Devotional for Wednesday
The authors of When Helping Hurts point out that when we think of poverty, we often think only of material or monetary poverty. Someone is poor because they don't have enough money or stuff. When we (mis)define poverty this way, then we propose the wrong kinds of solutions. It also creates a too-clear line between them and us. I'm poor and they're not. They're poor and I'm not.
However, the authors propose that this is the wrong way to go about defining poverty. Poverty, rather, is a result of the Fall (see: Genesis 3) that affects all people. It breaks the four fundamental relationships in creation.
Spiritual Poverty: A broken relationship with God
Poverty of Being: A broken relationship with ourselves
Poverty of Community: A broken relationship with others
Poverty of Stewardship: A broken relationship with the rest of creation
When we see poverty as a broken relationship, then it becomes less about us-and-them, but rather the we that is all impoverished in one way or another.
We can see these four broken relationships in Mark 2:1-12.
Poverty of Being: I think it's interesting that Jesus' first words to a paralyzed man lying in front of him are, "Son, your sons are forgiven." There's a lot packed in that sentence. First, that Jesus calls him "son" perhaps hints that this man had been rejected by his family (moreover since it is his friends and not his family bringing him to Jesus).
Secondly, that Jesus' sees this man's foremost need as forgiveness probably also shows us the lies that this man had been told all his life about why he's paralyzed. Rejection by your family and lies about your sickness would certainly lead to a poverty of self.
Spiritual Poverty: Clearly the pharisees have a spiritual poverty. Here is God-in-the-flesh standing in front of them, and they declare "Blasphemy!" They have a fundamental misunderstanding about who the Messiah is and what He will do.
Poverty of Community: As mentioned before, the (no longer) paralyzed man had most likely been rejected by his family. However, on the bright side, he formed a new family with the men that had brought him in before Jesus. They had entered into the art of Family Making!
Poverty of Stewardship: As we see elsewhere in the Gospels, if you had been rejected by your community because of illness, you were unable to keep a job, and thus forced to beg for a living. This should have never happened, though! Old Testament law had created a welfare system to make sure that no one would ever have to beg, but this was being patently ignored by first-century
Jews. That we ever see anyone beg in Gospels reveals systemic sin that kept poor people poor.
When we think about poverty, we need to keep a broader view than just material poverty. As you think about the four categories of poverty, which one(s) most apply to you?