This is my speech from the BLM protest in Ashburnham, MA put on by students of Oakmont High School.

In Isaiah 58:6 God speaks
“Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of injustice,        
to undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,   
and to break every yoke?

Jesus quotes this in Luke 4:18-20
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,     
because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,  to set the oppressed free,
     to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Among the many fundamentals to the Christian faith are two ideas--one that God's rule was begun with Jesus's life here on earth, and secondly that we are called to proclaim good news to the poor and to set the oppressed free.
Jesus, a brown, Jewish man, learned this from the Jewish scriptures.

It doesn't feel much like the kingdom of God, this time we are living in now. It doesn't feel much like the oppressed have been set free. With the death of George Floyd--after many deaths that were not enough to make us all rise up--with the death of George Floyd we are faced with the tragedy of our nation. Our nation was created with the idea that all of us are created equal, that all of us can pursue life, liberty, and happiness, that together we can make decisions about our common life in a democratic process. Today, as patriots of this nation, we are called together to help our nation be more explicit about what we mean by ALL.

We make ALL lives matter by naming explicitly that queer lives matter.
We make ALL lives matter by naming explicitly that trans lives matter.
We make ALL lives matter by naming explicitly that women's lives matter.
We make ALL lives matter by naming explicitly that disabled lives matter.
We make ALL lives matter by naming explicitly that immigrant lives matter.
We make ALL lives matter by naming explicitly that Muslim and Jewish lives matter.                      
Today we proclaim explicitly that Black Lives Matter.

It is easy to get caught up in the individual nature of the deaths we have seen. We are angry at particular cops that have killed particular men, women, and children. We are angry at particular politicians that block action on particular bills.
 
Yet any one of us, with a gun, in a difficult situation, might find our internalized biases driving our actions. Anyone of us, without a gun, certainly have found ourselves acting with less kindness and compassion than we want to share. When Isaiah predicts the release of the captives he is not arguing for a list of particular people to be granted clemency. Isaiah shows us God is speaking to the nation, God is demanding a national response.

At the same time, we cannot create a culture of caring for the oppressed by being hateful to those who refuse to understand. Those of us who are white here today must find a way to communicate with other white people the importance of this work. Do not allow your passion to turn into hatred.

We must continue to love and support individual police officers as we demand that the system for policing changes.
We must continue to love and support teachers and administration in our local schools as we demand that oppressive curricula are changed.
We must continue to love and support elected officials as we demand structural changes to our laws.

Racism is part of our culture. Racism is something that we have caught from society more than something we were taught by our parents or our schools. We must love and support people who are afraid of the changes that we are calling for, as we reach across differences, speak lovingly, while insisting that we find ways fight the oppressive ways we have learned.

The goal of the day of the Lord, of the Kingdom of God, the goal of a free nation is to overcome all oppression, that we will end laws and customs promote racism, classism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, and more.

We are gathered here to start on that work. Many of us have done much work before, some of us are new to these ideas, but all of us are at the start of this newest effort to make our town, our state, our nation the best that it can be.

It is our patriotism that brings us here, it is our faith that brings us here, it is our hearts that bring us here to this space declaring that for now on, in every way we can, we will declare that Black Lives Matter and that the oppressed must be set free.

Please join me in prayer: Holy God of many names, be with us in the work. Keep us strong against the powers that want to stay the same, and keep us loving against the powers that want us to hate. Amen.

Here is the Massachusetts Conference UCC article about being arrested for the poor people's campaign.
https://www.macucc.org/newsdetail/five-from-conference-arrested-at-poor-peoples-campaign-action-11412890

Yesterday morning I awoke to a shock. I often wake to shocks—my dreams are full of fear and chasing and my first thoughts of the morning are similarly painful, usually a sudden remembering that I have a paper due, that I didn't remember to call someone, that I was supposed to be somewhere early in the morning. Even the more pleasant remembering is sudden and somewhat shocking to me, that I am married, that I own this beautiful house, that I am a pastor—and wait, do I have to preach today? Have I written a sermon?
 
Thus my mornings generally start with a shock. This morning’s shock was quite different as I raised my hand to adjust the covers and saw bright red—no I’m pretty sure it is coral shrimp—on my normally naked fingernails. My slow morning mind struggled to bring back what has happened.
 
First I remembered the painting time—the giggling and yet focused energy as each of us slowly realized that the little brush was not going to do what we asked of it. I had red streaks on both sides of my fingers, and when I touched things it spread. Our little gang passed around a cue tip to remove the excess strokes, when what I really needed was a sponge. In bed I look more closely at my thumbs where the polish goes from cuticle to cuticle, and up over and onto the finger, and my pointer where I seem to have forgotten the right half of the nail. The lumps on several fingers, the chip already started on one.
 
This is not a skill I have developed over time, this painting of one’s own appendages. This is not a skill I want to develop. But it is fun for a small group of women to have a project we do together, marking ourselves as a team. Marking ourselves because….the morning haze is starting to lift and I remember the story that started this pre-ritual ritual.
 
The stories started with the evaluations we have received about our clothes, our hose, our jewelry, the evaluations of our choices for dress. One of us remembered a liturgics class and an off-hand comment that one of them, was it the professor? One of them would refuse communion hands with inappropriate nail polish. Although I wanted to care for this man's suffering—really, he would deny himself the central element of his faith with such pettiness? How painful his life of faith must be.
 
But of course we are group of women, and we know that this was not a lecture about his concern for the recipients of the sacrament. His intent was not to be sure that that the full diversity of people  experience the fullness of eating together with Jesus.
 
We know that he would not make the same comment about a man who has an odd ring, or perhaps gnarled fingers, or a dusky voice, or doesn’t hold his hands precisely in the right way, or breaks the bread awkwardly. This was not in fact, about the sacrament, and the liturgical ways of executing the sacrament, at all.
 
This was about women’s hands, with women’s markings, and the fact that men have used naked fingers for centuries, and so then, why should a woman’s fingers not be naked as well? As if he would also say that no one should wear socks, or ties, or for that matter pants, because our savior himself never wore such things.
 
There are many ways to react to oppression, even those little tiny oppressions, the micro-aggressions, as we call them today. We can blog and rant and complain to our friends, we can, and we do, ignore them, hide them away, we can, and we do, often, make light of them.
 
And sometimes we bring them to the light with a group of friends, colleagues, sisters, using laughter, and nail polish, and cue tips to make the point that these hands are qualified to run liturgy, to hold sacrament, these hands can connect us to one another, and these hands connect us to God in the world. Ugly nail polish cannot stop God’s powerful communion.

I marched in Washington DC Saturday with the Women’s March. I marched because I am a white, evangelical, progressive Christian. I marched to worship God.
 
What on earth, you may be asking, is an “evangelical, progressive, Christian”? And what does being white, being evangelical, being progressive, or being Christian have to do with marching in response to a presidential election?
 
Certainly the news has made it clear that most white evangelical conservative Christians chose to put this new administration into office. What moves a white, evangelical, progressive Christian to march against the same administration?
 
As a white person I marched because I’m obligated to use my privilege to support black and brown people’s rights. I am unlikely to get pulled over as I drive, I am unlikely to get arrested, I am unlikely to have my arguments seen as uncontrolled anger. Privilege is a gift I can use to speak out. I marched to use my privilege for the benefit of our nation.
 
As an evangelical, I marched because I’ve got good news, and it is important to share it. I know God is on the side of the poor, I know God is working toward justice, I know God loves all of creation. (As an aside “evangelism” means sharing good news—it isn’t about conversion of anyone.) I marched to proclaim good news.
 
As a progressive Christian, I marched because Jesus calls me to follow him. Progressives, in general, put more emphasis on following Jesus than on worshiping him. Christians believe that Jesus was fully God and fully human; progressives work to be like the human Jesus, and worship the divine Jesus with our work. Like Jesus we heal the sick, like Jesus we provide food to the hungry, like Jesus we welcome the stranger, the immigrant, the refugee. I marched to follow Jesus, and to worship God.
 
Of course conservative evangelicals also want to stand with those who are left behind in society, want to proclaim good news, and want to follow Jesus. What is going on when we have such divergent views of the world?
 
One difference is whether Christianity calls us to individual or corporate action. All Christians know Jesus’s story of sheep and goats, and that the sheep were called into God’s embrace because they choose to provide food, drink, clothes, welcome to the stranger, healing to the sick, and visits to those in prison. (Google “Matthew 25:31-46” to read the story.)  
 
To make a huge generalization, more conservative Christians interpret this story as about what individual Christians should do. More progressive Christians use it as guidance for what we as a people should do. For some Christians this as an individual mandate, for others this is a community mandate. To further divide us, if it’s a community mandate, is Jesus challenging the church, or challenging the nation?
 
Evangelical progressive Christians read this text as a call to our nation to care for those who do not have the material resources they need.
 
In a democracy the government represents me, and carries out what I ask it to carry out. I cannot plead innocence at the judgment; this is my government. As such, I must ask, no, I must demand, that my nation provide food and drink and clothing to those who need it. I must ask, no, I must demand, that my nation welcome strangers, heal the sick, and visit those in prison.
 
If we, as a nation, want to be among the sheep, SNAP benefits must not be cut, indeed they should be increased. If we, as a nation, want to be among the sheep, we must welcome immigrants, Muslims, anyone we do not yet know. If we, as a nation, want to be among the sheep, we must provide healthcare to all. If we, as a nation, want to be among the sheep, we must know, and care for, and love those in our prisons.
 
To be clear, I celebrate Christians who feed and clothe people in need, who welcome strangers individually, who provide healthcare and prison care as individuals. If Christians come up with a plan to care for all those in need, I wouldn’t need our government to represent us by doing it. Right now we, as Christians, and as a nation, are not adequately meeting those needs.
 
And so I am marching, and making phone calls, and standing up; I am working to make this government my government. I am a white, evangelical, progressive Christian working to make God’s justice real in the world. I welcome you, whoever you are, whatever you believe, to walk along with me as I follow Jesus.

Part 3 of 3

If Christ is in people with few resources, how does that affect our giving?
Do we see Christ in church based food ministries? Who are the ministries feeding? What does it mean in Matthew 25:40 when the Judge says “you did it to me”? What does it mean that giving food and drink and clothes is something that we do for, or actually to the Christ? Via notes that the “Son of Man who makes himself identical with his sisters here has also identified with the exposure and danger of the human situation during his earthly ministry” (Via 94). The Son of Man is not merely among people in need, “in some way he is they”, and thus immanent because he is “identical with the poor and imprisoned” (Via 94). Via is arguing that Jesus understands how people who are “exposed” feel because he has been in that situation when he was among us, but also that Christ actually is the exposed today. As noted above Moltmann also emphasizes the presence of Christ in the least of these (Moltmann 127). John Chrysostom, in the fourth century, wrote many sermons on the Christian responsibility of people who are rich to care for people who are poor. Rudolf Brandle explores Chrysostom’s sermons in “This sweetest passage Matthew 25:31-46” where Brandle argues that the text was the central organizing force of all of Chrysostom’s theology (Brandle 136). Chrysostom insists that the body of Christ is present among us in the poor; therefore salvation is not a one-time event, but that it happens over and over again as people interact with Christ in the poor (Brandle 137). “Christ walks through the streets of our city today, meeting us daily in the form of the miserable beggar. He has made human destitution his own. He sees what is done to the poor as done to him” (Brandle 133). Indeed, even when Jesus says “the poor will always be with you” (Mk 14:7) Chrysostom argues Jesus means that he, Christ, will be always present in the poor (Brandle 134). For Via, Moltmann, Chrysostom, the way to know Christ is to get to know people who need food, drink, welcome, clothing, and visits in prison.

​In food ministries people who serve others can develop what Corbett called a “God Complex”—a feeling that because they can help others they are more like God than those who need the food. In relationship to the story of the sheep and the goats, the act of serving people who need food—as Jesus has clearly commanded—makes servers think that they are acting like Jesus. That is, it is common to think of Jesus at the head of the table, serving those who are hungry. Andrew McGowan, in his article “The Hungry Jesus”, argues that Jesus was more often the guest than the host at the meals described in the bible.
“Jesus was most clearly someone willing to eat with diverse company, less an inclusive host than an undiscriminating guest. Jesus appears as host only in quite different and more historically contentious material, relative to that where he is depicted as keeping bad company or being a wine-bibber. The “guest” traditions about him are generally defensible; the “host” traditions tend to be more influenced by later reflection than material that scholars in general would actually attribute to the historical Jesus” (McGowan).
Jesus eating with others is the message, not Jesus serving others. It makes sense that Jesus would engage in the social interaction that is part of the culture of meals in the first century especially in his role as an itinerant preacher (McGowan). Without access to his own resources, McGowan suggests it is Jesus’ hunger makes him open to interesting and diverse table fellowship. In this context it is easy to see that Jesus would see himself in the people who need food in the Matthew 25 text, as he needed food in his journeys (McGowan). McGowan suggests that it is not in serving food that we imitate Jesus, but rather in eating with others who are different from us. He is implying a reciprocity in the stories of Jesus’ eating.

Alicia Vargas in “Who Ministers to Whom: Matthew 25:31-46 and Prison Ministry” interprets the text as describing an interesting reciprocity—someone with resources ministers to someone in need, and Jesus ministers to them in return. “[A]s we minister to Jesus’ own suffering incarnated and imprisoned, we also will be ministered to by Jesus himself” (Vargas 135 italics original). Seeing people with glimmers of hope, seeing people’s deepest selves, this helps those who serve those in need to see God’s grace (Vargas 135). Vargas doesn’t use this precise language but I see her as describing a three way relationship—the giver gives to the poor, the poor are Jesus, Jesus gives to the giver—which effectively removes the poor from having a direct impact on the giver. From the point of view of people living without material resources I believe it is important to keep this reciprocity more balanced—when I am caring for people in need, people in need care for me also. In caring for Jesus in the poor, Jesus in the poor cares for us. Further, because Jesus is in the poor and the poor/Jesus care for me, I become more able to see the poor. Thus it is Jesus-in-the-poor that has opened my eyes to see, to perceive the world as it is. Vargas similarly focuses on the necessity of seeing—that we have to notice out neighbor’s needs before we can attend to that need, that we have to overcome our fear, misconceptions and ignorance to be able to see (Vargas 133). I address more about what keeps church based food ministries from seeing, and acting, on Christ being among us in Chapter [five].

The stereotyping of people with few material resources as irresponsible and unreliable, or as wounded and broken, makes it more difficult for Christians to see them as Christ. As modern readers of the text, these stereotypes contribute to the need to interpret “the least of these” to mean Christians in need, not just anyone in need. It is certainly uncomfortable to imagine that Christ is in the violent alcoholic, the prostitute, the person with delusions, the sex offender, and the murderer. (Although I will note that each of them may very well identify as Christian.) Reading the bible with sex offenders, felons, addicts, and people struggling with mental health challenges can break down that barrier. Reading the bible with people who have few material resources provides a new way to see Christ in “the least of these”. Ministries which engage fully with people who need material resources make it possible to see Christ in people in need. And once a person recognizes Christ, the person in need stops being only a need—the person is worth listening to because Christ surely has something to teach us. The person is able to be a volunteer in our food ministry because Christ surely has some gifts to offer to the program. The person is able to be an equal participant in our ministry because the ministry leaders begin to recognize that having Christ’s help, and Christ’s presence, improves the ministry. This is how we build the reciprocity that Jesus built—eating and serving together. Food ministries based on the sheep and the goats text need to be food ministries where the people who are serving the food get to know the people who need the food. For a Christian ministry to reach out to Christ but then not to engage with Christ is to fail the test of judgment scene.

Reading the text as opposed to being in the text
At the judgment in Matthew 25:31-46, those who are judged, both those who have served and those who have not, are shocked by the verdict. They did not know that those they served or rejected were Christ. Those of us who read this text cannot be as innocent as those in the judgment scene. Via reminds us of the importance of our role as reader, not as a participant in the text: we now know, that our judgment is dependent on our willingness to serve the Son of Man in the poor (Via 97). However, as we engage in charity it is important to remember that the sheep/people were not calculating the benefit for the judgment, but only the benefit for the people in need (Via 100). Via notices that the inability of the goats to see or to perceive the Son of Man could be precisely that they tried to follow Jesus but failed to see that following Jesus requires serving the poor, or it could be that they failed to see that there is poverty to which they could respond (Via 98). While Via notes the ethical responsibility for Christians to not only see but perceive people who live in poverty (Via 98), he does not equate the failure to see with the stereotyping discussed in chapter two. In chapters four and five we will explore more about our ability to see and respond to the needs of people who have few material resources. Here we simply note that not seeing is not an excuse for the goats—the judge holds us responsible for seeing that the hungry receive food.

Matthew 25:31-46 Implications for Direct Service Ministry
Christians cannot plead “I didn’t know” that people with food insecurity need food. We cannot claim that we don’t know that Christ in the people who need food. Certainly if we choose to take Matthew 25:31-46 seriously we cannot simply end direct service food ministries. I agree with Moltmann and Gutierrez that the text is about taking care of people in need universally, not only for good treatment to poor Christians. While it is disappointing that this text fails to treat people who do not have resources as present among the nations, if Jesus (or Matthew’s) intent was to include everyone in “the nations” then it must be that they are included as being able to provide services—resources, healing, welcome, and visits. If serving people in need is the same as serving Christ then it seems clear that the poor are not only identified with suffering but also with Christ’s giftedness. As such we surely want to know more about the stories the poor have to share, and the healing Christ knows how to give. Further, McGowan has pointed out that Jesus engaged in food ministries both by attending them and by hosting them, thus we see that a food ministry need not be only those with material resources providing food for those without; the command is to engage together in reciprocal ministry. Although we cannot be surprised by Christ’s presence, perhaps the surprise will be the gifts and skills and assistance the ministries receive by expanding their pool of volunteers. As we will see in Acts 6:1-6, the early church was engaging in food ministries where Christians who had little, and Christians who had enough, were working together to create, serve, and cleanup for meals programs on a regular basis.

Brandle, Rudolf, tr. Dan Holder “This sweetest passage Matthew 25:31-46 and assistance to the poor in the homilies of John Chrysostom” in Wealth and Poverty in Early Church and Society, Susan Holman, Ed. (Baker Academic, 2008). 

McGowan, Andrew. “The Hungry Jesus.” Biblical History Daily. Biblical Arecheology Society. 03/18/2015. Accessed February 24, 2016. http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ biblical-topics/bible-interpretation/the-hungry-jesus/

Moltmann, Jurgen, Trans. Margaret Kohl, The Church in the Power of the Spirit: A contribution to messianic ecclesiology. New York: Harper & Row, 1977.

Alicia Vargas “Who Ministers to Whom: Matthew 25:31-46 and Prison Ministry” in Dialog: A Journal of Theology Vol 52 No. 2 Summer 2013 June pp 128-137.

Via, Dan O. “Ethical Responsibility and Human Wholeness in Matthew 25:31-46” in Harvard Theological Review 80:1 (1987) 79-100.

Part two of three.

Are people without material resources included in “the nations”?
Who are the nations being judged? Via says we know “the nations” includes the church because the discourse is presented to the disciples (which in Matthew stand in for the church) (Via 90). The text could mean that it is just the Gentiles being judged, because Matthew typically uses the expression to mean gentiles, as separate from either disciples or Jews (Via 91), however in the story the people who are judged are surprised that they cared (or did not care) for Jesus, so the nations must include people who are not part of the church, and indeed have not been evangelized by the church (Via 92). The nations then are everyone. In the NIB Boring comes to the same conclusion—this is a scene of universal judgment (Boring 456). So if everyone is judged based on their ability or desire to serve people who need food, drink, welcome, clothing, healing, and visits in prison, what does this tell us about the people who need these things? Where are they in this story? Is it a privilege to be poor?

​Where are people who don’t have material resources in this story? Biblical criticism is not addressing this question. Are they present only to be served? Is it intentional that only people who have enough to give some away are being judged? One possible response is that people in need will not face judgment at all—that “the nations” really means “those among the nations that have excess of material resources, time, and energy”. A less friendly interpretation is that the text is perpetuating the otherness of people in need—when all the nations are gathered, the people who need material resources, healing, and release from prison are not present, except as a test case for people with enough. As I noted above Eryl Davies warns that the Bible is does not necessarily offer liberative solutions (Davies 104). A similarly unfortunate solution is to spiritualize the text—as we have seen with Tripole in the previous post—we all hunger for community, for example, and for meaning, and thus anyone who gives to anyone in need is both meeting the judgment requirements, and also equally in need of someone else to give to them. This interpretation is effectively counter argued by Gutierrez’ analysis of the difference between material and spiritual poverty in the next chapter. While it is true that everyone has needs (and certainly “sick” today would cover a much larger set of problems than it would when the text was written) that does not mean that this story was about all of the problems people face. The text is about material poverty, illness, strangers, and prison, and that all people will be judged by the way they respond to people who need food, drink, welcome, clothing, healing, and visits in prison. Are the people who need those services given a pass at the judgment?

Jacquelyn Grant is talking about the racialization and feminization of poverty in “Poverty, Womanist Theology, and the Ministry of the Church” and tells the story of a White male theologian interpreting a Jeremiah text to show that “the poor are a gift to the middle class” (Grant 57). Grant’s reply is simple—if it is a privilege to be poor, then surely we should be advocating “a theology of trading places with the poor” (Grant 57). The evidence that we are not striving to trade places suggests that theologies promoting poverty as a good things is about guilt reduction (Grant 57) rather than an objective reading of the text. Similarly, to read Matthew 25:31-46 as a pass for people who need food—either that they are not among the nations being judged, or that they automatically are inside because their material poverty is a blessing, is to declare that people with material poverty are less than people with enough. The text cannot be used to lessen the guilt of people who have enough material resources to survive in this world. Grant argues that Christians must give up theologies that oppresses others, and “must relinquish their theologies of charity where the poor are given enough to lessen the guilt of the middle class but not enough to strengthen themselves for the long fight against the culture of poverty” (Grant 58). Christians must give up theologies that support domination of people with enough resources over people with few (Grant 58). Reading this text as if people living with poverty are not among the nations supports domination.

But in my experience of reading the Bible with people who have no homes, people who have food insecurity, people living without material security, the people I have met and studied with do not accept that they are missing from this text. Instead they see the importance of providing help for others in need. That is, people who do not have enough for themselves see this as instruction to give away what they have in order to meet the needs of others. In my experience, people in material poverty feel the call to serve food and drink, and provide clothing, in the same way that people with enough material resources feel that need. They recognize that the sheep/saved are the givers, not the receivers. For people with little this is not about giving things away out of their excess, it is not about simplifying their lives, it is not about caring for others who are worse off than they are. It is a simple command that Christ is in those in need, and that Christ is asking each of us to aid those in need. There is not a test as to whether the help produces dependence, or is a short-term need, or even if the giver is feeling self-righteous for engaging in giving. The test is only whether a person has given food, drink, clothing, welcomed a stranger, cared for a sick person or visited a person in prison. As such all people, all the nations, people with faith in Jesus, and people without faith in Jesus, people with material resources, and people without material resources, need the opportunity to serve others. In food ministries, the most important gift the ministry can offer is a place for everyone to have a turn to serve those who need food, a chance to serve Christ.

Davies, Eryl W., Biblical Criticism A Guide for the Perplexed, New York: Bloomsbury, 2013.

Grant, Jacquelyn, “Poverty, Womanist Theology, and the Ministry of the Church” in Standing with the Poor: Theological Reflections on Economic Reality, Paul Plenge Parker, ed. Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 1992. 

Via, Dan O. “Ethical Responsibility and Human Wholeness in Matthew 25:31-46” in Harvard Theological Review 80:1 (1987) 79-100.

The assignment was to write the introductory paragraph for each chapter of my project, which ends up being an interesting summary of the whole thing.

In recent years there have been critiques of church-based direct service ministries, with most authors arguing that churches should engage in community development and end all direct service programs, save emergency ones. While it is clear that many types of local and national systems need to be changed to improve people’s access to affordable food, it is wrong to conclude that fear of dependence and/or other harm means that Christians should end their involvement in direct service food pantries, meals ministries, and community gardens. With 17.4 million U.S. households without access to adequate food resources,[1] these food ministries are critical to the health of our nation. But these programs must be changed to account for their failures, namely the lack of interaction between those ministering and those being served: people who serve food need to be eating with people who need food, and people who lack food resources should be serving with those who have enough food. I call this shared ministry. While engaging in shared ministry, food ministries need to look for, and liberate themselves from, oppressive structures—i.e., classism—that separates people with material resources from those who lack them. This paper will explore the problems with direct service ministry, consider what Matthew 25:31-46 and Acts 6:1-6 contributes to the discussion, engage with Gustavo Gutierrez and Letty Russell for a liberation theology perspective, and then grapple with what it is that keeps ministries from shared ministry. I will then describe three examples of shared ministry found in the literature, propose a research plan to observe shared ministry, report on what I found, and the conclude with a description of shared food ministry.

In most direct service ministries in the United States, people with enough material resources are allowed to see themselves as almost god-like in their ability to give—they give not only resources but also services to people who are in turn seen as unable to contribute either skills or knowledge. People in need are not recognized as possible members of the congregations where they receive food, and are encouraged to adopt -middle class values as the only path out of poverty. Direct service ministries can perpetuate the focus on individuals as problems rather than identifying the systemic causes of poverty. Most importantly, direct service ministries often perpetuate the stereotype that people who lack material resources are defined by their needs—they do not have gifts to contribute to ministries, or presumably, anywhere else. One concern with direct service ministry is whether the programs create dependency, and whether as Christians depending on one another is necessarily inappropriate behavior. Several critiques conclude that Christians should stop all except emergency direct service ministries and instead engage in community development and systems change. While systems change is certainly necessary, direct service ministries should not be eliminated; they should be converted to shared ministries.

The Biblical witness concerning giving people the things they need is clear—in Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus says each person’s final judgment is based on whether they have given food (drink, clothes, welcome, visits, and healing) to people who need it. Christ says that he is not only within, but actually is each person in need. Even those who do not have material resources must be givers. Presumably, as someone gives to Christ, they will want to sit and eat with him, and will believe that he/the person in need has gifts and skills to offer. Acts 6:1-7 builds on Acts 2 in identifying the importance of eating and serving together in order to be part of the community of Christ’s followers. When a few in the community are neglected in the chance to serve the others, perhaps because of a language or cultural barrier, the apostles respond by fixing the meals program to be more shared—they create a leadership team made up of those who are culturally outsiders. In Acts a sense of belonging is created not only by eating together, but by serving together, regardless of an individual’s material resources. These biblical texts suggest that Christians are called to direct service ministry where there is an equal sharing, and an equal sense of belonging, between those who have many material resources and those who have few.

Liberation theologians Gustavo Gutierrez and Letty Russell use the language of solidarity to describe the relationships that Christians both with and without resources are called to have with communities that have few material resources. Gutierrez emphasizes that material poverty is effectively a death sentence and that it is important that the Church does not spiritualize it. To effectively address poverty, conscientitzation is required—the people in poverty need to see the systemic nature of it, while the people who have enough need to see the role they play in perpetuating those systems. Gutierrez addresses the difference between community development and systems change and warns against helping people adapt to systems that are meant to oppress. Russell focuses on the wide depth of leadership among people who are oppressed, and notes that when we stop identifying leadership with those in power, we will find extensive leadership within the community. Direct service food ministries are called to build solidarity, conscientization, and leadership by eating with, listening to, and making safe space for the gifts , abilities, and even the leadership of the people who come to eat.

The biblical and theological consensus is that direct service ministries must engage people deeply enough to create solidarity and a sense of community. Ministries could do that by learning the gifts and skills of the people who need food, but for the most part they do not. Why is that? There are technical reasons for creating systems that prioritize fairness, equity, and order over relationship-building: it is easier, people want to feel good about themselves, funding rewards efficiency more than building relationships, and people fear being confronted with their own plenty. Not all reasons are specific to food ministries; there are systemic reasons to avoid building relationships across the gap in material resources. Our segregated communities isolate people of one kind from others who are different, and that isolation creates fear. Similarly, classism keeps us separate and wary of one another. Therefore a more liberative direct service ministry must not only create opportunities for interaction between the people with material resources and those without, but the program must consciously engage the systemic oppression in our society and in our programs, opening up the topic for frank discussion and working toward ending that oppression.
Direct service food ministries can do three things to address their problems of maintaining inequality. The first is for people who are serving food to engage with the people receiving the food by eating together, waiting in line together, gardening together. The second is to share the leadership of the program so that those with and without material resources are planning, cooking, organizing, serving, and cleaning up together. And the third is to attend to oppression—as a community the food pantry, meal program, or garden must learn about how class-based oppression works, notice the systems that are perpetuating that oppression, and work together to overcome oppression. Three books propose shared ministry. Using these books and the biblical and theological conclusions from above I will develop a research strategy to describe shared ministry in action in four U. S. congregations.

The four congregations identified for study were in Columbus Ohio, Philadelphia Pennsylvania, Portland Oregon, and Granbury Texas. Two are Episcopal, two are United Methodist. I visited two food pantries, one community garden, and one meal program. All of the programs engaged in some level of shared ministry in that people who need the food were engaged in some of the work to produce and distribute the food, and some people who didn’t need food helped also. Interestingly in some programs there were very few volunteers who didn’t need the food. At the garden the spring schedule and transportation challenges meant that no one attended who needed thee food, but they reported that at harvest time there are volunteers who come in order to take home the food they harvest. Shared ministry in all the contexts was inefficient, chaotic, and awkward, there were conflicts and struggles. At the same time all of the volunteers reported a significant level of involvement, were proud of their contribution, and most reported feeling like they belonged to the ministry and were respected for their gifts. Everyone felt the food ministry they were part of was using the right approach in including a diversity of people as volunteers. The study was limited by some poor decisions I made for the surveys and by the short time spent at each program. Still, it is clear food ministries are trying to run themselves differently, are trying to be in solidarity with the people who need the food, and are finding shared ministry as an appropriate way to deliver food to people who need it.

Direct service ministry needs to adapt, but not be eliminated. Arguments suggesting that direct service creates dependence are unfounded, but there are real problems with the inequality that is perpetuated by ministries where only one class of person is allowed to serve. Food ministries can fix those problems by engaging in shared ministry, e.g., including the people who serve the food in the eating, and the people who need the food in the serving, and by addressing the issues of oppression between people with more resources and people with less. The biblical tradition calls Christians to serve others, regardless of whether we have plenty or little, and calls us to eat together to create communities of belonging. Liberation theology calls us to solidarity—deep solidarity, not just friendship. Both the people who serve and the people who need the food need conscientization—the ability to see the systems that keep poverty in its place. Our programs must face the way they oppress those they mean to serve, and work to be liberated from those structures and assumptions. The result will be ministries that start with food but are most importantly creating communities of belonging. Further study would find more programs where the ministry is shared; spend more time to look for evidence of belonging, solidarity, and conscientization; and look more explicitly for how they do, or could, address oppression. Another valuable study would explore the how to change an existing food program to shared ministry. It would be interesting to learn whether congregations who engage in shared food ministry become more motivated to engage in community development and community organizing. Crossing the boundary of difference in material resources may lead to additional community building, stronger belonging, and perhaps a changed neighborhood. Shared ministry is a step toward that.

[1] United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service http://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/key-statistics-graphics.aspx Accessed July 22, 2016.

Chapter 2E, part 3. A little long.

As we have seen above, Stivers analyzes the ways public discourse identifies poverty with lack of responsibility. She notes that even in programs where we build some relationships with people in poverty, the surrounding society encourages us to see them as “diseased other” which creates “a moral boundary between who is respectable/clean… or diseased/dirty” (Stivers 51). While the focus above is on how that is toxic to the people receiving the direct services, I would argue that it is also toxic to those of us with enough. In her interviews Stivers found that the diseased “worldview is so insidious that even when most staff members hear stories of structural obstacles from guests, they still interpret the choices as freely made apart from the constraints and environmental pressures of poverty” (Stivers 109). That is, it is difficult for us to hear about the underlying structural causes of homelessness and food insecurity because the language of otherness is so ingrained. Indeed even those telling stories of life in poverty can buy into the language that marks them as less-than those of us with enough.
 
We all, those of us with more power, and those of us with less, are influenced by the dominant social discourse that privileges white and middle class values (Stivers 13). It is our very effort to claim neutrality and deny the significance of race and class that reinforces the superiority of white and middle class culture (Stivers 13). Direct service charity that doesn’t acknowledge and affirm differences in language, culture, and values based on race and class aren’t really getting to know the depth of people’s lives. When we who have enough are the only people authorized to give, and we attempt to listen to people’s life stories, we are further building up the power differential between us. It is easiest to see individuals as making bad life choices when our only standard is whether we think we would have made the same choices.
 
Kevin Blue notes that overcoming this presumed standard of white and middle class culture requires reconciliation around oppression along with fixing US structural obstacles (Blue loc 961). Structural change is necessary but not enough; to be reconciled with one another we must create relationships across race and class divisions (Blue loc 964). We must figure out how to deal with our fear, or, as Pathak notes, our awkwardness, that keeps us from creating relationships with people who are different from us. If we do not do this we continue with direct service charities that further enforce our segregation from one another. I hope, and Blue presumes, that in church based charities our goal is more than simply providing food; our goal is to welcome one another into the family of Christ (Blue loc 969). In my experience with progressive congregations we are quick to point out that we are not trying to make people into Christians, but the reality is we also are not inviting the Christians who come to our ministry to be part of our congregation. Inviting people who need food to be part of our church, part of our ministry, even leaders of our program; that is the relational work to of church. It is in large part racism and classism that keeps us from loving our neighbor.
 
Love of our neighbor is shown with actual action, not simply by reporting that we love. Blue notes that “Jesus’ love—by which the world is to know we are believers—was costly and sacrificial. It meant the relinquishing of power; it meant humility, it meant a coming and dwelling among people” (Blue loc 981). We are called to follow Jesus with this sacrificial love as part of our actions to feed people. Ministries that serve food without the underpinning of sacrificial love for our neighbor are not meeting Jesus’ command to share food, drink, clothing. Blue argues that racial and class divides are ultimately broken down when God’s people choose to be a bridge across those divides, when we bring the gospel not only in the food but in the words we share with one another (Blue loc 990).
 
Stephen G. Ray Jr is also concerned with oppression, but goes further in this discussion to suggest that it is sin, and particularly sin-talk, that perpetrates the divide between us. His book Do No Harm investigates sin as a social, rather than individual, construct, and shows how sin-talk maintains cultural oppression. Ray identifies two types of sin-talk that hurt our communities. The first connects the “social margin” with irresponsibility—that is it identifies people on the margin as people who created their own difficulties (Ray 34). The second type of sin-talk essentializes communities on the margin by suggesting that their very identity is defiled (Ray 34). In this case it is not inappropriate action, or bad choices, that put people in the category of sinfulness, but their very existence. While we generally don’t use the word sin for this (Ray 10), we do group individuals into a class of their own and then using language that presumes a singular, sinful, identity of that class.
 
Ray uses the examples of the welfare queen as the model of irresponsibility who signifies all people who receive welfare, and LGBTQ folk who are defiled not by their actions but simply by their identity. The trap of sin-talk, according to Ray, is that while fighting against unjust systems, we engage in public discourse in a way that perpetuates the marginality of the people in question. Ray demonstrates how Reinhold Niebuhr argues against discrimination, and yet identifies the irresponsibility of “the negro and his culture” (Ray 62). Similarly Bonheoffer argues against anti-Jewish laws while perpetrating the idea that Jews are essentially a defiled people. While it can be argued that they each were doing the best they could in the language of the time good intentions do not redeem the impact of their language. “Far from being an inoculation against the peculiar madness, sin-talk can be a power tool for its perpetuation” (Ray 96).
 
This sin-talk perpetuates the toxicity of direct service charity and blocks us from changing it. Those in the center of the social construct, that is people with “ordinary”, middle class lives, are pressured by the language to rescue those on the margins. It presumes those on the margins do not have the agency to rescue themselves because they don’t exist as individuals but only as the defined group. In fact, when one or two people start to be known as individuals their story stops being the story of those on the margins and becomes instead an exception to the stereotype. Ray sees Niebuhr identifying, the rare, responsible, Negro as a sign of how it is worth it to help the other (irresponsible) Negros (Ray x) and Bonheoffer identifying the baptized Jew as cleaned of defilement (Rax x). Both Niebuhr and Bonheoffer were trying to speak out against the oppression of their time, and yet their language becomes “sin-talk” that perpetuates the othering of the people they intend to defend. Welfare recipients, people who use food stamps, people who need food pantries and soup kitchens, they all become a group of people with a particular identity—irresponsible, addicted, lazy, dirty, and more—rather than individuals. When we get to know one or two, they have particular stories that refute the stereotype but these are seen as exceptions. (As we noted above Stivers found service workers who had heard, and believed, stories of structural obstacles, and yet continued to see individuals as needing to change. Ray would argue that is part of how social-sin and sin-talk works.)
 
The connection of the church to the center of society makes it hard for us to see and critique our role in using sin-talk to perpetuate social sin. And yet we have theological language that can help us overcome the sin-talk that we miss. Augustine’s theology of original sin suggests that our sin precedes any actions we take (Ray 103), Luther emphasizes that we cannot choose, or not choose, to engage in sin (Ray 105), Calvin describes sin as more of a status than a behavior (Ray 106). What is critical to our discussion is that both Calvin and Luther, based on Augustine, reject any voluntarism in sin (Ray 107). We cannot simply decide to not be sinners. Whatever efforts we make “the taint of sin affects all humanity” (Ray 108 italics original).
 
Because we believe that sin is part of the human condition, there is no place for relative judgments based on different social conditions (Ray 109). We cannot rank my sin or yours; we cannot evaluate my sinfulness as different from your sinfulness, or even more dangerously those people’s sinfulness. There aren’t some people who have a different relationship with God than any other person (Ray 110). All of humanity is in relationship with God, both through Adam as sinners, and through Christ as redeemed (Ray 111). This corrective is needed because we tend to put the sins of those on margins through a different scrutiny than we put the sins of those with power and within our social norms (Ray 111).
 
Ray notes how social norms are deciding sinfulness when we compare the way gangs are seen as evidence of the sinful condition of the community where they rise up, while corporate greed, when noticed, is seen as the exceptional identity of an individual (Ray 114). We can see the apparent sinfulness of that “other” community but not the sinfulness of our own (Ray 115). As seen in the examples of Niebuhr and Bonheoffer, but also in the toxicity of direct service charity and its stereotypical descriptions of people who need resources, we cannot objectively analyze our own social sin (Ray 117). And yet our theology insists that we recognize the mutuality of our sinfulness.
 
It is, in the end, our human sinfulness that keeps us from engaging in direct service charity in ways that know and honor the people in need, and in ways that share the gift of giving. To get beyond toxic direct service charity we must face the difficulty that our own sinfulness is the same—unchosen, unseen, and yet forgiven—as the sinfulness of the people with whom we engage. We must be aware that it is hard to see our own sinfulness, and that society encourages us to see the sinfulness of those at the margins. We must attend to the language we use, whether or not it includes the word sin, for ways that it perpetuates the idea that there is something “more wrong” with the person who needs food than is wrong with the person who is giving food. To do that we have to get to know the people who need food, and open up to be known by the people who have food, to see each other as fully gifted, able, and fully sinful, unable people. We have to know each other well enough to build trust between us.
 
 Blue, Kevin. Practical Justice: Living Off-Center in a Self-Centered World. Downers Grove IL: IVP, 2013. Kindle.
 
Ray Jr., Stephen G. Do No Harm: social Sin and Christian Responsibility. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003.
 
Stivers, Laura. Disrupting Homelessness: Alternative Christian Approaches. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011. Kindle.