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.

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.

More of Chapter three, this time section two, where my theologians engage with the more practical texts. Whether it is really possible for Gutierrez' sweeping theological treatise aimed at Latin American Catholics to speak to Lupton's practical mission advice aimed at North American Evangelicals is questionable, but I've given it a try. 

While Gutierrez agrees with Robert Lupton’s (Toxic Charity) critique of charity in the form of handouts from people with plenty to individuals with less, much of Gutierrez’ critique of our economic and political systems is a direct critique of Lupton’s proposed solutions to the challenge of charity. Both authors insist that solutions to poverty must arise from the people who live in poverty, and that it is disempowering to be given things based on what people who have plenty believe you should be given. Both are arguing for moving the power for change from those who have plenty to those who have little. But that apparent agreement hides substantial differences that are foundational to their theories and proposed practices.
 
For Lupton modern US poverty has been caused in part by the welfare state. “[T]he welfare system has fostered generations of dependency and has severely eroded the work ethic” (Lupton 121). The challenge of “dependency” is, for Lupton, the primary challenge. He shares a moving story of Janice, a single mother who Ann chooses to support financially, which ends with Ann learning that Janice is more interested in conning people like Ann than in finding work (Lupton 60). His analysis implies that Ann’s support, like government support such as welfare, is actually causing Janice’s unemployment—it is easier for Janice to get handouts than to work. As such, Lupton argues that ethical charity must not include direct support, but instead should be based in community development and job training.
 
Gutierrez disputes the value of community development in particular, noting that the term almost always really means only economic development—as shown in Lupton’s example where it is presumed that Janice’s real problem is that she won’t work. Gutierrez argues that economic, social, political, and cultural development cannot be separated from each other (Gutierrez Liberation 15). I imagine Gutierrez asking Lupton why it is that our culture expects mothers to be separated from their children in order to do paid work? Why are we lacking social support systems to care for our children? What are the political systems we have created that make it so hard to find work and to find child-care and to find affordable housing? Why is Ann so frustrated to find that Janice is not just like her?
 
Indeed, development theories pre-suppose that the solution to poverty is that those who are poor should take on the cultural practices of those that have more; essentially people who have plenty are more culturally advanced than people who have little  (Gutierrez Liberation 50). When we feel we can see so clearly what another person should do to improve their life, and yet we have not gotten to know that person as neighbor and a friend, any ideas we have are based in our own cultural identity, own life experiences, our own world view. Whether intentional or not, we are presuming that our strategies are better than the strategies of the person we are aiming to help.
 
If we start instead with the person in need, trusting that they are worthwhile to be known, and that they have within them the next steps for their challenges, we are engaging in more than economic development—we are engaging in human development, we are making room for individuals to control their own future (Gutierrez Liberation 16). Gutierrez suggests development theory works when it takes “into account the situation of dependence and the possibility of becoming free from it” (Gutierrez Liberation 54). Freedom from dependence is liberation; the ability to be in full control of our own lives. Liberation begins with economic, social, and political independence, but is much more, it is a process self-growth, it grows out of an individual’s own values, and out of their own life story. That is, liberation is something that people with less things do for themselves, from their own growing awareness of themselves and of the culture they are enmeshed in (Gutierrez Liberation 57).
 
As a church, then, to engage in a theology of liberation is to engage in helping people to know themselves, to know their own values, strengths, and weaknesses, to begin to see themselves as children of God. Interestingly, that is the same work that the church might be doing with people who have plenty! But people without things, and people who are oppressed have additional weight blocking their self-awareness. Gutierrez suggest that the work of the church is
To “make the oppressed become aware that they are human beings” (Gutierrez Liberation 154) or even better help them to become agents of their own humanity (Gutierrez Liberation 155). He wants the poor to see the systems that have been created to trap them, and trusts that when they see those systems they will develop for themselves the right tools to fight the systemic oppression around them.
 
What Lupton fails to see is the systems that oppress people in poverty. Gutierrez is quite blunt in suggesting that poverty in the third world is actually a by-product of the same behaviors that created wealth in the United States and elsewhere (Gutierrez Liberation 51). I believe the same dynamic is at work in US poverty where we have created a system where a full time job is not sufficient to support a family and support systems for moving out of poverty are not prioritized. With Lupton, our social and cultural forces blame the poor are blamed for their inability to get ahead. Gutierrez is speaking out against the moral critique implied in the language Lupton uses around dependence.
 
To develop a theory of dependence, Lupton looks at individual actions. Gutierrez would say that Lupton’s focus on individual behaviors is where his mistake begins. “To be poor is something much vaster and more complete than simply belonging to a specific social group (social class, culture, ethnos)” (Gutierrez Wells 101). The lasting solutions to poverty are not primarily about helping individuals to overcome individual barriers, but rather for the systemic barriers to be removed. We don’t try to identify individuals, but systems, and in the same way, it is not individuals who do this work but the entire church  (Gutierrez Wells 101). The Church is converted to a new way of engaging poverty, rather than the dependent poor person being converted to a new way of wealth.
 
Working with people who have plenty and people who have little, the Church works for Liberation. Liberation for Gutierrez is not, in fact a question of having wealth, or not. Liberation is a community value, where the people in the community work together, play together, indeed, they pray together to create an environment where each person can live up to their full-potential, with enough food, enough work, enough self-agency to be the people of God together. Outsiders do not develop people to this potential, but rather are in solidarity as the community breaks from the status quo that is holding them back (Gutierrez Liberation 59).
 
Gutierrez, Gustavo, We Drink from Our Own Wells The Spiritual Journey of a People, Maryknoll NY: Orbis: 2003. Matthew J. O’Connell, Trans. 20th Anniversary Edition.

Gutierrez, Gustavo, A Theology of Liberation, History, Politics, and Salvation, Maryknoll NY: Orbis: 1988. Sr. Caridad Inda and John Eagleson, Trans. 15th Anniversary Edition.

Lupton, Robert D. Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charity Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It) HarperOne 2011 Kindle Edition.

This is from Nov. 11th, 2008

I was eating lunch at an outdoor table with a few friends while visiting in Austin last week when several homeless guys walked by. One stopped a the table next to us and asked if they had any change.

One of my companions turned to our table. "They shouldn't do that." She said.
"Shouldn't do what?"
"They shouldn't ask people who are eating for change."

This is one of the difficulties of this job. "They" aren't "they" anymore. While I probably agree, its probably rude to ask people for money while they eat, it's different to make such a statement when the person asking is Jo, or Jose, or Juan, not "that guy". And the more people I've met, the less I can see "that guy" as "other". I don't know him, but I know others like him. I have people I could call "friend" who ask people--indeed who ask ME, for change.

Many visitors to Worcester Fellowship ask about change. "Should we give people who are asking for money any money?"

One answer is easy. "This ministry is not about giving people money. Worcester Fellowship doesn't give people money."
"But should we, you know, the rest of the time? Should we give people money?"

I've spent a fair amount of time searching for proof that the Bible doesn't ask us to give poor people money. Unfortunately, it does. In proverbs it says "if someone asks you for money, give it to them." Damn. 

"But won't they use it for alcohol, or drugs?"
"Yup, some will. Alcohol, drugs, cigarettes. And also for coffee at Dunkin' Donuts so they can use the bathroom. And phone cards so they can be called for jobs. And a chocolate bar. And a lottery ticket."
The fact is, except for cigarettes and drugs, I've used MY money for all those things, too.

Here is my advice. Decide for yourself about the money. But look the person in the eye when you say "yes" or "no". And ask "how are you today?" And smile. And think of them as "Jo" or "Jose" or "Juan" and not as "them". Maybe say a prayer.

People shouldn't have to ask people who are eating lunch for spare change. That I know for sure!

Another a piece of my thesis for my DMin Project. Chapter 3 is my biblical and theological arguments. This is Part D, IIIb, trying to say that our goal in food ministries isn’t to change people, but to love them the way they are.
 
Solidarity with people who are different from us is unexpectedly difficult. Letty Russell tells a story of an African American pastor serving a diverse congregation where the majority of the power brokers were white. Over time the members complained about small actions of the pastor—like swaying to much in worship—and refused to take on big issues like racism and oppression. What she wanted was to create a church where newcomers did not need to decide to act white in order to be welcomed (Russell 155).

Similarly, solidarity with people who do not have enough food is a decision to look for ways we may have been asking others to act like us. We need to be able to accept people as they are, now, with all the quirks and idiosyncrasies and unusual behaviors they have learned on life’s journey, and with all the culture and heritage they claim for themselves. Popular discourse has created a mythology about people who need food—a mythology about childhood abuse, addictions, and mental health challenges when we are kind, and a mythology about race, class, laziness, and dependence when we are not. To sit with someone in pity, or in judgment, is not solidarity, is not actual love, and is not contributing to our mutual salvation.

“Salvation is not something otherworldly, in regard to which the present life is merely a test. Salvation—the communion of human beings with God and among themselves—is something which embraces all human reality, transforms it, and lead it to its fullness in Christ (Gutierrez Liberation 85). All of human reality includes of course the areas where we are weak and distant from God—but it includes all of our weaknesses, not only the weaknesses of people who live in poverty. Until we see our own struggles and shortcomings as ideas in need of transformation we cannot focus on the transformation needed by those living in poverty. We must love people exactly as they are, now, and see their gifts and strengths and joys as clearly as we see their challenges. Together we can be transformed; together we can be saved.

Russell argues that we need to empower women to be “as co-strugglers in the gospel” (Russell 95), I am certain she would accept me suggesting that people without food are also equal co-strugglers, along with those of us who have plenty of food. Gutierrez emphasizes that we may also have an instructive role—that of helping those without enough to see how our systems have created this reality of some with enough and others with plenty. When individuals blame their life circumstances on their bad choices we need to expose the systems that have made bad decisions for poor people to be catastrophic, while bad decisions for people with plenty are merely annoyances and set backs. Part of our work is to “make the oppressed become aware that they are human beings” (Gutierrez Liberation 154) or even better help them to become agents of their own humanity  (Gutierrez Liberation 155).

Many people who are poor already see themselves as agents of their own lives, but these are often the same people who fail to follow the restrictive rules of some food ministries. When we begin to see the humanity (and the divinity!) in the people who need food, we will begin to see the ways we are asking people who need food to adjust to be like us, and in response to that we will stop! The goal is a food ministry where people come as they are, and are respected for who they are, and loved as they are. Our goal must be to sit with the oppressed, even at the loss of our own social standing  (Gutierrez Liberation 152). We cannot use the fact that we have more things than another person to lead us to the erroneous assumption that we are more important than that person, or that we should have more power, even here at this food ministry, than the person who needs food.
 
​Do you know of a food ministry where people who need food, and people who have plenty of food, work together to create community? I'd love to hear about it! 

Gutierrez, Gustavo, A Theology of Liberation, History, Politics, and Salvation, Maryknoll NY: Orbis: 1988. Sr. Caridad Inda and John Eagleson, Trans. 15th Anniversary Edition.

​Letty Russell, Church in the Round: Feminist Interpretation of the Church, Louisville KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993.

Another a piece of my thesis for my DMin Project. Chapter 3, Part D, IIIa, we have to know the people for whom we provide food. Chapter 3 is my biblical and theological arguments.
 
How are we to find God? How are we to find Salvation? For Letty Russell it is clear that we find God and Salvation by being among the poor and disenfranchised. This is not because God is not with everyone—God surely is with everyone—but rather because God has a particular concern for those who are suffering. As discussed above, the story of the sheep and goats makes clear to us that Christ is seen in people who need things, and in people who are isolated from us. Russell emphasizes that it is not the good works of the poor that bring us close to Christ, anymore than it is any of our good works that bring us closer. It is instead simply being present with the poor (Russell 121).

To be present is not simply to be there to give things away. In fact the act of giving things away is often a barrier to truly being present. To be present is to get to know one another, to hear each other’s stories; to hear not just about today’s need for things, but rather to hear about a life that has both celebrations and sorrows. To be present is to, over time, have shared experiences, shared stories, a shared past, and eventually to imagine a shared future. When we truly know another person we can offer something more important than kindness or food, we can be their neighbor.

As Robert Lupton (Toxic Charity) implies there really is something toxic about our existing forms of Charity. His concern is that people become dependent on our giving but my concern is about how we know each other. Many food ministries have a “necessary story” for entrance. The person who needs the food must tell another person a story that “qualifies” them for the meal, or bag of food, to be given over. In a best case you must only state that you need the food, but in many situations the people in need must submit ID or address or even income information to prove your need. People who need food in fact are as wise as anyone who doesn’t need food, and thus follow those rules to develop a good story. In fact much of the requirement to get by with poverty in the United States is to have a good story.

But relationships are not built with good stories—relationships are built with real stories. If we are not creating ministries where we get to know people in need, get to know people in need over time, over struggles, over successes, where we get to know people in depth, then we are not actually looking for God, we are looking for our own duty to serve, or own guilt about our excess, or own need to have the power to serve others. If our goal is to know Christ in our service, if our goal is to grow in faith, if our goal is to be creating a welcome table, then our ministry must not be about me serving you, but instead must build relationships and create an us.

For our ministry to be about us--those of us with plenty and those of us without enough, together—our ministry must be guided by our eagerness to know the perspectives of those who are living at the margins. “Faithfulness to Christ calls us to be constantly open to those who are marginal in our own church communities and in the wider community and to ask critical question of faith and practice from the perspective of the margin” (Russell 25). The only way we who have enough can learn the perspective from the margin is to get to know the people who live there. For food ministries, that means we must learn get to know, and be in solidarity with, the people who come to get food.

Jesus died in solidarity with humankind. “Jesus freely decides to give his life in solidarity with those who are under the power of death” (Gutierrez Wells 92). It is in solidarity with those who are under the power of poverty, and thus the power of an early death, that Christians with plenty can be, in Gutierrez’ language, converted to solidarity with the poor (Gutierrez Wells 93). In my experience when we have plenty we can be removed from the threat of death, or at least face a sanitized picture of the threat of death. We struggle with finding meaning in life, but not with finding enough food or clothing or housing to prevent death. We are overwhelmed with busy-ness and exhaustion, but not with desperation to hang onto our lives. We plan how to avoid isolation and illness at eighty, but do not worry that the flu will put us out of work, and therefore unable to care for our families. We fear a death in a stark hospital room, but do not watch the slow degradation of our children’s lives as they have their significant meals not around the family table but at the school cafeteria, as they fail to get the education they need, as they fail to get the health care they need.

We can know these stories from the newspaper and from books, but that is not what builds solidarity. Solidarity grows from meeting individuals and getting to know them, and being part of their lives. We build community together, and as such we develop at the same time a spirituality together. “There is no aspect of human life that is unrelated to the following of Jesus. … A spirituality is not restricted to the so-called religious aspects of life: prayer and worship” (Gutierrez Wells 88). Indeed community becomes part of our spirituality. Our meals ministries become spiritual ministries because we are meeting, and knowing, and loving our neighbors.

“True love exists only among equals” (Gutierrez Wells 104). As we get to know each other we become more honest with each other—we who have plenty become more honest about our weaknesses and fears, we who have not enough become more honest about our gifts and strengths. Our stories become shared stories. Over time our love becomes more and more authentic. “Authentic love tries to start with the concrete needs of the other and not with the ‘duty’ of practicing love. Love is respectful of others and therefore feels obliged to base its action on an analysis of their situation and needs. Works in behalf of the neighbor are not done in order to channel idle energies or to give available personnel something to do; they are done because the other has needs and it is urgent that we attend to them” (Gutierrez Wells 108).

Food ministries can engage in authentic love, we do that by sitting down at the table with people in need and eating. Talking. Listening. Engaging with one another until we find that we are neighbors, and friends.
We find God in the food, and in each other. We find that salvation is in solidarity with one another. 

Do you know of a food ministry where people really get to know each other? I'd love to hear about it!

Gutierrez, Gustavo, We Drink from Our Own Wells The Spiritual Journey of a People, Maryknoll NY: Orbis: 2003. Matthew J. O’Connell, Trans. 20th Anniversary Edition.

Lupton, Robert D. Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charity Hurt Those They Help (And How to Reverse It) HarperOne 2011 Kindle Edition.

​Letty Russell, Church in the Round: Feminist Interpretation of the Church, Louisville KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993.

(Names and details are changed to proctect the privacy of those described here.)

​"Are you saved?"
"Are you born again?"
"Have you accepted Christ as your personal savior?"
            
I hear these questions with dread, making up answers in my head, looking for an out, hoping the questioner hasn't noticed I am clergy and praying he won’t be seated next to me on the plane.
Most good liberals Christians never ask these questions, not of people we don't know, not of people we know, and certainly never of ourselves. What would it mean? What would it signify? What would it explain? We vary on our view of Christ’s identity, and what happens after death, and what is the good news we preach. But we don't vary much in our confidence that being "saved" or "born again" or having a "personal savior" is not the point. We whisper to ourselves "saved from what" and "born to what" and "what is this emphasis on personal?”
And yet as I hear stories from people without homes, people living on the edge, people who have nothing but the backpack they carry, being saved is not that complicated a theology.
Christine cries gratefully every time she tells me the story her husband who beat her so badly she worried about her children, about being hospitalized, about being killed. She shares the vivid details of when Jesus appeared to her, late at night, and told her to get out of the house, out of town, out of any place that she could be found. She travels lightly now; she lost her job, then her emergency shelter, and finally her children to foster care. She is paranoid and afraid of people but she trusts God travels with her, she trusts she will be OK, she knows that Jesus Christ saved her from certain death. "Jesus saved me, Jesus saved my children, and Jesus keeps taking care of me" she insists as she accepts a Dunkin' Donuts card and returns to her hiding space next to the railroad tracks.
Josh’s story of salvation is about drinking, and how Jesus got him to the lowest point, and then got him into the emergency room, and then got him into detox. Josh didn’t stay sober that time, but the second time, or maybe the third, or the fourth or fifth, he stopped drinking for good. “If Jesus didn’t get me sober I’d be dead” he explains simply, without apology, without embarrassment, without doubt.
Andrew also has no doubt, no question, no need for complexity. “I tried drugs to clear my mind, I tried all these medications that didn’t work, I tried suicide, and then finally I tried Jesus and now I’m alive.”
 Daniel is equally clear: “My family kicked me out and I had nothing until I met Sue who took me to church, got me food stamps, and saved my life. Sue is church to me, she is my savior, she is Jesus for me.”
“Jesus saved me” is a common refrain on the streets, in the SROs, at the food programs. This is not some complicated theology about where we are going when we die, whether we’ve been baptized, and is certainly not tied to whether we believe the right things. This is a simple statement of faith “I was going to be crazy, going to be injured, going to be killed, but instead here I am, alive! I am saved.” 

As we gather for the course Theology of Ministry in Small Churches, we start with the basic question: what is church? It is important that the first question is NOT about what is small, but only about what is church. And so we list some important traits of church: that it is relational, missional, focused on Jesus Christ, that it is in sacred space, it is spirit filled, it is incarnational, it is eucharistic.

Many of these terms require further discussion, but for this post I'd like to take on the challenge of what it means to say that a church is Eucharistic. Not the theological depth of the question of what is Eucharist, although that  is a discussion a church should have, but the practical question of what it means if a church says that by definition a church is Eucharistic. Specifically, in the Episcopal tradition, in the Disciples tradition, if you you must have Eucharist to be a church, does that mean that you must have an ordained priest to be actually "be" church? If you do not have a priest, and are not having Eucharist, is the gathered community no longer church? How often do you need to have Eucharist to be church? Can the Eucharist be in the form of the reserved sacrament from another parish? Can the person who blesses the sacrament be visiting clergy, and if so, what does that do to the definition of church as "relational"?

I don't believe there is a single right answer to these questions, but it is right, and necessary for small parishes to have this discussion, and decide what is the right answer for their diocese, their geographical location, and for their local community. 

For many parishes the answer is yes, we must have Eucharist, and the way we do that is through a process of local ordination. A team of parishioners together take on the role of priest, and one of the team is ordained for the purpose of blessing the sacrament. Or a local individual is identified and formed and licensed to the role of minister. Or an Elder or a committee of Elders share the role of the minister, blessing the sacrament each week. 

In other churches the answer is yes, we must have Eucharist, and we can be relational with each other, and bring in outsiders to bless the sacrament. Or that the covenant relationship with the diocese or region means that we ARE in relationship with the visiting minister or priest, simply not the same kind of relationship we have with a member of the local congregation. 

Still other parishes decide the answer is yes, and therefore raise the money necessary to pay a seminary trained minister or priest. Because the theological discussion of what is required to be church precedes the financial discussion of how to fund the Eucharist, the budget discussion is about how to meet the mission of the church, not a guilt producing plea for more money to make the budget. 

And other parishes decide that morning prayer, or, for one Northern Virginia parish I know, evening prayer, is what makes them church, that Eucharist can be once a month, or only when the Bishop visits, or quarterly, or when the congregation visits the Lutheran Church in the next town. 

What makes all of these examples into examples of vital church is the discussion that the members have about what is essential to be church. It is the wrestling with the theology, and with each other, and with the application of the theology to our real church lives that creates vitality and energy for the future.

It is easy for small churches, really for any church, to get hung up in the discussion of how get more resources, how to find volunteers, how to increase the budget, and how to get new members. But those are the discussions of clubs, not of churches. 

Churches discuss our lives in Jesus Christ, our challenges in following Jesus' way, our need for comfort, and our need to be in the world doing mission. In short, the call of the church is to discuss theology: what it is, and how to live it out, and how to support one another as we struggle to live it out. 

For your parish, is it critical to be Eucharistic? Have you talked about what that means? How do you carry that out? We'd love to hear your story.