What do you think when you read the word poverty? Most likely you recall a
person, a situation, or a country where the people live in economically
destitute circumstances. You may recall the homeless people you see walking and
laying about town on the sidewalks and under the bridges. You might even recall
a period of your own life.
When one begins to understand poverty by getting up close, one
realizes that poverty is as easily defined. Some people say economic poverty is a relative
thing (e.g., Ruby Payne). You’ve probably heard a person say they did not know
they were poor until someone told them. My Dad said that.
At its deepest meaning, poverty is a state of lack, a
scarcity or dearth, famine. People who have traveled the globe in outreach to
the economically distressed, especially to those who have lived in poverty for at least a generation, find an eye-opening discovery.
Regardless of where impoverished people live, they describe
themselves with words and feelings such as shame, inferiority, powerlessness,
humiliation, hopelessness, social isolation, and having absolute despair, living
in the fear of immediate death and personal disintegration.
Such is the description of poverty. Look again at those
words and the deep meaning of poverty begins to emerge. Those words describe
spiritual poverty.
We resist admitting it is a spiritual problem. We like to
think if someone wants to get out of poverty all they have to do is get a job. Those
who see the world through lofty, wealthy eyes may be as impoverished as
the ones with a lack of monetary means.
We can’t escape this reality. There is an intimate
connection between spiritual and economic poverty.
Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert (in their book, When Helping Hurts) ask, “Why did Jesus come to earth?” Jesus understood that economic poverty is symptomatic of soul-destroying spiritual poverty. Poverty does not reflect one’s station in life.
He entered the
Hebrew temple to make his first public declaration. That temple symbolizes the tradition and heritage of the flight
from Egypt and the beginning of a new life in the Promised Land. The worshipper in the temple knows these traditions and that they are framed by these words:
“If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your
community in any of your towns within the land that the LORD your God is giving
you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor. Since
there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command
you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.’” (Deut.
15:7,11)
“When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the
very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest… you shall
leave them for the poor and the alien for
you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.” (Lev.
19:9-10, 33-34).
The slavery and captivity by
Assyria, Babylon, Alexander and the subsequent brutal heel of the Roman conquest also framed an impoverished people who failed to heed these commands written in
Deuteronomy and Leviticus.
As Jesus faced these economically
and spiritually impoverished people and their history and declared this:
“He stood up to read and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to
him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
‘The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because
he has anointed me
to
bring good news to the poor.
He
has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and
recovery of sight to the blind,
to
let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of
the Lord’s favor.’
And he rolled up the
scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the
synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this
scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’”
(Luke 4:16-21)
Remember this the next time you see an impoverished person,
perhaps you will see them and yourself in a new light.
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