Selfies With The Poor

I think we’ve probably misunderstood Jesus’ words to Judas (John 12) when he objected to an extravagant gesture by Mary. In what is to us a rather strange ancient custom, Mary anointed Jesus’ feet with an expensive perfume, one worth nearly a year’s wages. “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor?” Judas fumed.

Besides telling Judas to “leave her alone,” Jesus said, “You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.” Typically, we treat that like a prediction – Jesus is saying that we may as well get used to having poor people around because that’s the way it’s always going to be. It is a prediction, but not about the persistent presence of people who live on Uneasy Street. It’s about Jesus and how much time he had left before the cross. I have no idea how far in advance Jesus the man knew the cross awaited him, but I know he lived in its shadow even before he was born to Mary.

Jesus’ statement to Judas isn’t the only thing we misunderstand when it comes to the poor. How to help is another.

Robert Lufton has worked with the urban poor for over 40 years in inner-city Atlanta. Years ago, he moved his family from the suburbs to one of Atlanta’s most blighted neighborhoods. When he speaks about poverty and how to combat it, he’s talking from experience and an enormous personal investment. In his book, Toxic Charity: How Churches and Charities Hurt Those They Help, he writes something that’s hard to read:

“For all our efforts to eliminate poverty . . . we have succeeded only in creating a permanent underclass, dismantling their family structures, and eroding their ethic of work. And our poor continue to become poorer.” (Lufton, pg. 3).

Recently, several folks from our church attended a conference on compassion ministry. Lufton, along with other speakers, emphasized that our systems for helping the vulnerable are profoundly broken. Our efforts often end up doing more harm than good. Instead of alleviating need, we destroy personal initiative. Instead of addressing disadvantages, we create dependency. Instead of leveling the playing field, we disempower people who are already living on the margins. From government entitlements to parachurch charities to benevolence ministries in our churches, in many cases we are hurting more than we are helping. We are killing them softly.

I think we mean well. We really do want to be Jesus to people who endure third world conditions whether they live on another continent or across the city. So we raise money from other well-intentioned folks. We take a week off from work or spend our Spring break somewhere other than Panama City Beach. Then we spruce up playgrounds, paint houses, pick up trash and take pictures. Lots of pictures. Pictures of us being Jesus.

To be honest, my pictures sometimes look less like portraits of compassion and more like selfies with the poor. Or less like Jesus and more like a tourist on a spiritual vacation. When it’s over, I head back to my part of the world or my side of town and resume my normal life.

So how can we avoid hurting those we want to help? Read, for one thing. Start with Lufton’s book (linked above). Or When Helping Hurts and Helping Without Hurting, both by Corbett and Fikkert. I’d recommend reading in community so that you and others who have a heart for helping can learn together.

Ask people who work with the poor what kind of help is really needed. Consider a more holistic approach to your church’s benevolence ministry – financial coaching for those you assist, job training ministries like Jobs For Life or others. And by all means, pray. Pray for wisdom. And pure motives. We’ve been painting over and throwing money at the problem of poverty for a long, long time. And the poor are still with us. Maybe they always will be. But if we take a more empowering approach, a more prayerful, humble approach, we might find that they become more than our beneficiaries. They become our brothers and sisters.