At the corner where I typically pull out of the Fred Meyer parking lot, at a light between the store and a McDonald’s, there is often a person holding up a sign requesting assistance in the form of money. Though I have occasionally purchased some food for people like that at the McDonald’s there, I typically roll right on by. I think about that now as I read this week’s text on love, I John 3:11-24. What does what the apostle says here mean for us in this age of systemic poverty, professional panhandlers, public welfare, and general suspicion of the motives of others?
I confess my temptation is to just throw up my hands and conclude that it is all just too complicated to sort out. First century society, I foolishly imagine, was simpler and more straightforward. One could encounter a beggar, or, even more, another Christian in need, and confidently respond with generosity, sure that one’s act of love was genuinely helpful.
Yet the status of those who begged in biblical times was likely as complex as it is today. While there are both Old Testament and New Testament and extra-biblical passages like our text for today, encouraging care for those in need, it is also clear that begging was frowned upon and even despised. In the Apocryphal books we recently studied in an adult Sunday school class, we read in Sirach 40:28-30:
28 My child, don’t live the life of a beggar;
it’s better to die than to beg.
29 When people look to another person’s table,
their way of life cannot be considered a life.
They pollute themselves by eating someone else’s food,
but a person who is intelligent and educated will guard
against that.
30 In the mouth of the shameless, begging is sweet,
but a fire will burn inside of them.
That passage may be one of the good reasons Sirach is apocryphal rather than inspired Scripture, for it does not comport well with our text today. But, then, neither does my own bypassing of panhandlers seem to be in harmony with what we read from John about genuine love for others. I have been conflicted and filled with guilt about these things for much of my life.
As should be clear, I have no great answers to questions about how best to respond to the poor in our own time and society. Yet I am convinced that Scripture and our Lord are exceedingly clear that God expects us to do our best to sort out some way to actively respond to those in need. There may be individuals we know personally and can vouch for to whom we need to offer our help. Or it may be that the best way to help an individual panhandler we do not know is to refuse the sort of gift being requested and encourage that person to seek help from an agency we support financially.
I would also suggest that while John’s illustration used here in verse 17 is of an individual in need, we may do well not to completely individualize our compassion. The prophets we will begin studying next month spoke against unfair societal practices which contributed to poverty, like false measures and balances used by merchants and the withholding of proper wages from employees. Part of a genuine, active Christian love almost surely needs to be attention to reducing the systemic practice of injustice, not just compassionate acts toward individual persons in need.
What John reminds me in verse 18 is that even if I deem it unhelpful or even harmful to drop some bills or coins in a panhandler’s hand, I cannot rest easy without doing anything at all, without addressing the poverty around me in some active way.
And when I am torn and conflicted about it all, I am very thankful for verses 19 and 20, which suggest that when we at least try to actively love in some way, we may “reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.” That is most reassuring, for as I age I only grow in my conviction that I know very little about poverty, love, or almost anything.