Together

This is an assigned response to Paul Louis Metzger’s important post entitled Lessons from Baltimore and the Bible: Work with the People, Not for the People.  Dr. Metzger quotes Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed to support his position, and while taking issue with many of Freire’s concepts I will offer a couple valuable Freire quotes of my own.

Are outside experts and problem-solvers the answer or part of the problem? In many places around the world, this is more than an academic question. From Baltimore to Bangladesh and beyond there are people suffering injustice. Will we be moved by compassion to advocate for them or with them? It makes a difference. 

Jesus sent his disciples out two at a time to establish the truthfulness of their witness, but also perhaps to teach us something about kingdom work—that it is to be done together. A partnership between those sent and the people of peace in each place to which they are sent. Hospitality and a "dwelling with" that mutually honors and respects the other as the kingdom of heaven breaks out in their midst.

God in the Trinitarian community of himself does everything as one and yet together as three, “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…’.” (Gen. 1:26). Jesus, God the Son, did nothing on his own, but only what he saw the Father doing (John 5:19-20) and was filled with the Holy Spirit (Luke 3:22; 4:1).

Too often, those with the privilege of resources, education, and mobility, try to fix the circumstances of suffering experienced by those without privilege alone. There can be a bit of a messiah complex about our efforts if we think we are the answer. While it is right to show compassion to those who are oppressed in one way or another, we should not make the assumption that the person needs our help more than we need theirs. Our western, dominant-culture, problem-solving approach has a tendency to minimize the strengths and knowledge already present in an oppressed, under-resourced, or marginalized community. In our defense, we realize that we have freely received and desire to pay it forward by freely giving. Yet, despite good intentions, this may result in maintaining our own power and privilege at the expense of those whom we seek to help. Freire calls this false generosity and contrasts it with the true,

In order to have the continued opportunity to express their "generosity," the oppressors must perpetuate injustice as well. An unjust social order is the permanent fount of this "generosity," which is nourished by death, despair, and poverty. That is why the dispensers of false gen­erosity become desperate at the slightest threat to its source… True generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity.  False charity constrains the fearful and subdued, the "rejects of life," to extend their trembling hands. True generosity lies in striving so that these hands—whether of individuals or entire peoples-need be extended less and less in supplication, so that more and more they become human hands which work and, working, transform the world. [1]

Listen First, Help Second

Why do we assume that we know best? Why do we presume that our answers are better than what others might come up with on their own? How can we diagnose a situation accurately when we don’t listen well and connect symptoms with historical and contextual causes?

The man or woman who proclaims devotion to the cause of liberation yet is unable to enter into communion with the people, whom he or she continues to regard as totally ignorant, is grievously self-deceived.[2]

In a recent sermon, I likened judgmentalism to a type of spiritual king-of-the-mountain game, where we try to climb to the top—the supposed place of God’s favor—by criticizing and judging others. At best such behavior is merely an emotional sleight-of-hand for certainly, God’s kingdom doesn’t play by such rules. I mention this here because if we are going to truly help others and work for the peace and justice that pleases God, we have to start by humbling ourselves and considering others as inferior no longer (2 Cor. 5:16), but as equals… or betters (Philippians 2:3).

Another of Dr. Metzger’s favorite sources (and mine), Dr. John Perkins wrote,

There is an old Chinese poem that illustrates the felt-need concept very clearly:

Go to the people

Live among them

Learn from them

Love them

Start with what you know

Build on what they have:

But of the best leaders

When their task is done

The people will remark

“We have done it ourselves.”

Felt needs are different from person to person and place to place, and in order to do ministry effectively, you will need to discover and identify these needs.[3]

Jesus did not complete his work of redemption from a distance, but to use Perkins’ term “relocated” and became one of us, taking our problems upon him, to set us free from ourselves so that we might be able to live free together.

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. (Hebrews 2:14-15)

I wonder about something else. Without denying the omniscience of the Lord, were the first 30 years of Jesus' life spent listening to and experiencing the human condition (together with us) before he began speaking the good news of God's solution?

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[1] Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 44-45.
[2] Freire, 61.
[3] John Perkins, Beyond Charity: The Call to Christian Community Development [Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition], 35.