ON MAKING A DIFFERENCE Gerald J. Gregg
Amos 5:21-24; 8:4-12 (T.E.V.) Broad Street Presbyterian Church
October 11, 1981 Columbus, Ohio

Reag@nomics and the poor: That is what compels this sermon. What should the
church do about the drastic reductions in federal help for the needy?

I have seldom, if ever, approached a sermon topic with such terribly strong,
and yet suci. n.:..2, f2clings, So I intend to listen very closely to this sermon
‘because, frankly, I am anxious to find out just what I am going to say.

There is much complexity and ambiguity in the situation. No one denies that
our national economy needs a major overhaul. The security of the elderly on fixed
incomes, the hopes of young couples for families and homes...those are certainly
among the church's concerns for people. The natienal budget has got to be brought
into line, everyone agrees,

Everyone agrees that the federal social programs need various reforms. There
are such things as welfare chiselers and second, even third, generation welfare
families. There is far too much bureaucratic waste. And everyone agrees that
churches can do more for the poor, so when President Reagan calls upon the private
sector to take care of the truly needy no longer included in the federal budget, at
least part of the private sector ---the church--- nods and says, "Yes, we feel a
responsibility there. We can do more."

But then it becomes ambiguous. Budget cuts are made not just at the expense
of bad anti-poverty programs. Effective and desperately needed ones are also crippled,
or eliminated. Not only the welfare cheats, but also people in abject and undeniable
need, are cut off. All this is done so quickly that, even if the churches have the
ability to respond, bonefide needs are so massive that there will be great suffering
before churches can hastily put the necessary new systems together. And the money
saved for the most part does not reduce the national debt; it gets spent, not saved.
Spent on the most inflation producing expenditures there dre---spent on bombs and
bombers.

Do you grasp that dreadful irony? As churches save government the expense of
poverty programs, much of the saving winds up fueling the insane nuclear race, as
national policy now stands, I think churches, now being called to the domestic front
line, should also insist on being on the front lines of decisions concerning peace
and war. The painful, overwhelming situation. being forced on churches i@ saturated
with tragedy and irony. Still, one imperative. holds fast to guide Christians. It
should also guide this "one nation under God", ‘The scriptures speak of it over and
over again. Perhaps it comes most clearly and forcefully through the Old Testament
prophet Amos. Listen as he presents God confronting first the church and then the
nation of his own day:

The Lord says, "I hate your religious festivals; I cannot stand them!
When you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not

accept them; I will not accept the animals you have fattened to bring me
as offerings. Stop your noisy songs; I do not want to listen to your
harps. Instead, let justice flow like a stream, and righteousness like
a river that never goes dry."

Listen to this, you that trample on the needy and try to destroy the poor
of the country, You say to yourselves, "We can hardly wait for the holy
days to be over so that we can sell our grain. When will the Sabbath
end, so that we can start selling again? Then we can overcharge, use

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false measures, and fix the scales to cheat our customers. We can sell
worthless wheat at a high price. We'll find a poor man who can't pay his
debts, not even the price of a pair of sandals, and we'll buy him as a
slave."

The Lord, the God of Israel, has sworn, "I will never forget their evil
deeds. And so the earth will quake, and everyone in the land will be in
distress. The whole country will be shaken; it will rise and fall like
the Nile River. The time is coming when I will make the sun go down at
noon and the earth grow dark in daytime. I, the Sovereign Lord, have
spoken, I will turn your festivals into funerals and change your glad
songs into cries of grief. I will make you shave your heads and wear
sackcloth, and you will be like parents mourning for their only son. That
day will be bitter to the end.

"The time is coming when I will send famine on the land. People will be
hungry, but not for bread; they will be thirsty, but not for water. They
will hunger and thirst for a message from the Lord, I, the Sovereign Lord,
have spoken. People will wander from Sea to Sea, from the north to the
east. They will look everywhere for a message from the Lord, but they
will not find it."

The scriptural message is that both church and nation are expressly charged
with responsibility for justice which focuses on the plight of the poor, Without
that concern, the church will not be heard by God. Without that concern, the nation
will suffer calamity upon calamity, and the ultimate catastrophe will be that they
have shut themselves off from God---they will not find any message from Him. Justice,
then, caring for the poor, is absolutely necessary if nation or church is to have a
continuing relationship with God.

The way we deal with the poor speaks volumes about how serious we are in all
our dealings with God. Not only Amos, but repeatedly prophetic voices made the
point: If we mess up our responsibility for the poor, the needy, the victim, the
outcast, then we are messing up our relationship to the God who is Father of us all,
The last parable we received from Jesus emphasizes that truth. (We read it as our
Responsive Reading - Matthew 5:38-48; 25:34-40). Who are the ones to be welcomed
into God's kingdom? According to the Parable of the Last Judgment, it is those who
feed the hungry, give a drink to the thirsty, receive the stranger, clothe the naked,
visit the prisoner. How important is that? The King shall say unto them, "Inasmuch
as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, even these least, ye did it unto me."

Three weeks ago, John Buchanan's sermon quoted another sermon that was preached
from this pulpit in 1937. After extensive remodeling, the sanctuary was being re-
dedicated. It was the fiftieth anniversary of this congregation and the preacher
was challenging the congregation about their future. He asked, "What will a citizen
of Columbus write in his annals about the difference this church made?"

I shared a long conversation several weeks ago which came at that from an unusual
perspective. A young Cambodian woman went on at considerable length to describe
the impression this church's ministry had made after her brief acquaintance with it.
She described how her own lifelong religion, Buddhism, offers a deeply spiritual and
philosophical view of life. "Buddhism teaches us to accept passively whatever our
situation, " she said. "We hope we will be granted a better life in the next exist-
ence, or the one after that. But you people, " she went on, “you try to make a
difference now. You work to make things right. I like that much better."

a % @

Another reflection was voiced by one of our newer members who transferred from
a strong church in another city. "My old church was a good Sunday church, " she said.
"But Broad Street is a seven-day-a-week church."

There is indeed a strong tradition of daily community ministry here---food
pantry, clothing center, recreation and educational programs for children and youth
year-round, emergency assistance, counseling, a building used seven days a week by
every sort of community group, financial contributions to help struggling service
projects and halfway houses.

The helping spirit of this congregation is evident whenever it is called upon.
Most recently our Deacons’ Fund for emergency assistance was completely used up and
the congregation was so informed, Last week's offering for that fund was over $600,
more than double previous years'. I hasten to add that, with things looking as they
do, that still may not last very long. All in all, I think a Columbus citizen of
the past forty-four years would write in his annals that Broad Street Church has
indeed made quite a difference. Of course, in 1937 the government was just beginning
to get serious about social projects. The years since this sanctuary was rededicated
have been years of increasing federal poverty programs. Still Broad Street Church
found there were many gaps, many people with great needs no government agency was
prepared to help, even when those agencies were most numerous and most generously
funded. Now that is all being reversed. Helping agencies are being dismantled or
drastically restricted. Great reductions are being made in government assistance
with such basic needs as food, shelter, and jobs.

It is no longer a question of churches filling the gaps, providing the backup.
Churches are expected to be the front line. That 1937 question has very different
implications when we ask it in the fall of 1981: Can Broad Street Church make a
difference now?

What the scope of that challenge will be, no one can fully predict at the
moment, But there are some clues. For instance, a new soup kitchen in the downtown
area served 500 a day in September. The central referral agency CALL has been re-
ceiving six or more pleas daily for help in paying gas bills from last winter so
heat will be turned on. For several weeks we received two or three such requests
here each day. The bills are typically $200 to $400 and I do not know any agency
able to handle that. We certainly couldn't. There is already a great increase in
people spending the night in the streets. I am told the children's slide in our
church playground has recently served one man as bed. Emergency food pantries, our
own included, are experiencing a large increase in need already, and the weather is
not yet cold, I don't have to tell you about skyrocketing utility rates. Both the
welfare poor and the working poor typically live in leaky, drafty apartments and
dilapidated houses. Thousands of such Columbus families will be forced to choose
between heat and food this winter. The drastically cut food stamp program will be
far too little. Many will turn up at food pantries for the first time and will
return repeatedly. ‘The number of transients is already on the rise---people coming
to Columbus in search of work. After their first two nights here in a mission -
all that is permitted - it is almost impossible to find inexpensive places for them
to stay in order to continue their job search, so they are forced to leave without
finding work.

I offer this as a brief sketch of the tip of the iceberg. This is what I see
personally acting as your staff person charged with community ministry. Ani,

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remember, I do not go out into the streets looking for people in difficulty. All I
see is those who somehow find their way to our church doors, How big the iceberg of
poverty crisis will be in Columbus this winter, only time and suffering will show.

Now, if I were sitting in your place at this moment, I'd be waiting for the big
ending, the upbeat climax of this woeful sermon. I'd be waiting for the preacher to
spell out the answers, the solutions he has already constructed. I deeply regret
that there is no such ending for this sermon. I'd like to be able to tell you that
all portions of the private sector are springing forward to meet the crisis, I'd
like to tell you the corporations have promised to donate a major part of the tax
savings which poverty program cuts will bring them. I'd like to tell you that, contrary
to his past record, the President will begin to set a personal example of charitable
giving which will inspire both well-off and wealthy Americans. I'd like to see evi-
dence that such things will happen. I hope they will.

I'd like to tell you I see signs of greatly increased compassion for the plight
of poor people. But instead, I hear increased use of the tired self-serving slurs.
Sure there are some welfare chiselers, A recent study concludes they exist in about
the same percentage as do the cheaters among employees and officers of every large
corporation. Not much reason for an attitude of superiority there. I think Christians
have a responsibility to point out the truth that the great majority of the poor are
in fact neighbors in real need. Let's not allow our national conscience to be salved
by the lie that most poor are lazy cheaters.

I'd also like to tell you that the sudden and drastic changes in federal programs
will be balanced so quickly by efforts from the private sector that in Columbus no
aged, inform widow will die of pneumonia in an unheated room; no infant needing for-
mula will suffer life-long brain damage from malnutrition; no loner will freeze to
death overnight under a bridge; no desperate, out-of-work father will steal because
his children are hungry. I'd like to assure you of that, but I can't. All the signs
are that we'll be reading just such newspaper accounts this winter.

But there are some things I can tell you, I can tell you this church has already
taken initiative to try to pool the resources of Columbus Presbyterian churches and
to band together the downtown area churches who minister most directly to poverty. I
can assure you that the Broad Street pastors, staff, and volunteers involved now in
meeting poverty needs will continue to do the best job possible carrying on ministries
this church is noted for. I can assure you that you are needed to increase that
effort, that your volunteering time, money, food and clothing are vital to make the
difference this winter. You will be hearing more about ways to help. And I can
assure you that your deeds of compassion for the poor will strengthen your relation-
ship with our God, the God who tells us we'll find Him among the least of these, our
brothers and sisters in need. Together serving Him, we can make a difference.

God, our Father, we offer our prayer for brothers and sisters in need, and for
ourselves. Help us to be generous and compassionate, reflecting Your generosity
to us each day, reflecting Your compassion for us proved in Jesus Christ, who calls
His followers to special ministry with the poor.
Amen.