The Complexity of Poverty

“Lord, when was it we saw you hungry and gave you food, when was it we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, when was it was saw you sick or in prison and visited you? And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’” Matthew 25:37-40


We arrived soaked from head to toe after a two hour hike through mountain trails to arrive to the home of the family of my co-worker, Myrna. I was a little apprehensive because I had never met her family or been to a house so far removed from everything. But within the first few minutes, despite being a complete stranger, I was welcomed with warm hugs and was sitting with dry clothes near a fire, drinking coffee and eating bread.

The above passage from Matthew appeared at the beginning of John Pitts Corry’s article I just read in The Catholic Worker when he wrote about the struggles of knowing what this passage means for our lives but the difficulty we encounter in trying to really live out that call. Jesus makes his home around the poor, likes being around them, and constantly takes up their cause in the public arena. Must we not do the same? Corry questions what the people fleeing from gunfire in Baghdad or women caring for their young, dying children in Africa would have to say about our need to go out to a restaurant for nice dinner or on a vacation? Not to mention all the things we take for granted that many other people on the globe don’t have access to: education, healthcare, electricity, water. His honest words of struggle to live this Gospel call spoke truth as I evaluated my own life in this area.

I remembered again the few days I had just spent in the remote mountains of northern Nicaragua with my co-worker’s family. I romanticized about the simplicity of the lifestyle there: The dependency on the land and farming, following the sun’s natural clock of when to sleep and when to rise, cold bucket showers from a nearby well, close relationships among neighbors although the nearest one is a thirty minute walk away. I was so caught up in the natural beauty of the mountain views, the wonderful people around me, and the adventure of entering a new type of life (one morning we walked in boots over two hours to bring back 40 lbs of fresh cuajada cheese from a tiny house high in the mountains) that I had completely failed to realize how “poor” these people were based on the North American standards I was raised by. And if these people were so “poor,” why was it that they were the ones welcoming me, the stranger, into their homes and offering me food and drink?

Then, my thoughts returned to a Bible workshop I went to with co-workers back in November. We spent a lot of time talking about “Christ’s Project” and how he was committed to the poor. I remember feeling uncomfortable several times about the constant use of the word poor, especially knowing the difficult economic situation many of my co-workers face in their homes. One of the women even boldly complained, “We are not poor by choice; we are involuntarily poor because we were born into this!” But despite the continuous use of the word poor, we never once really discussed what it means for us.

The complexity of all that the word poor brings has me realizing the intricate heart Christ has and questioning my own interpretation of the word. Some say that we can circumvent our responsibility to the economically poor by saying God cares for each of us the same in the individual ways we each are poor, but I don’t think I personally subscribe to that. Can we all be the last or the least? I believe God cares for us all deeply, but He is with the poor (interpret that how you will), so is that not where we should go?

So many times I find myself in situations when fail to live this message. Sometimes I forget and other times I just don’t. What is holding me back from this complete conversion to the poor? Why is it so easy for me to fall into the thinking that maybe not all of us are called to be like Mother Teresa? At the heart of it, I know that it is nothing more than my own fear and desire to hold on to my own independence.

Living in Nicaragua, it is not difficult to to love the poor and find my home in them, but it would be a lie to say I always encounter the presence of Jesus in the face of everyone that is economically poor or abused or sick or homeless, but I do know that in my heart I believe He is there. I might recognize it immediately with some and with others it might be a little more difficult, but I know that He is there…and that has to be enough.