Sometimes it’s hard to know what’s best. I was visiting a big city for a few weeks, lending a hand to family members expecting a second child. I walked ten or twelve thousand steps most days on busy streets, usually enjoying but sometimes burdened by what I saw. Occasionally there would be someone begging on every block, each in a different way. How to respond?
Some city residents said, Don’t give money to someone on the street. Instead, make a contribution to a social agency with expertise in working with unhoused, unemployed, unprotected people, people with substance abuse problems, people with mental illness. These agencies can always use more resources, and they know what needs to be done. That sounds right. But it means day by day, moment by moment, walking past a fellow human being in trouble. That feels cold and hollow. I wasn’t in the city long enough to find a better answer.
The neighborhood grocery store displayed boxes and boxes of fresh fruit on the sidewalk at each side of the doorway. Most evenings one fellow sat on a plastic milk crate facing the door, and he asked anyone who walked out for something to eat, reminding dozens of people, each flanked by bounty, of their prosperity and of the harshness of giving no reply.
One day, I saw that a tall slender fellow up ahead was going to ask for food. I had in my bag something he might enjoy, and I decided to offer it to him. As I came near, he made the ask, and I held up a small green bag. Would you like this unopened package of cookies, I asked. I have no teeth, he replied. I could see that this was almost completely true. I nodded, and put the cookies away, and walked on.
Another man with a trim salt-and-pepper beard sat outside a church most days in a humble array of personal possessions. He slept out in all kinds of weather, and a couple of times someone, perhaps from the church, seemed to check up on him. Nothing changed, though. I noticed that people left pairs of shoes in plastic bags around the neighborhood. I assume these were gifts to whoever could use them. That was a bit better than just walking by.
As a temporary resident, I didn’t know what work was being done on behalf of those neighbors living on the edge. The problems were too large for an individual to solve by placing a few dollars in a beggar’s paper cup. A better life in a better neighborhood and a better country, I concluded, is a group project.
Some people say that America is a Christian country, and it probably feels pretty good to say that. In the Book of Matthew, near the end of Chapter 25, though, a group of people is addressed on the day of judgment. When I was needy, you did not lift a finger to feed me, or cloth me, or give me shelter. In that story, excuses are given, but the excuses are promptly rejected. Service to others is demanded. For whenever you do these things for the least of my brethren, you do them for me. It’s a command that likely applies as much when meeting a man with one tooth standing on a corner in Manhattan as when hearing of people fleeing brutal conditions in their homelands and seeking something better here in North America. It’s not a comfortable commandment to live up to.
Music: "Wrong Foot Forward" by Flook
