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.