Thoughts...

I spent part of my day yesterday thinking about sin and poverty and the city of Detroit and how the government can and cannot address the needs of the people in poverty. A lot of what I heard was nothing new (thanks to living with an HLIC staffer + IV training + 6 years of social work studies), but it's always good to be reminded of these things...even if they're not fun to think about.

In thinking about this, my attention was brought to Deuteronomy 15, which is one of the first places in Scripture where we see God teaching His people - the Israelites - how they are to treat the poor and needy in their land. In verse 4 He says, "There should be no poor among you...if only you fully obey the LORD your God." In a seemingly contradictory statement only a few verses later, God then states "there will always be poor in your land" (vs. 11). So what does this mean? Is God contradicting Himself? Should we not care about the poor, because they're always going to be with us anyway, so what good can we do? No, I think what's being made evident here is that sin is the root cause of poverty: sin in all its forms from societal sins to personal sins. God knew back when the Israelites were forming their nation that, try as they might, they would always be sinful and fall short, and never fully live up to God's standards...hence our need for a Savior! A pastor I was listening to yesterday pointed out that there is no evidence that the Israelites carried out Deut 15 (which speaks specifically to carrying for the poor and needy by cancelling debts every 7 years).

It's not hard to see evidence of this in Detroit - I see it almost every day just about as soon as I walk out my front door or turn on the news. So what role does God want me to play in this issue? My career, at this point, deals with addressing the issue of poverty (homelessness) from a governmental/social services perspective. I think this is important, because while social programs certainly can never solve the issue of poverty (we've obvisouly lost the "War on Poverty") the truth is that the government does spend millions of dollars to address the issue. I see part of what I do as helping to make sure this money, and the programs they support, are being used in the best, most effective, most honoring way possible.

But no social program is going to address the issue of personal sin, and the consequenences of which can lead to or perpetuate poverty, and for that reason the church of God must have a presence among the poor. There are good, solid, biblical churches in Detroit that are truly reaching out to their community with both "physical and spiritual rescue". These churches need the support of the suburban churches, and I know a number of suburban churches do support inner-city ministries.

I don't know that I really have a point to all this rambling...these are just some thoughts tumbling around in my head. I hate poverty. I hate what it does to individuals and families and this city. I hate too, that there is no easy answer. It's like a spider web, where if you think you've found a solution in one strand, as soon as you being to pull on that you find yourself getting tangled up in another strand and so on and so forth.

But, the good news is that God has a plan to one day restore all of creation. Which means that some day all the sin and poverty and injustice we see will be gone, and the new Jeuslaem (the city of Jerusalem) will be restored (Rev 21).

Hallelujah!