Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. [my italics for emphasis] They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.”
— Ezekiel 16: 49
Somehow the scripture above–and scripture from Isaiah 58 which I invite you to click here to read and reflect on– seem appropriate in view of all the hostility and prejudice toward the poor and the homeless nowadays.
Whatever your opinion about government’s role in helping or not helping the homeless and the poor and the working poor and the marginalized and the most vulnerable among us–the very people Jesus and all the prophets and the early Christians stood up and fought (unarmed with anything but spiritual weaponry) and suffered and died for–I hope, if you’re a Christian, you know that nowhere in the Bible does the Bible say, “The Lord helps those who help themselves.”
Not a week goes by that I don’t hear someone invoke that phrase as being scriptural. And yet it’s not only not in scripture anywhere in the Holy Bible, it’s not even remotely scriptural. It runs contrary to the unconditional love and outreach of Christ. Jesus and the early churchers never said to anyone who was down and out, “For God’s sake, get up off your lazy ass and help yourself.”
Look, I’m too hard and driven a worker to promote laziness and that’s by no means my intent here. But my point is that Jesus and the early churchers never failed to reach out in love to anyone whether they were able bodied and not helping themselves or not.
And anyway, as MLK Jr. said, “It’s a cruel thing to tell someone to lift himself up by the bootstraps when he has no boots.”
I have a homeless friend–one of many homeless friends–named Cecil. He was a construction worker before he had an accident that broke every bone in his body. He had no health insurance. His employer went to the hospital to see him once and never went back to see him again.
He stands at a traffic light on days when he’s able to get up from the camp he’s made by the side of a creek. A lot of days he can hardly move at all, but whenever he can he stands at the light and people like me give him money. (Don’t send me your emails chiding me for giving money to a homeless guy. I don’t give money to every homeless guy or gal on the street but sometimes do contrary to what many who work with the homeless advise.)
Cecil, like so many of the homeless, is a good man (who doesn’t smoke or drink, if you must know). So back in the very cold of our very cold winter I sought him out at his creek camp a few times to let him know the weather was about turn critically cold so that he could be prepared. One time I actually went to his camp and persuaded him to come home and stay at my place lest he freeze to death. Some people think that’s a crazy thing to do, to bring a homeless guy into your home, but it is scriptural after all. (Again, see Isa. 58.)
Fellow Christians, please–there’s enough hostility and prejudice toward the poor and the hungry and the homeless and the immigrants out there without Christians joining in on with that callous Greek choir. And while I’m not suggesting that everyone should bring the homeless home with them, I do suggest we all, at the least, pray for the poor and homeless and the immigrant–or better yet pray with them– and help the poor and the homeless and the immigrant. Get to know some homeless folks and poor folks and hear their stories and you’ll be blessed, and quite possibly transformed.
