(RNS) — There’s a tension at the heart of faithful living: Do you use your resources to relieve suffering right now, or do you focus on fixing the system that’s causing the suffering in the first place?
In this thorny episode of “Money, Meet Meaning,” hosts Amber Hacker and Thomas Levinson wrestle with what Tom’s calling “the whole quahog”—that inescapable pull between immediate mercy and structural justice, between local need and global impact, between the person in front of you and the hundreds you’ll never meet.
They explore real dilemmas: Should your congregation wipe out medical debt for strangers or fund programs your own members need? Is anonymous giving holier or does it weaken community accountability? When do you prioritize the poor of your own city versus the magnitude of distant suffering?
The conversation moves from ancient wisdom — Maimonides’ ladder of charitable giving, Talmudic teaching on concentric circles of responsibility, Jesus on giving without trumpets — to the story of Kansas City’s “Secret Santa,” whose decades of anonymous generosity began with one diner owner’s $20 act of preserved dignity.
What emerges isn’t a tidy answer but a both/and framework that refuses to choose sides. Tom brings Deuteronomy. Amber brings the tingles. And together they make the case that holding the tension might be messier than picking one lane, but it’s also more faithful.
“Money, Meet Meaning” is produced by Interfaith America, co-sponsored by Apella Wealth, and distributed by Religion News Service with support from the Faith & Work Initiative at Princeton University.
Transcript: Relief or Reform? When Generosity Meets Systemic Change.
This transcript was generated using AI tools and may contain minor transcription errors.
Amber Hacker: Hey, hey, hey! Welcome to Money Meets Meaning. I’m Amber Hacker.
Tom Levinson: And I’m Tom Levinson. Here at Money Meets Meaning, we explore the surprising and practical relevance of the world’s spiritual traditions on our lives with money.
Amber Hacker: And Tom, we do this every week.
Tom Levinson: You join. Last time we sat down with Pastor John Jackman, the pastor whose congregation has quietly, and actually sometimes not so quietly, forgiven millions of dollars in medical debt.
Amber Hacker: Millions of dollars. And that work is extraordinary. This is a big deal for people who just wake up one day and find that their debt is just gone. And the ripple effects have reached far beyond one little church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Tom Levinson: But as Pastor John told us, every debt they cancel also exposes a deeper truth: the system itself is broken. Debt forgiveness solves today’s problem, but it doesn’t stop the harm from happening tomorrow.
Amber Hacker: And that leads us straight into today’s thorny question: is it more faithful to relieve suffering right now, or to stop what you’re doing and pour everything into fixing the system that causes the suffering in the first place?
Tom Levinson: It’s urgent need versus structural need. There’s a tension between mercy and justice that’s age-old. A life saved today or a future saved tomorrow.
Amber Hacker: And when we asked Pastor John about this tension, about whether he should spend his energy buying back debt or fighting to change the machinery that causes it in the first place, he gave an answer that was honest, sobering, and a little heartbreaking.
Tom Levinson: Team, roll the tape.
Pastor John Jackman: Well, that’s a big question. I’ve always said that what we’re doing is nothing but a band-aid on a hemorrhage, not going to fix the underlying problem. And the underlying problem is we have probably the worst way of paying for medical care in the world. But the problem is, our whole society is now built around this particular way of doing it badly. When you try to reform this, somebody is going to have to stand up and come up with a clearly articulated idea to move it forward. So I don’t have an answer for that, but I think we are going to have to figure out a way to do this so that everyone receives equitable health care, and the doctors and nurses make a decent living and so on. But we haven’t figured that out yet.
Amber Hacker: So Tom, Pastor John’s comments reminded me of a book that I read recently. It’s called Upstream. It’s excellent. It’s by Chip and Dan Heath. So they were the authors that wrote a book called Made to Stick about 10-15 years ago that was really popular. And the idea of the book Upstream is really simple, but it’s powerful. So this idea is: for pervasive, prevalent issues that are facing us today, do we go and immediately solve the problem at hand, or do we fix the problem so it doesn’t happen again? So the example that they give—let’s take hunger and food insecurity. So we have food banks, hunger relief efforts, super important, right? And that would be a downstream issue, according to Chip and Dan Heath. Upstream would be, how do we focus on what causes hunger in the first place?
Tom Levinson: Yeah, that’s deep. You know, I think this is one of these areas where both as individuals and as communities, we sometimes get into a habit of saying it’s either-or. And to some extent, I think we have to be in both-and land.
Amber Hacker: Both-and land? Is that a thing?
Tom Levinson: Yeah, I just made it up.
Amber Hacker: All right, sure.
Tom Levinson: It’s an exciting new kids’ game from Parker Brothers. The thing I want to stress on this is that these tensions are inescapable. I think they are at the core of what it is to be human, what it is to be living in community with other humans, where the need is great and our time is short. And one of the reasons why I think what Pastor John is doing so seamlessly is such a fit with Money Meets Meaning is that—and you and I have talked about this a lot over time, Amber—our religious and spiritual traditions, our wisdom traditions, help us not necessarily solve problems, but address problems by giving us a kind of moral vocabulary on how to engage with these inescapable tensions and complexities in our lives. The upstream-downstream thing is, I think, a great piece of it. But I think one of the things is, how do we approach this essential foundational question that Pastor John’s passage in our interview with him raises, while also saying it’s a both-and challenge and not an either-or challenge?
Amber Hacker: Yeah, yeah, I think that’s right, Tom. I think we have to do both. I mean, look, I think about our mutual friend Eboo Patel, who is Muslim, who quotes from the Quran. And the Quran says, “When you save one life, you save all of humanity.”
Tom Levinson: That’s a Jewish teaching too. I mean, that’s—I want to say straight out of the Talmud. I’ll get back to you.
Amber Hacker: But if we think about the fact that for pennies on the dollar, we can literally change someone’s life, that is extraordinarily compelling. This tiny church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina has made a huge impact by doing that. And I really appreciate that Pastor John is asking an upstream question as well. So he’s saying, we want to have this immediate impact, and we also want to look at, what are the factors, what are the circumstances, what’s the system that’s incredibly broken that is causing this issue? We’re—as he says—putting a band-aid on this. That band-aid is actually really important. I would say it’s probably more than a band-aid. And I appreciate that he’s also asking the broader structural questions that are leading to what’s happening in the first place.
Tom Levinson: Yeah. Well, you used the word “impact” a couple times, and I think that’s one of the key questions that I had in reflecting on our conversation with Pastor John Jackman. And I think it can go both ways. I mean, if I’m walking down the street and there’s somebody asking for money or who’s hungry, going into the corner store and buying something that can relieve their immediate hunger and appetite—that feels impactful, and it is. And I feel that in my heart and in my soul. I feel that. And at the same time, it’s a band-aid. That person is going to get hungry again, and I probably won’t be there to help. So the question of, well, how do you address these kinds of challenges more structurally? Of course, that can and often is a more impactful question. But we all feel, to one extent or another, tugged in these varying directions. I was going to say competing or conflicting, but it’s not necessarily competing or conflicting. They’re just different directions. I mean, that’s kind of the whole quahog right there. The whole “what now?” The whole quahog, you know, the entire enchilada. You know what I’m saying?
Amber Hacker: No, I don’t really.
Tom Levinson: All right, forget the enchilada. Forget the quahog. When we come back, we’re stepping straight into the thorniest part of this question: what do you do when that urgent need for real human-to-human compassion and systemic change pull you and your resources in opposite directions? Stick with us.
Amber Hacker: All right, welcome back. And just a quick reminder before we dive in: none of what follows is financial advice.
Tom Levinson: Amber, you took the words out of my mouth. Stole it from your job.
Amber Hacker: No, no. These are moral puzzles. These are spiritual dilemmas. Real life “what would you do?” moments.
Tom Levinson: It’s the kind of questions where the spreadsheet can’t save you and there’s no perfect and tidy answer waiting at the end.
Amber Hacker: That’s like a movie trailer. “The spreadsheet can’t save…”
Tom Levinson: Yeah, nor can ChatGPT.
Amber Hacker: But look, what’s going to save us? Our values, courage, and the stories that we choose to live with and live by.
Tom Levinson: That’s right. So with that said, Tom, let’s get thorny. Let’s get going over here. Here we go.
Amber Hacker: All right, Tom, here’s the first question. Your community can wipe out medical debt for hundreds of strangers, but doing so means the money won’t stay in your congregation for programs your members rely on. So here’s the question: do you choose mercy for people you’ve never met, or do you care for folks that are right in front of you?
Tom Levinson: The answer is yes, Amber. Yes, but again, it’s back to this “yes and” thing. So I’m going to go back to some of our wisest teachers on this, the sages and rabbis from the Talmud. When they’re talking about tzedakah, which is this notion of charity in Judaism that’s bound up inextricably with justice, they talk about these concentric circles of responsibility. And so the first innermost circle is—there’s an important passage in the Talmud that when you’re thinking about relieving people’s suffering, the poor of your own city take priority over the poor of other cities. Okay, so there’s something about you take care of the local first. That’s a priority. But the rabbis are also clear that that’s an important principle, but that can be overridden if the magnitude of suffering of people far away is so great that you need to sort of reallocate your time and energy and resources toward relieving the suffering of strangers, even though they’re super far away. So that’s just a balancing act. And I think that’s a process of individual discernment, communal discernment. And again, our faith traditions, our spiritual traditions help give us a roadmap for navigating this really challenging terrain.
Amber Hacker: Mic drop, Tom. That was really good. All right, that was really good.
Tom Levinson: We got to get microphones in here, Amber, that we can just drop. Actually drop.
Amber Hacker: Yeah, we just should have a bunch of microphones handy.
Tom Levinson: I’m going to bring a microphone toolkit. Like a tool belt. You know what I’m saying? Like a utility belt, like Batman.
Amber Hacker: You said “tool kit,” Tom.
Tom Levinson: Tool Kit Tom. There you go. All right, Amber, I got one for you.
Amber Hacker: Hit me.
Tom Levinson: Your congregation embraces anonymous giving, trusting that the help is landing where it should. But others say that without names and stories or connection, the giving can lack accountability and actually some kind of spiritual depth. So Amber, is unseen generosity a holier version, or does it somehow weaken community ties?
Amber Hacker: So I got to go with unseen generosity on this one, Tom. So I think the Bible is actually pretty clear that giving anonymously or quietly is the right posture for generosity. So there’s a passage in Matthew where Jesus says explicitly, “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. When you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do.” I mean, that is some pretty clear direction. And I think about that a lot. And you know, look, at the same time, when you give, sometimes it can inspire other people to give. So maybe it’s not a clear-cut, “that’s right” answer. But at the same time, there’s something about giving quietly and not announcing it with trumpets, which I think is actually really powerful.
Tom Levinson: Yeah. Well, that aligns very closely with one of our main guys, Maimonides, from back in the 11th and 12th century. You know, he creates this whole ladder of tzedakah and sort of rungs of giving and what’s more ethical and sustainable and kind of holy in that order. And right before the highest rung, which is giving people the resources so that they don’t have to depend on anything—they can just depend on themselves going forward—is the seventh rung of his eight-rung ladder, which is giving that is both anonymous to the donor in terms of who’s receiving it and to the recipient in terms of who’s giving it. Because part of what that does is it takes some of the ego component out of it for the donor, and it also preserves the dignity of the recipient. So there’s some deep stuff here. But anonymity—it’s interesting to hear Jesus’s teachings about this, because it really lines up nicely with our man Maimonides.
Amber Hacker: I think what you said, Tom, around preserving dignity—that is like ding, ding, ding. So we recently celebrated Christmas, and do you know the story of Larry Stewart, Secret Santa? He is from Kansas City, Missouri, and every Christmas he would find people that really needed help. So he went to Katrina after the hurricane in 2005, and he would give away money. And he would do it secretly. So the media would follow him around and try to figure out who he was for years, and he tried to keep it secret. Now, he has passed away. He passed away from cancer a couple of years ago. But the origin story of Secret Santa is that he was homeless and hungry, and went to a diner one day and ate the food at the counter and pretended that he couldn’t find his wallet. He told the owner, “I’m so sorry, I don’t have my wallet.” And the owner of the diner looked under the chair, pulled out a $20 bill, and said, “Hey, I think you dropped this.” Oh, wow. And allowed him to preserve his dignity to pay for that meal. And Larry Stewart said that that act of generosity and preserving his dignity is what inspired him to give back. And he ends up becoming a successful businessman in the media landscape, and every year he gives away thousands of dollars. He ends up giving away millions of dollars as Secret Santa. And so what’s powerful about that story is that one act of generosity, that $20 that that diner owner slipped him to allow Larry to preserve his dignity, then yielded a ripple effect upon ripple effect over decades, where Larry then gave back to other communities as Secret Santa.
Tom Levinson: You’re giving me the tingles, Amber. Yeah, that’s incredible. It’s almost like a financial Banksy, right? Yeah. A person who’s just dropping these financial gifts out there completely unexpectedly. And it’s not like people are going to expect them coming. Of course, they’re totally unanticipated. But that emphasis on it being anonymous is so powerful. And I love that—again, it impacts the dignity for the recipient, for sure. But it also, I think, enhances the dignity of the donor. Again, there’s lots of times where we want our names mentioned because you want some acknowledgment, or some recognition, or you want to encourage other people. But there is some real power in the anonymity piece.
Amber Hacker: Well, that’s the secret part. Like the Secret Santa—I think his identity was not known for years, and that’s not with people not trying to figure out who it was. The media was following him around.
Tom Levinson: So Secret Santa. So you know what? We need to figure out who the Hidden Hanukkah Harry is. We’re going to put that together.
Amber Hacker: Yeah, that’s a good job for you, Tom.
Tom Levinson: It is a good job for me. Interesting. Well, let me just say one other thing, Amber. Think about the impact that the diner owner allowing this person to have the meal on the house—think about the downstream effect that had for this gentleman, Larry. And I think Pastor Jackman, he talked about a study group in his church community where everybody’s like, they start reading Deuteronomy. You know why you love some Deuteronomy—five favorite books of Moses. Yeah. They start reading Deuteronomy, and then they ask the kind of radical and revolutionary question, like, “What if we try to start practicing some of this stuff?” And from that, these wonderful flowers bloom in terms of impact on the community, in terms of generosity. And I just want to note that these small gestures—talk about impact—the small gestures, they’re not necessarily small in terms of downstream effects.
Amber Hacker: That’s right. Think of all the Larrys who are getting their debts forgiven by Trinity Moravian Church and other communities like Trinity, and what that means to them, and what ripple effect that could have.
Tom Levinson: More tingles, Amber. All right, friends, that’s a lot. And as always, we’re not here to tie these deep quandaries up with a bow, because life with money and morality—it rarely comes with bow-tying instructions.
Amber Hacker: That’s right. But when we bump up against these big questions where it’s a local versus abstract need out there in the universe, we like to take a breath and listen for the wisdom that’s been wrestling with these tensions a lot longer than we have.
Tom Levinson: So I brought this bit of wisdom I found out there, Amber. It’s not going to surprise you.
Amber Hacker: It’s not going to surprise—Deuteronomy!
Tom Levinson: Deuteronomy, yes, Amber! Let’s go all the way back to Deuteronomy 15, verses 7 and 8. “When there is among you a needy one from any one of your brothers within one of your gates in the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you are not to toughen your heart. You are not to shut your hand to your brother, the needy one. Rather, you are to open, yes, open your hand to him, and are to give pledge, yes, pledge him sufficient for his lack, that is lacking to him.”
Amber Hacker: This is Money, Meet Meaning. Thanks for listening. I’m Amber Hacker.
Tom Levinson: And I’m Tom Levinson. Big thanks to our very special guest, Pastor John Jackman.
Amber Hacker: Now listen, if you want to participate in this program, you absolutely can. Just go to debtjubileeproject.org, or do a search for Debt Jubilee, or look in our show notes.
Tom Levinson: Amber, this could not be a clearer expression of a little going a long, long way.
Amber Hacker: That’s right. Money, Meet Meaning is a podcast by Interfaith America, co-sponsored by Apella Wealth, and distributed by Religion News Service and the Faith and Work Initiative at Princeton University.
Tom Levinson: Elizabeth Windham is the supervising producer. Elizabeth Villa is our story producer. Julia Windham is the editor. Corenna Roozeboom and Hannah Snewinck are the associate producers. Senior producer is Jay Woodward. Our theme music is by Martin Fowler.
Amber Hacker: Schyler Roozeboom designed our look.
Tom Levinson: If you’ve got anything to tell us about your own views on money and faith and our wisdom traditions, you can email us at [email protected].
Amber Hacker: And please, please, please share us with a friend or multiple friends.
Tom Levinson: Money, Meet Meaning is produced by Windhaven Productions. Special Thanks, and Bluejay Atlantic.
