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Towards a Theology of Social Ministry, by Fr. Michael Plekon

by Father Michael Plekon

 “Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’” ¹

The way to God lies through love of people. At the Last Judgment I shall not be asked whether I was successful in my ascetic exercises, nor how many bows and prostrations I made. Instead I shall be asked, Did I feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the prisoners. That is all I shall be asked. About every poor, hungry and imprisoned person the Savior says “I”: “I was hungry and thirsty, I was sick and in prison.”²

Many would define the Christian life as preaching the good news, celebrating the liturgy and observing the fasts and feasts. The life in Christ is surely one of prayer and proclamation, a “sacrifice of praise,” as we sing in the liturgy, but it is also a “mercy of peace.” The theology of social ministry is there, in the New Testament, incarnate in the very actions of the Lord Jesus Himself—His feeding of thousands of hungry people, His healing of the sick, raising the dead, restoring life to the world—and it echoes in both the words of the liturgy and in the bread and cup by which the Lord feeds us.

Some might ask whether there is a theology of social ministry. Still others might even wonder what social ministry is. We have the Lord’s words to frame a definition, in the first text above, from Saint Matthew’s Gospel. And the second text, which interprets and explains the first, comes from a saint of our time, Mother Maria Skobtsova (1891–1945), who died as a martyr for trying to save people from the Nazi extermination camps. To follow Christ, to live out the Gospel, entails many things, but at the very root is the command to love God with one’s whole heart, mind, and soul and one’s neighbor as oneself. To love the neighbor is the content, the action of social ministry. To love and care for the neighbor is not an activist extra, a socially aware add-on to essential Christianity. Rather, it is, as Mother Maria argued, of the essence of Christianity.

Surely and most basically it is to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, visit the sick and imprisoned. It is to perform the works of lovingkindness, to celebrate the “liturgy after the liturgy,” to celebrate the “sacrament of the brother or sister,” the neighbor. And if feeding, clothing, sheltering, and visiting are basic, then social ministry can and does mean many other related acts of service—education, counseling, medical care, as well as advocacy for the poor, the oppressed, those without a voice. How and where such social ministry is done is secondary. That we reach out to those in need is primary.

There could be no more powerful or direct and clear statement of the New Testament understanding of social ministry than these words of Saint Maria Skobtsova. She was committed not only to protecting those whom the Nazis wanted to exterminate but also to providing food, shelter, clothing, and compassion to many left homeless and jobless in the Great Depression of the 1930s. A colleague of hers in the Russian emigration in Paris, Paul Evdokimov (1900–1969), similarly worked in the Resistance during WWII, protecting the targets of oppression, and then afterwards, directing hostels for immigrants and foreign students. Here is what he had to say about Christian involvement in the world.

The only true revolution will come from the gospel, for here it is God himself who will overtake us in order to bring about the Kingdom and establish its justice. In the Book of Revelation, Christ is “the One who is, who was and who is to come. . . . But eschatology is a two-edged sword. It is never enough to speak of the end of the world if this means a kind of passivity or a theological obscurantism and indifference to our world. The eschatology of the Bible and the Fathers is explosive, demanding solutions in this earthly life in connection with the Apocalypse, and the deepest meaning of our present crisis is that the visible judgment of God is upon the world and the Church. ³

These two “living icons,” true saints of our time, are not proposing some innovative idea about social outreach, serving those in need, putting the Gospel into practice in everyday life.⁴ One could look back to the great fathers, John Chrysostom and Basil the Great, for validation. Chrysostom railed against the indifference of the wealthy in Constantinople. He connected the sacrament of the altar to the “sacrament of the brother/sister” in need.

You wish to honor the body of the Savior? The same one who said: This is my body also said: You saw I was hungry and you didn’t give me to eat. What you did not do to one of the least, you refused to me! So honour Christ by sharing your possessions with the poor.⁵  

Basil likewise accused the rich of stealing from the poor by their very excess. He established in his “city of service,” the Basiliade in Caesarea, Asia Minor, a multipurpose service center with a hospital, orphanage, food pantry, and dining room for those in need. There are numerous other holy women and men who give us examples of the commandment to love and care for the neighbor down through the history of the Church, from these earlier individuals to later ones like Martin of Tours, Bridget of Kildare, Juliana Ossorguine, Margaret of Hungary, Sergius of Radonezh, Francis of Assisi, Vincent de Paul, and in our own times John Maximovitch of Shanghai and San Francisco, Maria Skobtsova and her companions in Paris, Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker houses of hospitality, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and Father David Kirk of Emmaus House in New York City.

To sketch out all the lines of a theology of social ministry is clearly beyond the space at hand. Let me then offer just four points—to me, the pillars of this theology.

1. In the words of the Beatles’ song, we need to be reminded: “All you need is love.” Now the temptation of course is that we think all we need to do is keep the rules of God and of the Church, that is, attend the services, keep the fasts, light candles, say our daily prayers. But Saint Maria and Paul Evdokimov, who understood that the love of God requires the love of the neighbor, urge us to recognize that care for those who are in need is in fact orthodoxia, real worship. There can be no opposition between love of God and love of the neighbor. Speaking to those who might oppose church worship to the care of the neighbor, Maria Skobtsova wrote:

Just as fascinating, though enigmatic for us, is the expression “liturgy outside the church.” The church liturgy and the words spoken in it give us the key for understanding this truth. We hear: “Let us love one another, that with one mind we may confess . . .” And further on: “We offer you your own of your own, on behalf of all and for all.” These “others,” whom we love with one mind in the church, also work with us outside the church, rejoicing, suffering, living with us. And those who are the Lord’s and who offer to him on behalf of all and for all—they are indeed “all,” that is, all of them are possible encounters on our way, all are people sent to us by God. No, the walls of the church do not separate some little flock from the rest of the world . . . we ourselves are offered in sacrifice—“on behalf of all and for all.” In this sense, the “liturgy outside the church” is our sacrificial ministry in the church of the world, adorned with living icons of God, our common ministry. . . . In this liturgical relationship with others, we are in communion with God; we really become one flock and one Shepherd, one body, of which the inalienable head is Christ.⁶

2. In Mother Maria’s and Paul Evdokimov’s houses of hospitality, no one was asked their church affiliation—whether they were Orthodox or Catholic or Protestant or even Christian. The second important realization is an ecumenical, or to put it better, a universal one. We are all children of God. God’s love is given to all of us, and of course, all of us are sinners—as we pray just before receiving communion: “of sinners I am the first,” in the words of Saint Paul. Service is provided—meals, clothing, shelter, medical and other care—without discrimination, without proselytizing.

In New York City, members of a Lutheran parish collect food and serve dinner at a Catholic Worker center. In San Francisco, St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church opens its worship-space-become-food-pantry to everyone, regardless of age, race, gender, religion, or politics. Members of my own Orthodox parish do likewise for the inner city of Poughkeepsie soup kitchen/dining room, open to all who are hungry. After Hurricane Katrina, Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant Christians, along with every other faith community, collected funds, even went down to volunteer to care for survivors and rebuild New Orleans.

Throughout Manhattan, volunteers of every religious background collect food from the finest restaurants, then bring it to those too old or sick or poor to feed themselves. On the sides of the trucks is the name of their group: “God’s Love—we deliver.”  In Kansas City, in a Serbian Orthodox parish, Fr. Paisius Altschul heads Reconciliation Services, feeding, counseling, doing whatever else people need. Another priest of that same parish, Fr. Justin Mathews, heads FOCUS—the Fellowship of Orthodox Christians United to Serve—in North America, a just-started network of which Reconciliation Services is a member.

A procession of people, from Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day years ago to more recent others, saw Christ in the face of a helpless child of God in front of them.⁷ I am not saying that in America we have the answer to everything. Far from it. But we have learned to respect each other, to work and live together. Moreover, and tragically, our very Christian faith separates us from each other. The commandment to love found in the twenty-fifth chapter of Saint Matthew’s Gospel or in the First Letter of Saint John contains no requirements based on church membership or ethnicity.

3. Christians need not be embarrassed or afraid to reach out in the name of God, to be part of their society, their country. All Christians have to do is to be faithful to the God who loves them, who is called so many times in the liturgy “the Lover of humankind.” If anything, Christians then will find what binds them in solidarity with those of other faith communities, whether Jewish or Islamic or whatever—love. Again, Mother Maria:

Christ gave us two commandments: to love God and to love our fellow man. Everything else, even the commandments contained in the Beatitudes, is merely an elaboration of these two commandments, which contain within themselves the totality of Christ’s “Good News.” Furthermore, Christ’s earthly life is nothing other than the revelation of the mystery of love of God and love of the neighbor. These are, in sum, not only the true but the only measure of all things. And it is remarkable that their truth is found only in the way they are linked together. Love for man alone leads us into the blind alley of an anti-Christian humanism, out of which the only exit is, at times, the rejection of the individual human being and love toward him in the name of all mankind. Love for God without love for man, however, is condemned: “You hypocrite, how can you love God whom you have not seen, if you hate your brother whom you have seen” (1 Jn 4.20). Their linkage is not simply a combination of two great truths taken from two spiritual worlds. Their linkage is the union of two parts of a single whole. These two commandments are two aspects of a single truth. Destroy either one of them and you destroy truth as a whole.⁸

4. Last of all, we need to demand of other institutions in our society that they become compassionate to those who suffer—those of the government at every level, and also schools, hospitals, and especially the churches and other communities of faith. American sociologist Robert Bellah and his colleagues stressed this.⁹ Many admire American individualism and commitment to hard work—the way to prosperity, the real “gold” with which the streets are paved in America. Yet Bellah points out that we would have hell rather than heaven on earth if it were only a pursuit of self-interest. Rather, he says, there has always been a sense of community—of concern for the neighbor, of generosity and sharing. It can never be just what is good for “me,” but what is good for us all.

After WWII the Marshall Plan was created not to dominate Europe but to help rebuild hospitals, schools, and homes, and to feed and heal those devastated by war. It did more good than a great deal of foreign policy. It spoke the language of mercy and generosity. So many philanthropic groups are continuing this work today: Doctors Without Borders, Save the Children, Habitat for Humanity, CARE, and now FOCUS North America. We can and should work with them and find ways to connect our work.

All the theology we need is there, in the Gospel: “Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of My family, you did it to Me.” 

Father Michael Plekon is Professor of Sociology/Anthropology and coordinator of the Program in Religion and Culture at Baruch College of the City University of New York. He is also a priest of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) at St. Gregory the Theologian parish, Wappingers Falls, New York.

The above article was originally printed in the Vol. 13 No. 3 issue of The Handmaiden, published by Conciliar Press.

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1  Matt. 25:34–40.

2        Pravoslavnoe Delo (Orthodox Action, Paris, 1939, 30), cited by Sergei Hackel, Pearl of Great Price, Crestwood NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1981, 29–30, from Constantine Mochulsky, “Monakhinia Mariia Skobtsova,” Tretii Chas, no. 1 (1946), 70–71.

3  “The Church and Society,” In the World, Of the Church: A Paul Evdokimov Reader, Michael Plekon and Alexis Vinogradov, eds. & trans., Crestwood NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001, 73–4.

4  Michael Plekon, Living Icons: Persons of Faith: Persons of Faith in the Eastern Church, University of Notre Dame Press, 2002.

5       Homily 50 on Matthew.

6  “The Mysticism of Human Communion,” in Mother Maria Skobtsova: Essential Writings, Maryknoll NY: Orbis, 2003, 79, translation edited.

7  See The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day, Marquette University Press, 2008 and for a more recent example, Sara Miles, Take this Bread, NY: Ballantine Books, 2007.

7  See The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day, Marquette University Press, 2008 and for a more recent example, Sara Miles, Take this Bread, NY: Ballantine Books, 2007.

8  “Types of Religious Lives,” Essential Writings, 173–174.

9       Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life, University of California Press, 1985, 1996.