by Todd Billings

"I was just at church, and they were praying for the homeless," Larry said, holding the day's belongings in a bag beside him. As the subway screeched to a halt, I heard him quip, "I decided that I should pray for the housed." Larry was sick of handouts, sick of condescension. To Larry, as a longtime guest at the homeless shelter at which I worked, Christian compassion seemed like little more than a masquerade, a power trip for those fortunate enough to be in the seat of the "giver" rather than the "receiver."

Larry's complaint about Christian compassion resonates with Friedrich Nietzsche's depiction in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Through the voice of Zarathustra, Nietzsche diagnoses Christian compassion as "pity"—a belittling, demeaning approach to the sufferer that shames rather than restores. Sufferers do not want pity, according to Nietzsche; they don't even want solidarity, when it comes from people descending from on high to be with the sufferer below. Sufferers also want to be givers. To only receive and never to give is to be dehumanized, to be belittled.

(snip)

FOR THIS QUESTION, it is wise to look at how scripture was brought to life in a time of famine, disease, and suffering. In the fourth century, a famine struck the Cappadocian region in Asia Minor, and leaders such as Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa sought a Christian response to the tragedy. Basil boldly challenged the rich, who "would rather burst themselves eating than leave a crumb for the hungry." The rich must empty their storehouses and give to the poor.

(snip)

However, while Basil's approach to poverty was important and necessary, his brother Gregory provides a way of embodying Matthew 25 that comes closer to addressing Larry's concern. For Gregory, a key issue is how Christians respond to the outcast. In Cappadocia at the time, leprosy was a medical and social cause for alienation. "Touch a leper, and you'll be contaminated," the thought went. Touch a leper, and you'll become a leper yourself. So lepers must stay separated. Those who give charitably must give at a distance. They must give handouts of food and clothing, out of pity for the sufferers.

Gregory starts by trying to break down the distance between the healthy and the diseased. Rather than just seeing the sick and deformed limbs of lepers, we should recognize the common humanity we share with the suffering: "Do not consider as strangers those beings who partake of our nature;" for "remember who you are and on whom you contemplate: a human person like yourself, whose basic nature is no different than your own," he wrote. "Don't count too heavily on the future. In condemning the sickness that preys on the body of this man, you fail to consider whether you might be, in the process, condemning yourself and all nature." We all share the same human nature. Thus, to condemn the sick and the starving is to condemn the body, to condemn one's own self.

(snip)

Gregory shows us how Matthew 25 need not lead to condescending pity. It can do the opposite: It can awaken an apathetic church to realize that it needs to touch the hungry, the stranger, and the prisoner if it is to have its own spiritual diseases healed. This will not lead to our own contamination. Rather, it will lead us to the humility of learning to receive from the poor as we give to the poor, to receive from the outsider as we give to the outsider. The kingdom is not about handouts. The kingdom is about a banquet! Not just the poor, but all of us will be receivers in God's banquet.



J. Todd Billings is assistant professor of reformed theology at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan. He was on staff at First Church Shelter in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for five years while working on his Th.D. at Harvard.

http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0704&article=070423

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Sojourners rocks

[Sapphire Blue]

2. ..

:kick:

[Nutmegger]

3. RnK

:kick:

:loveya:

:hug:

:hi:

:pals:

:)

[Sapphire Blue]

11. ..Thank you, Nutmegger!

:hi: :hug:

[Richard Steele]

4. "To only receive and never to give is to be dehumanized, to be belittled."

And so much that passes as "Christian charity" is, indeed,
designed more to boost the ego of the giver than to actually
help the reciever. I've long accepted the notion that the only
TRUE charity is anonymous. The moment that anyone besides you
and God knows about it, it becomes less than pure. And less
than pure is less than "charitable", in my book.

Recommended.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

5. Hmm. On the same principle, though, oughtn't you to refrain from admitting that?

NT

[intheflow]

8. There are times when it's not appropriate to remain anonymous.

I'm talking as a volunteer coordinator on the post-Katrina Mississippi Coast. First off, when you volunteer, you cannot remain wholly anonymous because you're out in public doing something. But much more importantly, I urge my volunteers to go home and write articles and LTTEs for their local papers, to lobby their elected leaders, to educate everyone they know about how deplorable the recovery is. Mississippi and Louisiana need those folks who give their vacations over to perceived charity trips to go home and evangelize about the need for more volunteers, more money for building materials, and more responsible federal involvement.

[Richard Steele]

12. Of course. As an "ideal", it's seldom 100% achievable here in the real world.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of a better
example than the one you've given right there.

[Sapphire Blue]

10. Funny (not) how the RW 'supports' faith-based 'charities', yet rails against funding...

... gov't. programs that provide the country's social safety net... the very social safety net that they (the RW) are so intent on destroying. Paying their fair share of taxes doesn't seem to satisfy their egos, does it?

[Richard Steele]

13. Lol. No, many of them just don't find much satisfaction in that, do they? nm

[Jonathan50]

6. I'm reminded of the episode on MASH

When Maj Winchester anonymously donates a large quantity of custom candies to the orphanage because "true charity must be anonymous". He is then upset when the director of the orphanage trades the candies for food for the children. He loses is pique however when it explained to him that giving candies to hungry children is a form of abuse and that his candies were traded for enough food to keep the children fed for a considerable period of time.

[Sapphire Blue]

9. Charity should also be given w/o strings, w/o conditions.

A few months ago someone posted an article about a church that 'adopted' a Katrina family. They gave the family a house, then were outraged when the family sold the house & left town.

One definition of 'charity':

4 : lenient judgment of others
synonym: see MERCY

(http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/charity)

[treestar]

7. My uncle the racist was here last night

And I had a similar feeling - pity rather than disgust.

Here is a 65 year old who has lived a middle class existence, full of hatred for a bunch of poor people, basically (the local Mexicans) who are no threat to him whatsoever and have never lived on the plane of relative luxury that he does. He whined about government documents in Spanish as if that harmed him somehow.

[bobbolink]

14. What timing.

Just as I've come to the inescapable conclusion that ALL charity is, indeed, ego-driven.

When the poor receiver dares to say that some aspect of it doesn't fit, or is hurting, watch for the immediate anger of the giver.

I will no longer accept "charity". If I can't provide it for myself, I simply won't have it, and that means food, housing, etc.

If I die, I die.

Which means, that liberals need to stop parroting that damned crap about suicide being a "permanent solution to a temporary problem."

That's total crap when it comes to poverty.

Many people are dying because they can't survive in this country.

GET IT, LIBERALS!!

You don't like the suicides, then damn it, at least be willing to get active on the damned budget!!

:nuke:

[Sapphire Blue]

15. Kicking a reply that needs to be read!

:kick:

[bobbolink]

16. Maybe we should have a pop quiz.....

...kinda doubt there was more reading...

:hi:

:hug:

:loveya:

[Jcrowley]

17. It's all connected

This where one person lives.

So is this:


It's all connected.

It's the TOO MUCH that causes the TOO LITTLE.