She looked to me to be in her late 50s, gray hair bushing out beneath her knit cap. She grasped a large shopping-bag-type purse with one hand and pounded persistently on the church door with the other. We could see her through the hazy Plexiglas window as the pastor and I walked down the hall, the lively discussion of our early morning meeting on homelessness still fresh on our minds.
“The clothes closet opens at 10. You can come back and get some clothes then,” the pastor informed her, with as much sensitivity as any busy urban leader who is running late for his next meeting. “No, no!” she interrupted before the sentence had barely escaped his lips, her countenance visibly fallen. “I’m here to help sort clothes.” But the damage was done. The spirit that had moved this little lady to get up early in the morning to help clothe others had been wounded. A simple error. Understandable. Unwittingly made. Irreversible.
“It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35), our Lord told His followers. The blessedness of rising early to serve others in need had been marred by identifying the little lady as a recipient of charity rather than a giver. Her face reflected the hurt that the loss of self-esteem can inflict.
Receiving, I am beginning to realize, is a humbling thing. It implies neediness. It categorizes one as being “worse off” than the giver. Perhaps it is for this reason that we tend to reserve for ourselves the “more blessed” position.
One thing that has been troubling me about our diverse urban congregation is the lack of authentic reconciliation between the “have-a-lots” and “have-a-littles.” The little lady in the knit cap may be showing us where part of our difficulty lies. I came to the city to serve those in need. I have been given resources and abilities to clothe the ill-clad, feed the hungry, shelter the homeless—good works that our Lord requires of us. There is blessedness in this kind of giving, to be sure. But there is also power in it—which can be dangerous. Giving allows me to retain control. Retaining the helping position protects me from the humiliation of appearing to need help. And, even more sobering, I condemn those whom I would help to the permanent, prideless role of recipient.
When my motivation is to change people, I inadvertently communicate: Something is wrong with you, but (quite subtly) I am okay. If our relationship is defined as healer/patient, then I must remain well and they must remain sick in order for our interaction to continue. Since one does not go to the doctor when he is well, curing, then, cannot long serve as the basis for any relationship that is life-enhancing for both participants. Little wonder that we, who have come to the city to “save” the poor, find it difficult to enter into true community with those we deem needy.
Scripture describes a Kingdom comprised of diverse people with all manner of gifts and talents. Each citizen of this heaven-based Kingdom has been given an important work to do. Those with the highest standing in heaven are the people who, in our earthly value system, are considered least important.
It is disquieting to realize how little value I attribute to “the least of these,” the ones deemed by our Lord to be “great in the Kingdom” (Matt. 5:19, NIV). I have viewed them as weak ones waiting to be rescued, not bearers of divine treasures. The dominance of my giving overshadows and stifles the rich endowments that the Creator has invested in those I have considered destitute. I selectively ignore that the moneyed, empowered, learned ones will enter this Kingdom with enormous difficulty.
One who would be a leader, I am cautioned, has a greater weight of responsibility to honor the despised, share his earthly possessions, model interdependency and encourage the use of gifts concealed in the unlikeliest among us. To the leader, then, the gift of humility is offered—the gift is the salvation of the proud, which comes with great difficulty from learning to receive from those who are the least on Earth, yet greatest in the Kingdom.