“The Poor One and poor people in general are God’s question to us. God gives us responsibility in the world by asking us a question which we have to answer. The question is constant, permanent, living, for “you will always have the poor with you [Matt. 26:11, Mark 14:7, and John 12:8].” We cannot sidestep this question, for we are always in contact with the poor, and each one of them puts God’s big question in human flesh…
Whether we like it or not, we have to answer either positively or negatively. Our whole attitude is our response. Scripture reveals that our attitude toward the poor is our response to God’s question. We all can find our place and get involved with this question, which appears to concern economics or human feelings, but behind this question, a spiritual decision is ultimately demanded of us. God adopts the poor to put us all in question, and it is certainly our all that is put in question…”
Jacques Ellul in Money and Power (Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 1984) 152.
What will I do with the poor, especially since they more than a problem to be solved, but rather people that God loves? What will you do? Perhaps the best answer to the question as Christ-followers is to ask, what did Jesus do with the poor, and to go and do likewise…