by Carol Howard Merritt
Gospel Reading: John 12:1-8
For Sunday, March 17, 2013: Year B—Lent 5
When I was a high school and college student, I spent my summers on mission trips. I went to amazing places like Uganda, Hong Kong, China, and the Philippines. I could write about mission tourism and the odd nature of trips where teenagers are sent to save the souls of foreigners through clumsy tracts and the Jesus film.
Cynicism Aside
But even with all of my cynicism, I cannot deny the impact that these trips had on me. They ripped me from my comfortable life as a middle class teen living on the beaches of Florida, and placed me in the ports of Cebu City, where tiny children begged to dive in the perilous water for small change.
The trips allowed me to practice balancing giant water buckets on my head as I attempted to move among women who had to leave their schooling because they were needed to carry water for their villages. It helped me to see the Chinese rice farmers carefully tending their crops. And more than anything else, the experiences opened my eyes to global and domestic economic inequities.
I came back each year, trying to sort out what I had seen. As my friends looked through glossy photos in Elle magazine and memorized the names of the hottest European designers, I remembered the eyes of small children, tugging at my purse, hoping to get enough of my pocket change for their next meal. The poor will always be with us, I thought in my helplessness.
Haunting Words
These words that Jesus spoke have haunted me for years. My father uttered them when I tried to talk with him about politics. He became an adamant supporter of the Christian Right, as I became hungry for the social gospel.
I nursed a growing irritation with the economic policies of the Republican Party as I worked in Cabrini Green, with children who lived everyday in bodily danger. When I tried to explain the difficulties that the kids went through, my father nodded gravely and echoed the words of Jesus with resolve, “The poor will always be with us, Carol.”
Fateful Poverty?
In my mind, he had twisted the words of Jesus to let me know that there was no use trying to work for the greater good of people, we might as well turn our back on the plight of the poor, because some people will just be victims of fateful poverty.
I heard the words when our church planned to spend millions of dollars to rearrange the furniture in the sanctuary. When people questioned spending so much money on cosmetic updates while so many homeless people needed to be fed in our neighborhood, I heard, “The poor will always be with us.”
The Hardest Question
In our country, as the middle class dwindles and the rich hoard more in their off-shore accounts than the GDP of many countries, I hate these words. And so the hardest question for me becomes, how do we preach the love of Christ, who fed and healed people, in the light of Jesus saying, “The poor will always be with us?”
Carol Howard Merritt grew up along the beaches of Florida. After being raised as a conservative Baptist and attending a fundamentalist Bible college, she went to Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary and decided to become a minister. Carol has been a pastor for 13 years, serving growing Presbyterian Churches in the swamps of Cajun Louisiana, a bayside village in Rhode Island, and in an urban neighborhood in D.C. She is the award-winning author of Tribal Church (Alban 2007) and Reframing Hope (Alban 2010). She has contributed to numerous books, websites, magazines, and journals. Her blog, TribalChurch.org, is hosted by the Christian Century. She blogs regularly at Huffington Post and Dukes Divinity's Faith and Leadership site. Carol is a sought-after speaker. She hosts Unco (short for Unconference), open-space gatherings where participants dream about and plan for the future of the church. And she co-hosts God Complex Radio, a podcast with Derrick Weston. Carol lives in Chattanooga, TN with her daughter and husband, Brian Merritt, who is starting a new church. You can follow her on Twitter (@CarolHoward) or Facebook.
