How do we encounter the poor? Are they simply the recipients of our unwanted clothing or our spare change, forgotten until we are confronted by a Salvation Army bell-ringer or a donation-collection truck?
Jesus called the poor blessed because they more readily recognize and receive the kingdom of heaven. People who are the most vulnerable often discover that what they need can only come from God.
Each meeting with shelter or a meal or the kindness of a stranger can be seen as divine providence.
oh wow…”the poor” as another vehicle for Episcopalians to navel gaze.
Matt, I am no fan of the PB; however, I do work with the poor. Matthew 25 is not just another opportunity to navel gaze. It is humbling and amazing to experience a person fully recognizing God’s grace and mercy in the things we take for granted. It is an opportunity to “do” the work of the gospel. When we encounter the poor we meet Jesus. Sometimes a little navel gazing is needed (thus Lent and Advent). I challenge us all when we take out that clean pair of socks to stop and look at it with amazement that God loves us enough to provide us with the most simple things for our comfort and protection. I would imagine that in this economic season more and more of us are becoming aware of how He is meeting us in the places where we are more comfortable with meeting our own needs.
P.S. I encourage all of us to ignore the PB’s name on this article so we can receive it. It is hard for me, but it is a good piece.
Hi Julia,
I work with “the poor” too. We have a weekly soup kitchen and quite a large number of our parishioners are among “the poor”. And guess what “the poor” are people. They are not props or furniture or windows into the self. They are not here to make us feel good or so that we can boast about how wonderful we are for actually “meeting with them” in “uncomfortable places”. Nor should our motives in “meeting” with “the poor” be to come away with some deep personal experience of the divine…what insulting rot that is.
I tend to agree with Julia. Take Schori’s name off this piece and it’s easier to see that it’s not 100% rubbish. I could do without the gratuitous use of the word “radical” and the incorrect meme about Mary and Joseph being homeless, but you can’t have everything.
Actually, it’s refreshing to read her writing about dependence on God. Being herself, she never takes the next step of acknowledging exactly what we depend on God for (our personal salvation), but it’s a start.
My intention was to say, look, once or twice out of the probably hundreds of things Schori has written or said – in between implying God is a social construct and telling us the message of Easter is to use a spork – she says something right. And this is almost all right. I agree with Julia that it’s a good message.
Still, Episcopalian leaders of her type, i.e., most of them, seem to have a tic in which they’re compelled to disparage the truth or the Faith in some way, even if they manage to give most of it to us straight. And so we have here the deconstructionist bromide “… Jesus is born to homeless and poor parents …,” which of course is false as to the “homeless” part and possibly even the “poor” part; I submit we don’t know as to the latter. Why do they do this? Why must they always telegraph, whether in a way large or small, that they’re embarrassed at what Christians believe?
Dear Elves,
Please forgive my posting this here, but after an unsuccessful attempt to get a response from you off-list, I’m forced to press my request here.
I wish to learn how I can ‘un-register’ from T19. By ‘un-register’ I mean that I wish to be assured that my e-mail address is removed from your databases and mailing lists.
With all best wishes,
Monksgate
You are right, Matt ….. in fact they play the part of humbling us and making us look closely at ourselves and our values. They are Jesus to us (Matt 25). I do disagree with you — they are windows into our selves and the places in our lives that become impoverished and the reality that only through Jesus can we live life fully. When I use “poor” I am not just referring to those who have less than enough of material things — I am referring to all of us who are able to come to the place, with God’s help, of being able to be dependent and appreciative of all of the blessings God has provided for us. I am “coming out of the closet” on this piece. I have always posted under my first name which is not the name I am called by to protect my ability to respond on this site and others with freedom. I can stop doing that now as I am retiring on 12/31 and can now share freely. My name is Sterling Henderson and my husband Michael and I have co-pastored Grace Mission in Tallahassee since planting it 13 years ago. Our entire ministry (lay and ordained) has been in providing a worshipping community for those who have not found a place elsewhere (street folks, offenders and ex-offender, children in the projects). The ministry these folks have had to us is amazing. We will never be the same again as a result of God’s grace in allowing us to pastor these precious people. One of the visions for this ministry has also been to give the larger church community a place to meet and learn to love those that they might never encounter except on a street corner or across a line in a soup kitchen. We invite the community to participate with us and the testimonies to the power of those encounters to change hearts (on both sides) and transform lives is overwhelming. So yes, they are a gift to us and a window into ourselves. Blessings, Pastor Sterling
Matt K has it right. Everybody reread Matt. Thanks Matt!!!
No Julia, they are not “windows into ourselves”. They are human beings just like you and just like me. And as such they are Created by God and deserve dignity and respect. No other human being is a vehicle “for me” to “get” anything.
Yes they do deserve dignity and respect and they get it from me. They also deserve the opportunity to be confronted with thier sins and shortcomings and have opportunities to reconcile with God and with others through Jesus. Jesus in others (regardless of economic status) is one of God’s gifts to challenge and refine me. When he walked on earth He did that and now He does it through the power of His Holy Spirit. What I “get” is not to make me feel good — it is to make me “be” a better person. As a pastor, my prayer, is that through providing ministry opportunities for my congregation and for the larger community, I have been able to do that for others. I suspect we have a lot more in common, you and I, than we disagree on. In fact, we don’t even disagree on this topic —
Thought some of you might want to “see” what this type of ministry “looks” like. This is from the St. Peter’s Anglican website. There is a short video toward the end of the page.
http://www.saint-peters.net/gracemission
Thanks julia for your perspective and ministry.
My main difficulty with this peice, and others like it, is that it objectifies people, people who fall below the income level set by the government that determines who is “poor” and who isn’t. Most of my life I lived considerably below that level. I raised my children alone and was twice audited by the IRS because they didn’t see how my income could possibly be that low. I have gone hungry to the point of being seriouly undernourished so that my children could eat. I have had the devastating humiliation of going on welfare for a period of 18 months and being treated by case workers, and the general public, as if I were the villiage idiot, at best, and shiftless at worst. Through it all, I never stopped being who I am in my own eyes and in the eyes of God.
I’m not complaining. Because of my own experiences, I was able to fill my role as (unpaid) Director of Family and Children’s Services for Habitat for Humanity in Americus,GA with compassion and joy. I know how to knock on the door of an incredibly miserable shack in the heat of a Georgia summer and ask for a drink of water, knowing that the water was a precious commodity carried in an empty milk jug from the nearest working and available spigot. Receiving the gift of water from someone who has little to spare is about the best way I can think of to say, “my brother…my sister.” I have made and served hoe cakes by the dozens for the noon meal served by our Episcopal Church members in Americus, and I have eaten in the homes of my friends who were still waiting for their Habitat house to be built. And I have taken a young mother and her two children into my own home until Millard Fuller could find a “livable” place for them to wait for their own house. I have joined with a family for their Thanksgiving meal in their new home and have stayed with them while on a recent visit back to the neighborhoods of the people I once served and came to love as part of my extended family.
It is important to feed “the poor”, not just on Thanksgiving and Christmas, but anytime food is scarce and people are hungry. One lesson that I learned early on is that Jesus didn’t go back home to heaven every evening at 5:00; when He came among us, He came for the duration. My own life of service has not even begun to approach that level of dedication. In a sense, I have “gone back to heaven”; my life is a lot easier now, but for how long I do not know. Most of my service now is for the ones in my own family who are in financial straits. They, in turn, share with friends and neighbors who have less than they.
Please forgive my outburst. Frances Scott
Amen, Frances. One of the joys we have had at Grace Mission is providing food every day as people (“poor” or not) participate in the activities.
To me the problem with her Most Reverendship feeding the poor is not the act but the motivation. My read is that, to her, this is salvation itself. My read of Scripture is that we serve others as the outpouring of gratefulness for the undeserved grace of salvation we all have had the opportunity to accept. Plus Jesus asks us to “feed my sheep.” There is certainly nothing wrong with feeding and it should bring some joy.
Bob, I agree with you, it certainly is not salvation but it is clearly a fruit of salvation.
Jesus used it as an example of the criteria for judgement (sheep/goats) and James points out that faith without works is dead.
I am not sure what salvation “looks like” to the PB. Certainly she has expressed some confusing things for this baptist preacher’s daughter! But Jesus is clear — the fruit of salvation looks like this — when I was hungry, when I was naked, when I was in prison …..
I don’t get “saved” by doing these things — a “saved” person does things things because it is who we are. You are right, nothing is more joyful for a Christian than “being” who we are in Christ.
The RCs teach of a preferential option for the poor, which has been instructive for me. How prideful we are to assume that someone in line at a soup kitchen doesn’t have the skills to be not in that line.. I’ve been especially struck by the the “IQ” superiority of my fellow Christians. Let’s assume for a moment that everyone in the soup line is either mentally, physically, or emotionally deficient in a way that requires them to be in the soup line, shouldn’t we repay the gift, that I am not, by giving all that we have? This is Calvinism at it worst, and at it’s most common, IMHO.