Archive for February, 2010
Haiti: Pray and Pay
I had to make a trip to one of the roughest neighborhoods in Kansas City today. It’s a good place to go if you haven’t been shot in awhile and you’re starting to forget what it feels like. Everywhere you look there’s desperation and poverty. Theft is rampant. Violent crime is a daily fact. Forget high school graduation; if one in ten makes it through it’s a miracle. No one really wants to be there; there are only folks like me who are just visiting and are well gone before sundown and the folks who have no other choice but to be there.
The gas station down there had a sign out front that said: “God has blessed you. Now YOU help Haiti. Pray and Pay.”
Good advice. Amazing, really. The truth always is.
Our poorest are still rich in comparison to those in Haiti before the earthquake. But even those who don’t have two coins to rub together can still say a prayer for the good people of Haiti.
Remember the parable of the poor widow who put her last two copper coins into Temple treasury? The Master teaches that truly she gave more than all of those rich people who put in more than she did because they gave from their surplus while she, in poverty, gave the last money that she had. That is the one of the finest examples of faith and love that a person can show; you may find its equal, but you would be hard pressed to find one better.
There is a lesson for all of us in the actions of the poor widow from Luke’s Gospel, just as there is a lesson in the evangelization of a gas station in the roughest part of Kansas City. God has blessed me abundantly, and He has blessed you. Because we are abundantly blessed, we have a Christian duty to help those in need. Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see Thee hungry and feed Thee, or thirsty and give Thee drink? And when did we see Thee a stranger and welcome Thee, or naked and clothe Thee? And when did we see Thee sick or in prison and visit thee?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’
Say a prayer for the people of Haiti and all of God’s poor and suffering around the world, and let us all work for a more equitable distribution of the Earth’s abundant bounty. It’s the right thing to do.