Jesus on Poverty

Debating poverty doesn't end it

In the New Testament, when Jesus is describing the day of judgement, he makes the basis for going to heaven or hell very clear, according to Matthew 25:41-46:

Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick or in prison and you did not look after me.’

They will also answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

I don’t see any mention of sexual practices, school prayer, or the myriad of other issues that get far more publicity than poverty. I believe the only way we can live in our culture of greed and competition is refuse to see poverty and focus on lesser issues that don’t require any personal sacrifice. It is one reason for the strange Republican bedfellows of the religious right and corporate America. Banning gay marriage, abortion, or flag burning doesn’t cost a red cent. Neither does requiring school prayer.

Confronting poverty, on the other hand, may be far more Christian but it is also far more costly.

At the Call to Renewal Conference I attended last week, someone remarked that we need to save the poor from the debate over poverty. The right tends to blame the poor for their plight, while the left tends to blame government. The right focuses on personal responsibility and the left on the barriers to success. The right claims to want to "teach the poor to fish," and the left proclaims that government assistance is the answer.

These are nice debating points but debating the issue has never fed the hungry or clothed the poor. We already know programs that work: Head Start, WIC, expanded educational opportunities, Medicaid, free school lunches, Earned Income Tax Credit, a reasonable minimum wage, adequate child care, housing subsidies, etc. The problem with these programs are not that they are ineffective but that they have always been underfunded.

Yes, government can not do it all. There is also a place for private efforts, especially faith-based ones, to help people overcome the psychological underpinnings of poverty. To fill the hunger of the soul as well as the body.

Let us not delude ourselves. We don’t lack the means to end poverty, we lack the will.