I'm asking myself these days what would happen if I really did strive for the kingdom of God above all else - food and clothing are the particular items that Jesus mentions as secondary, but by extension he seems to be saying that yearning and seeking after the kingdom of God should be more captivating and compelling than satisfying any possible human need.

The kids in the video are street children in Mwanza Tanzania. It is a scene taken from the documentary, "Darwin's Nightmare." Poverty has ravaged them, and the issues surrounding their destitution are complex and thorny. There is no easy solution, no clear enemy, no quick fix. Ecological issues, trade imbalances, government forces, the arms business and a half dozen other things conspire to so thoroughly rob these kids of dignity that they are willing to pummel one another in the frenzy to get a stupid fistful of rice. It will take men and women who are commited to seeing God's kingdom come in fullness there above their own comfort.

The New Revised Standard Version suggests that Matthew 6:33 can also be read, "But strive first for the kingdom of God and it's righteousness ..." Because the Hebrew mind so intermingled righteousness and justice, Jesus is calling us to strive first for kingdom justice.

What if striving for kingdom justice among prostitutes trumped striving after a boyfriend or girlfriend? What if striving for kingdom justice on behalf of those who have been dispossessed and pushed off their land took priority over adding on to our homes or moving into a bigger apartment? And what if striving for kingdom justice for these street kids was more motivating than striving after the frozen custard my family and I just indulged? What a scary and wild life we would have if we really did strive after God's kingdom before all else. But the promise is that relationships, and housing and food and all our human needs will be met for those who are hungrier for God's kingdom and it's righteousness than they are for Big Macs and American Eagle clothing and boyfriends/girlfriends.

It is probably a frightening oversimplification to claim that when the early Church emphasized Jesus' humanity she spawned great social programs and when she emphasized his deity produced great theology. Understanding and expressing the reality of these two natures existing in a single person inspired the historic schisms. To this day we quibble about the deified power of Christ to save and the incarnational power of Christ to serve, as if they were at odds with one another.

This tension between social justice and evangelism - or Christ as Man and Christ as God - is a bit like the tension between LOVE as verb (I love) and LOVE as noun (my love) - it works great both ways, it just depends on what you are trying to say. In fact the noun and verb can have a symbiotic relationship, "A lover loves." I become the noun, a lover, when I consistently engage the act of loving.

I am grieved when Christians feel like an invitation to accept Jesus is the only way to legitimize the protesting of evil or need to throw an altar call in when feeding the homeless, as if confronting evil or doing good were not enough. Jesus held up a Samaritan as the picture of what it meant to inherit eternal life by fulfilling the law of loving your neighbor (Lk 10) even though he had substantial theological issues with what Samaritans believed (Jn 4). Hating evil and loving justice do not need an evangelistic call in order to become valid. Those actions please Jesus all by themselves.

I am grieved when I meet Christians who have no problem protesting unfair wages for migrant farmers but have no desire to call people into a saving relationship with Jesus. How can we see the kingdom come without inviting others to acknowledge the King? Justice flows from a Judge and answering Jesus' question, "who do you say I am?" matters. A friend of mine, Doug Schaupp, observes that it is easier for him to take someone who is good at evangelism and turn them into a lover of justice than to take a socially active Christian and grow them into a good evangelist. That is sad to me.

Separating social justice and evangelism is like getting married and then not living together. Is it better to have the security of a marriage covenant and never see your spouse, or to live together with no real commitment or promise? I want both. Some of us may be more gifted at the prophetic confrontation of evil systems and structures and others at calling people to say yes to Jesus' invitation to trust him for salvation, but we must remain stoutly committed to both.

Jesus as God and Jesus as man, separating those things is heresy.

I met Daryl in a poor neighborhood in Oakland, California. He was homeless and pushing a shopping cart full of pirated DVDs that he was selling. Napoleon Dynamite was only $2.00.

When I encounter certain populations of people, I struggle with a blasted sense of superiority. I hate admitting that, but I know it exists because I recognize paternalism when I feel it in me. Paternalism is that thing that says, "Gee, that poor soul is so much needier than me, I should do something." This is different than compassion. Compassion says, "There's a human being just like me, made in God's image, and suffering." The compassionate make no distinction between themselves and the object of their compassion. Their action comes from a sense of identification with the person in need, not a sense of condescension.

When I stopped to talk to Daryl I made up my mind not to condescend. I wanted to treat him as I would one of the college students or InterVarsity staff with whom I work. Daryl was a believer, though he had the classic smell I have learned to identify with alcoholics. He worked pretty hard at generating a sale. But when he saw I wasn't really ready to buy a pirated copy of Napoleon Dynamite, he seemed content to just talk. After chatting a few minutes I asked if I could pray for him. I realize this could be done with a condescending attitude, but it's the kind of thing I do with lots of people after chatting without "praying down," if you know what I mean - as if their issues somehow make them less a person than my issues.

Daryl didn't answer my question. He simply bowed his head and held his palms open.

I prayed for Daryl. I prayed for him just like he was a seminary graduate. "God, thanks for Daryl. Thanks for the gift you have made him to this world and to this neighborhood. Increase his ministry. Give him strength for today. Pour out the gifts of evangelist, teacher and prophet on Daryl. Use him to establish your kingdom in this neighborhood. Build your church through Daryl, God!"

When I stopped praying I looked up. Daryl's eyes were still closed and his head bowed. Tears were rolling down his cheeks. "Damn!" He whispered under his breath. "I needed that."

I guess you know your prayer hit the mark when someone swears in gratitude after it.

When I am around those who are uneducated, poor, drunk, or drug addicted, I fight with that inner temptation to place myself above them. I fight the prayer that comes from a ministry of condescension rather than the prayer that comes from a ministry of compassion, esteeming and dignifying the person as somebody who is, in essence, just like me.

When I can do that consistently, I'll be a lot more like another homeless man I know - who, though he was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, just so he could stand alongside us in an act of perfect compassion without a hint of condescension.

I have been attempting to walk alongside Christ this Lent  by eating what the poor of the world eat as I consider Jesus' love for the hungry poor. Some of it has been hard just for the shear fact that meals play such a central role in our social lives. Besides the natural place of relationship with my family and household (some of whom are participating in this fast and some of whom are not) there is hardly a week that goes by where I am not sharing a meal with friends or colleagues. I've done what I can to capture the spirit without becoming a jerk or pharisee. Mostly this has meant limiting what I eat when I am with friends. The pain of turning down seconds when I am hungry shows me just what a slave I can be to my cravings.

At the beginning of March I was in Kolkata, India for meetings with leaders from Servants to Asia's Urban Poor. Perhaps the biggest challenge to my Lenten fast was passing the delectable tray of swiss chocolates from the Swiss delegates as it came around the room without drooling on them.

That week the Lenten fast was focused on the poor of Kolkata and I was supposed to eat rice and dal, which I did. But the most ironic part of this fast occured when I was fed by the poor.

We were paired up and sent out into the homes of the poor women who work with Servants for dinner one night. I ate at Shujeta's home. Her grandma moved into the two room concrete enclosure 40 years ago. What you see above is as much of the main room as one can see without using a wide angle or fisheye lens. It was probably a room about 12 feet by 12 feet. The room used for cooking was smaller. Shujeta's extended family has lived there for two generations and their hospitality and genoristy was amazing.

They brought out three courses of incredibly tasty food, and Shujeta (as most Bengalis) would not stop loading my plate each time it emptied until I made a huge fuss and pulled my plate away.

It is beautiful and disturbing that during my attempt to identify with the hungry poor during Lent that the one time I have eaten in abundance was the evening I was fed by the poor. I was humbled to be shown such extravagance by those whom I have been attempting to identify with by depriving myself.

No matter what extent we go to in order to stand alongside the poor, I am convinced that the wealthy can never outgive the poor.

“And God said, ‘Let humankind produce unlivable poverty.’ And it was so.  Great shanty towns multiplied on the face of the earth, in gullies and ditches and in every place where man chose to live. A few lived in great affluence while the majority lived in great desperation, selling their daughters into prostitution so that their families could eat or buy drugs. And there was evening and there was morning, the eighth day.”

Of course these words are not in the account of creation. Poverty was utterly absent from creation, and some readers, I am certain, will be very upset at the above rendering in Biblical language suggesting that God created poverty. Maybe even more upset than they are at the physical existence and reality of poverty today in God’s good creation.

Didn’t Jesus say that “the poor you will always have with you?” Isn’t this a statement of resignation to the fact that poverty will always be around, so, oh well, we may as well make the best of things? I’ll treat that question in another blog. Let us agree for now that God did not design creation with poverty in mind. He did not intend for humanity to experience homelessness and starvation. Nor did he create the cosmos with the idea that millions families would barely subsist, living off of the refuse of others, dying by the scores for lack of basic needs, while a few lived in luxury. Poverty was not made for creation, God never intended it. It is an invader on this earth and an abomination to the Creator. If the first paragraph of this blog is ridiculous and sickening to us, so must the existence poverty be to us.

“God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.” Genesis 1:31

Everything the creation accounts tell us is that God created abundantly, holding nothing back. Besides the oft repeated, “And God saw that it was good,” amplified at the end of creation with the words “very good,” there is the frequent repetition of the expression, “of every kind.” There was a lot of teeming and swarming going on in creation. The variety and fruitfulness of all God had made is striking. So what went wrong? How is it that on such an abundant and fruitful planet we have become impoverished?

The answer to that question is longer than a 500 word blog treatment can begin to address. I will only say that in the Original Great Commission (Gen. 1:28) it appears that God endowed the human race with the ability to “replenish” the earth, or as some translations put it “fill the earth.” We were also commissioned to “subdue” the earth. My understanding of this almost militaristic Hebrew word is that we have been equipped to bring every thing that does not belong in creation under control. Finally we are to “have dominion over” or to govern this good creation. Humans have been given God’s authority to replenish what is diminished, to subdue what is out of order, and govern what is good. We were the only thing in creation made in his image, and with his image comes his authority to rule as co-sovereigns with God, using the wisdom, compassion and creativity passed along to us in our likeness to him. Can we not, then, take up this commission and subdue poverty? More on this later.

 

Who Would You Rather Follow?

I don’t know about you, but it would certainly be a whole lot more exciting to follow Che Guevara into battle for the rights of the poor, than to follow Fred Rogers into the land of Make Believe to chat with Daniel Lion. And there has been a certain corrective underway in our understanding of Jesus, moving his visage more toward the picture of Che and away from the picture of Mr. Rogers. I, myself have voiced that Jesus was more like the revolutionary leader than the docile children’s program host. But I am re-thinking my perspective.

There is certainly something about following Jesus which gets a person in trouble. Jesus was executed by religious and State authorities because he was a threat to those in power. His kingdom operates on principles which place the poor and marginalized in seats of honor. The powerful (religiously powerful, politically powerful or financially powerful) are often on the outside of this “good news to the poor” kingdom. Anyone attempting to bring Jesus' kingdom will get into the same kind of trouble Jesus did from the power-holders who get displaced by the gospel of the kingdom. Jesus promised it would be so. “Do you remember what I told you? ‘A slave is not greater than the master.’ Since they persecuted me, naturally they will persecute you.” John 15:20 (NLT). The kingdom brought by Jesus will be inherited by the meek, and the power transfer from the strong to the meek will not take place without resistance.

Although Che was rightly disturbed at the treatment of the poor, and dreamed of a world where the marginalized were given voice, he was anything but meek. He was notorious for his disciplinarian tactics, shooting defectors for abandoning his ideals. He was pleased to incite violent revolution to obtain his goals. Mr. Rogers, on the other hand, is most at home sitting on the floor playing Chutes and Ladders with a six year old. And I am pretty sure this is more descriptive of Jesus than shooting defectors. In fact, when his disciples were warring about who would be greatest, he brought a little boy or girl and had the child stand among them. "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me." Matthew 18:3-5 (NRSV).

The kind of revolution Jesus is inciting will more likely call me to drop my career in order to care for an invalid than to “take out” a banker, CEO or political leader. Following Jesus, I mean really following him no matter what, is going to “take out” my ego before it will turn me into a hit man.

It is precisely in this downward journey of coming alongside the dispossessed that can be so threatening to those who dispossessed the outcast and the disregarded people of our world. But we don’t forsake upward mobility, fame, money, etc. to be threatening, we do it because Jesus said to even gain entrance into his kingdom we’ve got to become like children. While I chafe at Mr. Rodger’s “here-comes-Trolley” harmlessness and am drawn to the cry “CHARGE!” issued by revolutionaries, the truth is that if the meek are to inherit the earth we’re more likely to be near the center of kingdom power by getting down on the floor with Mr. Rogers than loading our weapons with Che.

Hopscotch anyone?

God is Shuffling Along
He didn’t lift his feet, he slid them, as if skating on the concrete sidewalk.
Maybe he was old, but I couldn’t tell because he looked like a cave man, and it’s hard to read a cave man’s age.
Eyes looked out from sunken pools in his head, down at the ground where he shuffled.
And wild, long hair stuck out from all directions on his head. Some of it was matted.
I don’t know if he had lips. His beard had crept up his cheekbones almost to his eyes and crawled back down his face, past his neck, until it disappeared into his ragged coat.
From behind the wildness he mumbled.
I think he must have been saying, “Someone help me. God is in here somewhere, but no one can’t find him no more ‘cause he’s all crusted over and hid.”

God is Running Scared
Something was chasing him from up in the sky. Demons I guess.
He ran with a look of terror, and I thought in this heat that can’t be healthy because he’s old.
He was panting and sweating and grunting in terror.
He tripped, lost his balance and touched the ground with his hand. He didn’t fall, just stumbled and kept running.
Good thing, because I’ll bet those things in the sky chasing him might have caught up to him.
When he ran past I looked up to see what was terrifying him, trying to run him down so mercilessly.
Just blue skies. ‘Cept maybe those things from his memory. Demons from some war. Vietnam? Korea? Boyhood abuse?
I don’t know. But they had him running scared.He was too scared to talk, but I think he probably would have said, “Someone help me. God’s prints ha’ been swallowed up by all this fright and that terrible thing what happened to me long ago.”

Jesus Likes the Big Mac Value Meal
I once prayed walking to the McDonald’s in Santa Monica, “Jesus, I’d like to have supper with you.”
I stepped up to the counter to order and I saw him.
He was really skinny and ragged, but he did have that long hair, beard and mustache I had always imagined. Though I never imagined the body odor.
He was ordering just a cup of water.
“Would you like something other than water?” I asked.
“Sure.” He said. “I’ll have a Big Mac Value Meal. It’s number one.”
I knew this guy was Jesus because when we sat down to eat together he said right away, “You know, I’m sorta like Jesus. ‘The foxes have holes and the birds have nests but the Son of Man has no where to lay his head.”
I smiled.
“I have schizophrenia” he said, which is something I never knew about Jesus.
After dinner we tried to find him help, but it’s hard to help someone like that.
He’s alienated himself from everybody because he gets spooked by people easily.
“You can’t get close enough to see Jesus in me.” He says as he slips away, throwing me a suspicious glance. “He’s hidden here, and I don’t want no one to steal him.”
 
Then they also will answer, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you mentally ill and shuffling or scared or hungry, and did not take care of you?' 
Matthew 25:45 (NRSV)  

Then he will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.'

Lent for me has become a chance to hunger and thirst for God’s kingdom to come more fully in my life and in the world. I want to hunger for Easter, to hunger for resurrection, and to hunger for the dawning of God’s good-news-to-the-poor kingdom in me and through me. This Lent I want to invite you to join me in 44 days of eating with the poor.

Food is pretty amazing. I love it. It excites all five senses (OK, maybe the hearing sense only when cooking or when you eat with your mouth open). Jesus did a lot of eating in the gospels. In fact food or feasting is pretty central to all of Scripture. Something about it connects with our emotions. Not more than a few waking hours can go by before our bodies and minds turn to the topic of food. Maybe that’s why fasting is such a critical spiritual discipline.

The idea of eating the simple fare of the poor around the world during Lent is an attempt to identify with Christ’s longing for those who are poor. It is a quest to be in touch with the frailty of our own humanity. The hungry poor are mostly distant to me, but they are not distant to Jesus. Eating what the poor eat draws me into a kind of relationship with them ... and with Christ who ushers in a kingdom which favors those at the bottom of the human food chain.

I’ve tried to represent what the poor eat in six different places for the six weeks of Lent. Eat only a couple of meals per day without snacks and eat the same food all week. Pray through your hunger pangs. Ask God to make you hungry for his kingdom come among the poor and ask him to provide for the needs of those who suffer hunger. Celebrate the beauty of spices – don’t overdo it - but use creativity in spicing your food. Remember that even among the poor there is flavor.

You will likely be saving about $5 per day or more on food. Consider giving that $200 savings over the 40 days of Lent to an organization committed to feeding the hungry. If you want to simplify your Lenten experience, choose only to eat simple rice or bean dishes throughout Lent.

Ash Wednesday through Week 1 (February 25 – March 7)
Kolkata, India
Make up a good sized batch of rice and dal (or lentils) for the week. Take whatever you would consider a single serving of vegetables and make it last for four meals. For a treat, have a little fish once or twice this week or perhaps a banana on the side. Be sure and eat with your fingers. Then, check out some stories of hope in Kolkata.

Week 2 (March 8 – March 14)
San Francisco, USA
I plan to eat only what my family leaves on their plates at the end of a meal. Serve at a shelter this week then stop to have a meal with someone you serve. Here’s a recent article on homelessness in San Francisco. And take a look at this video some friends from 2100 productions put together on the poor in SF. If you live in a town with a homeless population, then for one meal eat two items from the dollar menu at a fast food restaurant where the homeless in your town eat.

Week 3 (March 15 – March 21)
Guatemala City, Guatemala
About 50% of kids under 5 in Guatemala are chronically under nourished.  Here’s what the World Food Programme has to say about Guatemala. If you want breakfast, have only some watery oatmeal with ¼ of a sliced banana and a bit of sugar. For lunch or dinner have a half cup of rice or potatoes and plenty of tortillas. Once or twice this week have a little chicken and some broth.

Week 4 (March 22 – March 28)
Nairobi, Kenya
Check out the Kibera slum in Nairobi on www.theplaceswelive.com and read about hunger in Kenya here. This week eat red beans perhaps with some corn or rice or vegetables mixed in.

Week 5 (March 29 – April 4)
Cairo, Egypt
Meals for the poor in Cairo center around filling up on bread (flat round loaves—similar to pitas that you can find in America), and when bread becomes unavailable people get angry (see an article about last year’s riots here).  This week eat bread, fuul (mashed fava beans with oil and salt, similar in taste to Mexican refried beans), a small salad of onion, tomato and cucumber, and tea with lots of sugar.

Week 6 (April 5 – April 11)
Moscow, Russia
For your meals this week use Cream-of-Wheat as a substitute for the Russian staple among the poor – Kasha. Have this with some bread and boiled potatoes. Make a simple broth with carrots, onions and beets. Read about the growing gap between rich and poor in Russia here.

Poverty was not part of God’s design for creation. Old Testament laws actively worked against the emergence of class distinction and poverty. The New Testament Church shared all things in common as each had need. The new heavens and new earth described in Scripture does not include infant mortality, boys and girls driven by desperation into the sex industry or child labor, slum communities, or hunger.

Why, then, is poverty tolerated here and now?

Let’s talk about how to activate the economics of the Kingdom of God on earth, just as it is in heaven.

Scott Bessenecker is Associate Director for Missions for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. He is author of The New Friars: The Emerging Movement Serving the World's Poor . How to Inherit the Earth: Submitting Ourselves to a Servant Savior, and editor of Quest for Hope in the Slum Community. He has just finished a book on the relatively un-American concepts of meekness, obedience and submission for InterVarsity Press due out in October 2010 and claims to possess the world's largest international cigarette collection owned by an Evangelical non-smoker. Scott will oversee three Poverty Tracks for Urbana 09 (International Poverty, Domestic Poverty and Advocacy). He and his wife, Janine, have three kids - Hannah, Philip and Laura, and live in Madison, WI.