And God is with us if we are with them

Matthew tells us a woman came to Jesus with a jar of expensive ointment and poured it on his head as he sat at table. The disciples complained, “Why this waste? This ointment could have been sold for a large sum, and the money given to the poor.”

Jesus said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? She has done a good deed for me. You always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.” Jesus was quoting Deuteronomy: “There will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you— Open your hand to the poor and needy in your land.”

Satirist Stephen Cobert, in a rare moment of sober, non-comical seriousness, prophesied: “If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn’t help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we’ve got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition, and then admit we just don’t want to do it.”

God does not beckon us to share with the poor because it is a socio-political expedient. We respond to the poor because it is the will of a God of love, who says that giving and helping and sharing are deeds of love.

Paul promised, “The most generous God who gives seed to the farmer that becomes bread for your meals is more than extravagant with you. He gives you something you can then give away, that you can be generous in every way.” God bestows what God requires.

Sociologist Tony Campolo was speaking at a mission rally in Philadelphia. During the meeting, the chairwoman reported a prayer request from a doctor in Venezuela. They were having to turn people away and needed to raise $5,000 for an extension to the hospital. She asked Dr. Campolo to lead a prayer, asking God that $5,000 would be raised.

Dr. Campolo politely refused. But said he would offer a prayer of thanksgiving after the money was raised and, if need be, ask God to make up the shortfall. Then reaching into his pocket he took out all the money he had—two one-dollar bills, a quarter and a dime and placed it on the communion table.

Touched by his gesture the chairwoman said, “Thank you, Dr. Campolo, I think we all get the point.”

“ No,” Dr. Campolo replied, “I don’t think you do. I have put my $2.35 on the table. Now it’s your turn.”

The startled and embarrassed lady opened her wallet, took out the $10 she had in it and placed it on the table.

In no time, everyone was searching their billfolds, purses and pockets for money to give. By the time they finished, they had $8,000! Dr. Campolo concluded, “The audacity of asking God for $5,000 when God has already provided us with more than $8,000. We should not be asking God to supply our needs. God already has. Let us pray...”

Bono has become one of the world’s best-known philanthropic performers. He was named the most politically effective celebrity of all time by the National Journal. He writes: “The one thing we can all agree, all faiths and ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor. God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives. And God is with us if we are with them.”