Isaiah 59:1-9a; Matthew 5:13-20
A few years ago, a woman named Linda
Tirado published a blog piece called, “This is Why Poor People’s Bad Decisions
Make Perfect Sense.” When she wrote it, she was working two jobs, going to
school, and raising children. It’s a quietly devastating piece of writing. It
describes long hours, low pay, and how impossible it can be for poor people to
somehow pull themselves out of a pit that only seems to get deeper. It recounts
a lot of material deprivation, but it’s the hopelessness that is most painful
to read about. For example, she writes:
I
smoke. It’s expensive. It’s also the best option. You see, I am always, always
exhausted. It’s a stimulant. When I am too tired to walk one more step, I can
smoke and go for another hour. When I am enraged and beaten down and incapable
of accomplishing one more thing, I can smoke and feel a little better, just for
a minute. It’s the only relaxation I’m allowed. It’s not a good decision, but
it is the only one I have access to. It is the only thing I have found that keeps
me from collapsing or exploding.
About finances, she says,
I
make a lot of poor financial decisions. None of them matter, in the long term.
I will never not be poor, so what does it matter if I don’t pay a thing and a
half this week instead of just one thing? It’s not like the sacrifice will
result in improved circumstances: the thing holding me back isn’t that I blow
five bucks at Wendy’s. It’s that now that I have proven that I am a Poor Person
that is all that I am or ever will be.
Towards the end she writes,
Poverty
is bleak and cuts off your long-term brain. It’s why you see people with four
different babydaddies instead of one. You grab a bit of connection wherever you
can to survive. You have no idea how strong the pull to feel worthwhile is. It’s
more basic than food. You go to these people who make you feel lovely for an
hour that one time, and that’s all you get. You’re probably not compatible with
them for anything long-term, but right this minute they can make you feel
powerful and valuable. It does not matter what will happen in a month. Whatever
happens in a month is probably going to be just about as indifferent as
whatever happened today or last week. None of it matters. We don’t plan
long-term because if we do we’ll just get our hearts broken. It’s best not to
hope. You just take what you can get as you spot it.
This woman doesn’t speak for everyone, of
course, but what she says resonates with so much that I have heard over the
years from people coming to me looking for help. Poverty doesn’t just deprive
people of shelter, food, and medicine: all too often it deprives them of any
sense of self-worth and any reason to hope. And at its worst, it just crushes
the human spirit.
Jesus says today, Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I
have not come to abolish but to fulfill. The prophets, those challenging
and discomforting people, addressed many different situations over the course
of many different centuries, but there is one theme they returned to
consistently, time and time again. Along with faithfulness to God, it is the
core of all prophetic teaching and it is at the heart of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ, who comes to fulfill that prophetic teaching. We hear it loud and clear
in the words of Isaiah today: Is not the
fast that I choose to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the
yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share
your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when
you see the naked to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
I understand that poverty is a huge and
complicated problem. I know people have different ideas about how best to
address it. I get that we have different politics. But all of us here, I believe,
are people of good will. In the Gospel today, Jesus calls us the light of the
world, and so all of us can find ways to let the light of Christ shine through
us to lessen the suffering of the poor. That could include volunteer efforts
here at church (Food Pantry, Grab A Bag, Salvation Army meals, and others) or
similar efforts out in the community; it may shape the way we donate our money
or the way we invest our money; we can advocate for public policies we believe
will make a difference for good. At the very least we can raise our awareness.
I am thankful for the work of our racial reconciliation ministry, for example,
as it deepens our consciousness of how racism contributes to poverty and
oppression in our country. There are many ways to follow Jesus here, and I urge
all of us to find ways to do so that work for us.
But if we do so just out of obligation,
we are missing something crucial. Poverty is not just a social problem or a
political issue: it’s a human concern, with a human face. I shared some excerpts
from Linda Tirado’s piece to remind all of us that the poor are not just
statistics: they’re people. And God calls us to love them and to care about
them. In fact, I am uncomfortable even using that pronoun “them” because for
all of us in Christ it can never be about “them” – it’s about us, all of us
together. Isaiah says today that to ignore the poor is to hide from our own
kin. I pray all the time about growing in love and faith, I pray it for myself
and for the parish, and I know that doing so inevitably means growing to see
with ever-greater clarity that we all belong to God and we all belong to each
other — in God, we are one. And at least for me, that kind of growth is a
difficult process, one that involves real conversion and requires the Holy
Spirit to soften and enlarge my heart. I’m sure we are all works in progress,
when it comes to that. But we can all say yes to that ongoing work of the
Spirit, and we can all at least desire to love better and to love more. And any
step we take to show love to the impoverished among us is a step forward, and a
step closer to the heart of Christ, which is where the Holy Spirit is
ultimately leading all of us.
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