Last night I watched Mark Driscoll from Mars Hill Church in Seattle present videos and images of a trip to Haiti he and another pastor made to survey the damage and formulate a plan of action to set up an organization that will help the churches of Haiti. Until I had seen this presentation, I had felt sorry for Haiti, but actually seeing the devastation tore me up, as my wife can attest to (you can watch the video here WARNING: there is some graphic content and it will mess up your heart). The reason I write is because the past few days I have seen and read and heard many who name the name of Christ speak rather glibly about the efforts being made to give relief and hope to the distraught people there. In particular, I have heard some of my friends complain that there are those suffering here in the US so why should we be spending so much energy in Haiti? To be honest, this thinking makes me sick to my stomach, and so I have a few unpopular points I would like to make.
First, I agree that there are those here who suffer, and that the church has failed at meeting their needs. In fact, I have seen this suffering firsthand. I moved from a relatively affluent sector of the country in Northwest Arkansas where it was easy to sweep those who suffered under the rug and keep them out of sight and out of conscience. Since moving to Jacksonville, I have been confronted almost daily with true suffering, and there is no ignoring the homelessness and poverty that exist even in our prosperous land. I have seen women and children who have had to leave everything behind to escape abusive endangerment of their lives. I have seen people who have had addictions ravage their life and leave them with nothing. I have heard of a man with a master's degree who could not get a job and is homeless for the third time. And yet, I submit to you that these people are more fortunate than almost every single person in Haiti, and even more fortunate than the majority of people in the entire world. It is true that in the US, the church for the most part has done a terrible job of meeting the needs of our most desperate people. We have ignored those forced into sexual slavery, and the elderly who spend their time alone abandoned by their family, and we should repent and serve those people wholeheartedly in the name of Jesus. But the resources exist here to meet their needs. There are shelters to protect those who have no shelter, and provide meals for those who have no food. Although these churches don't go out and find these people as they should, if these people came to the church, almost any church in America would be willing to put these people in touch with someone or someplace to meet their needs. Even our public recreational parks have fresh, clean water to drink. When natural disasters happen, the government provides money and resources for relief and rebuilding. The problem is that in Haiti, NONE of those things exist. There is no drinkable water in Port-au-Prince. There are almost no church buildings left intact. There basically is no government. There is no viable police force. There isn't even farmable country because the environment has been so devastated in the past. All that is left are shell-shocked people living and sleeping on the streets alongside corpses, fighting for survival. There is no comparison with the need there and the need here, and we have the affluence in the United States to help meet the needs of the Haitian people.
Secondly - and this is what worries me more - these Christians are not really speaking out of motivation to help the people here. I'm sure that if you asked them if they would like to see suffering ended in their hometown and country, they could honestly say yes. But if you look at their lives and their bank account, they are not the ones spending time handing out blankets and scarves to homeless people on the street. They are not the ones finding prostitutes and helping them to put their lives back together. They are not the ones who sacrifice at home to give more money away. These people are evidence of the problem of mistaking right-wing politics with following Jesus. It is remarkable that Christians have begun taking their cues from politicians rather than biblical Christianity. Throwing darts at those who are doing a good thing is not a new practice, especially to the church. Those who rise up and lead are always going to catch the most flak. But this is a foreign practice that we see in politics to attack those who may disagree with us no matter what they do. Even Jesus said that those who were serving others and weren't against Him were on His side (Mark 9:38-41). And honestly, this grumbling by Christians is done only to disguise their own conviction of their failure to do what is right (they would do well to read James 4:17). It is so much easier to say "I can't believe they are trying to send so much money when we have suffering here" than it is to move to a smaller apartment or not get coffee every morning or fast for a week in order to give that money away. And it is definitely easier to complain than it is to spend a night meeting the homeless on the street or even to jump a plane and go serve people in desperate, dire need. A quarter of a million people, each bearing the image of God, are dead, and hundreds of thousands more are in danger if something is not done. And people who spend their time sitting on their hands wave the red flag, whining that we should do more here first. Christians are notorious for talking loud and complaining hard and doing nothing, and frankly, it is this kind of crap that has made the church in the US ineffective and borderline irrelevant, and it pisses me off that those who claim to love Christ can stomach this behavior. We should all repent of the sin of apathy that we have allowed to fester in our churches and have our hearts broken for the Haitian people, especially our brothers and sisters. So what if "Hollywood" is leading the charge? They can reach more people than you because you hole up in your church and your home and have no contact with the outside world! Pray that God can make us more in tune with those around us so that we can be effective in sharing God's love with them.
Lastly, instead of throwing darts at those who actually have the audacity to see a desperate need and try to meet it, we should repent and join in giving and in service, following the example of Christ (Matthew 20: 26-28). So, give to your church, give to the red cross, or to the "Hollywood charity", or give to help rebuild churches. And also, give of your money and your time locally to help spread the gospel of God's love in your Jerusalem.
I know I don't have thousands of people reading this (and maybe no one actually), and it will probably never reach the people I wish I could say this to face to face, but I felt compelled to write anyway. I will close with an admonition from Paul.
"Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers."
Galatians 6:7-10
