Non-Toxic Charity: Making that Whip-Wielding, Table-Turning Jesus Proud
This story happens in all the Gospels. John, of course, must place it at the beginning rather than the end. No matter where it is, place yourself in the context of the high holiday…imagine you are preparing to break bread with family and make your pilgrimage to the temple and remember the call of your faith as you read these words.
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Scripture: John 2: 13-16
The Passover was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!”
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This is a wild moment and it is not the picture of Jesus that was on the window of the church I loved as a child, but it happens in every Gospel. It was a long time before I ever saw an image of a whip-wielding, table-turning Jesus and I don’t think that is an accident. We can imagine ourselves in the moment, perhaps as merchants or pilgrims seeking the ritual of the temple at
Passover. Suddenly a stir in the space and an unexpected energy. A wild country Rabbi is whipping up a spectacular scene. Coins are bouncing on the pavers, animals sounding out their distress, wings are flapping as bird cages hit the ground, feathers and dust and coins and people in shock are all around.
This powerful scene always seemed like an outlier until I was in seminary. Jesus is confronting the very heart of religious and civic power. We might do well to imagine it as Christmas at the biggest church in town or maybe the world; everyone is gathered and someone breaks in just as the choir was hitting the chorus and they begin tossing the Christmas trees, kicking the poinsettias, tearing down the greens and shouting, “Is what Christmas is really all about?” And he doesn’t sound at all like Linus and they start yelling about presents and decorations and shopping while our neighbors go hungry…we would call the police, too. It would make headlines and we would feel pretty indigent about this wild man interrupting our Christmas celebration. News channels would name him the Grinch, but Christmas wouldn’t be saved, I suspect.
Sometimes we look at this and imagine Jesus just couldn't hold this temper, like he just lost control. Maybe we do that because he is a man and male rage is so acceptable. But mostly if it’s internal, it asks us to think more deeply…and church history has trained us not to. Here we are watching dramatic social action by Jesus where he is calling out religious and civic leaders of his day and ours and, rather than take it too seriously, we treat Jesus as if he is the Hulk…he just couldn’t hold it in anymore.
I think we learn it this way because we are the heirs of a church that became entangled with the Roman Empire and then the Holy Roman Empire and Bishops became Princes. And you can’t highlight this Jesus and also need to collect taxes to build palaces and temples and grand lifestyles and big armies. You can’t share this story and also run the marketplace, you can’t share this story and profit from religious pilgrims. So this story became an outlier and a way of showing Jesus like any man who loses his temper in a moment of passion, losing his temper and out of control. But Jesus doesn’t fly off the handle or lose control anywhere else. He is always in control and moves with intention and prayer in every moment of his journey. He turns the tables pushing people in power to wonder why they are even there. He questions the system with every coin that hits the pavers in the temple complex.
John’s Gospel weaves these bold calls for justice at the very heart of power with Jesus’ ministry of presence that feeds people and heals people. Jesus feeds people and asks why they are hungry in a land that produces grain for all of Rome. Jesus heals people and then asks why they are excluded from the healing available in the temples. Jesus heals and he feeds and he doesn’t set up a single food bank or free clinic. If he had, I don’t think we would know about him today. If he had run around asking rich people to take a little pity and give just a few crumbs from their tables to make the misery of so many a little less miserable, the rich and powerful would have loved him and no one would have yelled, “Crucify.” But Jesus isn’t into bandaids and programs or making people into his projects. He constantly connects mercy with justice. He feeds and heals and points at the possibilities of change. The powerful hate his ministry because he looks them in the eye and says, “Why do you accept the suffering of our neighbors?"
Jesus is present radically and presence is hard. Programs are more comfortable. We can control our interaction and the time it takes and the people we meet and the places we engage. There are plenty of churches that set up ministries and programs and forget the presence. There are plenty of churches with lists and lists of service programs that turn people into projects. And this I believe is toxic charity. I know folks who drive from big West Omaha churches in their fancy cars to serve dinner for two hours and then drive home, feeling good about themselves. And the reason it is toxic is because the work is virtually meaningless; they go home without a thought to why their service was needed in the first place and without any drive for real change. These same churches lift up maps for missions to Africa, Latin America and South America, they depart to change those people and return to vote for the very people who will deny them welcome as an immigrant or refugee. This, for me, is the definition of toxic charity because presence is limited to comfortable hours, people are projects, wisdom comes from outside the community and, worst of all, experience does not force anyone serving to think, wonder, advocate or change how they vote. This ministry is about feeling good and self-righteous in a world that needs us to be present with righteousness, justice and compassion like an overflowing stream. They don’t go home and dream of a day when every community around the globe has a water well or a hospital of its own making or a day when all the food banks and shelters are out of business because we have really made earth as it is in heaven. This work did not flip any tables or change even their hearts.
There have been moments when we have been tempted into this kind of ministry. And the gift of starting fresh and starting small is that we just didn’t always have the capacity for this kind of large scale programing and so we partnered. We partnered with everyone on everything because it would expand our capacity. And I am glad we did because now that we have grown, (our average weekly worship was 45 a week in 2011 and now its at 175) sometimes we get tempted to go it alone or make a really great program and, when this happens, I always feel it in the pit of my gut.
Partnering has not only gifted us with relationships, but it has taught us all (and me in particular) to listen. What do our parters really need, what is really a benefit to us both and how can we really walk along side each other with care? I have learned to listen to non-profits about what they really need and not just what they except because they have to smile and be nice to folks. The first and most important thing I have learned is that they need money. This is why we give 10% of our sales and this is why I never say “just” before any financial gift. The size does not matter and it matters whether it comes with service or not. Our gifts are offered for them to use in whatever way they need, these gifts are not tied to requirements or programs or documents. We trust them to fuel their work most efficiently. So if you find yourself putting a “just” in front of money, pause and ponder why. I find it may have something to do with our own growth around generosity and relating to our budgets.
I ask people what they need and they are often surprised. At my very first meeting with Liberty’s administrators and teachers, they seemed surprised when I asked what they needed. It seemed that wasn’t the experience they had with other churches. They wanted cards and gifts and care and money to help the teachers, they wanted us to help them show the teachers how much they are valued. So that’s what we did and with every delivery, we have gained their trust and we have been invited to do more. Lots of churches want to show up and paint a room (and not with experts) or something they really want to do that will really be more work for the staff or worst yet, some gross evangelism trick.
I know this experience first hand of having people call you and say I am coming to help you without asking what you really need. Youth groups from around the Midwest call and say, “I can bring 30 people, or 60 people or 100 people to help you on a Saturday from 10 to noon or Sunday from 3:00 to 5:00 and then we will watch your 5:30 service?” They have ideas of what they can do, like paint or clean or serve people food outside or help at the Abbey. And I just think, I don’t really have room for all of you to be here, let alone all of you doing some project, plus our shelter partners are typically not fans of folks feeding people on the mall because there is no long term support offered or relationship built. It is hard to say this isn’t the help we need.
We need people who care enough about us to learn the coffee bar and the names of our neighbors, people who can give a few hours once a week or at least once a month, people who will be reliant enough to welcome whoever walks in whether it’s the drummer from Chicago or the neighbor experiencing homelessness that likes to shout “fuck” a lot (this actually happened one Tuesday morning, plus the choreographer for Cher stopped in, too). So when the youth groups show up, we have a good talk about our unique ministry and then I send them to explore our neighborhood and pick up trash. They may have wanted something a little more sexy or hoped it didn't involve an orange vest, but this is what is needed by our partners at DID, OMA, and Keep Omaha Beautiful. We need help within our neighborhood and keeping trash out of the water, streets and earth is pretty sacred work.
Non-profits often have a hard time asking for what they need because they don’t want to hurt your feelings when they ask you for what they actually need, which again, is money. I was working with one of our Methodist pantries and noticed there were shelves and shelves and shelves of canned corn and green beans. I thought OMG I have probably contributed some of this, we have just been collecting food with zero intention. So I started to ask the director what they really need. They need soup because it is a whole meal, they need canned protein, they need mac and cheese to go with the milk, and pasta and sauce to make for their families to make a meal, and peanut butter and jelly because PB&J can be made by kids without anything sharp or anything hot. This is why we collect exactly what our partners ask us to and this is why I tell you why we collect it because I believe knowing that kids are making their own PB&J should force us to ask why kids are living in such poverty and why hunger increases when school is out of session.
Listening to real needs is hard because we can’t always meet them, they don’t always fit with our needs, which should be a red flag to us and an invitation to think about what we are really doing. Every time we collect for MACCH (Metro Area Continuum of Care for the Homeless) we ask for hats, mittens, wool socks, scarves and sometimes coats (XL or larger) because that is what the Street Outreach Team needs and every time we get folks who will bring like four trash bags of clothing and sometimes something even more random…like a computer. Which really doesn’t help and if we actually gave them to MACCH rather than finding a different home, it would cost them money and staff time to deal with and, frankly, disposing of a computer might have a cost.
Recently I saw a post on FB of a woman who was a little put out that the non-profits she called were not interested in all the stuff she had cleaned out of her closets. She was pretty sure her trash bags were super helpful even when they told her no thank you. I am not sure where we made the understanding of what is helpful so blurry, but giving away the crap we don’t need, whether it is clothing from our closet, furniture from our basement, or green beans from our pantry is not an act of generosity. It might be important in rightsizing our relationship with stuff or clearing the clutter in our homes, but if we wouldn’t gift it to a friend, it’s not a gift. Perhaps it would be a good practice to notice if we are putting it in a trash bag rather than a gift bag. And I am not saying we shouldn’t share what we have or what we have outgrown or what we don’t need anymore. I have been grateful to receive such gifts. When Lila was born, members of my Sunday school class gave us totes and totes of beautiful clothing their daughter had outgrown. And they didn’t assume I wanted or needed it, they called and asked. They asked if I wanted to look through them or if they should bring it over. It was a total gift and it was shared with great care for how I would receive it and what I actually needed. It was mutual because they wanted it to be with someone they loved and someone who would make good use of it.
So we have to do our homework and we have to listen to what people and organizations really need. And perhaps in our sharing of clothing we can think deeply about how much or how little we really need. Maybe one less t-shirt or one less thing that we might just give away in a year or two. (Even the the country of Rwanda has banned second-hand clothing from the US because they know it is not a gift. Our cheap clothing and over-consumption ruins their textile industry and they finally had to say no. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-44252655) There are ministries with a robust clothing closet like Trinity Ralston UMC or Tip Top thrift shop taking clothing right now, but for the love of God, don’t be the kind of “givers” who bring them dirty clothing or old underwear (maybe compost that with Hillside Solutions).
What is really generous and what is really in service of others may require us to listen, learn and grow. See I think there are some red flags in service and generosity, like if we get upset about the non-profit not doing it our way or not wanting us to serve as planned. If we can’t hear no, accept direction or only want to serve with our best friends, it might not be about connecting mercy and justice. If we get indigent about how our time was used or not used the way we wanted it to be, it might not make that table-turning Jesus proud. If our ego gets bruised then it might not be service, it might be toxic charity.
We are being invited into deeper relationship with our school partner, Liberty. We have been looking at how we can do more because we have more capacity to give. And I have been investigating a way that doesn’t burden the school with the need to manage all these volunteers. I want to invite you to consider being present with Liberty Elementary through the after-school programming with Completely Kids. Pray about it with me and leaders, Jim and Kathy Morley. Pray and prepare for next year and let’s see if we can we commit enough people to be there once a week on Thursday after school from 4:30 to 5:30? Can you come twice a month? Can you come once a week? Because this is about showing up and its about knowing young people…so it can not be a one time deal. Can we be the ones who show up and do whatever they ask, whether it’s clean the tables for snack or listen to a sweet second grader read? There will be all kinds of jobs and the program leader is a master at deploying your gifts, so maybe you love art or writing or soccer or chess…she will connect you with the right students. And maybe they will learn something and maybe you will learn something, but most of all they will know they are loved. They will know that some grown-up listened to their stories and is cheering them on. They will know that some grown-up knows their name and cares about their dreams and their family. And I am asking you to not make these kids into a project and the very way we do that is by calling each week for change. See our school may have all the stats and statistics that could leave us hopeless, there are children from families at the bottom of our economy, there are children who carry the dreams of their refugee parents and there are children afraid of ICE. If we do this, if you commit to being there with these sacred souls, I expect you to call every Thursday night on your way home from Liberty and leave a message with any elected official of your choice and share how much you hope they will make the world safe for the child who just read you a story in Spanish…even if you didn’t understand it. Call every week until they know your name and that you are about to call again and don’t ever give up fighting for these kids to live on earth as it is in heaven.
So let’s do it. Let’s connect mercy with justice and let’s be present. Let’s try for relationship and let’s get comfortable with being present on someone else’s terms. Let’s stay in it and grow, even if it might bruise our egos and teach us a hard lesson about grace.
May we have the courage to make that table-turning, whip-wielding Jesus proud. May it be so. Amen.