No Matter the Why

March 11, 2016

I posted a meme not too long ago on social media about taking care of the poor. One response written was that there are many definitions of poor. Since that post and comment, that has been marinating in my mind, mostly because I work with and advocate for poor and homeless people. First, I won't assume everyone is a Christian but I am, although I usually don’t post many religious thoughts often. I’m not sure that matters much except when I think of the poor, I think of Jesus’s life.

No matter what "poor" looks like to you, it's all the same to God, at least the God I grew up learning about in Sunday School, in church, and pretty much everything I've ever heard about him since I was 6 years old.

Jesus touched and healed lepers. He talked to prostitutes. He healed sick people. And he talked about the poor a lot. Per Google, there are over 100 verses in the Bible that speak of the poor. (Yay for Google!) Why am I saying this? Well, because not everyone is poor because they refuse to work. Not everyone is poor because "they chose it". There are people in this world that have been laid off. And there are people in this world that work, but still can't afford to pay rent because they have to eat.

There are people in this world that are mentally disabled, have been failed by our system and ultimately, thrown away. There are people who suffer with addiction and they are literally drowning in their pain. There are people we see and because of their outward appearance or their lack of whatever it is that we deem worthy, we judge them and in our minds, we instantly throw them away.

We say they are useless or pathetic or weak or have just simply made bad choices, without ever giving a thought to what their story may look like. We have made up their story for them by assuming they are something that quite possibly, they may not be. But even if they are what we assume, even if they have made every bad choice possible, we are called beyond all of that. We are called to look beyond the why. I don't remember a story in which Jesus said, "Come. Tell me why you have these problems and if they meet the required checklist of approved whys for forgiveness, I will then heal you and take away your pain. If not, I will brutally judge you, make you feel unlovable, and send you away."

We have to do better my friends, because the God I know shows grace and love no matter the dirt, no matter the wrong doing, no matter the why. "For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land." -Deuteronomy 15:11

Some people need to be given a voice. Some people need us to advocate on their behalf. "Whatever you have done for the least of these, you have done for me." Matthew 25:40 #chruchover #loveyourneighbor #loveyourcommunity