Poverty
POVERTY
An Unchristian Social Order
Psalm 1:1; Micah 2:1-2; Habakkuk 2:12-14
The psychoanalysts stress the fact that the cause of maladjustment to life is within the individual, and some schools of psychologists stress the environmental factors as responsible for maladjustment of the individual. Both assumptions are true, for the individual and the environment act and react upon each other. But if I had to choose between them, I think I should have to conclude that an unchristian social order produces more thwarted and disrupted lives than any other single cause. A dean of girls in a public school told me that the three major factors in producing problem children are “poverty, broken homes, and a lack of attendance to Sunday school or church”—all social factors.
Abundant Living
(Week 26, Sunday)
Too Little and Too Much, Alike Harmful
Proverbs 11:24; 30:8; 2 Corinthians 9:5-12
Seek first the kingdom of God! We must continue our examination of the material basis of the spiritual life. God has written into the constitution of things that too little and too much are alike, and equally, dangerous. I say “alike and equally,” for the facts bear out the truth of that. We all see the devastating effects of poverty; they are manifest in sickly bodies, stunted minds, and problem souls. It is true that, here and there, a person can struggle against grinding poverty; make it sharpen the wits, determination, ability, and rise through obstruction to achievement. But where one triumphs, a dozen are broken or stunted by poverty. Let not our boasting about the achievement of the one, blind us to the devastation to the many. Poverty is wrong, for it produces wrongs to body, mind, and soul.
But if poverty is wrong, so are riches. The latter is not so easily seen, for it is covered up by refinements, by culture, by things, by the glamour of prestige and power.
Abundant Living
(Week 31, Friday)
Give Us This Day
2 Corinthians 8:15; 9:6-10
If we get the kingdom values straight, then we can pray [the Lord’s Prayer] with some assurance: “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matt 6:9-13). If we seek “first the kingdom of God,” all these things—food, clothing, all we need—“shall be added” (Matt 6:33 KJV). The coming of the kingdom of God would be the answer to the economic needs of humanity. For we would then pray, “Give us.” Now we are saying, in an individualistic, selfish age: “Give me.” If we continue to look after none but ourselves, think first of No. 1, then we ourselves will become Enemy No. 1. And we’ll have to think of ourselves so much that we will become sick of ourselves, our complexes, and our obsessions. That will be our punishment. We asked for ourselves, and we got ourselves a problem. For the first time in history, humanity has become its own problem. Why? Because we has said, “Give me.” Note that “Give me” was the first request that sent the prodigal to hunger amid swine. We have become a prodigal generation for the same reason. And we will get out of this alien “far country” and beyond “poverty amid plenty” only when we pray the prayer, “Give us.” For to say, “Give us” would mean the following out of the opening words, “Our Father.” It would mean a cooperative order instead of a ruthlessly competitive one. Nature would work with us.
The Way
(Week 29, Saturday)
Maturity in Spiritual Contagion
Acts 4:18-20
We now turn to another phase of maturity—a very important phase—maturity in spiritual contagion. Unless our maturity results in spiritual contagion it stops this side of maturity; it is immature maturity. For the end objective of life seems to be the production of life.
Franz Alexander, a psychiatrist, says:
All energy which is not needed to maintain life can be considered as surplus energy. . . . This surplus of energy shows itself in the mature person in generosity, the result of the strength and overflow which the individual can no longer use for further growth and which therefore can be spent productively and creatively. The mature person is no longer primarily a receiver. He receives but he also gives. His giving is not primarily subordinated to his expectation of return. It is giving for its own sake. . . . In the light of this view, altruism, the basis of Christian morality, has a biological foundation; it is a natural, healthy expression of the state of surplus characteristic for maturity. (Emotional Maturity [Austin, TX: The Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, 6th ed., 1967], 4)
Mature persons are sharers of surplus by their very maturity as a mature persons. If they are not sharer they show their basic immaturity. And this works back upon itself; the more we share the more mature we become.
We can share our spiritual life in many ways: in helping to relieve poverty and in removing the cause of poverty, in various forms of church and community work, in cleaning up civic situations, in youth organizations, and in just being helpful and kind. But these are marginal ways of sharing; the central method of sharing is the sharing of the highest, Christ. The central method of sharing is winning others to him. Evangelism is the central expression of the evangel.
Christian Maturity
(Week 45, Sunday)