CHARITY AND SOCIAL ACTION - EASTER 2009

CHARITY AND SOCIAL ACTION - EASTER 2009
By PROF. DR. ZAC VARGHESE, LONDON

²If I feed the poor they call me a saint; when I ask why they
are poor they call me a communist.² - Archbishop Helder Camara

We often find that it is far easier to encourage people to donate for
charitable causes than to work directly with people who are in need. Comic
Relief's TV extravaganza has raised a record 58 million Pounds for charity
on Friday 13th March 2009 - despite the worst economic meltdown in the
United Kingdom and the world-wide recession. But the people who become
really dependent upon charity are not helped at all in most situations.
Manning a soup kitchen or shaking hands with AID victim is more difficult
than giving few pounds to such a cause. It takes a courageous and insightful
group of people to discern the difference between real need and the people
who use charity as a crutch to get through an unfortunate life. In much the
same vane charitable giving also has a publicity and propaganda angle;
certain marketing strategies may call for Œopen-plate¹ or list-based giving
as practised in some churches. How much of a resource is to be given to
those who need immediate help and how much is to be devoted to long-range
causes of poverty and injustice? Should our compassion extend to deeper
causes of the poverty?

Asking these questions and finding answers are always keeping in line with
the continual call of Christ to each of us. Jesus, as liberator and rebel,
confronts establishments that bring oppression to people. Some times charity
is used to keep people in a dependent and subservient state. People who are
being helped have no escape route; they become enslaved to the system.
Managers and handlers including government agencies who supervise poor
people¹s establishments and orphanages become their masters and do not hear
their cry and need for liberation. When do we take up injustice issues with
longer-term effects? We are torn by the impulse either to give food directly
or to cultivate a farm or build a house or provide treatment for a sick
person or to change unjust systems that cause the hunger and other problems.
Couldn't we be involved by helping the needy by both sets of actions,
whether by handing out money directly or by challenging the system? And
isn't it safer to do the former? Isn't it wise to take the safer option? If
we satisfy the hungry, don't we receive praise, encourage others to join our
ranks, and become better Christians? And if we penetrate into the causes of
hunger don't they call us communists? It certainly not a question of either
or. Let us continue the first-aid of direct giving as much as possible,
while we raise people's consciousness to penetrate into the second level of
humble service in challenging the system, which creates these deprivations.

Initially, we see the people in need and we respond to them immediately
since our humanity demands it. A crying infant needs his milk immediately,
not a week from now. The old adage about giving a fish and teaching someone
to fish is not applicable somehow in some situations any more. What if the
fish are dying from pollution or stocks are diminished by factory ships
owned by global corporations? So when must we do more? However, this should
not be taken as an excuse for not giving for the immediate first stage of
direct help to the needy person in front of us or on the television screen.
The first stage is temporarily satisfying but we should also see issues
emerging that could be handled through democratic processes and thorough
political actions. We can influence others to ask deeper questions as well
after providing the first-aid; we should not be afraid of the consequences
and should see this as God¹s work as well for the planet and the
environment. We should see that a check list of Œcheque book charity giving¹
is not sufficient in these situations.

We read how Jesus drives out the money changers from the Temple, confronts
the power of the establishment for their attitudes, and prepares his
disciples to work for justice for all under threats. It is very significant
to note that St. John has placed this event at the beginning of Jesus¹
ministry, while synoptic gospels place this revolutionary incidence in the
last week of Jesus¹ ministry. St. John is possibly giving emphasis on how
Jesus challenged the commercialisation of religion from the beginning of his
ministry. We see the call to justice as a deeper calling and deeper
commitment for establishing kingdom values. Therefore, in the first stage we
must feed those who are starving and offer the homeless shelter because ³It
is in the shelter of each other that people live.² But just as Jesus both
fed the hungry and challenged the system, so should we.

Charity without establishing justice is unrealistic. However, commitment to
social justice issues alone without some empirical direct works of mercy is
not complete and often lacking in sensitivity. Our lack of understanding the
complexity of issues involved, the failure of others to understand us, and
our aloneness may erode our initial enthusiasm. Our resolution should be to
see both stages as necessary for the transformation of the world. But it is
much more: social and political involvements are more demanding. We do not
just feed people from the level of our own affluence and abundance; we
should assist people on a level where their own participation is utterly
important. We do not just work for the poor; we work with the poor in
solidarity with them. During the Lent period we should reflect on two
events: first, we should look inside ourselves and see the transfigured and
risen-Christ; secondly, we should look out and see the Earth with all its
problems and potential possibilities through the grace of risen-Christ. This
vision allows us to remain enthusiastic about the kingdom experience within
ourselves. Lenten discipline teaches us to see this bigger picture and
controls any tendency to focus too narrowly on our ego-centred needs at the
exclusion of everything else.

Christ, the perfect person incarnate, comes among his own and his own people
do not receive him. This actual rejection does not change his mission in any
way. Jesus is not bothered about his acceptance by the hierarchy or the
establishment; he goes on feeding the people when hungry and healing the
sick when asked for and directly challenging the system when necessary. Let
us go with Jesus to Jerusalem to understand his broader mission; this may
help us to deepen our own compassion, which reaches beyond assisting people
who are hungry or homeless; we may begin to make a first attempt to look
into the causes of hunger and homelessness. Our sense of mercy opens the
door for political and social action within a participatory democracy: we
see and interact with people in need in our own neighbourhoods and then
throughout the world; we enter more deeply and publicly into their suffering
through a growing solidarity; we begin to experience the pain and
humiliation they suffer.

We need a very special sensitivity to see the needs of all creation and
taking the basic steps to alleviate those needs. An engaging spirituality in
the face of these challenges will be of help in confronting and not fleeing
from the terrible tragedies. Resurrection spirit gives us the encouragement
to risk getting angry at the aggressors, the polluters, people who cause the
damage and desolation. A shallow compassion overlooks the oppressor and
focuses only on the one suffering, as though bandaging the effect will treat
the cause. Paying for few dialysis treatments or supplying few kidney
machines may not have any impact on underlying chronic end stage kidney
disease, but simple measures of controlling blood pressure, reducing salt
intake or treating diabetes in the community would have a much greater
benefit. Looking after mostly bourgeoisie illness of obesity, diabetes and
heart disease may divert the money needed for research and development for
diseases pandemic in 80% of the world population due to HIV and AID,
starvation, and sanitation. A God-centred deepening compassion combines both
mercies for the victims and righteous anger at the culprits who are
preventing available resources reaching the suffering humanity. Compassion
becomes a balm that soothes and heals; it is also a laxative that starts
deeper things moving; may be it is ultimately the glue that holds us
together as human beings.

Let us look more deeply into the question of who this Jesus is at this
Easter: namely someone who can be both merciful and angry at the same time,
and is willing to express either emotion when necessary. Jesus may cry over
Jerusalem, but Jesus also becomes angry with those who cause its impending
destruction. Now as we walk with Jesus in the palm-laid streets and approach
the Passion Week, we experience the compassion of a suffering Jesus. This
experience should give us a radically compassionate commitment for social
justice; a radically compassionate and transfigured person should become an
agent for social action. This discernment is not to become mere bystanders
of global issues concerning all created things; the discernment is to
involve, engage, and focus our attention to at least one of the issues as a
ŒSimon of Cyrene¹ on our Calvary visit on this Good Friday.

source:
http://www.lightoflife.com/LOL_Article_CharityAndSocialActionEaster2009.htm