Why My Generation Can't Help The Poor
Why My Generation Can't Help the Poor
Who are the poor? Different people have different ideas, and I'm not disagreeing with anyone, here, but I do want to clarify what I mean. My context is the West, especially the United States. The poor that I mean in this context are those who are marginalized in this country, especially the homeless, imprisoned, and the mentally ill. There are other poor-- the working poor, the elderly, the severely disabled, and they have particular needs. But the focus of this essay is that the homeless, imprisoned and the mentally ill cannot be helped with the system that has been developed.
The chonically poor are those who are constantly dishonored by the majority of the populace. They see these poor as being in their evil circumstances due to their own fault. Or others see them as pitiable. But they do not treat them as people, and so whether one has compassion or anger for these poor, they are not treated as equals, as people whose opinion really matters.
The majority think that the poor's problems can be solved by imitation-- they need to be like us, like the middle class. The standard by which the homeless and the mentally ill are judged is not whether they are good people or doing what they can with what they have. The standard is that which they would never judge those able to maintain their own homes:
Do they use alcohol or drugs (note, that if a homeless or mentally ill person drinks, they are automatically an "addict" but if a housed person drinks it is acceptable).
Are they clean, do they keep a clean living space? A person from the Gresham police just recently told me that they judge the homeless in their community based on whether the camps are clean or not. If they aren't, then they feel justified to knock down their camps and throw away all their possessions (although they provide the same service for the homeless who are clean). The mentally ill are also "inspected" by officials to make sure that their space is clean and tidy. If it is not, then they are threatened with the loss of their housing. How would you like your room or home inspected and if it was found to be "unclean" then you are exiled from your community?
Do they dress like us? Do they talk like us? Do they act like us? Do they work like us? If the poor do not, then they are rejected as a real part of our society, our churches, our entertainments, our hopes, our social salvation.
The chronically poor have need of flexible work, but the majority of our society insist that unless they work 9 to 5, five days a week jobs, according to the schedule of an employer, then they are unacceptable to society. And one of the major characteristics of the chronically poor is that they are in great need of flexible work. I have a number of people living with me and their main issue is that they cannot hold down a job. Why? Because when they wake up, they do not know if they will be able to work that day or not. It cannot be scheduled ahead of time. They don't know if that day they will be in severe depression, unable to focus, in a manic state, in severe anxiety or what. In our society, if you are scheduled to work, you work no matter how you feel. So our folks just never get jobs because they cannot know whether they can work when scheduled.
Do they work? Oh, yes, very hard. Many of the homeless wake up at 5AM so they can climb in and out of dumpsters all morning, seeing what they can sell or recycle. This may not be "acceptable" work, but it is hard work, for little pay. For hours of work, one may-- or may not-- make fifteen bucks.
How did these folks get in this position in the first place? What did they do to be poor like this? Were they always this way? Not most of them. Most of the chronically poor had once held down jobs and their own apartments. What made them chonically poor is that when they fell into trouble, people blamed them instead of assisting them. They did not have the kind of social network that most of us have. If we lose our jobs or our homes, we know of people who will help us. They didn't. Their families hate them, their freinds rejected them or couldn't help them. There was no where to go.
There are the three basic problems of the chonically poor-- The need of honor, the need of flexible work and the need of a support network. So why aren't they helped? Why can't we just get past this and help the poor in the way they need to be helped?
Because this generation of church leadership will never be able to help the poor. It is already too late for us, as a generation. We have been faced with the tests of the issues of our urban communities, and we have already failed.
This generation of church leaders see the lower class as a problem not as a seperate culture.
They see the ideals of the poor as something to work around, not to encourage or work with.
They see the poor as needing to be saved, not as a group of Christians that need to be listened to.
They treat the marginalized as the marginalized, and not as the heart of the church.
They see salvation as being a matter of politics, medicine and technology, rather than a result of God's power and Spirit.
They see our response to be a matter of doctrine and cultural acceptability, rather than compassion, truth and commitment.
They see ethics as either something being handed to us by our culture or as something that we create in a "Christian context" rather than someing Jesus gave us and holds us to.
They see capitalism and the corporate system as the means of economic salvation rather than loving charity.
Fundamentally, they see the church as something that Jesus never wanted, never needed, never asked for. Jesus said that the church was to BE the poor, not to help them. Jesus said that the church was to use their resources for those in need, not for buildings, schools with academic requirements and bloated salaries of self-important half-educated religious spokespersons. Jesus said that his leaders were to be humble and persecuted, not exalted and selling books and supporting all the teachings he spoke against.
It is time for a new generation of leadership in the church. A leadership that will help the poor.
We need a generation that will meet with the poor on their level and understand them as friends, not speak down to them as parents.
We need a generation who will establish churches OF the poor and not have the lower class as an addendum to their middle class churches.
We need a generation who will assist the poor to help and speak for themselves.
We need a generation who will know that faith is setting aside the affluent lifestyle that our generation seems to "need."
We need a generation who will sacrifice as Jesus asked us to sacrifice for the needs of others.
We need a generation who will assist the homeless and the mentally ill as MCC acts toward a community development project-- with resepect to their culture, with plans for the people to assist themselves, with hope that they can make their community better themselves.
We need a generation who will welcome and support the lower class to be leaders in the church.
This requires energy and youth. It requires a willingness to understand other cultures, and not just condemn them. It requires people to get out of themselves and look at others for who they really are, not just who they expect them to be. It requires listening, and careful compassionate action.
Is this generation of young believers ready for this? Will they pass the test my generation failed at and continues to fail at? Only time will tell.
Who are the poor? Different people have different ideas, and I'm not disagreeing with anyone, here, but I do want to clarify what I mean. My context is the West, especially the United States. The poor that I mean in this context are those who are marginalized in this country, especially the homeless, imprisoned, and the mentally ill. There are other poor-- the working poor, the elderly, the severely disabled, and they have particular needs. But the focus of this essay is that the homeless, imprisoned and the mentally ill cannot be helped with the system that has been developed.
The chonically poor are those who are constantly dishonored by the majority of the populace. They see these poor as being in their evil circumstances due to their own fault. Or others see them as pitiable. But they do not treat them as people, and so whether one has compassion or anger for these poor, they are not treated as equals, as people whose opinion really matters.
The majority think that the poor's problems can be solved by imitation-- they need to be like us, like the middle class. The standard by which the homeless and the mentally ill are judged is not whether they are good people or doing what they can with what they have. The standard is that which they would never judge those able to maintain their own homes:
Do they use alcohol or drugs (note, that if a homeless or mentally ill person drinks, they are automatically an "addict" but if a housed person drinks it is acceptable).
Are they clean, do they keep a clean living space? A person from the Gresham police just recently told me that they judge the homeless in their community based on whether the camps are clean or not. If they aren't, then they feel justified to knock down their camps and throw away all their possessions (although they provide the same service for the homeless who are clean). The mentally ill are also "inspected" by officials to make sure that their space is clean and tidy. If it is not, then they are threatened with the loss of their housing. How would you like your room or home inspected and if it was found to be "unclean" then you are exiled from your community?
Do they dress like us? Do they talk like us? Do they act like us? Do they work like us? If the poor do not, then they are rejected as a real part of our society, our churches, our entertainments, our hopes, our social salvation.
The chronically poor have need of flexible work, but the majority of our society insist that unless they work 9 to 5, five days a week jobs, according to the schedule of an employer, then they are unacceptable to society. And one of the major characteristics of the chronically poor is that they are in great need of flexible work. I have a number of people living with me and their main issue is that they cannot hold down a job. Why? Because when they wake up, they do not know if they will be able to work that day or not. It cannot be scheduled ahead of time. They don't know if that day they will be in severe depression, unable to focus, in a manic state, in severe anxiety or what. In our society, if you are scheduled to work, you work no matter how you feel. So our folks just never get jobs because they cannot know whether they can work when scheduled.
Do they work? Oh, yes, very hard. Many of the homeless wake up at 5AM so they can climb in and out of dumpsters all morning, seeing what they can sell or recycle. This may not be "acceptable" work, but it is hard work, for little pay. For hours of work, one may-- or may not-- make fifteen bucks.
How did these folks get in this position in the first place? What did they do to be poor like this? Were they always this way? Not most of them. Most of the chronically poor had once held down jobs and their own apartments. What made them chonically poor is that when they fell into trouble, people blamed them instead of assisting them. They did not have the kind of social network that most of us have. If we lose our jobs or our homes, we know of people who will help us. They didn't. Their families hate them, their freinds rejected them or couldn't help them. There was no where to go.
There are the three basic problems of the chonically poor-- The need of honor, the need of flexible work and the need of a support network. So why aren't they helped? Why can't we just get past this and help the poor in the way they need to be helped?
Because this generation of church leadership will never be able to help the poor. It is already too late for us, as a generation. We have been faced with the tests of the issues of our urban communities, and we have already failed.
This generation of church leaders see the lower class as a problem not as a seperate culture.
They see the ideals of the poor as something to work around, not to encourage or work with.
They see the poor as needing to be saved, not as a group of Christians that need to be listened to.
They treat the marginalized as the marginalized, and not as the heart of the church.
They see salvation as being a matter of politics, medicine and technology, rather than a result of God's power and Spirit.
They see our response to be a matter of doctrine and cultural acceptability, rather than compassion, truth and commitment.
They see ethics as either something being handed to us by our culture or as something that we create in a "Christian context" rather than someing Jesus gave us and holds us to.
They see capitalism and the corporate system as the means of economic salvation rather than loving charity.
Fundamentally, they see the church as something that Jesus never wanted, never needed, never asked for. Jesus said that the church was to BE the poor, not to help them. Jesus said that the church was to use their resources for those in need, not for buildings, schools with academic requirements and bloated salaries of self-important half-educated religious spokespersons. Jesus said that his leaders were to be humble and persecuted, not exalted and selling books and supporting all the teachings he spoke against.
It is time for a new generation of leadership in the church. A leadership that will help the poor.
We need a generation that will meet with the poor on their level and understand them as friends, not speak down to them as parents.
We need a generation who will establish churches OF the poor and not have the lower class as an addendum to their middle class churches.
We need a generation who will assist the poor to help and speak for themselves.
We need a generation who will know that faith is setting aside the affluent lifestyle that our generation seems to "need."
We need a generation who will sacrifice as Jesus asked us to sacrifice for the needs of others.
We need a generation who will assist the homeless and the mentally ill as MCC acts toward a community development project-- with resepect to their culture, with plans for the people to assist themselves, with hope that they can make their community better themselves.
We need a generation who will welcome and support the lower class to be leaders in the church.
This requires energy and youth. It requires a willingness to understand other cultures, and not just condemn them. It requires people to get out of themselves and look at others for who they really are, not just who they expect them to be. It requires listening, and careful compassionate action.
Is this generation of young believers ready for this? Will they pass the test my generation failed at and continues to fail at? Only time will tell.
posted by Steve Kimes at 12:48 PM
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