Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Should We Do More In Helping Others?

I remember one summer about ten years ago, when my wife and I were volunteers for a week on an Indian reservation in Montana.  Part of our assignment was to perform tasks like unpacking books and supplies for the book store, delivering "meals on wheels" to some Indian families, and tutoring some of the kids.  Importantly, we were also asked to engage the residents, and to mutually share what challenges and successes we saw in our respective lives.  The residents were encouraged to do the same.  Out of these conversations, I began to see differently these low-income residents of the Reservation.

One thing I learned is that shame is a major part of the brokenness that low-income people experience in their relationship with themselves.  Instead of seeing themselves as being created in the image of God, low-income people often feel they are inferior to others.  This can paralyze the poor from taking initiative and from seizing opportunities to improve their situation, thereby locking them into permanent material poverty.

At the same time, because I was able to afford this venture, and lived comfortably in Summit, New Jersey, I realized that I also suffered from a deficiency  Specifically, I was a candidate to have a kind of "god-complex," a subtle and unconscious sense of superiority in which I could believe that I had achieved my "wealth" through my own efforts and that I had been anointed to decide what was best for low-income people, whom I might view as inferior to myself.  

Few of us may be conscious of having a "god-complex," but that may be part of the problem.  Are we often deceived by our own sinful natures?  For example, consider why do we want to help the poor?  Really think about it.  What truly motivates you?  Do you really love poor people and want to serve them?  Or, do you have other motives?

I confess that part of what motivates me to help the poor is my felt need to accomplish something worthwhile with my life, to be a person of significance, to feel I have pursued a noble cause, perhaps to be a bit like God.  It makes me feel good to use my resources to "save" poor people.  And in the process, I guess I sometimes unintentionally reduce poor people to objects that I use to fulfill my own need to accomplish something.  It is a very ugly truth, and it pains me to admit it, but "when I want to be good, evil is right there with me."  (Romans: 7:21)

The way we act toward the economically poor often communicates (unintentionally) that we feel superior and that they are inferior.  In the process, we hurt the poor and ourselves.  Importantly, this dynamic may be particularly strong wherever middle-to-upper-class North American Christians try to help the poor, given the tendency for such Christians toward a Western, materialistic perspective of the nature of poverty.

This is not to say we shouldn't help the poor.  We just need to remember that God created all of us ---- the poor and the not-so-poor.  Perhaps we have been lucky, perhaps we have worked hard and been well-focused in our lives.  But, how much is truly our earned reward, and how much has come to us by the grace of God ---- and thus must be shared?

Are the opportunities we are born into, a gift of God?  I was fortunate in being born into a college- educated family,and then I was admitted to a challenging college, where I could discover my gifts and develop marketable skills.  Sure, I could have wasted these opportunities, but that would have been in conflict with the culture of my family and those I socialized with.

What if others had not laid out for me this path of growth and personal development?  I would be a very different person today, and perhaps struggling.  Indeed, I did work hard and I did apply myself, but others provided me some great opportunities.

Do you wonder whom you should thank for your opportunities in life?  Perhaps there were hundreds of such providers, each of whom did something, contributed a little piece of the big picture, that formed today's YOU.

Let's think of helping others beyond their mere survival ---- how can we engineer opportunities for personal development that prior generations of struggling populations were not even aware were possible?  Perhaps this is the next chapter in the ongoing story of our help to others.
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These thoughts are brought to you by CPC's Adult Spiritual Development Team, hoping to encourage you to pursue some personal spiritual growth this fall at CPC.
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