Poverty of the “Non-Poor”

Poverty of the “Poor”

Poverty can be defined as a deficiency. The poor lack adequate food, safe shelter or clean drinking water. In this world, many are not provided with medical or social services. The poor often lack access to information and their children lack educational opportunities. The poor are generally ignorant of their legal rights and cannot afford lawyers, making them easy prey to bullying. They know not how to seek justice. We can conclude that the poor are generally dis-empowered; they may be deprived of their rights or may lose their rights. But this dis-empowerment impacts different social groups quite differently. Thus we must learn to see how children, teenagers, the elderly, women or the handicapped experience dis-empowerment in different ways.

The dis-empowerment of children and teenagers means there is a shortage of available resources for their developmental growth. Very often, poverty among children can be all-encompassing as it makes them helpless, vulnerable and unable to protect themselves. Such children are among the poorest of the poor. In moral terms, such children often do not have loving, capable and responsible parents to love and care for them properly and who fail to teach them right from wrong. These children are not taught to empathize with others — to rejoice with them or to feel their pain. Such children cannot know the happiness of “doing the right thing” or the remorse of “doing the wrong thing.” As they grow up, their role models may only be those adults who get used to seeking violent means to solve problems and committing crimes. These poor teenagers are often forced to leave school to become underage laborers or even worse. Some are sold into child prostitution or recruited to be sea pirates or guerrilla fighters.

The dis-empowerment of women can be both physiological and social. Statistics from the United Nations verify that the world’s women generally receive less education than men, and women constitute two-thirds of the world’s illiterate population. Statistics also reveal that while women make up two-thirds of the world’s labor force, women earn one-tenth of the world’s income and own less than one percent of the world’s property. These poor women tend to be found in areas of extreme poverty.

Poverty of the “Non-Poor”: Their Identity Is Broken

In countries or regions where the majority is made up of the “poor,” a handful of the “non-poor” occupy positions of great authority and honor. Many “non-poor” live among the poor to take advantage of them. They are likely to be police officers, politicians and landlords, and they establish their power through commerce, the courts and the political system. These powerful “non-poor” will use religious organizations, the media, the legal system, and the government to justify their power. They create stories, justify their actions and create social systems to establish themselves in their powerful positions as absolute lords over the poor. They are united with one another, seeking all possible ways to consolidate and expand one another’s power and authority. They use means of cheating, violence, and intimidation to bully the poor. In commerce, the “non-poor” snatch goods from the poor by forcing the poor to sell their goods to them at prices far below the fair market price. These greedy people know the poor are desperate and have little power to resist them. This is how the poor become victims of unfair trade practices.

The result is that the “non-poor” dominate the poor, playing god by controlling their poor victims, and become tyrants ruling over the poor and treating them as their captives. Accepting such a captive identity and expecting command and protection from the powerful “non-poor,” many poor people surrender their freedom to them. Obviously, these poor people lack a sense of self worth. They consider themselves fated to be worthless, not good, impotent, and unproductive lackeys to their captors. Such poor people are filled with so much self-despising, self-withdrawal, and self-loathing so that they do not demand their rights to exert their free will. Unable to act independently and robbed of all hope, they forfeit their humanity. These people are at the lowest level of poverty. This kind of poverty is a thorough poverty, total poverty.

However, there are many places where the non-poor and the poor overlap. While the non-poor are not impoverished, they also experience the poverty of the poor. Their identity is likewise broken but in a different way. This is because when the non-poor play god in other people’s lives, they lose their true selves. The very act of protecting their honor and plundering other people’s right creates poverty within them. They are exceedingly poor because they live lives in terror, loneliness, and void. This kind of poverty is unique among the non-poor. When the non-poor take advantage of the social system for personal gain, they fear others will cheat them likewise. That explains why they always seek monopoly and fight to win, but the more they get, the more worried they become: worried about failure and about losing what they have. Even when they see something true and good, they will still doubt its value.

It Is Hard for the “Non-Poor” to Believe in God and Experience the Gospel

What is most regrettable is that these “non-poor” find it harder than the poor to believe in God and experience the gospel. Mark 10 records that a rich man, when faced with the hollowness of his life, asks Jesus for eternal life and wants the assurance that his goodness qualifies him for eternal life. That is why he actually “runs” up to see Jesus.

It is unusual that a rich man would run up to see Jesus. Then in the blazing Palestinian sun and before the eyes of strangers, we see him knelling before Jesus to ask, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (Mk 10:17) What a stunning act!

However, Jesus’ response is even more stunning. First of all, Jesus refuses being called “good teacher.” He says, “Why do you call me good? No one is good — except God alone.” Why does Jesus answer that way? Perhaps, the rich man, like other people, thinks that Jesus possesses some special power or wisdom that enables Him to solve the problem of eternal life. Therefore, the rich man regards Jesus as good. In the same way, we today look to good professional people such as a social worker, a counselor or a psychiatrist to seek ways to solve our problems. However, some questions are what social workers, counselors, and psychiatrists cannot answer. None of these experts can answer life’s basic question; only God can answer the basic question of life.

This may explain why Jesus refused to provide the so called best professional advice and to be called “good teacher.” He did not want to be reduced to be just an outstanding professional. Instead, Jesus Christ challenges the rich man to return to life’s basic question: Can the rich man accept that God is the basis of his life?

Is God the Basis of Man’s Life?

Jesus Christ goes on to remind the rich man to refocus his life on God and to listen afresh to God’s commandments. Jesus says, “You know the commandments: Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.” The expression of genuine faith is to listen to God’s commandments.

However, the rich man is not yet ready to receive the Word of Jesus Christ and he looks disappointed. He considers himself to be good already and is sure he spends his life doing good. He said, “Teacher, all these I have kept since I was a boy.”

At that moment, Jesus looks at the rich man with loving kindness and tells him the hard truth: “One thing you lack, go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (10:21) The young man is asked to leave everything behind and follow Jesus.

After listening to Jesus’ answer, the rich man cannot accept Jesus’ Words, regarding them as too demanding. He was troubled. Must one really sell everything one has and give to the poor in order to inherit eternal life? He cannot accept the Words of Jesus Christ. For that reason, Jesus Christ says, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” (10:25) In other words, it is hard for those rich people who trust in themselves or have worldly power to inherit eternal life. Without knowing it, they trust themselves or value their material possession more than God. They are unable to give up their possessions and to allow Jesus to be all they have.

The Door of the Gospel Is Open to the “Poor” Non-Poor

As we know, here Jesus Christ emphasizes that, while it is hard for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven, it is not impossible. Poverty itself is not either the necessary or the sufficient condition to enter the God’s kingdom. The mystery of the kingdom of heaven is that God stands at the door of God’s kingdom which he has prepared for all people, both the poor and the non-poor. If a person recognizes that he is poor in spirit and considers himself to have nothing at all, and is willing to put everything into God’s hands, God will become all that he has. It is in this way that the door of God’s kingdom remains wide open for the “poor” non-poor. The non-poor can likewise experience freedom from the world’s power or authority and the joy of being in God’s arms, and enjoy the shalom of being in His presence.

(Scripture quotations are taken from the NIV Bible.)

Feb 2013