It Makes Me Feel Like Scrooge

In the past two decades, I've had countless experiences of answering the church office phone and listening to requests for financial assistance.

I've found that the requests tend to fall into predictable categories. Most people ask for assistance with paying some overdue bill -- usually a utility or rent. These are usually the most bold, and sound something like "Do you help people with their bills?" (the short version) or "I'm calling because my husband lost his job and my daughter has been really sick and we cannot afford the medicine and they're saying they are going to kick us out of where we're staying tonight if we don't come up with $500 right now and my car is broken down so I can't go to work and I don't know where else to turn" (the long version).

Every once in a while I'll stumble into something new and unexpected, such as the time when a blind gentleman was stuck downtown because his ride never came and he couldn't reach anyone from his own church on the phone. (He turned out to be a great guy, by the way, and we were happy to come and give him a lift. His pastor later called and thanked us for stepping in, and it made me feel really good.)

Or then there was the time when someone wanted to know if we help people pay overdue rent. It turns out that sometime in their past they received help from a church themselves. now they'd stumbled into some extra money and were hoping that a church could pass along the generosity on their behalf.

The most surprising one I've received was from a Jewish man who was stranded and unable to reach anyone in his own synagoge on a Sabbath (we helped him get in contact with someone he knew). We ended up having a very interesting conversation along the way, and I was really glad that God allowed our paths to cross for that brief moment.

Over the years, I've responded to these different requests for help according to the wishes of the church leadership. Some churches set aside funds to respond to such requests along with guidlines for their disbursal. Others set up referrals to organizations more equipped to evaluate the needs and assist appropriately. I remember one church I served that was contacted by the local police department asking that we refer all these kinds of requests directly to them and allow them to make referrals from there. (Apparently it's pretty common for some people to go from church to church in the yellow pages, asking for assistance, and kind of "milking" the system.)

Unfortunately, these kinds of calls are pretty common. At Hope, we get at least a couple of them every week, and sometimes they come in waves. I think my record was something like 10 in one morning (though I suspect they were all from the same family passing around a couple of phones asking multiple times).

But for some reason I keep forgetting about how much these calls increase in the week or so before Christmas.

I've received 6 such calls in the last two hours, and they all took the same approach: "Do you help families at Christmas?" and from there they launched into a request for assistance with a utility bill. Sadly, most of them said that they regularly attend another church (though, admittedly, I had not heard of any of the churches they mentioned, nor could I find information quickly online). When I asked about turning to their own church for assistance, they each told me that their church doesn't help people in need. So I made the proper referrals and offered them a phone number they could call in pursuit of assistance.

The first person who called started the conversation by saying, "Do you help families at Christmas? I was told to call you." When I asked who gave her the referral to call me, she quickly hung up.

The last person who called proceeded to cuss at me (!) for not immediately cutting them a check, saying, "How can you call yourself a church and not help people when they ask for it?" (Just a moment before, the lady had sounded like she was almost in tears as she told me that her family would be kicked out tonight, how none of the other charities in town would offer her any help, etc. But when I asked her questions instead of giving her money right away, it was like someone flipped a switch and made her venemous. Really scary stuff.)

This kind of thing makes me feel just horrible. The needs of mankind seem so infinite, and the situation is only made more challenging by the necessity of determining which requests are legitimate, which ones are exploitations of other people's generosity, which ones are enabling an ongoing problem in their lives, and which ones should be redirected to the kind of assistance that will make a difference in the long haul. All I want to do is show them God's love and point them to his grace. I realize that "when you refuse to help the least of these brothers and sisters, you refuse to help [Jesus]" (Matthew 25:45), and I truly want to pour out generosity in response to every request.

But that's just not possible in our circumstance, nor would it be wise based on experience that leaves me more than a little bit jaded. So I end up feeling like a Scrooge sitting in my office the week before Christmas.

And I hate that feeling. I really do.

Bah. Humbug.