Transformation, not charity

Provoking Faith

24 April 2020

Transformation, not charity

Acts 3.1-10  

Listen to this sermon here: https://soundcloud.com/bloomsbury-1/transformation-not-charity

The scene which Luke paints for us

          in our reading this morning from the book of Acts

          is as contemporary as it is ancient.

It could be any street, in any city, in any country.

          From Bloomsbury to Bangalore,

                   the picture is as familiar as it is troubling.

A man with a physical deformity has placed himself

          on the pavement at a busy intersection,

          and is begging for money.

Those of us who regularly walk the streets of London,

                   are no strangers to those who sit and beg.

          And whether they present with a disability

                   or a note written on a piece of cardboard,

          the message, the request, is constant:

                   ‘Please can I have some money?’

Well,

This week, I’ve been involved in a number of Zoom meetings

          with our partners at London Citizens,

discussing the situation facing those who are homeless

          both in terms of the current lockdown,

          and also the implications for when lockdown ends.

Apparently, right now,

          despite the government offering to house all people who are homeless

                    in temporary hotel accommodation,

          there are still about 130 people sleeping on the streets of the West End,

                    congregating in Soho Square during the day

                    for meal handouts from local hotels.

In addition, there are real concerns that when the lockdown ends,

          with those who have been put into hotels being kicked out,

their numbers will combine with those who have lost their jobs and security,

          to bring about a homelessness situation in London

          far worse than we were facing before this crisis began.

And here I want to suggest something radical:

          which is that this homelessness crisis won’t be solved

                    by providing accommodation and money alone.

There are deep structural and systemic injustices in our society,

          which keep people disempowered and on the streets.

Simply opening hotels to the homeless

          doesn’t solve the problem.

As a trip to Soho Square this afternoon will amply demonstrate.

And neither does feeding people solve homelessness,

          nor having a stock of cast-off clothing,

          nor offering a washing machine for people to use.

These things may help make today a bit better,

          but even at their best they don’t solve the underlying problems

                    of poor mental health, addictions, and disempowerment;

          and at their worst, they actively perpetuate the toxic cultures

                    of dependency and patronage

                    which keep people on the streets.

And it was no different in the first century,

          with our anonymous friend we meet in the book of Acts,

                    sitting outside the Temple in Jerusalem,

          strategically positioned in prime location

                   by the gate called ‘Beautiful’,

          where, the cynic in me suspects,

                    the contrast between the soaring sublime architecture,

                   and his own deformed body,

          was carefully constructed to elicit maximum sympathy (and cash)

                   from those entering the temple

                   to bring their worship and offerings before the Lord.

After all, how could a person with their eyes turned to God

          ignore the plight of one of God’s suffering children?

It’s the same reason that today people often choose to beg

          in places where others are having a nice time.

I’m sure that many of those who came to the temple

          gave to the beggar at the gate,

                   believing that by doing so,

                   they were offering to this unfortunate man

                   a tangible expression of the care that God had for him.

But where they doing any good?

          Or were they merely perpetuating a dysfunctional system

                    where the wealthy made themselves feel a bit less guilty for their wealth

                    by giving the beggar a gift that, far from transforming his life,

          simply trapped him ever more firmly

                    in the toxic system of begging for survival.

It is in this context that Peter utters his famous line,

          ‘silver and gold have I none, but what I have I give you.’

And on such a sentence the world turns upside down.

In this simple statement from Peter,

          the basic transaction

                    which lay at the root of the Temple system,

          was subverted.

The Temple system represented middle class religion,

          and was primarily populated by those who had money.

The beggar knew how it was supposed to work,

          the worshippers knew how it was supposed to work,

          the temple officials knew how it was supposed to work.

The moneyed worshippers’ job was to give alms to the poor;

          whilst the job of the poor was to receive the handouts.

It was a tried and tested system, and everyone felt better in the process.

The small acts of kindness,

          directed towards an undeserving (or even culpable) poor,

                   appeased the conscience of the rich,

          whilst at the same time highlighting their ultimate powerlessness

                   to effect genuine change.

It was into this context that Peter and John conducted their transgressive act

          against the system of inequality

          that everyone had become complicit in.

They didn’t give alms to the beggar.

          They didn’t give him silver, or gold, or even a few copper coins.

They refused the transaction of handing over money

          in exchange for a temporarily salved conscience.

Rather, Peter looked the beggar in the eye,

          reached out a hand to him, and lifted him up.

This was deeply subversive stuff,

          because it challenged all the implicit and unspoken assumptions

          about the way the world works.

The world says that the poor are not to be lifted up,

          they are not to be looked at as equals.

They are to be ignored, vilified,

          blamed, stigmatized, and done unto.

They are there to provide the ‘weak’

          to the Temple system’s ‘strong’.

If Peter and John had simply given money to the man,

          they would have become complicit in the very system

                   that kept him in his poverty.

But they took a different, more Christ-like path,

          which challenged the system

          and opened the door to transformation.

There is a wonderful story told about Thomas Aquinas

          who once went to see the Pope,

          before whom a large sum of money was spread out

the Pope observed proudly to St Thomas,

          “You see, the Church is no longer in that age

          in which she said, ‘Silver and gold have I none.’

Aquinas replied, “True, holy father,”

          “neither can she any longer say to the lame, ‘Rise up and walk.’”[1]

Those who follow Christ have the God-given capacity

          to see the pearl of great price inside each human soul,

          to discern the spark of the divine in every person.

And our calling is not to charity,

          it is to transformation.

The world might give money to the poor

          to make their today a little more bearable,

but we are called to see their potential

          and to help them discover a way of rising up from their begging-bed,

          to discover a life of true flourishing based not what they have,

                    or even what they do, but on who they are.

I’ve been reading Sam Wells’ book ‘A Future That’s Bigger Than The Past’,

          and I strongly recommend it to you as some lockdown reading.

In there, he points to an essay written by Oscar Wilde over a hundred years ago.

By way of conclusion, I’m going to give Wilde the last word,

          which I think he would have appreciated:

He says:

Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves,

          and so prevented the horror of the system being realised

                    by those who suffered from it,

          and understood by those who contemplated it,

so, in the present state of things in England,

          the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good.

Jesus moved in a community

          that allowed the accumulation of private property just as ours does,

and the gospel that he preached

          was not that in such a community it is an advantage

                    for a [person] to live on scanty, unwholesome food,

                              to wear ragged, unwholesome clothes,

                    to sleep in horrid, unwholesome dwellings,

          and a disadvantage for a [person] to live

                    under healthy, pleasant, and decent conditions . . .

It is to be noted that Jesus never says

          that impoverished people are necessarily good,

          or wealthy people necessarily bad.

That would not have been true . . .

There is only one class in the community

          that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor.

The poor can think of nothing else.

          That is the misery of being poor.

What Jesus does say is that [humankind] reaches [its] perfection,

          not through what [it] has,

                    not even through what [it] does,

          but entirely through what [it] is.

Or, as Peter said, "I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you;

          in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk." 

            And he took him by the right hand and raised him up;

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[1] Vide Acts iii. 2–8.