{"id":5349,"date":"2023-06-13T09:07:23","date_gmt":"2023-06-13T15:07:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/?p=5349"},"modified":"2023-06-13T09:07:23","modified_gmt":"2023-06-13T15:07:23","slug":"caring-for-the-poor-and-the-mission-of-the-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/2023\/06\/caring-for-the-poor-and-the-mission-of-the-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Caring for the Poor and the Mission of the Church"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

connor-hall-r-HLeGnbY-8-unsplash-scaled.jpg<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

In watching the church assist the poor, I have noticed that there is always a substantial number of people who surface, over and over again.\u00a0 Their circumstances never change.\u00a0 They seemingly make little or no progress in rebuilding their lives or in moving forward.<\/p>\n

This troubles me.<\/p>\n

It feels right and good to help people who are struggling to meet their basic needs.\u00a0 But when people become dependent upon that help and fail to make progress in transcending their circumstances a pattern of co-dependency emerges and I find myself asking: Are we assuage our consciences without asking hard questions about the real value of our efforts?<\/p>\n

The church is not the only place this problem surfaces.\u00a0 The same dynamic no doubt explains why Lyndon Johnson\u2019s war on poverty, launched 60 years ago, has failed to put an end to poverty.\u00a0 And the same pattern is in evidence everywhere you look.\u00a0 California has spent 17 billion dollars in an effort to address homelessness, all to no effect.<\/p>\n

I am not a public policy specialist.\u00a0 But watching both patterns has convinced me that material aid without efforts to address the deeper need that people have for connection, community, purpose, and meaning is of limited value.<\/p>\n

This is not to suggest that poverty and deprivation are of no consequence, and it is not to suggest that material aid is of no value.\u00a0 But it is to suggest that material well-being is a necessary but insufficient key to human flourishing.<\/p>\n

This is undoubtedly why the prophets and Jesus himself often critique the marginalization of the widowed, and the orphaned.\u00a0 They represent groups in the ancient world that not only faced material deprivation but lacked connections to the community that were essential to their deeper well being.<\/p>\n

Ezekiel 34 offers a telling example:<\/p>\n

\n

The word of the\u00a0Lord<\/span>\u00a0came to me:<\/span>\u00a02\u00a0<\/sup>\u201cSon of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy, and say to them, even to the shepherds, Thus says the Lord\u00a0God<\/span>:\u00a0Ah, shepherds of Israel\u00a0who have been feeding yourselves!\u00a0Should not shepherds feed the sheep?<\/span>\u00a03\u00a0<\/sup>You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool,\u00a0you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep.<\/span>\u00a04\u00a0<\/sup>The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed,\u00a0the injured you have not bound up,\u00a0the strayed you have not brought back,\u00a0the lost you have not sought, and with force and\u00a0harshness you have ruled them.<\/span>\u00a05\u00a0<\/sup>So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and\u00a0they became food for all the wild beasts. My sheep were scattered;<\/span>\u00a06\u00a0<\/sup>they wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth,\u00a0with none to search or seek for them.<\/span><\/p>\n

7\u00a0<\/sup>\u201cTherefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the\u00a0Lord<\/span>:<\/span>\u00a08\u00a0<\/sup>As I live, declares the Lord\u00a0God<\/span>, surely because\u00a0my sheep have become a prey, and my sheep have become food for all the wild beasts, since there was no shepherd, and because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves, and have not fed my sheep,<\/span>\u00a09\u00a0<\/sup>therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the\u00a0Lord<\/span>:<\/span>\u00a010\u00a0<\/sup>Thus says the Lord\u00a0God<\/span>, Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require my sheep at their hand and put a stop to their feeding the sheep. No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them.\u00a0 (ESV)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As Walter Brueggemann<\/a> notes, there is clearly an emphasis here on material well being, and that emphasis drives the contrast between the plight of the people and the lifestyle of their leaders.\u00a0 But the passage also emphasizes the resulting isolation and exposure that God\u2019s scattered sheep suffer \u2013 suggesting that there is more at stake.<\/p>\n

This should not surprise us.\u00a0 The healing of both our relationship with God and with one another entails far more than our material needs.\u00a0 But if that is the case, then the church\u2019s ministry should reflect that understanding as well.<\/p>\n

In recent years we have lost track of that dimension of the work that we do.\u00a0 Too many of us were afraid that if we articulated the deeper spiritual needs we felt were at stake, then people would feel we were exploiting the exigencies of their lives to \u201cget them to go to church\u201d.\u00a0 Articulating that deeper need does not \u2013 by definition \u2013 entail that move and the effort to meet not just physical needs, but the need for connection, community, purpose, and meaning does mean that we need to gang-press people into going to church.<\/p>\n

But if we hope to accomplish more than prolong a form of institutionalized co-dependency, we will need to look for new ways to address those deeper spiritual needs.\u00a0 Ideas about how you have addressed that issue welcome in the comment section below.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

connor-hall-r-HLeGnbY-8-unsplash-scaled.jpg \u00a0 In watching the church assist the poor, I have noticed that there is always a substantial number of people who surface, over and over again.\u00a0 Their circumstances never change.\u00a0 They seemingly make little or no progress in rebuilding their lives or in moving forward. This troubles me. It feels right and good to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":240,"featured_media":4762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4316,4314],"tags":[4322,4318,4320],"class_list":["post-5349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-homeless","category-poor","tag-homelessness","tag-poor","tag-poverty"],"yoast_head":"\nCaring for the Poor and the Mission of the Church<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"connor-hall-r-HLeGnbY-8-unsplash-scaled.jpg   In watching the church assist the poor, I have noticed that there is always a substantial number of\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/whatgodwantsforyourlife\/2023\/06\/caring-for-the-poor-and-the-mission-of-the-church\/\" \/>\n<meta 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