Embracing Poverty

Sunday 1/4/2015 5:23 AM

The theme of my devotions this week is the poverty of God. The opening affirmation in my devotional material is Philippians 2:7, the passage about Jesus emptying himself and taking on the nature of a servant. The closing blessing is, “May the Lord who has blessed our poverty by embracing it empower us to embrace the poverty of our brothers and sisters in the sorrow, sickness, or any other hardship.”

Over the past months there have been a number of issues that have occurred in our country and around the world that are examples of the poor being taken advantage of, being denied justice and oppressed by economic and political systems that are stacked in favor of those who are rich or in positions of power. More and more these issues make me angry and I have been looking for ways to become involved, to seek justice and equality for all people, regardless of their financial status or their social position.

This past week our family received word that the senior care facility where my mother is living is closing. She was understandably upset because she was just beginning to make friends there and adjusting to losing the independence she enjoyed living in her own home. We discovered that the reason for the closure of the facility was that it had been sold to a developer who is planning to replace the facility with luxury apartments. The land on which the facility is built is in the Biltmore District of Phoenix, where many of the wealthiest residents of the valley reside. As I read my devotional material this morning I thought of the residents of this care facility, like my mother, who are considered poor and undesirable by many within our society being moved out of their homes so that the wealthy and well-connected can have apartments in one of the desirable parts of town. I’m sure my mother’s situation is repeatedly played out in other towns and in other countries throughout the world. It is these types of situations that anger me the most.

I’m not sure how best to embrace the poverty of those being displaced, as the parting blessing of my devotional material suggests. I am planning to go to Phoenix in a few weeks to help my mother move to another facility but while helping solve my mother’s dilemma, it does little to address the underlying problem of corporate greed trumping compassion. I pray that God will give me insight regarding how to address this issue on behalf of others.