alabama possible from the alabama poverty project

Earla Lockhart

The Huntsville Times

November 21, 2008

In Mark 14, Jesus is anointed with expensive perfume while at a dinner at the home of a man known as Simon the Leper. Onlookers were aghast that Jesus would allow such squandering of precious resources. Jesus replied, “The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me.”

I attended an Alabama Poverty Project Symposium on Monday. Along with approximately 75 other members of the faith community, I listened intently as Susan Pace Hamill, an Alabama law professor and strong advocate for Constitutional reform, and members of the clergy community expressed concerns on the failure of the faith community to be effective proponents of change.

I was both convicted and convinced that I am “guilty as charged.”

Although I am keenly aware from my own background that poverty cuts across racial lines and socioeconomic status, am I too comfortable with where I am to be “burdened” by those who are shackled in poverty? Can I continue to be content with “corporate” contributions to help those who are the least among us? Does Mark 14:7 give me an excuse – an “out” – to refrain from helping in many situations?

These questions, and others like them, remind me that indeed, as a person of faith, I am “my brother’s keeper.” I am responsible for others around me. In the immortal words of John Donne, “No man is an island, entire of itself … any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

The faith community must move with deliberate compassion to better understand the nature of poverty and how we can cooperate with other entities within the community to systematically attack the poverty “beast.”

As a staff minister in a local congregation, I am keenly aware that many faith communities budget thousands of dollars to “help the poor.” But I am also aware that the “beast” keeps growing larger and more menacing. The early 1960s brought the “War on Poverty” to the American forefront – yet almost 50 years later, poverty continues to arrest countless adults and children in our community and hold them as unwilling hostages.

Can we continue to love God, honor God and serve Him so comfortably within our padded-pew sanctuaries and continue to see the world around us only through ornate stained-glass windows?

As I write this, I have just left the Downtown Rescue Mission Sapp Center for Women and Children. My heart bleeds at the sight of women and men who are homeless, helpless, and hopeless – in the midst of an affluent and professional community.

Today I sob with my favorite prophet in Jeremiah 8:22: “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people?”

Yes, every man’s “death” and every woman’s “death” diminishes me, because like John Donne, I am involved in mankind.

The Rev. Earla Lockhart is Staff Minister for Congregational Care at First Missionary Baptist Church, www.fmbc.org, on Blue Spring Road. She can be reached at elockhart@fmbc.org