Beyond generosity

It is encouraging to see the recent interest in fighting global poverty. Both Nicky Gumbel (the Alpha Chaplain) and Rick Warren (author of Purpose Driven Life) openly support the Make Poverty History campaign.


In Australia, Micah Challenge led the way in urging the Prime Minister to increase our overseas aid budget, and he announced recently a $1.5 billion increase in our aid level by 2010.


Such compassion for the poor is heartening. The church is heeding the call of the Scriptures to be generous and speak up for the poor. Yet the gospel demands us to go beyond generosity. Perhaps we should stretch our understanding of poverty further, and the best place to start is to find out where our blind spots are.


Are we very rich

In Luke 16:19-31 Jesus tells the story of the rich man and Lazarus. This is a well-known story, and is often understood as a call to almsgiving. But a closer look at the story will unveil some of our blind spots as citizens of affluent Australia.


The rich man was dressed in purple, and he feasted sumptuously everyday. This indicates that he was exceedingly rich. In those days even the wealthy could only afford to kill a calf occasionally, but the rich man here did that daily.


According to Dr Joel Green, while white garments indicated membership among the elite, they were regarded as modest when compared with clothing dyed purple (cf. Judges 8:26; Esther 8:15).


Thus the rich man was not only rich, he was among the richest. What does that mean to us? Given the fact that 1.2 billion people in the world live on less than US$1 a day and that many of us spend more than that on junk food, we are indeed among the richest in the world - not far from the rich man in Luke 16.


In sharp contrast Lazarus was covered with sores, which in the cultural and religious context would have marked him as unclean, and Lazarus would have been seen as under divine judgment.


Lazarus lived in hunger and dogs came to lick his sores. The fact that he lied down at the gate indicates that he was probably crippled or very sick, according to Dr Darrell Bock. What we see here is a man living in subhuman conditions and thoroughly an outcast.


It is hard to imagine that the rich man did not help this neighbour of his. In the Jewish setting it is clear that the rich man failed to obey the Law of Moses (Lev 19:18; cf. Gal 5:14).


With the advance of technology our "neighbours" are not restricted to our friends next door. There isn't much distance between us and the rest of the world.


Through the media we know that there are many Lazaruses in our world. About 30,000 children die every day because of poverty-related causes - such as lack of immunisation, things that we take for granted in Australia.


About 14 million children have lost one or both parents due to HIV/AIDS (as at 2001). Many others are dying of famine right now in Africa. The images of the poor are right in front of us on our TV screens.


It would be wrong to say that Australians are not generous. The World Vision report Island Nation or Global Citizen? shows that we are a charitable people. We are much more generous than the rich man in Jesus' story. But it does not exempt us from other blind spots that the rich man had.


Blind spots of the rich

The reversal of fortunes after death between the rich man and Lazarus is astounding. Lazarus was with Abraham and the rich man was in torment. Amazingly, the rich man still saw Lazarus "as his pawn, his social inferior." (Darrell Bock).


According to Joel Green, the rich man still thought that Lazarus should "carry out errands on behalf of a wealthy man like himself." "His audaciousness is only exacerbated by the long-standing tradition regarding Abraham as a model of hospitality to strangers."


Speaking as someone from a privileged position, the rich man wanted to send Lazarus to warn his brothers. Like other rich people in the ancient world, he always looked out for the interests of his kinsmen and wealthy friends. But the Law required Israel to love their neighbours, which of course included Lazarus.


Here are the rich man's blind spots. Somehow his wealth - and hence his status, power and privileges - blinded him from seeing God's values. The moral of the story is not so much that he should show pity on a poor and unworthy man, but that he would see Lazarus as a child of God, with the same status and privileges as everyone.


The rich man was blinded by the honour, respect and status that his wealth gave him. He only cared for the welfare of his own circle of kin, and failed to know that there were thousands of poor people around him - given the fact that the majority of people in the ancient world were poor.


Maybe subconsciously we too have similar blind spots. That is, we see the poor as somewhat inferior to us, and fail to see them as equals - people made in the image of God, just as we are. Somehow we see people in our own communities as more important than the poor - as if the poor are less worthy in the eyes of God.


Perhaps it is because of these blind spots that a European cow gets more in subsidies than what 1.2 billion people have to live on. Somehow the primary producers in poor countries do not deserve as much help as those in rich countries.


Maybe this is why Australia's projected overseas aid budget will only increase to 0.36% of Gross National Income by 2010, short of the internationally agreed level of 0.5%, putting us at the 18th of 22 rich countries in the world.


Serving the poor is more than generosity. It is about seeing the poor as who they really are - people deeply loved by God, so much that he sent his Son to die for them.


Misreading of Scriptures

The reason why Abraham wouldn't send Lazarus to warn the rich man's brother was that they already had Moses and the prophets to teach them God's ways (16:29-31). This harks back to the previous passage where Jesus says that the Pharisees are lovers of money and that not one stroke of the letter in the Law would be dropped (16:14, 16-17).


So here we are, with the story of the rich man and Lazarus Jesus rebuked the Pharisees' failure to understand the Scriptures. Those who are supposedly experts of God's Word do not do what it says. The question for us is whether we - who proclaim the Bible as God's eternal Word - heed what it says and "go and do likewise". Do the blind spots stop us from reading the Bible aright?


How to avoid the blind spots

How to avoid those blind spots? The best place to start is to recognise the fact that the rich can be "poor" - that is, we can have blind spots because of the abundance of our possessions. We are "poor" in the sense that we can fail to see the plight of the poor.


Then we have to realise that the blind spots are not so much caused by money itself, but the privileges and status that money brings us. Life in luxury meant that even after death the rich man saw Lazarus as inferior. Worse still, his brothers would probably fail to understand the Scriptures because of the same blind spots, and in doing so they would end up living in torment after death.


There is nothing evil in money, nice cars and houses. But it is often the prestige, respect, and honour of these things that blind us. We should be thankful for the bountiful material blessings we have, but at the same time we should never think that our wealth is God's favour to us - as if we deserve more things than the poor. In Jesus' story God's favour was given to Lazarus, not the rich man.


The example of Jesus is that he forsook his privileges, lived among the marginalized and oppressed, died a violent death on the cross as an alleged criminal, and was vindicated by God at his resurrection. His life of identification and solidarity with the poor is the antidote against the blind spots above.


Few of us will literally do what Jesus did. But things like doing the 40-hour Famine of World Vision will help us to experience what it means to be hungry. We can always extend the 40 hours to a year-round fasting on luxury items or buying things we don't need - and then imagine what it is like not to have money to buy what we do need. This type of fasting is a small way to identify with the poor, and will profoundly transform our lives.


From Micah Challenge (http://www.micahchallenge.org.au) we can find heaps of things we can do to speak up for the poor in the world. There are also many civil societies and Christian organisations through which we can directly serve the poor, such as the homeless in our cities and the asylum seekers in our communities who have little to live on.


It is also important to educate ourselves about global poverty. Information can clear our blind spots. Check out http://www.onebigvillage.com.au and http://www.tear.org.au. There are plenty of fantastic resources, including many interactive materials.


Yes, the rich can be "poor". Let's be aware of our blind spots and act accordingly.




Copyright 2005 Siu Fung Wu, Global Education Officer - Church Relations, World Vision Australia