“How’re you doing?” my therapist asks me after a particularly rough news cycle. She knows that a number of my civil rights are on the federal docket to be slashed. “About as good as I could be doing,” I reply, “really feeling alienated though.” I go on to explain how, as a person experiencing oppression, I am incensed with my well-meaning, white, liberal peers who seem to think I’m fully incapable of living a good life without “good” policy. I lament that I cannot imagine why they can’t imagine I could still have a meaningful life without affirming policies. I feel alienated from people who largely are still complacent with the general illusory message that the government, so long as it agrees with us, can save me.

This week’s text from Amos’ prophecy foretells consequences for all of Jerusalem rather than solely the rich, and indicates much deeper issues than purely the matter of possessing resources. Amos 6:7 states that the ultra-rich and unjust will be “first to be exiled,” indicating that others will follow. In other translations of Amos, the first few verses actually read, “Woe to you who are complacent in Zion, and to you who feel secure on Mount Samaria” (Amos 6:1 NIV). Amos uses the contextual imagery of opulence to emphasize the sinfulness of inaction and complacency while others in the community suffer. However, the primary target of this section is to decry the indifference to and outright abandonment of the poor that innately comes in one’s own comfort rather than to chastise particular individuals. Amos is after the insidious “it is what it is” type attitudes that are generated by economic injustice. 

Luke 16:19-31 follows up on this theme by making it even clearer that there is a personal responsibility rather than purely a structural, political one. Although this is a parable, Jesus indicates that personal choices made in response to hearing prophecy and spiritual truth, actually do matter. The rich man ignores key religious structures and informal social agreements that were set up to ensure a social safety net to ensure dignity for beggars. Lazarus’ waiting at the rich man’s estate was not unique and was a common occurrence during 2nd temple life. Beggars would wait at gates of cities, the Temple, and other places frequented by the rich, and could expect to be met with practices of “tzedakah” (justice). Tzedakah practices of almsgiving and other “charitable” actions were not dictated by formal laws, and the duty to practice tzedakah was expected of all Jews, not just the enormously rich. The rich man could say, “I pay my taxes to Rome so that the poor can take from the grain dole,” and justify that he had indeed given to the poor via the civic institutions of the governing Roman authorities. It is possible that the rich man didn’t feel he had ever maliciously harmed Lazarus in any way. 

While it is true that “individual behaviors” are a distraction from the role of companies, governments, militaries, etc. in ending large-scale horrors present in human life, the hard truth of the Gospel is that individual and localized transformation and lovingkindness, dignity-making, mutual-aid giving, and justice-practicing is indeed part of bringing radical liberation. Radical liberation cannot be legislated. In fact, it would likely be neither ‘radical’ nor ‘liberative,’ if it were. When reading prophets like Amos or conversations between Jesus and “rich” men, it’s easy to point fingers at Elon Musk because of how particularly easy it has become to dislike Elon Musk. However, it’s time that we understand how a misplaced trust and overreliance on the structures and procedures of an inherently colonial government are in fact part of comfort and complacency. To be comfortable trusting the sole power of legislation is to already have found comfort in systems of power, which have never been for the poor and oppressed. My therapist asked me why the politics of my peers was impacting me so much. I thought for a minute and replied, “If they’re not willing to engage directly in digging up the root because it’s ‘too complex’ and instead want me to wait for the best political option to rule the entirety of my local, state, and federal structures or, I don’t know, wait for people who revile me to die…then I don’t know when I’ll ever experience relief but in heaven itself.” 

My general practice of engaging with my unhoused neighbors is to genuinely view them as neighbors. I get to know them, their stories, their interests, and how they’ve come to be geolocated near me. This approach always and inherently makes me less complacent in systems of organized abandonment and more attentive to the actual needs of my vulnerable neighbors as opposed to theoretical knowledge I may have about groups statistically similar to them.

This week, I invite you to engage in mutual relationships with your vulnerable neighbors. This does not mean “volunteer more often at the soup kitchen your church runs.” This does not mean “donate more supplies to the hygiene drive” and definitely doesn’t mean “hand $5 to the man on the corner.” These actions are largely one-sided, don’t engage in the messy humanity of the Other, and also still accept the status quo of separation. What I mean is to intertwine your day with someone completely outside of your world. 

• Notice one person on your regular daily route/life who is there regularly and is experiencing housing or food insecurity (i.e. begging and/or sleeping on the streets)
• Take time out of your day to go up to them and talk to them
• Introduce yourself and ask them their name
• Ask them what resources they specifically need (it’s not always food and it’s not always money) 
• If they’re hungry, invite them to sit at a restaurant with you (if nearby and visible, you don’t want to sound like you’re luring this person for malicious reasons) or offer to go pick up food and bring it back and eat with them
• Learn more about their story, tell them about yourself
• Find out how they’d actually like their neighbors to engage with them
• Ask if you can continue to visit them 

Through the many ways of mutual relationship with my unhoused neighbors, I have become attuned to the real needs of locally specific experiences of homelessness. It is important that we do this work or our “good” policies and procedures will continue to miss the mark on true dignity and support for the vulnerable because we never bothered to be relational with the neighbors we’re voting to help.