I'll admit that Jackson's prayers can be all over the place, but that night I was truly touched by his prayer and also a bit baffled. I asked him where he had learned to pray for the poor. He replied, "That's how Daddy prays."
And then it hit me (as it has many times) how impressionable children are and that they truly do hear us when we speak (even if they don't always obey).
I'm hoping that his prayer for the poor becomes much more than simply repeating what he has heard his father pray. I pray he grows in to a man whose love for the downtrodden and the marginalized becomes deeply embedded in his heart. And not only that, I pray that he has a heart for empowering the poor- believing that God can do great things through them.
As believers, we are commanded by God to show compassion for the poor, the orphans, the alien and those in prison. In fact, there are over 50 passages on how we should treat the poor in the Old Testament alone!
Somehow, I think this message has gotten lost. We think that this is the job for social agencies or church charities. Our hearts have become hard. We look at the woman begging on the street and condemn her in our hearts. We blame her for her poor choices and we refuse to give her a couple dollars because we are certain she will spend it on "booze and drugs". We look at immigrants and demand that they be legal and shun them if they don't have all the right documentation. We angrily shout for their immediate deportation without a thought to how it might destroy a family. We judge and disparage the youth on the street with sagging pants- immediately putting him into the category of gang member or delinquent. We don't think of the leadership potential this young man might have if someone invested into him. We shake our heads in contempt at the single mom using government assistance to pay for her groceries. We think to ourselves, "If only she would get a job like the rest of us." We never considered that she may work but still not have enough for rent, childcare and groceries...
God calls all of us, regardless of our jobs, to show love and compassion for the marginalized. I think of my uncle who stood up for the minority workers at his job who were being mistreated by one of the foremen. He stood up for the rights of the alien, the oppressed. He even quit his job until the situation improved. In his own way, he fought injustice. And because a took a stand, he gave a voice to the voiceless.
It doesn't matter where you live, what kind of job you have or what your political affiliation is. If you are a believer you are called to live out this verse:
“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
7
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?" Isiah 58:6-7
But let us not just "feel sorry" for the broken and the marginalized. Let us seek to empower and raise up leaders among the urban poor so that through the church, we might expand the kingdom. I love this quote from our Christ the Victor church planting manual: "We will empower the least in the world's eyes to be great in the kingdom of God. We will prayerfully and aggressively seek the advance of God's kingdom, stopping at nothing to win the hardest, darkest and poorest places in our cities for Christ."
You and I have a duty to stand up for the rights of the oppressed, to show compassion for the downtrodden and to empower the "least of these".
You and I have a duty to stand up for the rights of the oppressed, to show compassion for the downtrodden and to empower the "least of these".
Like Jackson, let the poor find a place in our daily prayers.
