One with our aid

Mrs. Rich simply refused to enter the reception hall of the Church’s Homeless Outreach Program. The 73 year old matriarch of the church was willing to prepare cookies, give her loose change to the cause but always simply stated she did not want to have to see or smell the homeless the program was serving. Though Rich was not her real name, I think the name encapsulates the way she was preserved in the church up to that point.

The Church was Rayne Methodist in New Orleans, the year 2004. Rayne had a communion rail outreach ministry where parishioners left money–basically one’s and fives–at the communion rail while receiving the elements at the monthly communion service. The idea was that once a week the church would open its fellowship hall to the community’s homeless for snacks, random clothing and vouchers for one of the night shelters in town. The program was organized each week by myself and a group of motherly older volunteers.

When doors opened each week the line of homeless men and women were greeted with hugs, handshakes and an underlying respect for the journey each of them were on. The group of us sat with people hearing and sharing stories of hope for almost two hours and the program ended each week with a small chapel service for anyone who wanted to stay.

Mrs. Rich was the widow of a very powerful and influential New Orleans businessman, and for most of her life her socially conservative views had allowed her to reach out financially to the poor and needy but never to really know them. She certainly came from a worldview that saw the hard work of her husband and the way she lived her life as very separate from the poor, drug infested, mentally ill people she believed we were serving in the church reception hall. The agreement that Mrs. Rich made with myself and the volunteers was that she would prepare cookies and punch in the kitchen, but we would have to deliver the food to the hall.

The way Mrs. Rich retells the story of the moment her life was changed began with her own impatience with the time it was taking the volunteers to come to the kitchen for their refill of snacks. That particular day the fellowship hall was packed with people in need, so the volunteers who would normally have been refilling the refreshment table were tied up with clothing and hygiene supplies. Mrs. Rich said she waited in back almost a half hour for someone to return to the kitchen to get the baked goods before she decided to risk entering the room herself. Even though she still depicts the room as having an ungodly stench, she also recalls noticing how calm and polite each person she passed seemed to be. However, the life-changing moment that day came when Mrs. Rich placed the cookies on the table and noticed her old friend and lifelong family caddy in the reception line. She explained that at that moment the room ceased being them and me and the needy became us!

Working with the homeless, I am audience to countless city, state and national plans to offer aid and resources to the “indigent” in our society. Initiative after initiative which make the claim of being the way to ending homelessness in 10 years, they assert that they have the answer to eradicating homelessness in our communities altogether.

Unfortunately the impression that most social services and faith based initiatives give to those they wish to assist is–they know best. The suggestion is –we will help you, we will fix things for you! It is my opinion that this debilitating message has resulted in generations of poor and homeless people who have given up on themselves, their families and the idea of ever being a productive person in their communities. I sometimes wonder if the underlying message that many agency, community, even church programs give actually instill in people the feeling that anything that they try to do for themselves would never be enough. We as a society, community and church, seem to have a need to be the saving voice of God over the ideas, faith and actions of the suffering people themselves. It is for this reason that I see lot of people reach out to our poor and homeless as if they were an empty slate that their good will and guilt could fix.

Through our government, HUD, state and even our own community here in Florida, we have pumped millions of dollars into homeless initiatives which claim to eradicate homelessness in 10 years. These programs make the claim to have the power to eliminate homelessness in our communities by simply giving people who are homeless, a free home. I must tell you that there is really no statistical proof that programs such as these will have any lasting effect in the health, finances, or education of those in need. Even though our communities will effectively –house the homeless– they will in essence create further debilitating dependence on welfare.

I sometimes worry about the psychological effect that the long term multi-directional quick fixes we place on the poorest in our communities, could have at there roots be more harmful then if society were to just abandon people to their own self sufficiency. Because even if our society chose to do nothing, at least they would do no harm.

I am in no way saying that we as a society, church or nation should stop tending to our poor. As a matter a fact am saying quite the opposite. Jesus told us “The poor you will always have with you…” (Matt 26:11), I believe in essence Jesus was telling us—that people are always going to be suffering. Maybe our calling as a religious people is to stand with, join with, become one with our neighbors’ suffering. For only in embracing the reality of our suffering can we realize the beauty of joy, hope and grace. It is the idea of, “Doing unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The problem with the way our society aids its poor is that they view them as people they could never become themselves.

My question for you this week is, how could we as a community, our families and our churches join with our poor and homeless in ways which meet them with dignity, respect and mutual love?

photo credit: babasteve