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What Do I Say To A Panhandler? October 30, 2005 The Reverend Roger Fritts Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church Bethesda, Maryland This fall a panhandler has been visiting us Sunday mornings. This often happens in downtown churches, but it is less common here in the suburbs. The first Sunday this panhandler appeared, our Choir Director, Mary Darne, found me. She told me: “A man is in the entrance asking people for money.” I said to Mary, “I suppose we could find Heather and ask her to handle it. It would be a good challenge for the new minister. We could all stand back and watch how she handles it.” Of course, my humor can only carry me so far. Sometimes I have to behave like an adult and face my responsibilities. So I headed out to deal with the situation. The beggar was an African American man, about forty years old. I said, “You cannot stand here and ask people for money, you have to leave.” I know I looked uncaring to the church members around me. I felt awkward. I want you to all think of me as a nice guy. “I will leave,” he said, and then he turned to a man coming into the church and said “Can you spare some money for breakfast?” I could feel myself getting angry. I placed my hand on his arm and I said again, “You cannot stand here and ask people for money, you have to leave.” He did not like my touching him and he pulled away. “I will leave,” he said, but he did not move. Police divide panhandling into two types: passive and active. Many panhandlers go about their business in a passive manner, making a request or holding out a cup with coins. Active panhandlers are more aggressive, begging for money at times and places where people have difficulty saying no, such as in front of a church on a Sunday morning. I said again, “ You cannot ask for money on our property while people are coming into worship. I will walk with you until you are off the church property.” “I will leave when I am ready,” he said. I said, “If you don’t get off our property right now, I will call the police.” “I will leave ” he said, but he stood there. Perhaps he was waiting to see if I was bluffing. I walked back to my office and called the police. I asked for a patrol car to swing by. I went back to the front of the church. By the time I got back the man had left. Later I heard that the priest at Holy Redeemer had also sent him away when he had tried to panhandle at their church. While I tried to act with decisiveness that day, inside I was struggling with a moral dilemma. On the one hand, we should welcome strangers into this church to worship with us. On the other hand, people should feel safe when they come here to worship. A panhandler at the front entrance asking everyone for money as they come to church does not create a feeling of safety. You should not feel afraid when you come to church. On the other hand, if this man is truly hungry, I do not want to turn him away, I want to help him. On the other hand, many people who panhandle do so to get money to buy drugs or alcohol or tobacco. I do not want to support their addiction. The fact that this little drama is occurring this fall, and that this morning I’m preaching on this issue is a coincidence. Last March, as my contribution to the auction, I offered to sell the right to select a topic for a sermon that I would write and deliver on an appropriate Sunday morning. A number of people bid on this opportunity, but eventually Cal Perkins had the highest bid and named a sermon topic. Cal and his lovely wife, Jerry, and I had lunch together. We talked about this question that became the title of the sermon today. It is of interested to Cal because he wants to help people who are in need. As a physician he and Jerry have spent years volunteering at a Free Clinic in the District. Cal also works at a free clinic in Gaithersburg. They are caring people and they struggle with the moral dilemma of what to do when they see a panhandler. Religion teaches us to care about others. In his excellent book How Much Do We Deserve Richard Gilbert, who will deliver our Kiplinger lecture next Saturday at 2 p.m., points out that in the New Testament, book of Acts, it says “and all who believed were together and had all things in common; and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as in he had need.” This suggests that early Christians shared everything with each other. In Judaism, Reverend Gilbert quotes a passage in Isaiah: “The Lord has anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted . . ” again suggesting that we should share our wealth. Reverend Gilbert writes that the Koran condemns hoarders of wealth, and upholds the virtuous who share their wealth. In Asia, Buddhist monks are sometimes panhandlers. The Hindu Gandhi said “We are thieves in a way. If I take anything that I do not need for my own immediate use, and keep it, I thieve it from somebody else.” These religious traditions—Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, and Hindu—all find fault with excessive consumption in the face of desperate human need. Reverend Gilbert proposes fundamental changes in government policy to create a more equitable distribution of wealth in our society. He will talk more about this in his lecture next Saturday at 2:00 p.m. Of course, the reforms Rev. Gilbert suggests will take many years to bring about. All of our lives we will encounter panhandlers. If I do not ignore a panhandler, if I think about them even a little bit, I squirm and toss, and turn, finding it difficult to decide what is right or wrong. As a minister I live with Victor Hugo’s story of Bishop. In the story a poor man is fed and sheltered by the Bishop. In the night the poor man steals the church’s silver. He is caught by the police who bring him back to the Bishop. Instead of thanking the police for catching a thief, the Bishop says to the thief, “I gave you the candlesticks too, which are of silver like the rest, and for which you can certainly get two hundred francs. Why did you not carry them away with your forks and spoons?” The story sets a high standard for the clergy. We have no silver in this church, but still we are occasionally robbed. Over the years our thefts have involved electronic gadgets. If the police showed up at our door with a man who had taken one of our office computers, what would you want me to do? Should I tell the police officer that I had given the computer to the thief? Should I give the thief another computer? How would I explain my generosity it to the Board of Trustees? A great story in a novel or a play or a movie does not always translate into real life. When a beggar approaches me asking for money what should I do? What if the beggar is a mother with a child? What if the beggar smells of alcohol, but is the child of a deceased member of this congregation? What if the panhandler approaches people during a reception following a memorial service? All of these examples have happened to me during the years that I have served as a minster, although most have not occurred at Cedar Lane. In the larger perspective, compared with the problems of war or global warming, panhandling is a small problem. Yet it is a moral issue most of us face several times a week at intersections or street corners. Who are panhandlers? According to a Justice Department booklet prepared for police, the typical panhandler is an unemployed, unmarried male in his 30s or 40s, with drug or alcohol abuse problems, few family ties, a high school education, and laborer’s skills. A high percentage of panhandlers have been in their community for a long time. Only a small percentage of homeless people panhandle, and only a small percentage of panhandlers are homeless. Studies show that few panhandlers routinely sleep outdoors at night. So, this is not a sermon about homelessness. Studies have found that most panhandlers are not interested in regular employment, particularly not minimum wage jobs. They believe minimum wage jobs would be more work and less profitable than panhandling. Some are also unable to commit to regular work hours because of drug or alcohol addictions. The studies estimate that the average panhandler makes between a couple of dollars a day on the low end, to $20 to $50 a day in the mid-range, to about $300 a day on the high end. Panhandlers who make $300 a day are usually women with young children in tow. About 40% of adult Americans have given money to panhandlers in the last year. Those who give to panhandlers average $25 per year. Our opinions about panhandling are rooted in our deeply held beliefs about individual liberty, public order, social responsibility and money. Our opinions are shaped by our exposure to panhandling—for most of us the more we are panhandled, the less sympathetic we are toward panhandlers. Personally, I almost never give money. Using small discretionary funds donated by church members, I have driven people to the metro and bought them a metro card. I have driven to the drug stores and bought basic personal supplies. I have given out food from our blue bin near the Chapel. I have paid hotel bills and rent bills to keep families off the streets. I have followed people in my car to a gas station and bought a tank of gas for their car. I seldom give anyone cash because cash can be used to buy drugs, alcohol or tobacco. I am not saying that all panhandlers are substance abusers. I am saying that many of them are, and I do not have enough information to tell who is an addict and who is not. If I give addicts money, I am subsidizing a destructive illness. I cannot cure them of their addiction, but I can refrain from supporting it. People come into my office and tell me stories. I do not know how much is true and how much is made up. I like to believe that most of the time the panhandlers who approach me are telling the truth. However, in the book Under The Overpass the author describes a conversation he had at a soup kitchen in the District with a man named Jake. Jake said “let me tell you how to make two hundred dollars a day. Go somewhere and get a pair of old ratty clothes. Tear holes in them, rub them in the mud, make yourself look absolutely terrible. Then, go sit outside Union Station at rush hour. Hunch your back, cough a lot, make your eyes water. When people stop, tell them a sob story. Your mother got killed when you were two. Your father raped you. You’ve got AIDS. Your girlfriend just died two days ago. . . . Guys, people give me twenties and fifties all the time! Imagine how much crack that’ll buy.” The Montgomery County Coalition For The Homeless, Bethesda Cares, and Shepherd’s table all recommend giving out “street cards” when people ask for money. In English and Spanish the cards say where anyone can get a meal. In the next two weeks I hope to get a supply of these cards and put them on our table below the name tags so that all of you can pick some up, if you wish to do so. Another solution is to give panhandlers gift certificates to fast food restaurants, instead of cash. Of course, there is a risk that panhandlers will sell the gift certificates for money to buy drugs. When I drive a person to a metro stop and buy them a metro card, I always look them in the face and say: “This is to help you get where you want to go. Don’t sell this to buy tobacco or alcohol or drugs.” They always assure me that they will not. In a moment we will sing the closing hymn For All That Is Our Life. Many of you will go to coffee hour after the service. The gentleman who has been appearing at our church during coffee hour to panhandle may be there again today. I don’t know. What should you say? I never give orders, only advice. My advice in this situation is to tell that gentleman that it is not appropriate for him to panhandle in our church on Sunday morning. If he continues after you have told him, find me. I will tell him it is not appropriate for him to panhandle at our church. He’s free to do so on the sidewalk on Cedar Lane, which is public property. However, if he stays on our property and if he continues to panhandle, I will call the Police Non-Emergency at 301-279-8000. He is free to take food from the blue bin by the chapel. He can have a free cup of coffee. If he would like to join us at worship, he is welcome. If one of you would like to buy him a donut, that is fine. But if he continues to ask for money, I will call the police and ask them to escort him off our grounds. A significant number of us do not feel safe when a stranger is asking us for money. You have a right to be able to come here and worship and bring your children and feel safe. Jesus said “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” But Jesus did not say, give your money to people who are suffering from the illness of alcohol addiction. Isaiah said “give good tidings to the afflicted.” But Isaiah did not say, “help fund a poor person’s cocaine illness.” Islam teaches that one of the five pillars of wisdom is to give charity to others. But the Koran strictly prohibits the drinking of alcoholic beverages. Buddhists say “strive to obtain the maximum of well-being with a minimum of consumption.” But Buddha did not say that we should help pay for someone’s nicotine illness. About wealth the Hindu, Gandhi said “you and I, who ought to know better must adjust our wants.” But Gandhi spoke out against drug addiction and alcohol abuse. If our goal is to truly help others, we must at times have the wisdom to say no, we must have the courage, the strength to set limits. Sources: Panhandling Michael S. Scott, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services Under the Overpass, Mike Yankoski, Multnomah Publishers, Sister, Oregon, 2005 How Much Do we Deserve? Richard S. Gilbert, 2001. |
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