I have been asked to speak about why I volunteer at Old First,
keeping in mind the theme of Volunteer Sunday: “Who is going to harm you if you
are eager to do good?” (! Peter 3:13)
Let me start by describing what I do as a volunteer. I am one of
the many volunteers that support our summer shelter program. For several years
now, Old First has served as a summer respite shelter for homeless men.
During the
summer months, when the city is certain that leaving folks unsheltered will not
lead to freezing deaths and bad press, a significant portion of the city
shelter system shuts down. Civilian organizations, like Old First and the
non-profit organization CAMBA, step up to fill this gap in service.
For a few
months, we provide dinners and beds for homeless men currently working their
way through CAMBA’s housing program. We do this every weeknight, throughout the
season. We get somewhere between seven and fourteen men each night. Volunteers
greet them, feed them, keep them safe through the night, and see them off again
in the morning.
We do this with the generous support of other congregations and
non-religiously affiliated volunteers. The volunteer crew has included artists
and bankers, cooks and scholars, religious leaders and atheists, grandparents
and school children. The shelter clients range from their early 20s to nearly
80. They include construction workers and shop clerks, custodians and the
unemployed, parents and runaways, and at least one painter.
My short path to working for the respite shelter began with an
experiment in charity. I won’t go into the Biblical and personal inspirations
for the particular experiment, but a few years back I decided that I would
always carry change in my pocket and I would, without hesitation or
consideration, give money to anybody who asked for it. I would not judge the
stories I was given. I would not turn away people who, given the circumstances,
were certainly lying to me. I would not attempt to evaluate the legitimacy of
the need of the person asking. I would just say yes. I would just give them
some of what I had.
Obviously, this small experiment has not ended poverty and
want in the city. I have no idea – no way of even guessing – what impact this
has had on the people who have asked me for money. I will say, however, that it
has had an impact on me. Essayist Erik Reece writes that the critical impulse
is a byproduct of the Fall. He states that, before the Fall, Adam and Eve
engaged the world around them through creative giving. Mirroring the Creator who
gave life to everything, Adam and Eve gave names to everything. It was only
after eating the forbidden fruit that they began to understand aspects of the
world around them as good or evil. That’s much too philosophical for me to
unpack, but I do take this away: We were fully human and giving before we ever got
into the business of judging. I decided that, to the best of my ability, I’d
try to commit to a relationship of giving and charity as my default position. I’d
commit to giving and could work out the details later.
I was well into this experiment, when I was approached by Cynthia
and Daniel to help with the shelter. I was hesitant at first. There was a valid
political criticism of the summer shelter program: it could be argued that, by
covering the gap in shelter coverage, we were enabling the government to shirk
what should be their year-round responsibility to shelter these men. I was also
sympathetic to those who envisioned that we would be turning our sanctuary into
some Dickensian holding tank for the hopeless.
I discovered that the reality of
the program in no way matches this Jacob Riisian nightmare – but how would you
know at first, if you’d never seen the shelter program in action? Finally,
there’s the obvious jealousy I think we all feel about whatever sliver of time
is left to us when every other demand takes its cut. I’ve never met a person
who actually suffers from having too much time on their hands.
But, in keeping with the personal experiment that I was already
running, I decided that I would commit to volunteering first and worry about
the details later. A year later, as we look at another season, I’ve
re-committed to volunteering again.
Why? First, if there’s something liberating about embracing the
logic of the gift in your approach to others. There’s a freedom in not having
to play the judge. This feeling is strengthened in me when the focus of the
relationship is food and shelter. Every Sunday, we are asked to give money
as a symbol of our bodies, our labor. And it is good and right to do so. But I
can’t help but feel that there’s something pure about taking the symbolism out
of the equation. Give food to a hungry person. Give a tired wanderer a safe
place to rest. And do it solely because they showed up at your door hungry and
tired. So little of my work-a-day week makes that much sense. The simplicity of
it is truly a blessing.
Second, it serves as a strong bond to my faith. Participating in
this shelter program was a lesson in God’s love, Jesus’s love. It isn’t an
accident that feasts and food feature so prominently in the Bible, are an
aspect of so many divine miracles. Brecht writes, “First bread, then morals.”
Any of the shelter clients and the shelter volunteers can tell you that the
playwright is making an unnecessary and erroneous distinction. Feeding the
hungry is always a moral exercise. A slice of bread is a moral fact. A clean
bed is a concrete statement of how you value your fellow man.
This is, I think, the explanation for why,
strangely, Old First’s shelter has a curious reputation for being the gourmet
client’s shelter of choice. Our food here is, I’m told, unusually good, as far
as the shelters go. I submit that this is because it is reflection of us at our
best.
Which leads us to my third and final reason for volunteering. Free
food. And its usually pretty good. Last year, we had at least one professional
chef on the team. So that’s some no-joke good food. Just saying.
I volunteer because it is where I put to test the proposition that
a loving God made a good world and find, again and again, the proposition
holds. I thank Cynthia and Daniel for the invitation to this experience. I
thank the other volunteers who have kept the program going. I thank Jabe, who
is leading the effort this coming summer. And I give thanks to everybody at Old
First who supported this wonderful thing we do.
This is not necessarily my pitch for why you should join us on the
shelter team - though you should, we’d love to have you. What I do recommend,
from my own experience, is putting the adopting a attitude of giving towards
the world. Commit to volunteer before you sweat the details. Volunteer, and see
where it leads you.
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