Go away! Come back later

 “Don’t say to your neighbor, go away! Come back later. I’ll give it tomorrow” Proverbs 3:28.

We live in a time where non-commitment is order of the day. Be it secular or in Christendom. Words have become senseless. We attach meaning to words based on our convenience. No wonder Jesus knowing our human heart had to emphasize and instruct us by letting our Yes mean Yes and No mean No (Mathew 5:37). The commitments of our ancient forefathers in the Bible were based on words. It was a period of oral tradition where there were no scripts, but we notice they never went back on their words. We do not mean what we say and we also wish others will not take our words seriously. Everyone would have an experience in their life to relate to where people have given their word, made a promise, given assurance but failed to uphold it and never felt an inkling of guilt. David in his attempt to describe the Godly put it in this way in Psalms 15:5 “…who keeps his word whatever the cost”. By us giving a word whether we mean it or not makes a profound impression on the person who is receiving it. This is a reality whether we agree with it or not. Unfortunately, the people in leadership position are not excluded too. We cannot afford giving a false hope, or in another extreme tell them to go in peace, stay warm and be well-fed but we don’t do anything about it. (James 2:15-17)

When do we really dodge, postpone or procrastinate? It is not when someone comes with a deal and it is going to benefit us in some way, it is when someone approaches us with a dire need in some form and we evade the situation by giving a false hope, promises or use some cliched words to send the person away. The emphasis on the poor in the Bible is of high importance, which instructs us to integrate them in our gospel. The poverty data is in every source available - what is our response to it? The world talks about the poor and poverty in its various kind. Now the study calls it as Multidimensional poverty, which means it is made up of several factors that constitute poor people’s experience of deprivation- such as poor health, lack of education, inadequate living standard, lack of income (as one of several factors considered), disempowerment, poor quality of work and threat from violence.

I give you a glimpse on the existence of poverty. About 20% of the world’s population, 1.2 billion people, live on less than a dollar a day. They go to bed hungry every night. Every four seconds, poverty takes a child’s life. Today, and every day until we act, 22,000 children die of avoidable diseases or because they live in poverty. 5.9 million children under the age of five die every year. Over two-thirds of these early child deaths are due to conditions that could be prevented or treated with access to simple, affordable interventions. It is estimated that human trafficking enslaves around 30 million people around the globe, half of them under the age of eighteen. How are we addressing these challenges as individuals and Church? We cannot afford to send people away (or ignore the statistics). In one incident recorded in (Mathew 14:15) the disciples approached Jesus to request Him to send the crowds away after listening to Him. They were honest, as they did not have any food to give to the large crowd, but Jesus immediately responded in Mathew 14:16 “They don’t need to go away” and we know what happened eventually. Most often you and I may not be in a condition of abundance to help others but Jesus set an example by looking unto His father. Similarly, we are supposed to look unto Jesus to make us a blessing to the poor and needy. Then we do not have to be non-committal in our behavior towards them.

Blessing

David Raj