How we treat the poor is how we treat God.

It’s the plain message of Matthew 25, much of the Gospels as well as a strong theme of the Old Testament. If we want to see the human face of God, we have to look no further than the, ‘least of these.’

During Lent many of us try to draw closer to this Bible truth, in almsgiving and increased volunteer work. Together we look for new and deeper ways of identifying with the plight of the poor. While this might sound altruistic and ‘other centered’ the real beneficiary in all of this is us.

What’s your attitude toward the poor look like?

If you’re like me, you rarely think twice about clicking past a TV ad drumming up aid for the hungry, telling a beggar on the street, ‘No thanks,’ or even tossing out letter after letter of ‘urgent appeals’ that I find in my mailbox each week. I am not happy with myself when I do this and I know that the conditions of modern life can callous my heart to the degree that, as Thomas Merton once put it, I no longer have possession of it. I can become unable to have my heart broken by all the starving children, their distraught and helpless parents, not to mention countless earthquake victims.

Then there’s my competitive way of living that can draw my focus toward my own strategies and gains and far away from the dire needs of most of the rest of the world. The swift and varied gales of change keep me preoccupied and diverted.

A tortoise shell heart and a distracted mind are not the most helpful accoutrements of a budding disciple. They keep me from following the path of Christ. I am no longer fully human or fully alive.

In John 10 we hear Jesus talk about his mission to bring humanity, ‘life and life more abundantly.’ That abundant life is all about fulfilling our humanity. When we tend to the plight of the poor we reclaim that part of us that has calcified and we bring our attentions round front and center. And we discover anew that in the face of the poor, we see God, and thus are made new again.

We know this instinctively. Psychologists will often recommend that the depressed seek out some sort of volunteer activity, that they move the focus off of themselves and onto an area of need. Now that Easter has come, we have accepted this new light of the resurrection, how can we too move forward like those early disciples in continuing the work of Christ? How might we be called to answer the cries we are now that much more familiar with? How might we use our newfound humanity to fall deeper in love with the Christ we see in the faces of the poor?


Good Reads
The Politics of Jesus – Obery Hendricks
The Misunderstood Jew – Amy Levine
Saving Jesus from the Church – Robin Meyers