The Space Where God Intervenes

The Narrow Road

This post continues the discussion from Is Poverty Evil? Please reference both that post and its comments to place this post in context.

As a Franciscan, I believe my spiritual father Francis has much to offer in this troubled modern time.  If our world were to engage and embrace his charism, I think it would be transformed, much for the better.

One of the main tenets of that charism is renewal.  Francis was specifically called by God to rebuild the Church.  At first, he took that instruction literally, and began to go around Assisi begging construction materials to rebuild dilapidated churches in the area.  Later, he understood the greater implications of God’s request, and he went on to the work of rebuilding the spirit of the Church.

I see today’s world as desperately in need of a similar renewal.  But I also understand just how deeply counter cultural my way of thinking is.  Ideas like the “privilege of poverty” are hard to translate for someone holding a modern mindset.

This leaves me the task of discerning how best to communicate with those who, due to a lifetime of conditioning, are typically adverse to the system of thought I find so compelling.

If I am unwilling to be precise in the words I use, then I should expect it to be that much harder to convey my message.

If the authors of St. Francis and the Foolishness of God had written “Greed is ugly and dehumanizing; it is an evil that must be eliminated,” I wouldn’t have questioned them for a moment.

But by using the word poverty instead of greed, they merged the two ideas.

God routinely takes the evil acts of this human world and translates them into a greater good.

When greed and poverty are equated in this discussion, the space for God to intervene is jeopardized.

The authors of the book, on a subconscious level, seem to understand this.  Here is the full context of the previous quote.

“Here we do have a paradox.  Poverty is ugly and dehumanizing; it is an evil that must be eliminated.  Yet, in encountering the poor, we often discover beauty and graced humanity.  Indeed, in encountering the poor ones of the world, we find God.”

The  truth is, there is no paradox.  Where I see victims, God finds an opportunity to bless people in ways that I, because of my prejudices, am reluctant to understand.  This is an example of the majesty and perfection of God’s creation, yet I label it as paradox because I lack the depth or the fortitude to make the examination that reveals there may be no such thing as paradox where God is concerned.

I need the poor to be victims because I want the ability to minister to them.  I so desperately want to do the work of God that I unconsciously view the world through that lens.  I see opportunities to serve Him, even if that perhaps is not what I was supposed to see.

And Francis proves this. When he got off his horse, he gave alms to the leper.  But in the end, he placed himself in a position where he was no longer able to give alms.  He embraced the poor so thoroughly that his mission shifted from serving them to being them.

He understood that he did not need to rescue them.  They already had the better lot.  He was the one that needed rescuing.  He needed to allow them to transform him so that he might gain the blessings they already enjoyed.

The Beatitudes are also referenced in this chapter.  They begin “Blessed are the poor…..”

The poor are not blessed because of future rewards to be received for hardship endured.  They are blessed immediately, in the current context, simply because God finds it good to bless them based on their poverty.

I am fine with the notion that I should help them obtain the basic necessities of life.  But I am not so sure that I have much to offer beyond that.  In fact, to believe that I do makes it possible that I will do them considerable harm by trying to make them more like me.

It seems to me that Francis approached the poor more as people to be emulated than people to be transformed.

He did not wish to rescue them from victimhood.

He wished to join them in their state of blessing.