A most profound Editorial in the Houston Chronicle. I could not agree more: The poor among us Outgoing governor lets us know where he stands when it comes to the impoverished. With the days dwindling down on his 14-year-long tenure in the Governor’s Mansion, Rick Perry, biblical exegete and possible future president, recently summoned a formidable ally to buttress his belief that government really has no responsibility to help the poor among us. He didn’t call on the late Milton Friedman or Charles Murray or the writer Ayn Rand or any number of conservative economic theorists available to him, including those who’ve been tutoring him lately as he prepares for a presidential campaign. Instead, the governor went to Jesus. “Biblically, the poor are always going to be with us in some form or fashion,” he told the Washington Post during a 90-minute-long interview in Austin a few days ago. It was his dismissive way of saying, in essence, “What’s the use?” The topic under discussion was the vast and growing inequality of income in Texas. We rank No. 1 for having the nation’s highest rate of uninsured, and we’re among the top 10 states with the highest levels of poverty. Despite the fact that our wealthiest residents have seen the sharpest rise in earnings in recent years, as Perry conceded, he told the Post he “just doesn’t grapple with” income equality — in large part, it seems, because the Bible tells him it would be futile. Perry was, of course, alluding to the words of Jesus as recorded in Matthew 26:11: “The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me.” Had he dug a little deeper into the Gospel passage, the governor as biblical scholar would have realized that he may have taken the Lord’s name in vain. Jesus, in his remark to his disciples about the poor, most likely was alluding to the Law of Moses, specifically Deuteronomy 15:11: “For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, ‘You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.’ ” The hand in Perry’s land is too often closed to the poor, the sick, the mentally ill, the uneducated, the unemployed, the hungry. Ironically, it’s closed to people like Jesus himself, who is referred to in the Bible as a “carpenter,” although the word is more precisely translated as “day laborer.” Joerg Rieger, a theologian at SMU’s Perkins School of Theology, noted in Religion Dispatches recently that Jesus was more like a day laborer working construction, “not the guy driving the pickup but one of the guys riding in the back.” Obviously, a debate about the efficacy of government anti-poverty programs is entirely appropriate. Indeed, it’s necessary, since it’s our money we’re deciding how to use collectively to aid the less fortunate. What’s inappropriate is to misuse Scripture as an excuse for doing as little as possible. The governor, a devout man who obviously studies his Bible, could just as easily have summoned any number of passages that reference “the least of these,” who — unlike the rich — are invariably cast in a positive light. One story that’s particularly apt warns of wealth as a dangerous trap. It tells of a rich, young ruler — he could have been a governor! — who asked what he needed to do to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus’ reply was straightforward: “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give it to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.” For governors, for all of us in this season of giving, it’s a story worth pondering.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 18:22:53 +0000
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