I’ve been thinking about the cuts
to SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) last week. Remember the
House voted 217 to 210 to separate SNAP from the farm bill. The legislation
that passed will significantly reduce SNAP funding in the next four years.
Good! Too many people abuse that program. Too many people
sit around- expecting handouts.
Do you really think that? Do you
truly believe the majority of food stamp (SNAP) recipients are just sitting
around, doing nothing, and waiting for the mail?
Yes, I do. I’ve been to the grocery store on the day the
benefits come out. It’s crazy.
Did you think it might be because
people didn’t have the funds to go shopping prior to that day? Maybe their
spare cash went to rent or a car payment.
Or to cable or to pay for an iPhone.
What would satisfy you in this
scenario? There are genuinely people who cannot make ends meet. Do you care at
all about that?
Let them get a second job.
Who will watch their kids during
that time?
Maybe they should have thought about that before they had
kids.
*Sigh*.
You know, the gospel reading for
this Sunday is the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. You know the one where
the rich man feasts every day in expensive clothes and there’s a starving, sick
man outside his doorstep whom the rich man ignores. Maybe he doesn’t even
ignore Lazarus. Maybe he truly doesn’t see him.
Anyway, Lazarus dies and the
angels carry him to be with Abraham. The rich man dies and goes to a place of
torment. When he asks Abraham to send Lazarus with water, Abraham informs the
rich man that the chasm between them could not be breeched.
Furthermore, Lazarus can’t go to
warn the man’s brothers what happens if they are not good stewards of the gifts
with which they have been endowed. They already have Moses and the prophets to
do that.
What does this have to with SNAP? Or are you trying to
change the subject because you were losing?
No, we always think about how
Lazarus would have loved the crumbs from the rich man’s table. We make a big
deal about how little the rich man could have done and how much it would have
helped them both. But, in truth, SNAP is just table scraps, it’s nothing but
crumbs. Congress could have passed that legislation and it would have been the
merest noblesse oblige, but they
couldn’t be bothered to do even that.
You always want to give other people’s money away.
No. I want to distribute God’s
gifts. We can’t just throw out scraps or cast-off clothing or donate an old car
and consider our duty done. There’s no justice in that.
Where’s the justice in feeding someone who doesn’t work?
Fine. There are people who cheat.
There are all cheaters at all levels of society, but our almost single-minded
focus on those in the lower economic bracket is gross and misguided. If you
want people to NOT use SNAP and other assistance programs, we have to start
sooner. We have to work on schools and neighborhoods and our justice system. We
have to actually care enough about our neighbors to want to see them flourish
and to help them do it.
Why?
Would you show up at a barn
raising and throw a sack of nails across the floor and call it good?
No. I wouldn’t go to a barn raising at all. I don’t care
about someone else’s barn.
And why would you? Their barn is
their problem. They need to get it up by themselves. Fill it by themselves. And
then feed themselves from it. Just like you do.
Yes.
Where do you get your seeds?
From the farm supply.
That’s cheating. Make them
yourself.
But-
NO! You can’t have help. You have
to make the seeds yourself. And it’s going to be a bitch building your own
tractor. Let me know how you’re going to figure out smelting your own iron and
making the rubber for the engine gaskets.
It’s not a subtle point you’re making.
It must be. Otherwise, we wouldn’t
have the same fight all the time. No one is self-made. There is a fundamental
human community that must be recognized so that life for EVERYONE can improve.
Lazarus and the rich man must learn to see one another, accept help from one
another, and truly desire the wellbeing of one another.
But doesn’t Jesus say, “There will always be poor among
you.” If I help the poor, aren’t I proving Jesus wrong? You wouldn’t want that.
Jesus isn’t proscribing a
permanent situation. He’s speaking about a specific instance wherein his body
could be honored- when people could actually honor the body of God. (Mark 14:7)
He goes on to mention you can help the poor ANYTIME, but you shouldn’t fail to
do so- under the guise of “giving to God”.
You just have all the answers, don’t you.
No, I don’t. But I do believe God
expects us to help our neighbors. And I believe that God grieves when we miss
clear opportunities to lift other people up into freedom and hope. Cutting SNAP
is exactly the kind of thing that causes pain and is the evidence of a society
with misplaced priorities.
Do you want people to be on assistance forever?
No. I dare to dream of something
bigger- where people have enough to eat and aren’t afraid of getting sick and
are able to save and have dreams for themselves. I dream of the possibility of
joy. Not happiness, but joy. True gospel joy that flourishes in security and
trust. Not flat happiness that is fleeting and based on momentary stability
that can be snatched away. We must all want that enough for our neighbors and
want it more than we want money or goods or services.
What if I don’t?
Then maybe you need to revisit
Luke 16.
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