“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now,
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.”
for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.”
Luke 6:20-21
Through the course of these past weeks, the topics of the
poor and/or poverty have come up in several conversations and my understanding
of the subject has expanded and shifted. There is no doubt more to poverty than
meets the eye. I would love to share some of what I have learned, and I’ll
start by asking you a question.
If you were to stop reading right now and go to the top of
your browser right now and search poverty, what images would you expect to see?
What sort of emotions and feelings would you affiliate with such a word?
-a Lack of: Shelter- $$$- Ability- Freedom- Food- Resources
I just searched it and found countless images of sad
malnourished children from various third world countries around the globe. The
individual people, our brothers and sisters, captured in these stills are no
doubt experiencing intense material poverty. Most often we think of poverty in
terms of material lack. But is that all there is to this brokenness called
poverty?
This past week at our Wednesday night gathering at “The
House” (Kris, Jeudy and my house) with our neighbors, Jeudy and Becca shared
about their experience on short missions trips to Mexico. They touched on how
through connecting with individuals in the communities they visited in Mexico,
they saw incredible faith and intense joy in a place one might not expect; in
lives gripped by the unyielding hand of material poverty. A place of beautiful reliance on God, when
they had nothing else to rely on. Maybe Jesus know what He was talking about
when He shared the beatitudes with us…
A second conversation about poverty occurred at our
bi-weekly Community Fellows training where we discussed a chapter out of the
book, “When Helping Hurts,” by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert. (I would
recommend this book to EVERYONE) The
chapter was entitled “What’s the problem?” and included a whole new perspective
and definition of poverty. A perspective shared from the material poor
themselves. They shared about poverty primarily in terms of, “shame,
inferiority, powerlessness, humiliation, fear, hopelessness, depression, social
isolation, and voicelessness.” This starkly contrasted my initial thoughts on
poverty and the poor. For them it was less about the physical things they
lacked and more about the mental and perspective repercussions of the material
lack. This is a HUGE and necessary paradigm shift. I realize that for me, as
long as poverty remained cornered in the physical realm, I could ignore the
true relational poverty I was dwelling in.
“Poverty is the result of relationships that do not work,
that are not just, that are not for life, that are not harmonious or enjoyable.
Poverty is the absence of shalom in all its meanings”
-Bryant L.
Myers
Poverty can look just like me… or you.
Sin is the root, and inceptor of this prideful perspective I
so often can have of myself. I love being self-sufficient and okay--- ALL THE
TIME. It is underneath that façade of collectedness and self-sufficiency that
my poverty is exposed. I am really good at convincing myself I don’t need
anybody. This is my brokenness and my struggle. I was made for community with
creation, others and myself, yet I make choices every day that deepens and
widens the chasm between myself and the shalom God desires.
Thank God for my neighbors, the needs they have exposed in
me, and the opportunity to live in community with them.
I need them.
