The poor, those in need, and the truly needy.

I have never met a poor person who has trouble defining poverty. This seems to be a problem exclusively burdening the wealthy. Perhaps it is because God’s heart beats for the poor that even He, who is generally more knowledgeable and educated than the rest of us, feels no need to define ‘the needy’. This is, frankly, a little irritating. It’s hard to read much of the Bible without coming across the simple command—“give to the poor.” Sure, there is some complexity to it—we are apparently to give freely, and cheerfully, and not from pressure imposed by some fundraiser or church leader; yet at the same time our giving is an act of obedience, not something optional; and yet again it is a way to show our love, to prove that this love of ours is real; and again it seems to be a primary purpose of earning a living (“if you’re a thief, stop stealing and work, so you can earn a living and give to others in need”). All this complexity on the side of why and how we give, and not a single mention of how we should categorize the poor. Surely they must be categorized. You see, we see millions of poor people. The wealthier we are, the more there seems to be of them. There must be a way to sift out the ‘truly needy’ (you know, as opposed to the what? the ‘fake’ needy?). It is at this point, I think, that the Bible just plain fails us, and so we obviously need to look elsewhere for guidance, for something a little more intellectual and realistic. Poverty eradication, for example. There’s a pretty term, all medical sounding and everything. We just about eradicated polio, so why not poverty? We use words, lots of words, bookfuls of words. We even—I kid you not—print up T-shirts with “Say no to poverty.” It would be funny, except it’s true—real white cotton T-shirt with UN-blue writing. I can just see Jesus with it, a gnarled old man with a leper’s stump reaching out, begging, and Him, all wise and sophisticated, turning, smiling, and pointing to the slogan on his chest, reading for the poor illiterate non-self-reliant, not-yet-empowered poor person, “Say no to poverty”. I’m thinking all the poor people in the world should get together and throw a Nike slogan back at us: “Just do it.”

Now that I can see Jesus with, with his dusty feet and matted hair and faded shirt from the used-clothes marked, waving aside all the yahdeeyah of our words, and reminding us to maybe be fooled, maybe be taken advantage of, maybe never ever receive thanks or feel effective or see results, but still, just shut up and do it.