I have an enormous respect for those guys that stand on the street corners holding the cardboard signs and pleading the passing public eye for some assistance. I don’t know if you know this about men, but we have this incredible pride in our ability to provide for ourselves. When that right has been forfeited by a crippling economy, it’s about all we can do to wrestle down our pride, swallow hard, and ask someone for help.
Let alone standing on a street corner.
I think about the men and women scattered all of over the country, the millions without jobs and the hundreds of thousands who, despite their unfortunate financial situation, are denied unemployment benefits. And so as a result, husbands and fathers are forced into humiliating circumstances to find ways to provide for their families.
And sometimes it means ‘doing time’ on the corner.
I know there are a lot of mixed views on the economic crisis. Some people seem think it’s a flop and that it’ll eventually pass. Other people think it’s the end of the world. Some people aren’t affected at all, and then others feel the growing effects each morning that the sun rises.
As a Church I think this is an incredible opportunity to rise up and start acting like Jesus. We have on our doorstep our own society crumbling in every way imaginable because it’s founded itself on the kingdom of money. In fact, the whole world has felt the effects of our economic downfall because, well, it’s built some of its foundations on the unsettled sand of our country’s pocketbook.
On the doorstep of the Church is a world screaming for an incarnational encounter with the risen God (oftentimes unbeknownst to itself), and we’re sitting indoors with padded wallets, inwardly storing our treasures in our own pockets in an attempt to remain removed from the surrounding crisis.
It’s an open invitation to infect the world with an everlasting impact by showing it that God really does provide.
So as individuals we’re faced with a decision: will I get involved? As a corporate body we’re faced with another: will we get involved? How can the entire body move with freedom if some of its members aren’t “all in”?
Are you really willing to surrender your finances to the guy on the street corner so he can provide dinner for his wife and kids? This is a question even I have to wrestle with.
But I think that if we steward what God has given us, I think that if we give food to the poor and such, that God will be sure to give us those things in return. I’m not asking you to tithe to the poor. I’m asking you that you offer what you have.
Because do we really need that cup of coffee from Starbucks? I don’t.
What are you doing to help those around you survive the economy? Are you being Jesus with skin on, or are you cooped up in your house breeding selfishness?
