Maybe it’s my age, maybe it’s circumstance, maybe it’s God, I don’t know, but I seem to be becoming more and more aware of the ever increasing gap between the rich and the poor in this country. Look, don’t get me wrong it’s not that I’ve had my head stuck in the sand for 42 years, it’s just that recently, certainly in the last 5 years or so it seems to me to be getting worse.
Jesus said, the poor are always with you, you can help them any time you like (Mark 14:7) and his point was that actually they needed to focus on him at that moment in time. But was that remark saying something more? I mean will the poor always be with us? Reports seem to suggest that actually we have all we need in the world for us to live reasonably well, for people to eat, have somewhere to live, for people everywhere not to live in poverty. Yes, some people will probably always have more and some people will probably always have less, but does there have to be such vast extremes?
Apparently more than half the worlds ‘wealth’ is now owned by just 1% of the global population. Perhaps I’m just late to the agenda but WTF? How can 1% of people on the planet own that much? How does that make sense? I mean it just doesn’t make sense to me at all. Surely that is not what God has planned? Even if Jesus did say the poor will always be with you, I’m sure this is not the divine plan, right?
…o0O0o…
Last week we went to Les Mis at the theatre – I had a chat with a homeless guy on the way home, who jokingly said to me ‘oh how la-de-dah’ – well, indeed. But it was fabulous and I literally cried all the way through. Not because it was brilliant, which it was, but because in every scene God was speaking to me about inequality, poverty and love.
How was it that a man who stole a loaf of bread to feed a starving child could be sentenced so harshly? How could such inequality and lack of compassion exist? How could it be that a Mother just trying to provide for her daughter had to resort to prostitution just to feed her? And the thing is it doesn’t seem to be much different now does it? Ok so you might not face 12 years in prison for stealing some bread but the principle is the same, the inequality between those in need and those who have. And so often it’s about misunderstanding and judgement. We make snap decisions about people or judge them on our terms from one thing we see, or one thing they did. A person is more than one action or one decision.
The irony of sitting in a theatre in London’s West End whilst pouring my heart out for the poor was not lost on me of course, that’s partly why I was crying. So often it’s just one decision in someone’s life that leads to poverty, to brokenness, to a destructive path. It doesn’t take you there immediately of course, but it starts that journey. More and more I see in my work how people who want to help themselves just can’t because the system is stacked against them. How can that be? It’s like we want to keep people trapped in poverty and brokenness rather than helping them to step out of it.
What makes me mad too, is that once upon a time we helped each other out, it was not the state’s responsibility to support those in need, it was ours to look out for each other. Communities pulled together, people rallied, not because we had too but because we just did. Because people had a sense of compassion, or maybe duty, or understanding. How have we become so selfish?
…o0O0o…
As I chatted to ‘Steve’ he didn’t want to talk about how he ended up on the streets, but he did tell me he has a son who he doesn’t see, he once had a job, a family, and now he has resorted to begging in the underground. How did that happen? More and more I look at politicians and people in power and wonder what on earth they are thinking. Not just about welfare and support, but they seem to just be so lost in a bubble of their own. I mean PMQ’s? It’s a farce, they make jokes at each other expense when they are supposed to be running the country. It’s not some school playground for goodness sake, they are making decisions about people’s lives. I’ve never wanted to go into politics so I’ve no idea what it’s like to be an MP but someone please tell me that sometimes they do actually think about the people, right?
…o0O0o…
Again and again I’m drawn back to people. We can run programmes, organise stuff and work hard but at the end of the day what’s it all for? Surely it has to come back to people? Jesus told us to love our neighbour as ourselves – he said it was the second greatest commandment after loving God. Yup, a COMMANDMENT. Not a choice, we should be doing it, no excuses or arguments. And are we?
If you read my blog regularly you’ll know I’ve been wrestling for a while with what love means and what it looks like to love people and I’m afraid this rambling ranty post is just another element of that. I’ve been writing an ethics essay recently about what it means to love your neighbour too and more and more I just feel like we can say what we like, we can try and explain things away or find reasons but there are no two ways about it we just need to love people…
4 Comments
Anon
February 25, 2016 at 8:58 pmBut when we read that the Church should be also helping the marginalised, the poor we also note the cars in the Church car park on Sunday, the number of those who live in their own house. As I read your blog and other books on the subject I am cautioned by that voice in my head (you know the one) saying what are *you* going to do about it? That’s the dilemma today. Are we, the church, able to be ‘so radically’ different to the ‘rest’ and help out unconditionally? This is so hard for the ‘western’ church but sooner rather than later we need to act for:
(1) the poor you mention
(2) the life of the church
Jules
February 26, 2016 at 6:40 pmthat’s exactly the challenge I think – how can we be more radically loving, more radically compassionate, more radically different? About time we started to address this I think. I speak for myself and my church as much as for ‘the’ church. We are in a very middle class and affluent area, but there are still people suffering, people in poverty and in need, I am constantly challenging people to get outside the church and ‘do’ something!
Anon
February 26, 2016 at 7:57 pmwow what could be done if we rolled up our sleeves (removed our tie – sorry DaveC) and helped people, and used those resources effectively. I am constantly astonished at the ministers who give so much of themselves to run a shelter (during SWEP) for the homeless, or (as heard recently) start to support the transgender population in their home town. It takes nerves but when else will people see that unconditional love of Jesus in such a real way unless we are, as you say, truly radical. Thank you for the blog.
Jules
March 2, 2016 at 12:44 pmindeed! x