There’s a part of me, or a little voice of the enemy, that says it would be just fine to continue on with my life the way it is and those in poverty can do the same. I mean, am I really that bad? And am I really going to change any of their situations? I was doing just fine before I saw the poverty, wasn’t I?
But then there’s this other part of me, a pretty big part – that part that God has taken control of – and that part says all of that is just crap. I think that even if I wasn’t a follower of Christ, there would be something in me that knew that justice should be and must be brought to other people, that ignoring such obvious suffering is heartless, inhuman, and wrong. It’s that bit called a conscience, what I see as perhaps a little bit of the divine image left unbroken in our makeup. That part asks how I can keep enjoying the blessings and comforts I have in the knowledge that these people have none of them. It inquires as to whether such a life spent in purposeful ignorance and indifference to many of those God loves may just be a poverty of its own.
I think of the beauty brought into my life through music, my opportunities to listen to and play it. I just happened to be listening to music as I rode back from Haiti, and music is really one of my passions, something that gets me going and excited, that brings me intense enjoyment, and that connects me to God. Music is a profound blessing, and I often thank God for the beauty and joy it gives me. But a truth finally struck home as I rode away from the poverty in Haiti – so many are deprived of this beauty which I love so much. The vast majority of the people in the world don’t have an iPod and the ability to listen to just about whatever they want, whenever. So many have no opportunity to learn to play an instrument, even if they wanted to. No, those in the Port-au-Prince tent cities know only noise and pollution and heat and sickness and hopelessness. And here I am, thanking God for His wonderful blessings, ignoring the fact that so many are without this same blessing. The same can be said of so many things in my life which I love and enjoy.
When I consider this, even without thinking about God, who in good conscience could ignore such poverty?
Then, of course, we serve a God who loves the poor. In serving Him, He tells us to love the things and people that He loves, including all of our neighbors – basically all of humanity. And then He still has to tell us over and over to love and serve and give to the poor because over and over we marginalize the poor, forgetting that they are our neighbors, or simply pretending that they’re not. Even when we do serve the poor, we often feel like it’s some kind of spiritual extra credit, earning our brownie points with God for a good spot in heaven or something like that. We’ve decided it’s just an obligation, something “good” people do a little bit of in their spare time and with their spare cash so they can keep their “good” image. We live like God’s command to serve the poor is backed up mainly by a big, cosmic “because I said so.”
But that not it at all. We’ve completely missed it. First of all, our service to the poor is simply justice. It’s bringing just a little bit more of a semblance of fairness into the world. I’m amazed we still have to be convinced of this with words and experiences. If we think people are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, then why, when we apply this, does it not apparently apply to those we see in poverty, surrounded by death, oppressed by a lack of options, simple survival a much higher priority than happiness? At least it never applies if it involves us giving up anything of ours - any one of those items in the long list of things that we have decided bring us more happiness, while oftentimes they really squeeze it out of us. Is it fair that I have so much and they have so little, that I have all the opportunities in the world to shape my life and live in prosperity, and they have none? Doesn’t seem like I can justify a “yes” to that one. And speaking of entitlement – I feel entitled to three meals a day, a comfortable bed, a cell phone that works, a college education, an air conditioned vehicle, general comfort all day, and relatively few inconveniences. Otherwise, I’ll probably complain a little bit, or a lot. Man, what if everyone in the world felt entitled to such things, such luxuries! Anyway, the point is that my idea of fairness is pretty warped. Our comfortable lives, free of the tiresome and risky necessity of depending on God for physical things, make it exceptionally easy to ignore anything outside our little worlds, especially this difficult idea of justice and service which actually involves sacrifice.
We are especially good at glossing over the fact that following our Good Fater’s command to serve the poor would actually be better for us. This isn’t a pointless command. He tells us to serve the poor not only because He loves the poor but because He loves us. As silly as it seems in the context of my deluded, self-centered life, giving up stuff and spending my very self on behalf of the poor is actually a blessing for me just as much as it is for those I’m sacrificing for. Just ask anyone who has ever been on a mission trip and they’ll tell you they received spiritually just as much as they gave physically or more. They’ll tell you that when Jesus said “blessed are the poor” He wasn’t just saying they will be blessed when they get to heaven. They’re blessed now, only in a way that we often overlook and blow off as secondary. So many of them are blessed with a spiritual wealth many in America never see, because they know that you don’t need physical stuff to rejoice in the Lord and live life to the fullest. We find out that it’s us who are impoverished. When we serve the poor, we are blessed. It’s not an obligation – why do we keep insisting that it is? It’s a blessing, a command from a loving and just God who has all of our lives at heart, rich and poor, desiring only our good.
The point is that poverty cannot be ignored, spiritual or physical, within our country or without. We can’t just go on with life. And it demands more than just a one-time response – it requires a whole life of bringing justice. It’s not spiritual extra credit but a constant and regular activity for Christ’s followers, an outpouring of His overflowing love in our lives, expressed in many different ways. It’s not just giving money to an organization that fights global poverty – serving the poor may express itself as outreach in our own communities, loving those around us who are depressed, abandoned, unlovable, and hopeless. It’s not an obligation – it’s the command of a good Father, demanded for the good of all His children, because service to the poor reduces the poverty of both the served and the servant.
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