Who are the poor anyways?

I think any answer to this question is a dangerous one. By developing standards of poor vs. not poor, it becomes easy to err in three ways.

First, if one group or individual seems very poor relative to a second group or person, it becomes easy to ignore that second group because they aren't "poor enough" to bother with. I'll admit that I definitely fall prey to this kind of thinking. That's partially why I was hoping to go on some sort of trip outside of the United States. I honestly have not heard of many if any people starving to death here due to lack of food. We don't face many diseases that come with poor sanitation. I've wanted to see/know the poorest of the poor that are in the world. I tend to go to the extremes so it why not go to the lowest level of poverty? I'm not sure what I'll see in Lima but I don't that is going to be the worst, but it should give a very honest picture as to what poverty is. I don't know if this makes me a poverty snob, or if poverty is really different between areas and types. Regardless, the poor are still here in America. The most obvious to see are the homeless, but there are other, subtler forms of poverty as well which take effort to seek out.

The second way to err is to lump ourselves into the poor category. If we're not rich, then we're just scraping to make ends meet, so we must be poor. And since we're poor, I can't worry about everyone else who is poor. This is the easy way to look at things because it absolves us entirely of any responsibility to anyone, rich or poor regardless of our own position, rich or poor. I, just like most of you, would consider myself middle class in America. However, in the world, even "poor" college student me, am abundantly wealthy.

Finally, the third way is to make the poor, "the poor". You know, them. The ones we see on TV, murmur a few sad words about, shake our heads at and then go back to scarfing down a burger while yelling at the stupid referees for that last bonehead call. Someone wrote a very good column about this phenomena here, and I pretty much agree. Part of me says why bother looking unless you'll do something, and there are far to many things for one person to do. (Face it, you are only one person in the world and you do not have the power to make much of a change in it.....unless you have a friend in very high places:). I'm going to try to bring home some sort of tangible application to global urban poverty that can be done while we live in the states. I can't guarantee anything original or earthshaking or anything at all, but we'll see what God does.

So is there a correct way to consider the poor? I'm not sure there is. I'm tempted to say anyone who is in a condition worse than yourself, but I don't think that encompasses it. I think the issue is who is your neighbor, and how can you love them as Jesus calls us to love them. Is your roommate your neighbor? how about your actual neighbor? the homeless guy downtown? the illegal immigrant? the legal immigrant, the starving children continents away? Honestly, I don't know who, but pray, ask God to show you your neighbor, and He will. And be ready to love them, whoever they might be, for that is how God loves us. What a privilege it is to pass that along.

Press on for Joy!

If anyone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar. For if he does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?
And we have this commandment from Him, that he who loves God should love his brother also.
1 John 4:20:21