“What is the Christian View of Poverty and Homelessness?”

I see one of the most beautiful prospects of our work in con-ed as an opportunity to play off one another and dive into the different ways in which we understand the world around us. In reading those posts already submitted, I am inspired by the way in which each person brings to the discussion different life experiences that shape his or her understanding of a Christian view on homelessness.

Adam’s exploration of the ways in which our understanding of Christ necessarily affects how we relate to the world around allows me to start from a similar point and move forward. Christ’s example of servant leadership is the basis that forms a Christian view on poverty and homelessness. From the compassion and asset based sharing of the loaves and fish to His last breaths of forgiveness on the cross, we see a Christian response to poverty and homelessness lived out in the life of God Incarnate.

However, we seem to have much trouble translating the example given in the life of Christ into tangible human action. Cathy discussed our tendency to turn poverty-stricken and homeless people into dehumanized “issues” and “problems” thus robbing those caught in these cycles of the God-breathed life they possess. Annie discussed her own struggles with seeing/not seeing the men and women of our city who daily labor to find a place to sleep and means to procure food. The difficulties they discuss are the same problems that arise in my own heart daily, and these problems reflect the ways in which we all have fallen short of the exemplified compassionate life Christ lived.  

At the heart of my ideas of a Christian view of poverty and homelessness lies the belief that the Jesus we seek to serve embodied compassion by seeing the image of the Creator in the poor and broken. In his life and work with those around him, Jesus did not see classifications or annual income, he saw people. A Christian response does the same.

A Christian view sees those caught up in poverty and homelessness as human beings bearing the image of God. A Christ-following, Christian view of homelessness does not pretend to know the pain and fear of living each night with an uncertainty of shelter if one has not lived that experienced, but seeks to listen a brother or sister’s story. A Christian view of poverty sees the poverty within all of humanity while simultaneously acknowledging that some lives been wrought with more daunting challenges than others.

Poverty is brokenness. It is, as Adam stated, “a state of being in the world that lacks access to all aspects of autonomous, creative, human life; a state best described as social death.” We may see poverty in those who have great wealth and those who live with no monetary assets. As Christians, we may not use this truth to downplay and thus run from the life draining reality of a cycle of financial poverty that plagues so many of our brothers and sisters. Our response to poverty, wherever we find it, is to see the humanity within the poverty. Our response is to see poverty as people and love accordingly.