Poverty is an after thought to people when times are good. We feel that if we are doing well, everyone else must be doing well, too, and if they aren’t, well, they are doing something wrong. Stocks are up, cars are bigger, vacations are grander, kids are more spoiled, all is well!
Poverty is never an after thought to people when times are bad. We feel that if we are doing poorly, everyone else must be doing bad, too, and if they are, well, they must not be able to help it, just like us. Stocks are down, cars aren’t being leased, vacations are to the local lake, kids are ponderous, all is not well!
Poverty happens all the time. There may be an excuse for an individual’s poverty, there may not be. We need to begin to discover that when Jesus said the poor will always be with us the action of Christians is an eschatological one—every “always” in the Bible is eschatological. We are to always love, always hope, always have faith, always care for the poor.
That the poor will always be with us has often been a convient excuse for Christians who read this in a matter-of-fact way. It is a fact, and the fact of the matter is that Christians are supposed to do something about it. The Kingdom of God, eschatologically, is already/not yet. When approaching poverty not matter-of-factly but eschatologically, poverty becomes an already/not yet dichotomy as well. We are to always be fighting to end poverty as citizens of the Kingdom, but we know it will be not fully conqured until Christ returns. But, like building the Kingdom, we must try, try hard, try with all our bodies and souls, and try every day and in every way to always be loving, caring, hoping, and faithing along with the poor no matter what.
This post is part of Blog Action Day. “Faithing” is a term Brian McLaren uses to convey “putting faith into action.”