Monday, December 04, 2006

The Answers to Poverty


Someone in our congregation e-mailed me last week. At the end of her note she added this question "and what are the answers to poverty?" Wow -- what a great question (I of course had the answer -- ha!). It was a wonderful reminder that life is about asking interesting and good questions. How blessed I am to get such questions. Anyway...what follows is my response.

The answers to poverty? Hmmmm. I watched an interview last night with Muhammed Yunus (Grameen Bank) on the Charles Rose show. One of the things Yunus said is he believed we could do away with poverty. Gotta admit – the man blew my mind with that one. Maybe so, maybe so, maybe so. But I believe that one of the “answers” to poverty is to believe what Mary sings in the Magnificat. “That God has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich empty away.” And that the answer to poverty — is to live as if that were true. It is to do what Jesus said in John 15 (“no longer do I call you servants, but friends”)...that is to say that the answer to poverty is the kind of friendship that Jesus talks about — the kind of friendship that pays attention to the life of the person before you... The person that the world sees as poverty — but you know as one of those hungry who has been filled with good things — so you sure as heck better start hangin’ out with that person and bein’ a part of all the cool things that God is doing in their life...which draws me back to the first question — and through this we will help one another see that the gospel is indeed truth in the life of the world (and the church as a part of that larger world). It is why I don’t have any problem with seeing God’s grace at work in the lives of all of God’s creatures — it is because it isn’t, at all, dependent upon us — what is called forth from us is the eyes to see and the ears to hear — so that we can dance in joy — so we who live in darkness can see a great light. It’s here. It’s shining.

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I heard someone say the other day that when a store clerk wished her "Happy Holidays" she was irritated by the lack of reference to Christ in her greeting and made a point by replying with what I assume was an emphatic "Merry Christmas."

I tried to find the good in her reply, but to be honestly it felt like a "sent empty away" moment. It reminded me of all of those times I think I'm making a just and righteous point when I'm really just being a jackass.

Mike, do you think we answer the question by answering the question? Or does it happen in other ways?

11:27 AM  
Blogger Mike Mather said...

Honest to God, Troy (smile), I don't know. I just don't know. I'm not sure there is a way it happens. And that sometimes it happens in spite of us, rather than because of us. But I think that responding smart-alecky (as my mom would have said) is not always the best. Too bad that my genes don't register that...

Mike

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7:22 PM  

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