A Reflection on the Poor and Matthew 20:1-16

FOUR THINGS THE POOR ARE NOT

In the wake of the parable everybody loves to hate, (The Laborers in the Vineyard, remember?) there were a lot of discussions this week about the vineyard owner. Was he just? It depends, I guess, on how you define justice. Distributive justice asserts that the community has an obligation to provide the basic necessities of life to all who need them, unless there is an absolute scarcity of resources. If there is an artificial scarcity because too few have too much at the expense of those who have too little to survive and thrive, then this is a violation of justice. In a country built on meritocracy, this theory of distributive justice is not only annoying, it hits at the heart of what we have been conditioned to believe.

For most of us, the questions are real and difficult: Does someone have a right to a share in the wealth of this country simply because he or she lives in it? Who, exactly, owns the earth or its water or oil? Well, the parables of Jesus constantly walk around the issue of justice, often in ways that startle, confuse or anger us. Jesus had quite a bit to say about individual selfishness, and about political and social structures in which the rich prey on the poor. For Jesus, justice was not necessarily about giving people what they deserve, but what they need. One way to distance ourselves from the changes we ought to make is to distance ourselves from those who deserve better, just because they are humans like us. What follows are reflections that force us to look at the poor more honestly:

The poor are not always needing only charity, but are needing justice. Charity is a great first step. It bridges the gap between what is and might be. It rescues people from hunger, homelessness and despair. Justice, however, insists on fidelity to relationships, and those relationships are with all of our fellow human beings, not just those closest to us. Justice, unlike charity, is not something we do out of the kindness of our hearts; it is something we do because we are obliged to respect the dignity of all human persons and to work to change unjust political, social or economic structures which keep the poor in poverty.

The poor are not always very visible

We must go out of our way to find those who need assistance. Often, those who lack the basic necessities of life are so ashamed of their condition that they try to look like everyone else. For every person who begs outside of a grocery store, there are perhaps ten times that number who sleep in their cars, or send their children off to school without breakfast, or who go without medical attention or prescription drugs, or a warm coat or shoes that actually fit. The vast majority of the poor suffer and worry alone.

Helping the poor is not always rewarding: When you read Charles Dickens, you sometime might get the impression that the poor are universally noble, so it comes a a shock to the system to discover that reality is not like novels.. Sometimes people who live in poverty are angry. Sometimes they have just given up. Sometimes they are dishonest and take advantage of the system. But most are not like that. Often we use the few bad examples as an excuse to do nothing. Bishop Kenneth Untener put it this way "When you help the poor you always receive more than you give--but it may not seem that way at the time."

The poor are not different from us: They laugh and cry, get angry and rejoice, worry and love, just we do. They care for their families just as much as we do. The following is a poem written by a woman living in poverty with her children:

My Name is not “ Those People”

I am a loving woman, a mother in pain, giving birth to the future

where my babies have the same chance to thrive as anyone.

My name is not “Inadequate.”

I did not make my husband leave us—he chose to,

And chooses not to pay child support.

Truth is though, there isn’t a job base for all

Fathers to support their families.

While society turns its head, my children pay the price.

My name is not “Lazy, Dependent Welfare Mother.”

If the unwaged work of parenting, homemaking and community

building was factored into the gross national product, my work

would have untold value. And I wonder why my middle-class sisters

whose husbands support them to raise their children are

glorified—and they don’t get called lazy and dependent.

My name is not “ Ignorant, Dumb, or Uneducated.”

I live with an income of $621 with $169 in food stamps.

Rent is $585. That leaves $36 a month to live on. I am such a genius

At surviving that I could balance the state budget in an hour.

My name is not “Lay Down and Die Quietly.”

My love is powerful and my urge to keep my children alive

will never stop. All children need homes and people who love them.

They need safety and the chance to be the people

they were born to be.

The wind will stop before I let my children become a statistic.

Before you give in to the urge to blame me,

the blame that lets us go blind and unknowing

into the isolation that disconnects us, take another look.

Don’t go away.

For I am not the problem, but the solution.

And my name is not “Those People.”

--Julia Dinsmore

“Unless you love, the poor will not forgive you for the bread they take from you.”... St Vincent de Paul