March 1 Dignifying the Poor

Deuteronomy 24:10-11 When you make a loan of any kind to your neighbor, do not go into his house to get what he is offering as a pledge. Stay outside and let the man to whom you are making the loan bring the pledge to you.

I guess before I go any further I want to apologize or explain my absence these past few days. We have been struggling with the same bugs that have hit every other person on campus, the kind which seems to have a direct effect on one's sleep and energy level. Then I found that I had left my book at home when I was ready to write yesterday....so I spent some time working on message I am sharing at a retreat in a couple of weeks...enough whining.

To make it up to you, I want to share a provocative and helpful article on prayer. You can find it at the following URL: http://www.navpress.com/magazines/archives/article.aspx?id=10135

If you have ever felt guilty feeling like you don't pray good enough or like someone that you respect highly, this might be just "what the doctor ordered."

Now to today's text and subject: Dignifying the Poor. Isn't it interesting how everything really boils back down to love? God calls us to love our neighbor; He tells us that without love, there is no faith. There are well over 200 verses in the New Testament on the subject, so it is important in the way we relate to each other, regardless of economic status.

However, I wonder whether there might be another way we relate to each other - involving the word power, instead of love. So as we give gifts of any kind, how much of the way we give them is related to power, we want the person to recognize who we are in relationship to who they are - that we have power because we are the giver?

It makes me think of a student years ago who told me she had the gift of giving. She loved to give gifts and to take people out to eat, and she was generous with anything she had. BUT, when I asked her if people always knew who the money or gifts came from, she said yes. I explained that the person with the gift of giving loved doing so in a way that no one knew about it, that they enjoyed giving in such a way that it was never a matter of getting credit for it here.

So I think that's where the issue of dignity comes in. Are we willing to give so that no one knows who did the giving? Do we respect the other person's need for dignity, or are we more about how the gift meets our needs, for recognition ,for power, for attention? It is true, we cannot always give so that no one knows we are the giver, but we can give so that God gets the glory.