Pure and Wonderful Grace

“There will never cease to be poor in the land”.  Dt. 15:10

There are over 200 verses in the Bible about the poor. Throughout both the Old and New Testaments, God reminds us about His special care for, and attention to, the poor. Jesus spoke of the poor over twenty times; It is interesting that the verse that is most commonly quoted is John 12:8––“For you will always have the poor with you, but you will not always have Me.”

Though accurately quoted, Jesus’ meaning is often profoundly misunderstood. Read in the context of all He taught, Jesus was most certainly not saying that we don’t have to concern ourselves with the poor because they are always there anyway. Rather, Jesus was affirming that, in following His example and witness, we of course would be caring for the poor in imitation of Him. After all, Jesus didn’t just care about the poor––His entire life, from birth to death, was an identification with them.

In His Sermon on the Plain, Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the Kingdom of God.” The life of the extremely poor was marked then, as now, by social, economic and physical vulnerability that often made simply surviving a daily and crushing struggle. I think that, at least in part, Jesus was saying that the poor find the presence and reality of God in the midst of their struggles in ways that the comfortable will never know.

For many years, as I have had opportunity to take people to the profoundly needy, I have told them that we are not taking Jesus to the poor; He is already there. I deeply believe this to be true. I need the poor more than they need me. There are a number of reasons for this: The poor are a reminder of God’s grace to me. Standing before a poor man or woman is like standing in front of a mirror that reminds me of how often Jesus has rescued me from my many self-made disasters. Secondly, according to Mt. 25:31-40, expressing care to the poor is one of the principle ways that I can minister to Jesus Himself. I don’t think that authentic intimacy can do anything but lead me to the poor, the widow, the outcast and the fatherless. For these two reasons alone, the poor are a great gift to me.

This week, as I was reading from a favorite author, Jean Vanier, I came across something that has stuck with me for days. “[The poor] call us to love and awaken within us what is most precious: compassion.” I firmly believe that compassion is one of the great forces of the cosmos. Compassion, love and forgiveness express not only God’s heart, but the very way He moves in all of His creation. When I choose compassion, I am moving with and in Him. Further on in His Sermon on the Plain, Jesus said, “Be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate.” (Lu 6:36 NLT) I agree with Vanier: compassion is most precious. It is foundational to following Jesus, to experiencing His life.

Compassion does not come naturally to me. I believe it in my head, but, oh, how often I am aware of my hard-heartedness! The longer I insulate myself from the poor, choosing instead my own comfort and convenience, the colder my heart becomes. On various occasions my wife has seen this and admonished me to get out of the house and go to the poor. And when I do, I find Jesus. When I do, I remember deeply who I really am in Him. I am like the prodigal who “came to his senses”; this is a different kind of homecoming, where compassion is once again awakened in me.

I need the poor so much more than they will ever need me. And that is why Jesus’ promise that they will always be with me is His pure and wonderful grace.