Care for People Sermon Series -- Part 3

“Care for People” Sermon Series – Part 3

Adam T. Trambley

St.John’s Episcopal Church, Sharon, October 8, 2017

Today we are in the third of a four-part series on caring for people. Two weeks ago, we looked at some of the issues that our church is currently experiencing, and at the scriptural instructions regarding loving others.  Last week, we talked about stewardship, particularly about the fact that everything belongs to God, not us, and our responsibility to share with those who have less.  We also talked about vocation and about four complimentary goals of outreach ministry and mission, which are 1) helping people in need because Jesus said to, 2) working toward a better community, 3) spreading the good news, and 4) building up the church.  This week we are going to look first at the spectrum of ways that we can focus efforts to help others, then we are going to look at the poverty trap, and finally we are going to look at some problematic ways of helping that we sometimes fall into. 

We are exploring these issues now because we are facing new challenges as some of our work has been successful.  I am proud of this congregation’s work, and I don’t have the answers myself.   I do believe that by making informed decisions together, we can move forward more effectively.   

I want to look at a spectrum of ways that we can focus our efforts to care for people. There is no right or wrong on this spectrum – different people are called to different ministries.  What is important is that we know what we are trying to do, and that we do it well. 

The first of the five types of help on this spectrum is direct aid.  Direct aid provides for people’s basic needs, especially in times of emergency.  People who are hungry need a meal.  People who are homeless on a winter night need shelter.  People whose homes have been destroyed by a hurricane need a safe place to be and a way to rebuild.  Our heart goes out to people in these situations, and we can hear the voice of Jesus saying to the disciples in the background, “you give them something to eat.”

At the same time, direct aid can have some unintended consequences.  One issue is how to transition people out of a time of crisis and back into a productive, self-sufficient life.  The danger of setting up one-sided relationships based on dependency is also real.  Robert Lupton wrote the following in Toxic Charity, and although his opinion is perhaps a bit extreme, it is worth considering:

·      Give once and elicit appreciation

·      Give twice and you create anticipation

·      Give three times and you create expectation

·      Give four times and it becomes entitlement

·      Give five times and you establish dependency (page 130).

I’ve heard similar observations from people who work in our outreach ministries.  They note that what started as something people were grateful for has led to a sense of entitlement for some people.  I think we can go too far along these lines, especially when real needs exist, but we also need to be aware of whether our direct aid is actually effective and look at what people really need.

The second category on the spectrum of assistance is self-help.  We might call this the “teach a man to fish” assistance.  This category includes budgeting workshops, job placement assistance, and other similar efforts.  The cooking classes we have hosted would also fall into this category.  These efforts would seem to be ideal, but the response to them often seems underwhelming, either because the self-help ministries provided are not what people actually need, or they are provided in unhelpful ways, or the targeted population is not motivated toward self-improvement. 

The third category is education.  Education focuses on providing skills to the next generation for their own long-term improvement and the development of the community.  In many places throughout the world, education was one of the primary ministries offered by Anglican missionaries. (The other was hospitals).  Even Sunday schools originally started as places for general education for those who were not able to afford or attend other schools.  At St. John’s, we have generally not focused on education since our public schools have provided a basic education.  At the same time, early childhood education programs and after school programs seem to be increasingly important for children to learn and thrive in our communities, and the elements of a religious education need to be taught to make up the gaps in public schools.  West Hill Ministries provides some of this kind of assistance.

The fourth category of helping people is advocacy.  Advocacy involves sharing our experiences of working with those in need to propose systematic solutions.  The Community Food Warehouse does a lot of this work, especially in conjunction with other foodbanks at the state level. The Episcopal Church does this on a national level through its Office of Government Relations.  As an individual congregation, our advocacy efforts are fairly limited, although we have can and have done some advocacy primarily at a local level.  Not all advocacy involves the government.  A number of churches conduct advocacy work to stop human trafficking by going to hotels and motels, offering training on signs of human trafficking to hotel staff and providing bathroom signs or bars of soap with emergency numbers that trafficking victims can call.  

The final part of this spectrum of assistance is direct action.  Direct action is assisting people who are affected by poverty to tell their story to a larger audience.  Direct Action can be the most long-term effective solution, but it can also be the hardest.  Direct action is usually the work of community organizing organizations, but on some issues, like civic rights, churches have sometimes played a very important role.

Here at St. John’s, most of our ministries have been focused on direct aid, although West Hill Ministries certainly has an education component.  We have occasionally offered self-help ministries, and have from time to time partnered with others in advocacy efforts.  Many of our parishioners, however, have vocations through their employment or other volunteer efforts that involve aspects of self-help, education, advocacy, or direct action.  The variety of kingdom work many of us do outside of St. John’s should remind us of how the gospel call to love our neighbor affects all that we do in our entire lives.     

The second concept I want to look at today is called the poverty trap.  This concept comes from the book, Poor Economics by Abhijit Banerjee and EstherDuflo.  The poverty trap describes a particular economic situation where someone is stuck because they need a significant amount of resources to improve their standard of living.  To contrast a poverty trap with a more standard situation, let me give a few examples.

In a standard situation, when someone lacks something, you can provide aid. If they don’t have any food, and you give them a week’s worth of food, they now have a week’s worth of food.  Giving them a week’s worth of food doesn’t necessarily help them have two weeks’ worth of food, but every little bit given actually helps.  A hundred dollars worth of food helps them have a hundred dollars worth of food.

In a poverty trap, however, every little bit does not help.  Maybe someone has no transportation to get to a job that would hire them.  The need a car.  Giving them a hundred dollars towards a car doesn’t really help.  Until they get three thousand dollars for a reliable used car, they are stuck.  Once they find that three thousand dollars, however, they can buy a car and get a job. The job will provide them the income they need to keep the car up and buy another car when they need it.  Their overall standard of living improves.  Not having a car was a poverty trap.  The same can happen for people who need first and last month’s rent and a security deposit to move into an apartment they can afford.  They may be over-paying for short-term housing solutions because they can’t save the money to move into an apartment, but they can’t get the money together up front.  Poverty traps are places where real transformation in people’s life could occur with a relatively little bit of help, but the help needed is often more than is available through emergency assistance.    

One way I have tried to make use of the parish alms fund is by assisting people who are stuck in poverty traps.  Sometimes a four or five churches or agencies will all be working with the same person to try to get them over the magic number.  We know just doing what we can do isn’t enough, so we tell people to let us know when they have pledges for what they need, then we all write a check.  Difficulties in this effort exist, however. Figuring out a person’s true situation is not straightforward.  What looks like a poverty trap may be a recurring pattern due to drug use or other issues.  Helping break a poverty trap usually requires a lot more help than meeting a short-term emergency need, and the best use of resources is always a question.  

As we care for people, we also need to avoid a number of pitfalls. One primary pitfall to avoid is doing things for people that they can do for themselves or do with us.  Caring for people involves recognizing people’s dignity, which includes recognizing that they have gifts to contribute.  That contribution could be on many levels, from volunteering to paying a nominal fee for services.  Such involvement gives them ownership of the process that is helping them.  The more that those receiving assistance can participate in all levels of the ministry, the more successful we are likely to be in the long run.  Of course, not everyone is physically or otherwise able to participate, and that is OK. 

More problematic, however, is when people could, but choose not to give back.  In such a situation, we might need to think about whether what we offer is really necessary, if those we think need it value it so little.  We also need to ask whether we are truly open to sharing “our” ministry with those receiving it.  Another issue, of course, is that some resources have restrictions on their use, like the food from the Food Warehouse.  Yet thinking of how we can do with others instead of doing for others is, in the long-run, essential to care for people effectively and with dignity.

A second danger is doing things in the short-term that undermine our long-term goals.  During the recent Hurricane relief efforts, for instance, many people who had gone through Hurricane Katrina posted appeals on Facebook about what not to do.  Sending used clothing just took up space and generally couldn’t be used.  Professionals coming down offering free services took clients from local professionals who needed that business to rebuild their own practices and lives.  Individuals who showed up “just to help out” ended up taking gas, water, food, and shelter that was needed by those displaced from their homes.  I also saw a picture of a warehouse full of donated plush toys that couldn’t be given out, because no one knew what kind of diseases, pet hair, or allergens might be present.  What was asked for and effective in that situation was cash.  Everything else was somewhat problematic, even if other responses might feel more personal or better.

I’ve seen discussion recently about the Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes that get sent overseas by many churches.  Some of the items included aren’t necessarily helpful or even understood in the places they are shipped to.  One photo had children wearing slinkies as necklaces because they didn’t know what else to do with them.  When I was in Russia, I worked with a fledgling foodbank and we got a huge donation of sunscreen mixed in with other toiletry items.  St. Petersburg is almost to the Arctic Circle.  People need all the vitamin D they can get.  We had to box all the sunscreen and send it to someplace south of Russia. 

Whatever our goal might be in terms of caring for people, we want to make sure it will be effective.  We need always to respect people’s dignity, provide what is actually needed, and focus on doing “with others” instead of only “for others”.   Next week we’ll look at some best practices and goals to strive for, before finishing with recommendations from our vestry.