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Poverty and Christianity
Listen to their voices. They cry out to us, in the form of a child orphaned by aids, a mother struggling to keep her children alive, a father working all day to make a 49 cent wage. Listen to the tears, as children hide each night just to stay alive, despair of hunger and pain, death knocking at their door, only he has come this time to take the youngest of the family.
Hear their stories, of an abandoned woman named Ramona, left to take care of herself as she faces the prospect of both her legs being amputated, as she fends for herself on the streets of Azusa. The farmers of south central L.A. who struggle to keep their livelihood, which exists in the form of the largest urban farm in the nation, that feeds over 350 families that live well below the poverty line, and acts as an oasis of community and refuge. The Invisible children of Uganda that fear abduction every night by the LRA, a militia group that fights the government for their own cause, while recklessly destroying the lives of the people they claim to fight for. The crisis of AIDS in Africa that has left more than 20 million children to live on their own, where often times the oldest of the orphaned children is forced into becoming the main provider for his or her siblings. This happens around the world, all this while we enjoy the freedom of this country, never knowing hunger, where heart ache is in the form of marital disagreement, or teenage angst. A land where our cup runneth over, and we use up 46% of the world's resources, as we make up roughly 6 percent of the world's population.
It is all around us, in our backyard, across the continent, and around the world. We cannot avoid it; this is the reality of our world, the world that God has created, and the creatures that God loves. Yet I deeply believe that if we allow our selves to hear these stories, to see this reality, we will inevitably encounter questions that should shake us to our very core, force us to ask the hard questions, and beg us to reconsider reality. They will compel us to look deep into our faith and examine what we believe about a God of grace, about Jesus and compassion, about the Spirit of power. Ultimately this is about trinity, and its force upon the earth, the world that we experience, the world that we know.
But here is where the problem lies. For many, including myself, we allow ourselves to ignore these stories, convince ourselves that they do not exist, or that they are of no concern to us. Somehow we allow ourselves to sweep them under the rug, because we know that as we encounter them, we are discomforted, bothered,and ultimately called. To hear these stories, to invite them into our lives, forces us to change, to reconsider, to be inconvenienced and uncomforted. This thinking runs contrary to the systems we were trained in, where comfort is the biggest form of deception in our world and at all costs, it must be sought after, even if it costs us our neighbor. Because of this deception we can justify our own way of living, pawn off responsibility as a calling from the Lord to live otherwise, and call ourselves "blessed."
The reality of the world around us can be so far removed from our own reality, that we determine spirituality to be simply an inner strength or resolve to be a moral person, who reads the bible, prays everyday, and grows, grows, grows. Without being too harsh or critical, it would seem that the deception of the American church lies in its power to blind us from the reality of our global community. Churches can be so preoccupied with the agenda of their middle-upper class congregation that the needs of the global community become irrelevant. The ability to separate "spirituality" from the rest of our lives is what allows us to somehow attend church, be a part of the local community, and yet still ignore the problem of poverty and injustice all around us, which is inevitably the call of Jesus into a discipleship that forces us to be concerned about these issues.
And still our collective conscience goes unhindered, we continue on in the daily grind of American living, fulfilling the American dream, and becoming nothing more than uninformed spectators of a work that is globally aware and a power that is breaking through into time, and making all things new. How is this possible? Why does this go on?
How are we to live as we anticipate the coming Reign of God? Does faithful kingdom living entail the awareness of social injustice, poverty, oppression and economic and ecological responsibility? Does being a follower of Jesus necessitate action towards these responsibilities? Can we even call them Christian responsibility, meaning that we are held to respond, and to be responsible to the world regarding our faith? Or are these issues simply a matter of "special calling" or vocation? Something that only the select few are called to do? Is this something that all followers of the way are to be preoccupied with, or is it only for the “burdened” that "hear the voice of the Lord" to action? If so, have we become deaf? Are we are blind? Are we being ignorant?
I have shared in the past my own interests regarding this matter. And it is easy to see the things that I am passionate about, but be informed that these are still questions. These are still matters of the journey that I find myself going deeper and deeper into. At the same moment, I do not exclude myself from the criticism. This is a communal matter, this is a grace matter. It is my hope that these questions not only bring to light the questions that I am on the search for, but also to bring about questions that people have already settled as answered in their minds. Maybe this unsettles you a little bit, and perhaps you have already built up a defense for all that I have said. I hope this is not the case.
My past experience, which I believe are the same for many of you, was filled with sermons, lessons, and teachings that involved many basic and important aspects of our faith. For these I am thankful. But I would be remiss to acknowledge that in my upbringing, I was not taught that caring for the poor, fighting against social injustice, and standing for the marginalized were things of importance. Granted it was not dismissed as useless, it was not “exemplified” as important in the lives of our leaders, or vital to the life of a follower of Christ. While I heard over and over again about the infallibility and inerrancy of the scriptures, the importance of reading and praying everyday (which I believe are still very important don’t get me wrong) I look back and try to remember sermons about the poor, about caring for those that are oppressed, about standing in solidarity with your neighbor. Granted, they could have been taught numerous times, and I just failed to listen (a high possibility) I still feel competent enough to believe that at least a few lessons of the sort would have stuck with me over the past 15 odd years.
All of this to simply set up the question, “Could it be that we (the universal church) completely miss the point?” Is it possible that the message of Jesus, and the call to discipleship could be misunderstood? Have we spent most of our time preoccupied with things that may or may not be the most important? I wonder, I ask, I simply question out loud. I don't claim to have this answered, and I use this medium to bring about discussion. Hopefully a helpful one, a beneficial one.
Lately I have forced myself to hear these stories, to encounter these people, to interact with faces. And lately I have faced the crisis, been forced to ask the hard questions, and compelled to examine my faith. Ultimately I have been encountered by trinity, and moved to a place of trouble, unrest, and yet peace and serenity. I know that I can simply fall prey to the alluring systems of this world, to the deception of “spirituality” as inward and personal righteousness, all by simply ignoring the stories that upset my reality. The ultimate story remains of a man named Jesus of Nazereth, a man that came into the world and broke into time, just to destroy the systems of the world, and upset the balance of sin and death, to overcome it with life. Ignoring this story is fatal, seeing only our own reality, failing to break out of our own ignorance, and not allowing these stories to resonate within our soul is ultimately a sickness unto death. It is my prayer that God may grant us the wisdom, the humility, and the peace, to encounter the darkness of the world in order to bring light. To face the starving people longing for food, and in the broken body of Jesus that was meant as bread for us, to be bread for those that are hungry. May we look into the eyes of despair, and never lose hope, as we anticipate and participate in the coming Reign of God, as Jesus breaks into this world, and our hope arrives in his promise, “behold I make all things new.”
Thank You Ramona, for helping me see the world anew, may I never forget your story. |
