Our motivation to help is no doubt informed by the clarity of scripture on this matter: “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’” (Matthew 25) Eternal fire gets results.
In truth, I don’t meet many people who say we shouldn’t feed people who are hungry, although I’ve met some. Even fewer question feeding hungry children. What I hear most often is people saying it’s not the job of the government to feed people, or that they don’t want their tax dollars going to feed hungry people. Given the Christian’s mandate to feed the hungry, it’s an interesting line of distinction to draw when a Christian complains about “their” tax dollars going to the poor and hungry, but it gets drawn nonetheless.
Most often, the argument against government helping the poor and hungry is that we don’t want to be a nanny state. We don’t want to enable freeloading and laziness. We don’t want to create dependency. And all of those are true. I don’t want those things either. But stronger than not wanting those things is my desire for people not to go hungry in the meantime. We all hope and wish that churches and non-profits could feed the hungry, where some posit that the responsibility of feeding the hungry and caring for the poor should belong. Some suggest we should pay less in taxes, so the private sector can offer private assistance instead of public assistance.
Scale aside, as if such organizations could indeed handle the task on their own, the research is unclear about how many of the dollars saved from tax breaks end up going to charitable organizations. Clearly, when the government allows us to keep more of “our” money, helping others with our surplus is not the first thing on our minds. If it were, there would be a clear indicator of increased funding for non-profits and churches when taxes have been reduced in the past. There is not. It shoots a bit of a hole in the notion that the private sector can and would solve the problem with government support.
Let’s set aside those assumptions for a moment. Such arguments aren’t sufficient for me anyway. They’re too partisan. It smacks of the political football that we kick around about entitlement spending (notice the totally unbiased name we give it; yep, it’s a partisan phrase), forgetting that it’s not just statistics, but hungry kids with empty bellies we’re most often talking about (nearly half of those receiving SNAP benefits are children). No, our motivation for both individual assistance for the poor and state assistance for the poor is found in scripture. But wait, doesn’t the Bible talk about separation of church and state? Didn’t Jesus say something about rendering unto Caesar? Yes, he did, and no, it’s not about separation of church and state. But it’s worth exploring what scripture says about such things nonetheless.
Historically speaking, there were not states in the modern sense that we know them in biblical times. The Roman Empire of Jesus’ day, and the religious monarchies of the centuries before Jesus’ time functioned a bit differently. When we read the Hebrew Testament, we see a fairly stable expectation of the role of the monarchy (read government/governing powers). It was not just the kings of Israel who were expected to care for their people, specifically the poor, the widows, and the orphans.
In our Advent study last year we read Hebrew Testament scholar Walter Bruggeman’s exploration of the royal titles we assign to Jesus, recalled in the hymnody of Christmas: “…Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6) Bruggeman explains how passages like those found in the Psalms (72 and 82), Ezekiel (34), and elsewhere, are clear that monarchs should make sure their subjects have food and are safe; that the sick are cared for and all have justice. Technically, these are all things God promises, but the understanding is that the king performs these roles on God’s behalf in society. At least good and moral kings (governments) do. The ones who don’t are the ones that God is not pleased with.
Our Judeo-Christian tradition holds up this role for those who would wield power and lead in the earthly realm, even in places where a constitutional democracy has replaced a monarchy. Empires should pursue the same things for their people, according to the Church and to Jesus himself. Jesus’ example stands against an exploitative empire, one that exploits the poor to the benefit of the wealthy. Where the Empire allows people to starve, Jesus sits on a hillside and feeds the multitudes. It’s an interesting dichotomy.
I reflect on hunger and public roles today because our Presiding Bishop, joined by the Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, extended an invitation for regular fasting. Last week, in response to the threat to public funding for programs that feed the hungry, the two national leaders invited people to join them in fasting on the 21st day of each month from now until the end of the current Congressional session in 2018. Yes, there is a political element to this call for public fasting, but that doesn’t mean we should write it off.
Fasting is a spiritual practice as old as any of our traditions. It is often a penitential or cleansing act. Jesus didn’t say, “If you fast,” but, “When you fast…” Early Christians fasted two days a week. Fasting is a way of entering into deeper relationship with God because we are controlling the appetites that so often distract us. It also makes us more attentive to those in need.
Marjorie Thompson, who has a wonderful book on spiritual practices called Soul Feast (required reading at Sewanee) has this to say about fasting:
“In a more tangible, visceral way than any other spiritual discipline, fasting reveals our excessive attachments and the assumptions that lie behind them. …Fasting brings us face to face with how we put the material world ahead of its spiritual source… Perhaps we can see then, that the discipline of fasting has to do with the critical dynamic of accepting those limits which are life-restoring. Our culture would seduce us into believing that we can have it all, do it all, and (even more preposterous!) that we deserve it all. Yet in refusing to accept limits on our consumption or activity, we perpetuate a death-dealing dynamic in the world. That is why the discipline of fasting is so profoundly important today.”
We must not forget that for most of us we have the “luxury” of fasting in the first place. We can choose not to eat. We must choose not to eat, for our norm is to be full and to eat whatever we want, whenever we want. The fast our Presiding Bishop invites us to join need not be political to be powerful. We may fast on the 21st of each month, the day many recipients of public assistance run out of their SNAP benefits for the month, to remind us what hunger feels like. To imagine what life is like for millions for whom hunger is the norm and not the exception. As we experience hunger in order to relate to the hungry, perhaps God will work through us to help us discern how we are called to respond to a hungry world.
Tom+
O Creator of all living things:
We are all hungry in a world full of abundance.
The possibilities of food for bodies and souls overflow in this beautiful world.
We ask for the grace to see the abundance of our world and
enough awareness to acknowledge our sins of greed and fear.
Give us openness of soul and courageous, willing hearts
to be with our sisters and brothers who are hungry and in pain.
We ask for your intercession on behalf of every person hungry
for earthly food and hungry for the taste of the Spirit of God.
We give thanks that we can be part of that intercession.
This world is blessed with enough food of the earth
for every person to eat and be satisfied.
We all can feed on the bread of Christ, through the Holy Spirit,
as God makes a home in our hearts.
We come together in awe and wonder
at the Creator who loves us so much
that we are invited and urged to be co-creators with God
in the care of our brothers and sisters.
In the name of the tender Mother-Father of all people who
hears every cry, Amen.
Ann Case
See more at: http://www.episcopalrelief.org/stories/a-prayer-for-those-living-in-poverty-and-hunger#sthash.T8Xb2ISU.dpuf