I am reading through the book of John and came upon one of my favorite chapters (number 8). I have always loved the discourse Jesus has in chapters 8 through 10. He is talking to some Jewish religious leaders, who have it out for Him. They try to entrap him by bringing a woman caught in adultery before Him in the temple courts. Roman law forbid the Jews from carrying out the death penalty in Jerusalem, yet the law commanded them to do so. They put Jesus in a tricky pickle on that one, but He kind of blew them off, like, “Whatever!” He drew in the dirt and then He said, “He who is without sin cast the first stone.” That settled the matter and all that was left was Him and the lady. He told her that He didn’t condemn her, either, and said, “Go and sin no more.” There is redemption in that story. I also like the part about where Jesus flat out states that He is God. No good Jewish person would ever say, “Before Abraham was born, I am.” That would be blasphemy to make yourself out to be God. Yet He said that, because He is God. Amazing.
I just finished the book Fast Living: How the Church Will End Extreme Poverty. The last chapter takes a look at “The History We Hope To Write.” It shares a proposed headline about how, in 2035, the Christian movement rises up and eliminates extreme poverty, making it so 98% of the world’s population has enough (and the remaining 2% are cared for by their local communitites, making “the instruments of foreign assistance obsolete.” It talks about the generation after that growing up in a society where they are taught about how extreme poverty was eradicated by the previous generation, much like our kids today learned about the abolition of slavery. This younger generation gladly takes on the mantle of carrying on this movement. It’s a beautiful picture and I’m convinced, along with the author, that it is totally do-able … now. The church has a track record of spending 97.1 of its money on themselves. If that changed to where it was 90% and if that became the norm (in effect, changing culture and its expectations) it would make a huge difference. In essence, God has given “us” the resources to make change possible if we’d only allocate 10% to charity work (ending extreme poverty). The book talks about the practicality of government aid (though it talks about the government following our lead in causing change, as opposed to just begging the government to get involved and do the work for us). It talks about us fasting, but not just in the traditional sense of going without food for a day or days. It talks about giving up good (things, services, materials, hobbies) for an even greater (helping the poor), thus reflecting the “right fast” that Isaiah 58 talks about.
Scripture interprets itself in many places. One verse that jumped out in one of the closing chapters of this book directly answers the question, “What, exactly was the sin of Sodom?” For we know that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed (completely laid waste) by the judgment of God. Ezekiel 16:49 answers this head on:
Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.”
Wow, if that was the overriding reason the city got destroyed, those are certainly not trademarks I want said about me. Like many have been saying (people like Glenn Kaiser and Bono), the Bible has a lot of verses (direction, goals, vision) about the poor. God’s heart is obviously to help them.
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