I drive up to the traffic lights. I make the obvious move of looking at my cellphone to keep me ‘distracted’ from the old lady carrying her young baby on her back, who is trying to get my attention.
At the supermarket, I have to keep my eyes up so that I don’t accidentally see the man with no legs and a cup who is reaching out his arm to me in desperation.
On the way to the airport I turn the music up load and make sure I engage in any form of conversation with my passenger, to ensure I don’t mistakenly let my gaze fall on the township that stretches out for miles to my right. I hate feeling bad.
BLESSED ARE THE POOR
There is a verse in the Bible where Jesus says to those around Him, ‘The poor will always be with you.’ Ironically it is the moment straight after a women has lavishly poured an expensive perfume over His feet. So perhaps a trickier one to figure out.
Except if we notice that he is quoting from Deuteronomy 15.11 where it says:
11 There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.
That verse is in the context of a conversation on Jubilee which was a occasion that was meant to happen every seven years for Israel where all debts were to be forgiven and in the earlier passage it states this:
4 However, there need be no poor people among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you, 5 if only you fully obey the Lord your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today.
I have often wondered if Jesus saying, ‘The poor will always be with you’ was because He knew our hearts and our tendency towards greed above sharing and so the likelihood is that there really will always be poor around us, whereas the reality is that there doesn’t need to be.
TO THE BEACH
In the light of the overwhelming nature of the poverty surrounding us in Africa, let us eavesdrop on this scenario happening on the local beach.
The tide has washed up hundreds and thousands of starfish on to the shore and the baking sun is drying them out and killing them. A little boy stands at the edge of the ocean, picks up a starfish and tosses it into the waves. He does this again and continues for half an hour.
Eventually an old man who has been watching from a distance can’t take it anymore. He walks up to the boy and asks him what he is doing.
“I’m saving these starfish”, the boy replies.
The old man motions up and down the beach where there is an overwhelming number of starfish busy dying. “What difference are you making?”
The little boy bends down, picks up a starfish and looks at the man. “I’m making a difference to this one,” he says as he throws it into the ocean.
But we’re not done.
WHAT IF ALL OF THE PEOPLE WHO WERE MEANT TO BE ON THE BEACH WERE ON THE BEACH?
Maybe you can’t significantly help the lady with her baby at the traffic light and the legless man sitting outside the shop and the endless line of township shacks on the way to the airport. But maybe you can help the lady and the baby. Maybe someone else can help the man with no legs. Perhaps a whole community or church or province can walk alongside those living in the shacks.
What if all of the people who were meant to be on the beach were on the beach?
Instead of being overwhelmed by the huge amount of need around us, what if we start with one? What if, at the same time, in conversations and on social media we challenge those people we are connected to, to find their one. What if we ask the leaders at our church to preach about this stuff more and challenge the whole congregation to each find their one. A church of 300 people each committing to one person or family for a year? Imagine the possibilities.
4 However, there need be no poor people among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you, 5 if only you fully obey the Lord your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today.
There need be no poor people among you. We see that demonstrated in the early church in Acts 2 and what a testimony to the world it would be in 2015 if we saw this happening again in our street or neighbourhood, in our province or country.
The biggest question is, ‘How do we get all the people on to the beach?’