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CHAPTER 8
RICHES FOR THE POOR
Since the majority of the world lives in an economic environment that is radically
different than that of those who send forth evangelists, it is imperative that sending brethren
seek in some way to understand the environment of the poor. It is important to understand
the plight of the poor in order to better communicate the gospel across cultures to those who
have little economic hope. There is a tremendous receptivity among lower income people
simply because their attention is not in bondage to that which wealth can buy. For this
reason, therefore, a concerted effort must be made to preach the gospel of hope to those who
are trapped in economically adverse conditions. Therefore, allow me in an inadequate
literary manner, unfold to you the real poverty of this world. “Poverty is the open-mouth,
relentless hell which yawns beneath civilized society.” So said Henry George in Progress
and Poverty. And so it is true today in much of the Third World.
The word “plight” according to Webster, is “a condition, state of affairs, or situation;
especially now, a dangerous or awkward situation.” And that’s exactly the situation of the
poverty stricken environment of many of our Third World brethren. Poverty is the plight of
the poor. Milton expressed the predicament, “This miserable loathsome plight.” Just ask
anyone of those millions who scrounge each day for another morsel of food. That person
will thoroughly agree that his plight is miserable and loathsome and awkward and dangerous.
Jesus did remind us that the poor are always with us. And how right He was. The poor,
the materially destitute, have always been and always will be. I guess that’s just life. And
life can be so cruel.
(This series of blogs compose a book that carry the title, “Making Disciples In A Global Community.” )
But most of you who are reading this book will not be able to identify with what I am
saying. And I can write about it but never really understand the plight myself. Poverty, real
poverty, is only something materially wealthy people read about. And admittedly, it is
difficult to even write about, even though one has seen and lived with the worst of poverty
the world has to offer. And I have, both in Brazil and in the West Indies. But none of us
have ever lived like the poverty stricken of the world today.
Not everyone who lives in a Third World country is poor. Let me explain. We must
define what is biblically defined as poor. Paul said that as long as he had food and clothing,
he was content (1 Tm 6:8). I would assume, therefore, that not having food and clothing is
poverty. Not having a radio, television, vehicle or new pair of shoes is not in the biblical
definition of poverty. Living in a grass hut is not poverty. Walking to school for ten kilometers
is not poverty. Poverty is having no food to eat and no clothes to wear. Being in such a
condition would possibly be the result of having no land to farm or no job by which to earn
a salary. But having no land or job is not defined in the Bible as being poor. When one is
without food and clothing, he or she is living in a relentless struggle for survival. This is
poverty.
Breecher said, “Poverty is very good in poems but very bad in the house; very good in
maxims and sermons but very hard in practical life.” Yes, to some it may be easy to write
and talk about. But poverty is still that “relentless hell which yawns beneath civilized
society.” In New Seeds of Contemplation, Thomas Merton reminded us, “It is easy enough
to tell the poor to accept their poverty as God’s will when you yourself have warm clothes
and plenty of food and medical care and a roof over your head and no worry about the rent.
But if you want them to believe you, try to share some of their poverty, and see if you can
accept it as God’s will yourself!” I must agree that it is easy to write and preach about
poverty, but perilous to practice it.
We all have our stories about how rough we had it in the “good ole days” when we were
growing up. It seems that poverty is a condition you try to hide while you experience it, but
brag about after you have experienced it. Someone once said, “I was once so poor I used to
buy a pint of milk for breakfast and a loaf of bread for dinner, and eat them both for supper!”
And then there was the good man who bragged, “I wasn’t born in a log cabin, but my family
moved into one as soon as they could afford it.”
I guess there were some advantages to those days, those days when poverty was an
allergy that made us unusually sensitive to paper money. It was an economic condition that
kept us from going anywhere but in debt. After all, back then your income tax was so small
you never had to borrow to pay it. And your car keys were never in your other pair of pants.
Why is it that we never recognize those blessings of poverty until after we have experienced the poverty? And why it is that most people do not realize the deplorable situation of
the poor of the world? Why is it that we have erected a barrier between ourselves and the
reality of the poor of the world? Why is it that we feel threatened by the “have not” countries
who supposedly are trying to “get our money”?
I spent four years living in Brazil where poverty was real and next door. I have visited
other countries where it is even worse. The annual income per person in Brazil back in 1975
was $1,140. However, over thirty million in that country lived at the same time on an
average income of $77.00 per year. Those two figures should give you some indication of
the tremendous separate between the rich and the poor in Brazil. Ten percent of the people
owned and controlled ninety percent of the wealth.
The world’s produce, I am told, can support only twenty-five percent of the world’s
population on the standard of living as that enjoyed by the average American. And Americans
are in that lucky twenty-five percent and enjoying all that which they feel is their right
to have. But the have nots want a piece of the pie. They want to lift their badly fed bodies
out of the pits of agonizing hunger. And who can blame them. If you had four or five
hungry children at home, what would you want? What would you believe? What would
you do? Desperation often moves fathers and mothers to do things they would not normally
do.
Have you ever had the wretched experience of having a mother or father dig through
your garbage can in order to find some potato peels to feed their children. I have … several
times. You just want to cry. Most of the time in the developed countries it is a dog or cat
that upsets and digs through the garbage cans. In the conditions of many Third World
countries, it’s people, people with starved bodies. That was the poverty we experienced in
Brazil.
In Brazil they were called molecos. These were those three to ten year old children who
roamed the streets begging for food, many times having no home to which to return at night.
Over 600,000 poverty-stricken people were living in houses of scraps of cardboard and tin
when we were in Brazil. The rich shipped expensive things around in packing crates to put
in their houses. The poor used the crates for their houses.
Most of us who lived in the “carpet world” want the poor to stay out there. We cry,
“Don’t bring us any more boat people.” “Keep the wetbacks out.” “They’ll take our jobs.”
In South Africa it is erroneously called xenophobia, the fear of another race. The jobless
South Africans have not been favorable to refugees from the north. However, it is not
actually xenophobia. It is the fear of refugees taking jobs away from the jobless South
Africans. It is a conflict of the poor against the poor.
I think some of us could care less about such situations because we understand less the
plight of the poor. But “out there” is the real world. This is our real world, a world of
relentless poverty. John Worral, a newsman in Africa, wrote back to his newspaper, “Millions
sit idly outside mud huts, crushed by crop failures due to drought or floods, wondering
when they can eat again.” The next time we grumble about the high cost of food at the food
store, let us thank God that we have a food store to grumble about. We must understand the
ever present danger of subsistence farming during drought. When it does not rain, one
cannot go to a food store to buy food. You have no money. When drought occurs, people
simply starve. People fall victim to their environment.
I do not have any answers for the poor of the world. There will always be those who
close themselves in the security of their homes with filled refrigerators in order to isolate the
pleas of the desperate. On the other hand, there will always be those with tender hearts who
will feel for the millions who live in malnutrition. May our concern move us to tears, to
thanksgiving, to sharing and caring. I would urge the West to continually watch the weather,
the world weather. When there is a drought there is a real need as poverty strikes subsistence
farmers. There are no other jobs for fathers to feed their families. The World Food
Program is a great work of the West. The humanitarian nature of the American culture has
led the Americans to do wonders in coming to the needs of the poor. I have always thought
it curious that America has been known for dishing out billions of dollars in food aid
throughout the years, but oil rich Islamic nations are not known for such. Could this be the
nature of the Christian-principled culture of the West as opposed to the Quranic-principled
culture of Islamic countries. I do know that when nations are in trouble, they go first to
those of whom they are often so critical, the West.
If we have food and clothing, I sincerely feel that we need to be constantly reminded
that God has truly blessed us. We need to thank Him that we happened to be living in a
blessed spot at this particular time in history. After all, I could have been born into the midst
of a drought stricken area of the world, or in the slums of Calcutta, India. Seventy-five
thousand people die each day because of either malnutrition, or malnutrition related causes.
The same number died yesterday. Those of their friends and family will battle to find that
next piece of bread, that next apple core or potato peeling that will allow their starved and
swollen bodies to continue until tomorrow. Their whole purpose of life has dwindled to find
that morsel of food that will get them through another day. And after today, maybe another.
In Africa, there is a drought going on somewhere at all times. Or, there is a political
conflict with refugees scattering here and there. These situations must be in our prayers.
For example, the tragedy of Darfur, Sudan was caused by senseless men in Khartoum, the
capital, who did not care for those who were of a different religious faith in the south of the
country. The tragedy of Darfur was inevitable. A country with an Islamic government in the
north boycotted a Christian based culture in the south. The country should have done what
former South African foreign minister Botha advised, “Just divide the country.”
In order to understand the world we seek to evangelize, we must seek to understand the
disadvantaged and the poor. There is great receptivity among the poor. The advantaged thus
have a responsibility to share. The Christian leaders in Jerusalem encouraged Paul in his
travels to always remember the poor. He told them that he was very eager to do such (Gl
2:10). In our world evangelism, therefore, we would do right to follow Paul’s example, and
thus be eager to remember the poor (See At 20:35).
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