#667. Judging who is poor enough for our charity.

Recently, a church group made a gangsta rap video about side hugs. Since I’ve written about the side hug phenomenon a bunch and it’s on the cover of the Stuff Christians Like book, some people assumed I did the video. I didn’t but I did manage to get one piece of really funny hate mail.

Here, as I’ve chronicled on Twitter, is a section of what someone emailed me concerning the video:

“this is not a threat by any means, i have no intentions on harming you or sending someone to harm you. Just dont do another rap video, cause you are about as gangsta as pocket watch.”

First of all, that initial sentence is the least reassuring thing I’ve ever read in my life. That someone has not been officially sent to harm me is not comforting. It’s like the person that is constantly telling you “I’m not crazy!” If you ever hear that phrase over and over again, please know that the person saying it is in fact crazy.

Second, I agree with the last sentence of that. I am about as gangsta as a pocket watch. I was just telling that to my neighbor the other day at my mailbox. He asked, “How are things at work?” And I replied, “Pretty good, but then you know how I roll, gangsta as a pocket watch, holla!”

That’s just who I am and as much as I want to point the finger at the guy who wrote that email and proclaim, “Judgy McJudgerton,” I can’t. And I can’t because he has nothing on me when it comes to being judgmental.

I was reminded of that fact last Christmas when my church small group did a charity project.

The premise was simple. We were giving presents away to needy families. They would pull up to the distribution center. We would walk out to the warehouse drive thru and help them load big sacks of gifts and bicycles and other items into their cars. It was a blast but about midway through I noticed something.

I couldn’t fit the massive bags of toys into the back of some of the vehicles.

Why?

Their speaker systems were too big.

I’d pop the trunk or open an SUV back window and find a huge speaker box blocking my way. LL Cool knew what he was talking about when he said “Cars ride by with the booming systems.” There was bass in your face my friend, bass in your face!

And then I started to see nice cars pull up for the free presents. A tricked out Range Rover drove in, sitting on dubs. (See how natural that sentence sounded from me, like a pocket watch!)

You know what I did next? I started to judge all those people. This is gross but in my head I started to think:

“That dude has a nicer car than me. He’s in a Range Rover. Are you kidding me? They’re playing the system! These people don’t deserve my charity.”

And in that tangled mess of a thought I started to do something that I think is very dangerous. I started to edit scripture.

I looked at Matthew 12:31 and stopped reading it the way it is written: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.

In my head I wrote it like this:

“Love your neighbor if they meet your predefined standard of poverty.”

or

“Love your neighbor if you feel they are going to properly take care of the love you give them and will not squander it by making bad decisions.”

or

“Love your neighbor if you feel they’ve earned it by being humble, responsible parents who have done everything they can to take care of their kids.”

That’s so broken, but I promise you that’s what I did. And what was I really saying? That people in 1984 Toyota Corollas deserved my love and support but people in newer cars didn’t? Where’s the cut off line on that? Is it rim based? If you’re rocking rims bigger than 20 inches I won’t serve you but if you’re sittin’ on 19s it’s OK?

Crazy.

But it’s not an easy issue to wrestle with. There are a ton of messy possibilities. Including trying to define what “love your neighbor” means in any given circumstance. A friend once called me from rehab and asked if I would help him escape by giving him a ride home. I had to turn him down, because giving him what he wanted in the midst of withdrawal really wasn’t what he needed.

I don’t know what to do with this issue, except to say I can’t imagine God’s cool with us putting our human stipulations on his call to “love your neighbor.”

And that’s why the Vietnam Kindergarten project has been so amazing to me.

You, me, we didn’t judge who deserves our charity. We discussed the cause and the reasons, but ultimately, none of us know the kids in that village. We didn’t judge whether they were “poor enough” to be helped. We didn’t say, “well are they really going to use this kindergarten education the right way, according to my expectations?” We didn’t say that because the verse is pretty simple. Love your neighbor as yourself. We don’t get to edit that.

We just get to live it. And sometimes it’s easy. And sometimes it’s hard.

Sometimes it means you give 480 little 6 year olds two kindergartens to attend half way around the world. Sometimes it means you put toys in the back of a Range Rover.

And all we can do is live it.