The Problem with Charity

People are sometimes surprised to hear that at The Garage at Living Faith, we don’t think of what we do as charity.

From the outside, it sure looks like charity. We fix cars for free for people who can’t afford repairs. By any standard definition, that’s charitable giving, and there’s nothing wrong with charitable giving. But there’s a version of charity that takes something from the people it helps, and usually nobody notices. If you care about dignity in serving the poor, it’s worth knowing what that version looks like, because it’s the one most of us default to when we’re not paying attention.

The hierarchy nobody says out loud

The problem version of charity sounds something like this: I have something you don’t have, and out of the goodness of my heart, I’m going to give you some of it.

Nobody says that sentence out loud, but it can sit underneath everything. It sets up a subtle ranking, with the helper and the helped, the capable and the needy, and it tells something damaging to the person on the receiving end: You are less than me, and I am generous enough to help you anyway.

People can feel it. Within minutes they know whether they’re being genuinely seen or being managed, and whether the person helping them views them as an equal or as a project. If they feel like a project, the car might get fixed, but their dignity takes a hit on the way out the door.

“No distinction”

The best cure I know for this is one short phrase from Paul’s letter to the Romans.

“For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:22–23).

Paul spends the first two and a half chapters of Romans taking apart every category people use to feel superior: Jew and Gentile, religious and irreligious, moral and immoral. Then he lands here. No distinction. All have sinned and all fall short, and the ground is level.

We’re endlessly creative at sorting people into the helpers and the helped, the strong and the weak, and the gospel won’t let us do it. At the foot of the cross everyone is in the same spot, needing grace we couldn’t earn.

The volunteer who really believes that can’t look down at the person whose car they’re fixing. They can only look across.

So you aren’t a healthy person helping a sick one. You’re one person who has received grace, helping another person who needs it, and the only difference between you is the specific shape of your need.

What looking across looks like

Kevin is one of our volunteers. He sometimes drives customers home after a session when their car isn’t ready. He doesn’t do it because he feels sorry for them. They’re real people with real needs, and right then they happen to need a ride.

That’s just what you do when you see a person instead of a problem.

The difference usually shows up in small things. These are a few I’d watch for in any serving setting, whether it’s a food pantry, a clothing closet, or a repair shop:

• Names. A charity case is “the 2 o’clock.” A person has a name, and you use it.
• Talking to versus talking about. Do you explain things to the person, or only about them to your teammates while they stand there?
• Questions. Do you ask what they think, or assume you already know what they need?
• Your face when you hear their story. Pity looks different from respect, and people can tell.
• Who you’d sit with at lunch. If the people you serve would feel out of place at your table, the ranking is still there.

Don’t treat these as techniques, because they’re really symptoms. Fix the posture and most of them fix themselves.

C.S. Lewis said it better than I can. Every person who walks through your door will outlast every building, program, and institution you’ve ever worked for.

An honest admission

If you’ve served for any length of time, you’ve probably felt a little flicker of superiority toward someone you were helping, a sense that you’re the together one and they’re the one who needs fixing. Can you relate?

That’s worth admitting, at least to yourself. It doesn’t make you a bad volunteer. It makes you a normal human who needs the same grace as the person across the counter.

And honestly, that’s freeing. Once you stop being the rescuer, you don’t have to hold that position anymore. You can just be a person, serving another person, both of you on level ground.

Try this

Before your next shift, read Romans 3:21–26 slowly. Then, at the shift itself:

1. Learn the name of one person you serve, and use it.
2. Ask them one question that has nothing to do with the job.
3. Afterward, ask yourself honestly: Did I see a person, or a project?

If you lead a team, you might put that last question to your volunteers. Can you tell the difference in practice between helping someone because you feel sorry for them and helping because you see them as a peer? It makes for a good conversation, and an uncomfortable one.

This idea is the second chapter of Full Service, my book for volunteers. And if you want to see what our customers receive on their side of the counter, Under the Hood was written for them. It tells the same story from the ground level, where all of us stand.