However, there need be no poor people among you, for in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you … - Deuteronomy 15:4

Today’s Scripture Reading (December 8, 2018): Deuteronomy 15

Plutarch argued that “An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.” In the developed countries, the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. And it might be at its worst in the United States. Countries like Russia have traditionally suffered from a wide gap between the rich and the poor largely because of corruption. But the truth is that the gap between the rich and the poor in the United States is even worse. And, ironically, it was this gap that caused many of the poor and marginalized, especially those who were white, to turn out and sweep the self-proclaimed billionaire Donald Trump into political power in that country. The hope was that somehow they could become rich like him. And often we equate being rich with being smart.

Moses is actually split on the idea of the poverty in the land. Here he stresses that poverty is unnecessary. We can take this to mean that especially stupid poverty, where people do not have the resources necessary to survive, does not have to exist in our societies. Every day it seems that I see pictures of stupid poverty dance across the various media screens in my life. Children dying because of a lack of food, or because simple, cheap, lifesaving drugs are unavailable. And there is truly no need for this kind of poverty. But a few sentences later, Moses makes this statement: “There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land” (Deuteronomy 15:11).

So, does Moses contradict himself within the space of a few sentences? Not really. The truth is that there is no need for stupid poverty. And yet poverty will always take up space within our societies. And the reasons can be complex. But there are also a few simple reasons as to why poverty will always exist.

The first reason is greed and corruption. Part of this is that the rich often have no comprehension of what it means to be poor. So President Donald Trump gets to brag that he is a self-made man who started with a small loan of a million dollars from his father. (Yes, I know that that is most likely a lie and that the actual influence of dad on his son’s empire was more like a multi-million-dollar gift rather than a million-dollar loan. But let’s stick with the lie for a moment.) Most of us will never have the chance to borrow a million dollars from anyone so that we can start our empire. A million-dollar start-up loan is beyond our experience and understanding. But for Donald Trump, that is a very small loan. So there is a lack of understanding on the part of the rich at exactly what it means to be poor. Beyond that, the rich will often do anything to get richer, including, especially in corrupt smaller nations, stealing relief supplies that are designed to help those suffering under stupid poverty. The lack of understanding, greed, and corruption, on the part of the wealthy, conspire to make sure that the poor remain poor.

But the rich are not totally to blame. The poor often make bad financial decisions. We feed our desires, rather than doing without so that we can build wealth. Building real wealth is hard work, and those stuck in poverty are often the ones looking for an easy answer. We spend money on “get rich quick” schemes. We buy lottery tickets we cannot afford. We borrow from the rich so that we can own the car or the home of our dreams, putting our hard earned money in their pockets rather than doing with less so that we can invest money for ourselves that will help us acquire wealth. We spend all that we have on things that we want instead of need and continue to live our lives from paycheck to paycheck. And wealth eludes us.

Another reason for poverty is simple human frailty. There is no doubt that some in our society are poor because of mental illness or physical illness that keeps the poor from being able to make money. The poor exist because of drought and famine which is beyond the capacity of the people involved to fix. All of these are at least part of the cause of poverty.

But in the end, we also know the reality. Poverty does not need to exist, even in our contemporary society, but it always will, not because there is not enough, but because of the state of the human heart.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 16