Good News To The Poor!

By Reverend Jan Scholtz

Poverty is a wretched thing. Yes, in the monastic tradition we praise simplicity of life. We say people should make do with what they have, not seeking to be swallowed up by materialistic desire. But we have NO RIGHT to glamorize poverty. Very often, many of us, from forums in the international community stand out and glorify, almost make poverty sound as if it is an extraordinary wonderful thing. No, if it is that wonderful thing “then go, sell all that thou hast and give it to the poor” – if it is that wonderful share and do with very little. Do with less that what you have.

Where do we find our poor? There are many among us. They are lonely in the townships. They are the unwanted, and with modernization and the coming of modern trends, the unwanted aged. There are those who have no opportunities for education. There are many who are unfulfilled in our world. There are those among us who do not know what life is and have to make do with an existence. They are the poor ones. They are the deprived ones. They are the disinherited ones. Those who are pushed around, whether they be white or black. Anybody who “as much does this to these my little ones, has done it unto me”.

Of course we must do all what we can to alleviate and eradicate poverty. We have to do all that we can to enhance life to enable those who are deprived in fact to rediscover their dignity which they have lost through deprivation. I am not saying that we should be captives or prisoners of the rat race. I am not saying that we should not be wanting the latest gadget that comes to the market. I am saying, find yourself and find the things that make you content you for in the end contentment will not be achieved by cluttering your life with possessions. It is when in the solitude of your lives, in the quietness of your heart, in your searching and in your questing, that you encounter God. It is then that we will begin to see things in perspective.

The community/we should then be enabling people to come alive! Not to be frightened by poverty, nor the challenges of our community/ Nation, but to say we will go in there in the steps of the Master who lived simply and had nowhere to lay His Head. We go to those who are at this time so brutalized either by crime or through violence, those who have to live in the face of the lack of trust and hatred.

There we will have to meet the poor and bring to them their sight. We must get them to proclaim their own liberation, they must be free. The Community, if it is God-centred and Spirit filled will be able to do these things without hesitation.

So it is only in that kind of spirit, in an appreciation of the reality and the context and the conditions under which the poor live; It is out of an appreciation of knowing exactly what the agonies of the poor are, it is by close identification and giving ourselves in compassion, not through condescending pity – that we can in the power of Jesus Christ, proclaim the GOOD NEWS TO THE POOR!