Proper Charitable Giving

“The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.  Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you (Psalm 9:9-10)."

Spike Lee’s classic “Do the Right Thing” presents a picture of the world as too many of us know it.  Those who have power abuse it and live with arrogant disdain for the poor.  Some of us who live with the privilege of power, who claim to be guided by moral and religious principles or our own “sense of right and wrong” too often are paternalistic social “do-gooders” who “want to do good” as long as we don’t have to make any real sacrifices.  We are the most vocal supporters of charity as long as our own comfortable lifestyle with its innate cultural and social boundaries is not put at risk.  We often have more sympathy for our dogs and cats and “free range green farm chickens” than we do for the outcast, feared and despised poor of our world. 

In the 10^th chapter of the Gospel of Mark, the writer conveys this story:  As Jesus started in his way a man ran up to him and fell on his feet before him, “Good Rabbi,” he asked, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered, “No one is good—except God alone.  You know the commandments, ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony in court, do not cheat the poor, honor your father and mother.’”  “Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”  Jesus looked at him and loved him.  “One thing you lack,” he said, “Go sell everything you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me.”  At this the man’s face fell.  He went away sad because he had great wealth (Mark 10:17-22).”

Jesus was not trying to make it impossible for this man to become one of his followers.  On the other hand, Jesus was far more sophisticated in his thinking and understanding about charity than some churches and Christian leaders would have us believe.  He warned the man that God was not looking for “good people” but for people who would allow God’s agenda to transform their own conceptualization of themselves.  He did not want to mislead people about what God required of them.

Jesus wanted us to understand the nature of what God wanted for the world.  It would not be achieved by soliciting donations from the disposable incomes of middle and upper class persons for soup kitchens or the other worthwhile social causes that churches and charitable organizations engaged in.  Something more intense, yet simple was required.

Jesus knew that these acts in and of themselves had nothing to do with making life any better for the recipients, nor for the ones who were the benefactors.  Too often our “goodness” is based on our own social class position, which affords us “the choice” of “helping” the poor.  For Jesus it was not a matter of charity but of lifestyle choice.  To live in accordance with God’s plan meant that self and all that made one feel important and powerful enough to “help” others, must be abandoned.  Only relying on the goodness of God (no strings attached LOVE) and not the goodness of human beings changes the world.  One theologian wrote of God's motive as "total disinterestedness."  

In the January 7^th One-Year Bible reading we read in the Gospel of Matthew: “Be careful not to do your acts of righteousness before men, to be seen by them.  If you do you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.  So when you give to the needy do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men.  I tell you the truth; they have received their reward in full.  But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret.  Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret will reward you (Wow!  Seems like we have institutionalized in our faith communities the very thing that Jesus warned us NOT TO DO—advertising, honoring and reporting on those who give for our good work—Matthew 6:1-4).”

The poor are more suspect of the latter than they are of brutal police, overt white supremacists, the “cradle to the grave prison-pipeline of the criminal ‘just-us’ system, and right wing ideologues.  It appears to the poor, marginalized of society that us “do-gooders” do not really “see them” or really ‘regard them” as the same human beings that we are.  They do not sense that we understand them to have the same needs, the same aspirations, the same blood that bleeds when cut, the same bodies that die when they don’t receive adequate health care, the same minds that are wasted without quality education, and the same psyches and souls that are wounded, often beyond repair, by the abject poverty and lack of resources they must contend with in the ghettos (worn out used “flat-lands” housing, playgrounds--when they do exist, schools, stores and infrastructures) they are consigned to live in. 

We never seem to connect the massive profits our businesses or our stocks, IRAs, pensions and capital investments are making with the growing rampant joblessness, homelessness, drop-out rates and incarcerations that so tragically characterize ever-growing segments of the American population. 

It’s kind of like what I wrote about in a previous post regarding Chevron Oil.  Chevron’s giving 3.7 million dollars to social service agencies in Richmond, and then simultaneously seeking to take back $60 million from the taxes they paid to the county—after having already sued and gotten $120 million in taxes back from the county for previous years, is the worst kind of cynical greed and disregard for the well-being of American citizens.  Add this to their hundreds of billions of dollars of profits each year, their charitable giving amounts to a heinous joke—a pittance “in the name of” offering remedy for the social conditions that their refusal to pay a fair share of taxes has helped to create and exacerbate in that same city.  Those who scramble for these dollars miss the larger picture of how their "gratitude" and "competition" feeds the misery of the very people they believe they are helping.

It's like Jewish guards in the Warsaw Ghetto believing that they were helping Jews by carrying out the orders of the Germans to keep order there.  In reality, such social service agencies become the de facto agents of those who would inflict misery and suffering on the poor in favor or more profits.  Those who ignore the Bible’s clear teaching in favor of their own contemporary religious-ethical spin on charity do the same thing.

But in this song from the Hebrew Psalter (9:9-10), it is clear that the poor are not to seek out the assistance of “good human beings” or “progressive human beings.”

Neither are the poor to put their trust in pastors or politicians or corporate leaders.

The poor are to put their trust, to put their hope in, and to rely upon God (no strings attached LOVE). The oppressed are told that the LORD (YHWH) Adonai, or Jehovah--the God of "WHAT WILL BE" is their refuge.  The almighty sovereign Creator is the Fortress, the Strong Shield “in times of trouble,” and the One who ultimately brings a new reality for all.  

You want to help the poor?  Then teach the poor God’s name--after you have learned to call on that name for your own very breath and life and health.  You want to assist the poor?  Teach the poor to trust, to have hope in the One who loves them even as you trust and hope and embrace that same love.  Admit to the poor that too often they suffer because too often we too often fear and despise them.  Teach the poor that we cannot save them or even ourselves, but that God rescues them and will rescue us all who live by faith in God's unconditional love.  God does and will do this not because of what we do or have done, not because we are better or smarter than the right or the left, but because God loves all of us equally and in spite of our sins, our mistakes and our fears. 

Teach the poor that they must not define themselves by the poverty of a sub-culture of desperation, limited choices and the loathsomeness that we transfer off to them from our own fear and false consciousness, and that they also define themselves by.  Confess to the poor that our attitudes and fears have contributed to their suffering and ask the poor for their forgiveness.

God loves all of us, but the Bible is clear that God has a preferential option for the poor (Matthew 6:19-21; Luke 1:46-55).  God’s message is that the poor, like us, are fearfully and wonderfully made, and are the “apple of God’s eye.”  In fact THEY are US-- if we truly understand the concept of God’s new heaven and new earth.  We are all in training for another time, another place, and another world where love, mercy and truth are the order of the day. 

We have an opportunity to live in humility instead arrogance.  It is never too late for us to change our behavior and approach (repentance-metanoia).  God calls us through the Hebrew Bible, The Christian Bible and the Holy Qur'an to encourage the poor and outcast to join with us, be a part of us, have the best seats in our churches, our mosques, and our synagogues, attend our schools with our children, house themselves in our neighborhoods--our "hills," join life with our families, our social clubs, our community councils, work with us and share the fruits of labor in our businesses, our corporations, and have a place in our future, and join with us at decision-making tables as equals in seeking solutions that lessen the suffering of all human beings until Christ returns. 

The poor will no longer be victimized by anyone on the same day that we decide to “let the poor become a part of us.”  Seems like too much, a tall order.  The song of Psalm 9 concludes, “For you Lord have never forsaken those who seek you.”