Send the Elephant Packing

I would like to hit you with a concept that I call the "Poverty Elephant." To me poverty is the proverbial elephant in the room; large, looming, going nowhere, taking up space. An obvious problem or tenuous situation no one wants to tackle. The metaphorical idiom is struck in the idea that if there were an elephant in the room it couldn't be overlooked; so everyone pretends the elephant isn't in the room at all.  The "Poverty Elephant" is the desire of a person or group of people to not understand poverty for those in poverty, those in plenty and the relationship between the two. Creighton Abrams Jr.,  Former Chief of Staff of the United States Army, is credited with the saying, "When eating an elephant take one bite at a time." I don't believe I would be fond of elephant consumption. I feel it is time we reconcile with the elephant in the room; send him packing.

As a pastor of a congregation that is known for their love of people and their desire for reaching out, I often find myself mediating the conversation regarding helping those in need and helping those that are not truly in need but are in want. The backbone of this church family is a deeply, imbedded work ethic and an overall approach toward simplicity. Some folks find it hard to help those that "could" help themselves. Others say nothing but live in constant tension of what they feel they are called to do, feeling as though God will "sort this out", yet all the while hoping those receiving help truly "need" it. "The Poverty Elephant" is our lack of understanding of the relationship of poverty for God's people.

Taking a look at poverty a few concepts must be understood. 

• Poverty is not limited to those unable to provide for their needs.
• We all personally struggle with the spirit of poverty. 
• Christ said the poor will always be with us and we should take care of those that do without.
• Poverty is relative to each person's culture. 

Whether we would like to admit it or not, the concept of helping those in need is biblical. We are asked, commanded, to love others as ourselves. To not only give our shirt but our jacket as well. To pull all our resources together, use what we need and then give the rest to the poor. In the culture in which Christ delivered this kingdom code for his followers there were two words to describe the concept of poor; penes and ptochos. The term penes referred to those we would call the working class poor. Those that did not have leisure time or time to devote themselves to attending ball games, discussing or participating in politics, pursue higher education for the sake of knowledge. Ptoschos were those that had loss family, social support, so therefor became part of the "begging poor." When Jesus spoke of the poor, he was speaking of the ptochos; the begging poor. They would always be with us. And clearly we are to help beyond their requests. This issue of deservedness is never addressed. All we know is that they will be here forever and we are to help them generously.

So why do we balk at helping others when it is clear that is what we are called to do? WARNING: This is a "pot/kettle moment." Here are a few thoughts that have run through my head at least once, maybe you have had these thoughts too:

• I work hard for this money, why can't they?
• Some people take my money for needs and use their money for frivolous expenditures.
• If they would _____________ (fill in your activity of choice) they would have enough to live on. Choices can include stop smoking, stop drinking, work at McDonald's, sell their car, etc.

A shocking statement coming from this pastor is, "Yes, this is true. All of these sentiments have validity." But in addition to that I would say these statement come from a place of a spirit of poverty. It isn't so much that we feel we are poor, it is that no matter what we have been given by God, we feel that we need/deserve/want more and that by giving to those who by our estimation don't deserve it we are taking from ourselves.

As a child I learned the lesson between wants and needs. If I heard once I heard a bazillion times, "Want in one hand and s#@* in the other and see which gets fullest first." In fact I heard it so often I learned to confuse needs for wants. I learned the fine art of convincing myself that I needed something when in all actuality it was only wanted...badly...immensely. 

Everything we have we has been given by God. Most of us know and agree with this...theoretically. But because we work so hard a spirit of entitlement, "I deserve good things", because I worked hard to have them. But we earned the right to work by choosing to leave God's perfect garden to have our free will, right?

So we are left with the elephant. To eat or not to eat, that is the question. Allow me to send the elephant packing instead. Since helping the poor won't fix the problem as they will always be with us. Since we know we have issues about whether we should or who or even why we should help. Maybe, just maybe those are not the questions to be asking ourselves. Maybe there is a different answer.  Maybe the answer is that we should help. Could it be that the poor will also be with us to help us remember that we dont need all we have; that God provides what we need and that is all we need. Maybe the poor will always be with us so there will be a never ending lesson of simplicity and generosity waiting for us to learn. Possibly, we are to forever engage in poverty not so that we loose "stuff" by giving but that we "gain" God by uncluttering.  If we had no poor to share with, we wold we just keep wanting and amassing more possessions? Would they pile so high that we would lose sight of the One that gave us the ability and resources to even "have?" 

So what do we do with they elephant, we pack his trunks full of all of our over-flowing blessing from God's and send him on His way and enjoy our life with God awaiting the next elephant.