Sunday, June 27, 2004
(10:59 PM) | Anonymous:
Plankeye
Listen: I don't take invoking the name of Christian rock groups lightly. But sometimes such things must happen, in order to set the tone for what is to follow. However, this post is not regarding Christian Rock, or the down fall of Tooth and Nail Records. This post, so flippantly titled, is about the poor.Recently the poor have been a favorite topic of conversation at the print shop. I should preface by saying that probably 20 of the 25 people who work at the print shop are church-going Christians. I should also say that 24 of the 25 people who work there are staunch Conservatives. Also - 25 of the 25 who work there are great people who I get along with extremely well. Now that we have our ratios straight, I'll continue.
This is what is said of the poor -
- they are lazy
- they make up stuff for their signs just trying to see what works
- they are lying
- they will only spend the money on alcohol
- if they truly wanted to get out of poverty there's a Mcdonald's down the street that would easily hire them.
And so forth.
And I think all that is fine..so long as you don't try to equate such thoughts with Christianity, or any other similar religion or mindset that teaches to help the poor, feed the sick, so on.
I say this because the kingdom of heaven, from the teachings of Christ, seems to be a way of viewing the world, a way of interacting with the world. Thus, in following the example of Jesus, we take part in the kingdom of heaven. And one thing that seems true about the kingdom that Jesus is preaching about is a certain lack of concern for results or success. It's the action itself which allows us to take part in this kingdom, not the final end of those actions.
Did Christ really expect the woman caught in adultery to sin no more? What's more, if she does sin, does that mean the action Christ took to save her life was meaningless and stupid? A waste of time?
What about the prostitutes and tax collectors he ate dinner with? Could he only eat dinner with them expecting all of them to give up their lifelong profession and convert right there and become..I don't know..rabbis. Cause, I'm pretty sure most of them didn't. Most of those prostitutes probably worked the same night after encountering God. Yet God continued to come and eat with them. And what's more, Christ seems to enjoy the act of love in eating with them, regardless of the results.
If you view it as a result-based incident, the dinners become almost patronizing. God taking time out of his busy schedule to try and convert some dirty sinners. But instead, we see Christ "reclining at the table", seemingly actually enjoying such meetings. No matter the end result, Christ is showing the kingdom of God in that action of fellowship, and that is something to enjoy.
So, to get back to the poor man who asks you for money, Christians seem to take the opposite approach from Christ. We help people when we think there's a legit chance they'll "come to Christ" as a result, or when we buy whatever con they're telling. When they can convince us they aren't going to spend the money on alcohol, maybe then we'll help them. But this is basing everything off results. Rather than taking that opportunity to acknowledge the humanity of the con man before you, and knowingly be conned - in other words, an opportunity to take part in the example of Christ, to interact with the Kingdom of God - we keep our change pocketed, try to look away, and figure that my 2 bucks wasn't going to help him at all anyway. We're so focused on whether we suceed or not in changing that person's life that we refuse to change our own by constantly embracing the spirit.
So what can be said about this person who denies the poor?
- If we truly wanted to follow Christ's example, we'd stop pointing to places down the street as help, and begin by acknowledging that we're dealing with a human being, and offer what help we can at the moment.
- We're only going to spend that money we kept on alcohol or pop, or at best, a movie rental.
- We're so obviously lying by looking away - as if that homeless person is really going to think we don't see them.
- We make up rationale all throughout our head until we find a reason that works, and then we drive on past. If we can't think of anything, we'll keep coming up with stuff till the light turns green and we can move on.
- Basically, we're lazy.
Don't get me wrong, I think more substantive ways of helping the poor are needed than just throwing money at them. But until we come to a place where we can embrace the kingdom of god without thought of the end result, no help of any sort is going to come. If you can't even embrace the singular humanity when it's right in front of you, how are you going to embrace the whole miserable, sad song of poverty world wide? If we don't practice the kingdom of heaven in small, easy, instances, how will we ever work to bring it's justice on a wider scale?
In short, if we don't remove the plank of laziness from our own eye, how are we ever going to remove the speck of laziness from the impoverished who actually have some good excuse for it?
Sorry for all non-Christian readers of the site. However, I think the point still stands for any who'd consider alleviating the suffering of the poor a good thing.
And in the end, I'm a hypocrite, but I'm trying to be less of one.
