Friday: Distribution According to Need
WEEK 17
FRIDAY
DISTRIBUTION ACCORDING TO NEED
Luke 19:28-34
We saw yesterday that communisms, secular and religious, apparently break down after a certain length of trial. God apparently does not intend that they should succeed, so they break down, frustrated.
But what is the truth—the very great truth—at the heart of this Christian experiment in the first century? I believe it to be this: distribution according to need (Acts 2:45; 4:34-35). Is that the basis on which economic goods should be distributed? I believe it is. We need what we need, not more than we need or less than we need. Need is written across our bodies. If we eat less than we need, we are unhealthy. But if we eat more than we need, again we are unhealthy.
Someone has said that we live off half we eat, and the doctor lives off the other half. But need is not merely written across our personal bodies; it is written across the body of society. Two of my friends are in charge of the problem children of certain cities, one in Canada and one in America. They give exactly the same conclusions. In both cities there are three economic classes: 25 percent below the privilege line, 25 percent above the privilege line, and 50 percent in the middle class. Invariably the problem children come from classes below the privilege line and from classes above the privilege line. Apparently too little produces problem children, and too much also produces problem children. I picked up my morning paper one day, and the headlines told of the arrest of the heir to millions, arrested for possession of narcotics. His accompanying picture was pathetic, the face of a man on skid row. If I have tears—bitter tears—for the underprivileged, I have just as bitter tears for the overprivileged. All incentive to struggle and achieve is taken away, and they have nothing to do but spend unearned millions, become playboys and playgirls, play with fire and get burned.
The normal and adjusted children come out of the middle classes, where they do not have too little or too much. Is God speaking to us here at the place of the economic, and is God’s voice unmistakable?
O God, our Lord, you are speaking and speaking plainly. Help us to listen and to heed. For if we cross your mind, we get hurt, invariably and inexorably. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: The right to receive according to need was apparently basic then and is now.