LV,
I appreciate your points. We do not 'feed' in the park, we 'share food'. Trying to live in to the Acts 2 model of 'they took all they had and held it in common and gave it out as each had need.'
We consider ourselves to be in community with those we share with. There is much more happening than just sharing food, it is people being present with each other. It is about making the invisible visible and valued, It is about the Christ in one recognizing the Christ in the other. The park is the place where there are such life sustaining resources as restrooms, and tables and water.
I would respectfully differ with the idea that the Messiah is suggesting hiding the poor. I think the message from the Matthew passage is cautioning against self aggrandizement, the idea that your acts can buy you standing before the Lord. From a practical standpoint you have to let people know when and where a sharing will take place. The Messiah always stands ready to assist the poor. I'd point to the Scroll of the Sanhedrin at 98a where it tells us that the Messiah sits at the entrance of the gates of Rome (kind of the public gateway to the city...just like Lake Eola Park ). Around him sit the poor, wrapped in bandages, suffering from disease. Like them, the Messiah is bandaged from head to toe. When the beggars are ready to change their bandages, they unwind them all at the same time. But the Messiah changes them one by one, in case he should be summoned, so that He will be ready.
I agonize over the dignity issues too. But then I think if it wasn't this there would be Saints made in the image of God, who would go hungry. Then i remember we are servants of the Servant who died for our sins, suffering the indignity of the cross. Then I am lead to the truth that their is nothing more dignifying than recognizing that suffering savior personified in His poor.

I truly value your comments, even if they are sometimes one that really make us question and think things through.

Blessings,

Alan

The average age of a homeless person in the United States is age 9. I don't know that a person that age is fully culpable for their lifestyle choice.

The face of homelessness we tend to think of is the chronically homeless adult male on a bench at a bus stop, or an old mentally ill lady wearing 4 jackets pushing a shopping cart full of stuff. We tend to overlook the children and families impacted by the tragedy of homelessness. This is complicated by the fact that families often seek to hide their homelessness out of a legitimate fear that the state will take their children away from them if they find out they are homeless.

I'm not a fully certified expert on the first amendment, so having made my points I'll acknowledge that you have a legitimate argument, and leave it to the courts to sort it all out.

But to the point that you have an argument that your acts are "expressive", and calculated to draw attention, you have another problem:

"Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven."

"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." (Matt 6:1-4)

Even if you aren't doing this for the honor of it all there are still some problems with making charity into a public demonstration like this. First, there are a lot of decent people who apply Jesus' words more directly and go out of their way to be discrete in their giving, and whether you mean to or not you are showing them up. A casual bystander is bound to come away with the "message" that you are generous and they are not. And it ain't necessarily so.

Another problem is that of the dignity of the poor. Jesus is tapping into a long tradition that says that the poor should be allowed to receive their help in private as much as possible to protect their own privacy. I'm not convinced that the dignity of the poor is improved when they are recruited to serve as bit players in someone else's political stunt.

Finally, when the program is structured in such a way as to maximize attention, there are bound to be compromises in terms of how the poor are actually cared for. You might question the wisdom of the government in fighting you. One could also question the wisdom of your fighting the government. The time that you spend consulting with attorneys could be spent on other things, such as (thinking completely off the top of my head here) collecting clothes and giving the people you help a place to bathe themselves, which would have the added benefit of minimizing the risks that they'll be hassled the next time they go to Lake Eola Park.

Of course, you sincerely think you're sticking up for your first amendment rights and I can't hold that against you. Even if you lose your case there's value in forcing the government to make its case. Just realize there's a cost, and the poor in Orlando are paying part of it. I'll leave it to you to figure out if it's all worth it.

LV

I'm trying to bend my mind around two statements that suggest that not all posters live in the same country or perhaps even the same planet. Alan Clapsaddle asks: Wouldn’t you think that with the current economic crisis there would be more understanding and compassion? Elsewhere, DITE says: "Continually subsidizing their current life-styles is not going to help them ascend from homelessness." Perhaps DITE lives in a place where people choose the "lifestyle" of homelessness and hunger; if so, I'd like to know where that place is. It certainly isn't in the city where I live. I have met many homeless and hungry people--I have never met one that chose homelessness or hunger or thought of homelessness as a lifestyle choice. Alan Clapsaddle's question is very important; with the ever increasing number of people without jobs, we can expect there will be more homeless and more hungry people. Jesus was always eating with 'inappropriate' people. In feeding the hungry, we are simply following Christ.

Paradoxtor,
Although they certainly have been raised in other cities, the health laws have not been at issue here in Orlando.

LV,
I think you will find our answer to the 11th Circuit in response to the city's appeal most illuminating and interesting. If you go to www.poorinorlando.com you will see the link in the upper right. I truly would enjoy your feedback on the issues we have brought forth there.

I confess I never thought of the 'credit check' question before. I would argue that is exactly what is happening... people wearing designer jeans and carrying lunch bags from Panerra are never harassed at the park, yet a person who appears to have worn the same clothes for three days will be stopped and a park ranger will want him to open the lid on his foam cup to make sure it is coffee and not something else.

Judge Presnell in the US District Court case here in Orlando, questioned the city on a hypothetical case regarding his hypothetical book club that was reading 'The Federalist Papers' and at what point and with how many people the city would take what action to approach him. You should read it.

Grace and Peace,
Alan

I am pleasantly relieved by the lack of angry denunciations, and grateful for the thoughtful reply.

From what you're describing -- and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about this -- there is no credit check at the park, meaning that poor families are admitted in the park on the same basis as the well-off. So to compare Orlando's policy to the segregated lunch counters misses the point.

If Orlando had a policy of allowing large picnics and other events where food was served to substantial numbers of unrelated people without licenses or permits, then you might have an example of "classism", but without that what you have is a rule that is reasonably related to the purposes of a park, and applied fairly. That this rule complicates your mission might be unfortunate, but that doesn't make it unconstitutional.

What I have yet to have explained to me is why this ministry must be done in this park -- is there nowhere else available? Have you even looked at other venues?

I'm not convinced that the lower court didn't misapply the first amendment when they ruled the food distribution "expressive". A creative person can concoct an "expressive" rationale for just about anything -- setting off illegal fireworks becomes a "patriotic display", skinny dipping in Lake Eola becomes a protest against repressive bourgeois notions of morality, failure to pay taxes (you do think we should pay our taxes, don't you?) becomes a "libertarian demonstration against the coercive powers of the state", etc, and eventually the first amendment legalizes just about anything, creating chaos.

I understand you might feel picked on, but chaos is a bad thing, and that's why as noble as your intentions might be you can't just call your food operation speech and assume that the Orlando City Government will just back down or that the courts will take your side.

LV

The irony of this post is that the primary issue is health laws and regulation that come from an excess of govenment intrusion and I would assume are generally highly supported by the views of Sojourners. My conservative church has faced the same issues in trying to help people. We however see it as excess govenment regulation not as an attempt to keep people from helping the homeless.

Just out of curiousity, are you treating this as a free exercise issue? We've been discussing the rules about restricting religious behaviors in class. It seems there's really no clear precedent with issues like this.

LV,
If you are looking for angry denunciations you won't find them from me. I fail my Lord and Savior every day, usually before breakfast. I pray that the Lord will remove the scales from your eyes so you can see His Son in the distressing disguise of the poor, as Matthew 25 shows us.

The hungry are as much a part of the people of Orlando as a person with a full belly in the park.

It is not my ministry, it is the Lord's.

There were mixed court decisions in the 60's and 70's in the civil rights cases around segregation of Blacks. As Dr. James Lawson, one of the surviving leaders of that movement has said, we need to have the courage to name the 'isms' - racism, sexism, and classism. These evils inject a poison that causes the person afflicted not to recognize the image of God in another person. Classism is not in the interest of society or government. Just as in the 1960's there was a group of people who thought they should not be subject to blacks at the Woolworth lunch counter, the front of the bus, or the drinking fountain in the public park, there are those now who seek to make themselves feel superior by trying to force apartheid on the poor.

While it may be compassionate to try to feed these people, it's definitely not helpful. Continually subsidizing their current life-styles is not going to help them ascend from homelessness.

And it's not a constitutional right to be able to do whatever you want on government land.

It's hard to distinguish just where governmental institution may draw the line and equally hard to tell when that line has been crossed. If I know that I will encounter a hungry person on my walk through the park, can I be proscribed from purchasing an extra Big Mac and handing it to someone in need? If I have rented a pavilion in a public park, am I allowed to share the food that I have brought with people who are not part of my group? If I simply leave some food on the table and go engage in some athletic activity while ignoring folks who help themselves, have I crossed the line?

Prosecuting those who are extending themselves to "the least of these" seems to me to be a perversion of both the law and our faith.

There is a good chance you are going to lose this case on appeal, and as crazy as it might sound, you probably should.

As important as your ministry is, it does not override all other interests of society or government. The City of Orlando is allowed to set up a park, and insist that it be used as a park.

Bracing myself for angry denunciations of my pitch-black heart, but confident that there is a way for the hungry to be fed while the people of Orlando enjoy playing softball or flying kites...

LV