Is Jesus Tapping on your Window?

My name is Julian Doorey, a New Zealander. My wife, two children, and I represent the Baptist Churches of New Zealand, living and working in Bangladesh since March 2002. My passion (and my job) is to assist the national church to share God’s love with the poor by promoting holistic mission and facilitating church-based community development. This involves working in partnership with the national Bangladesh Baptist Church.

And unlike many foreigners, we try to give regularly to beggars. Here are a few thoughts about how we approach the topic of giving to the poor.

Engaging the poor ‘face to face’ – Beggars
One issue which confronts us at the personal level is how to interact with street beggars. Should we give to beggars? There’s an interesting range of views amongst folk living here long-term, and also short-term visitors (who seem to have pre-formed views on this). One orientation exercise I do with short-term mission teams is to get them to have a debate, presenting their reasoned arguments for and against giving to beggars. To assist with their debate preparation, I present a few issues to consider:

• Who is the beggar tapping on your car window? That’s Jesus tapping on your window (Matt. 25: “What you do for the least of these my brothers and sisters, you do for me”). Mother Teresa was very strong on this: “The poor person in front of you at that time is Jesus.” Can we ignore Jesus tapping on our window?
• Who is the person in the car (i.e: you)? We are followers of Jesus, trying to become Christ-like (Gal 2: “It’s no longer I that live but Christ that lives in me”). So, ask yourself, in this situation, ‘What Would Jesus Do?’
• Can we relate to beggars? Most beggars look dirty, have matted hair, and wear old worn-out clothing. Some have limbs missing and various diseases, both physical and mental. A few look down-right scary, with deformities, untreated burns, open wounds, and off-putting skin conditions. But beggars are human beings, made in God’s image. Like all human beings, they thrive on relationship, not rejection. Why not try talking with them? Often their faces will light up into beautiful smiles. They have interesting (and terrible) stories to share. Get to know the regulars, build a friendship with them. You will be blessed as you bless them.
• Aren’t we all beggars in some way? Beggars are people requiring assistance to live. Therefore I’m also a beggar. As a mission worker, I beg from the New Zealander Baptist churches to enable me to live and work here. What’s the difference? Church history records a number of “missions” which were begging missions. The workers showed reliance on God by begging.
• Is the beggar working for others? The individual beggar may be part of an organized begging collective, controlled by others, whoreceive the day’s money, while the beggar receives only a small amount. If this is true, so what? The beggar still needs to earn enough each day to pay the boss and keep a bit to survive on. Isn’t that called business?
• Is giving money the best way to help? Some say we should not directly give money, as this is only short-term assistance, while maintaining long-term dependency. Rather we need to work for long-term solutions addressing the cause of poverty, empowering and equipping the poor to improve their own lives through entrepreneurialism, employment, etc. This is all good and correct development theory, which many of us are trying to implement through our work here. However, have you ever tried explaining all this to the beggar who is tapping on your window? They prefer the spare change in your pocket. Wouldn’t you? There is a time and place for long-term development assistance, but it’s usually not possible while waiting at traffic lights.
• If we give to one beggar, won’t we be swamped by all the others? Yes, sometimes 3 or 4 can suddenly appear out of thin air, but I think “swamped” is a little exaggerated. The key is good planning before starting your journey. Loose change (notes and coins) sitting handy in your top pocket is best, or food, if that is your preference. However, trying to get your wallet out of a hip pocket while sitting in a car (with a seat-belt on) as the traffic lights change from red to green is tricky. So, give to the beggars you can and apologize to those you can’t. They’re very understanding in this line of work. The economics are simple: If many people give a little, there will be sufficient for all. Mother Teresa said, “We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.” Giving a few cents away on a regular basis costs almost nothing, especially when compared with the huge amounts we regularly spend on ourselves.
• Wouldn’t spiritual help be better? In the story of Jesus feeding the 5000, he teaches the people about the kingdom of God and heals the sick, and then his disciples want to send the hungry masses away. But Jesus says to his disciples, “You give them something to eat!” There is a time and place for spiritual help, but the hungry person in front of you needs money or food.
• Is anybody watching how we respond to beggars? I’ve been told at language school by Bangladeshi folk that “Westerners are hard-hearted.” In a Muslim-majority country like Bangladesh, if you are a white-skinned foreigner, the assumption is that you’re Christian. Our words and behavior are being watched and judged by local people. Will we show love and compassion, or hard-heartedness? Will our Christian witness be enhanced or made worse? God is watching, too. Perhaps as we show kindness to beggars, they and others may come to believe in our “good news” (John 13:34).

Our family tries to regularly give to beggars. It feels as if God is watching our response to beggars. It’s feels like the ultimate test of our Christianity…

Do we give to beggars? Yes!

Do we support long-term, church-based community development? Yes! It’s my job.