I found this blog post today entitled “Why I Stopped Serving the Poor,” and I must admit, I mostly clicked on it because I curious. Seeing as much of my life lately has been obsessed with this idea of loving and serving those at the margins, I figured I should see why someone would stop doing that. It was, in the end, one of the most powerful things I have read in a really long time.
The author, Claudio Oliver, lives in Brazil and has spent his life there serving the poor and needy. So why would he write this..because so many people need to hear it and need to ask “why.”
We are not all that different-the rich and the poor. At the core, Oliver points out the following:
“Without exception, rich and poor have the same conviction that what they need is something that the market, money, the government or some other agency can offer them.”
We think that the key to success or happiness or even the solution to the problem is to raise the standard of living, to provide goods, to do something that man can do. To rescue the poor. But is this the right mentality? Oliver would argue not.
Scary thought huh? Perhaps instead of seeking to serve the poor from our positions of wealth and importance, we should look at an alternative.
God is not manifest in our ability to heal, but in our need to be healed. Finding out this weakness of ours leaves us in a position of having nothing to offer, serve, donate, but reveals our need to be loved, healed and restored.
When we see ourselves as poor and in need of a Savior, we can then see ourselves in the poor and relate to them on a very different level. We can grow in our trust and reliance on Christ and see the power in the cross and the relationship that stems from that.
Jesus calls us to become incarnate and to see ourselves in the other and to place ourselves under him or her as powerless dependents. He calls us to give up in trusting our own capacity to impart goodness and to change our direction in order to encounter and recognize our own wounds, weakness and pain. From there, we discover the power that lies in being less and not more.
I believe it comes back to our hearts. God has surely called us to love and serve the poor, but are we serving from a savior mentality or from an equal mentality? Are we able to see Jesus in them? Are we able to see ourselves? The entire article is an excellent read so check it out if you are curious. And let us never forget that we are here as God’s hands and feet to do His will, not to accomplish our own.
Italic sections taken from here
