Fairly often I hear of older folks who need errands run or shuttle
service, but they don’t want to inconvenience their family, so they ask for
help from the church. Certainly we in
the church have an obligation and a responsibility to help one another, but I
have to laugh at the rational. Exactly why is it OK to inconvenience fellow
believers and friends, but we don’t want to inconvenience our family members? “If anyone does not provide for his
relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and
is worse than an unbeliever.” (1Tim 5:8 NIV)
3 comments:
Gail;
-----People do not perceive the inconvenience caused by burdening an abstract group with their problems. That lack of perception impersonalises the “shame” felt by needing assistance to the point that it often goes away entirely. And of course, there should be no shame in truly needing assistance. But shame having been salved away by the collective‘s making assistance available, whether it be church, insurance companies, or the government, opens the opportunity for people to shamelessly seek it for what are truly not needs. This condition softens all manner of self-restraint, which in turn, threatens the economics of the whole group.
-----But when the group expects the needy to first consume the assistance of family and relatives, it is not being mean and ungenerous. Its generosity is merely extending beyond the boundaries of just giving money and supply. It is establishing a constraint which directs people into closer relationships, more accountability, and some incentives which might actually heighten the personal abilities of the needy.
-----No relationship exists where the government seizes a few bucks out of one person’s pocket to give to another. Neither does it where a person voluntarily pays an insurance premium or makes a donation. But where a person lays a few bucks into the hands of someone in need there is relationship. And the accountability required is direct, meaning the possibility of scam declines, meaning the character of the needy also receives the assistance of unavoidable constraints.
-----We love collective assistance because we hate unavoidable constraint. But it is that unavoidable constraint which actually becomes incentive for the needy to do anything possible he can himself. The struggle to do that increases his survival abilities, whereas, the struggle to work around the avoidable constraints of collective assistance increases only manipulative abilities. That makes for a big character difference.
-----Finally, collective assistance eliminates the direct “thank you” to whom it is due from whom it is due. “Thank you” is a major attitude comb for both the donor and the recipient mutually acknowledging the positions and responsibilities of each. To which “your welcome” becomes the underscore. Through these direct gestures the donor can take true pleasure in watching the help given work its effect, the recipient can extinguish shame by thought of a pleased donor, and the group as a whole will increase in character and maintain economic viability.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
You really like to meddle, don't you?
Grace and peace.
:)
Gail
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