They Will Go Away if We Go Get Them
October 17th, 2005 | by Scott |Sojourners alerts us to the fact that Congress will be discussing this week where to make cuts to our budget in the aftermath of Katrina and Rita.
It is obvious that cuts will not be made in a runaway war. Nor will the rich be expected to part with any additional money. Voodoo reigns supreme.
I am going to share with you a sermon I preached back in August. I will do it in several installments to break it up.
But this reflects my growing theology in matters of the poor. The text is from Matthew 26.
“They Will Go Away if We Go Get Them”
August 7, 2005
We need a revelation, a revolution in our approach to the poor.
In the
passage read to us this morning the question of ministry to the poor becomes a
divisive issue: the issue that would be the final impetus that would send Judas to
betrayal.
If
we are to be Christ’s church in this community then we must develop a greater
heart for this community.
We must learn to
love them.
An issue, ignored for so long, is now being rushed to the
forefront.
We must be involved, not
because it is in the vogue but because Scripture demands it.
From the One Campaign:
- Each year, more than 8 million people around
the world die because they are too poor to stay alive. - Over 1 billion people-1 in 6 people around the
world-live in extreme poverty, defined as living on less than $1 a day. - More than 800 million go hungry each day.
- Over 100 million primary school-age children
cannot go to school. - Half the world’s population is considered poor.
- And millions more are just barely making it.
- Total number of children younger than five
living in France, Germany, Greece and Italy: 10.6 million - Number of children who died in 2003 worldwide
before they were five: 10. 6 million. Most of these deaths could have been
prevented. - Every day 29,000 children die, most of them
from hunger.
Can give you so many more
statistics. It’s eye-opening and
heart-breaking.
Thousands of families in our
community alone live below the poverty level. We do much to help them-clothes garden, school supplies yesterday. That is the place we must start not end up.
What Scripture has to say:
Matthew 5:42 Give to the one who begs from you, and do not
refuse the one who would borrow from you.
Luke
3:11 And
he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none,
and whoever has food is to do likewise.”
Luke 12:33 Sell your possessions, and give to the needy.
Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the
heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys.
James
1:27 Religion
that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans
and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
Proverbs
14:31 Whoever
oppresses a poor man insults his Maker, but he who is generous to the needy
honors him.
1 John 3: 17 But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his
brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in
him?
But a lot of times
we gloss over these passages and don’t give the same emphasis that God does.
Jim Wallis reports
that dealing with the poor is the second most prominent theme in the OT-second
only to idolatry.
Dealing with the
poor or money is found in 1 out of every 16 verses in the NT.
One out of every 10 verses in the synoptic
gospels and one out of every seven verses in the gospel of Luke.
If the demand for our involvement with the poor
is so loud in Scripture why has the church so often been so silent?
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The next excerpt, tomorrow, will deal with the objections that we often give in our refusal to help the poor.
2 Responses to “They Will Go Away if We Go Get Them”
By Jeff R on Oct 18, 2005 | Reply
Good set up for further discussion. Looking forward to your next posts to complete the thought.
Note that Dan Edelan over at Cerulean Sanctum (http://www.dedelen.com/cerulean.html)just posted a very well-written and wholly biblical view of what the church of today really needs.
Read it at
http://www.dedelen.com/2005/10/american-churchs-five-most-pressing.html
Because of having seen this cycle play out over and over again - even in my own relatively short lifetime - I’m always a bit nervous when we pick a “cause” to champion rather than focusing on becoming like the Christ - because I believe the former has always resulted in the exultation of self and our accomplishments whereas the latter will result in the right causes being addressed while exalting God and humbling us.
Obviously some have used this as an excuse for inaction - inaction that the church should not long tolerate. But that is the risk God took. And it is his risk to take - not ours. Our care of the widows, the orphans, the poor, our neighbor are by-products of a life invaded by God’s presence and transformed into a Kingdom-kind-of-life. Reversing the order always results in idolatry.
The church has too often and too long tolerated lack of real discipleship. But in our fervor to *do* something, we have often substituted the idolatry of action over the transformation of the self in the presence of God. The upshot being that causes fade, enthusiasm wanes and celebrity-driven efforts are forgotten. But the converted disciple continues to serve.
Having said all that, it is clear that much of the American church has fallen asleep to the call of discipleship - to personal transformation that rejects materialism, rejects the world’s value system and becomes an outpost of God’s Kingdom. The church needs real teaching on what it means to be a disciple - and on the dangers of syncretism, accomodation and assimilation.
By scott on Oct 18, 2005 | Reply
Great thoughts, Jeff. And wonderful link.
I should state that this sermon was part of a larger whole on what it means to be a disciple. Much of edelan’s thoughts were incorporated into that.
You are right. It is too easy to be a one-trick pony. We’ve seen far too much of that in our tradition.