The I.D.E.A.L. life

I am going to continue my sermon series on our mission and the way we live out that mission in our church community. This Sunday is about engaging in mission. As I had stated last time, while at the clergy conference, I was reminded about the need we have of balancing our love of God with our love of neighbor.
When I read an article in the Omaha World Herald, I was amazed as to what the reporter stated. The organization Voices for Children, a well-known child advocacy agency, reported that the Nebraska's rate of child poverty rose 50% between 2000 and 2005. We pride ourselves on our work ethic and we have an higher percentage of working parents than any other state. Yet, families are falling into poverty at a rate faster than the national average. This creates more problems for struggling families. It is not rocket science to realize that the more families struggle especially financially the more social problems exist and the more that children are the most affected. The numbers are sobering to the idea that there are enough jobs for everyone and that those jobs pay what it takes to survive. What are the findings are that 15% of children are impoverished and 36% live in low-income housing. The problem is that minimum wage jobs do not pay enough to help those who are impoverished improve themselves and most of those jobs do not include health benefits. The two edged sword is that while we encourage parents to increase their job skills and to seek to become self-sufficient the jobs that they can have are not enough to raise them above poverty level. Also we take away what benefits mostly health benefits away when they are the most vulnerable.
Somehow we need to look at this differently. As Christians, we need to be empathetic to the poor. We may not be able to eliminate poverty but we are called to reach out to those who are hungry, sick, and imprisoned. I hope that we as a church can continue to become more aware of the issues of struggling families and not make judgments on their character. Most parents want to be able to provide for their children. Maybe we need to re-distribute our resources away from destruction to healing. Is this what Jesus was talking about in Matthew 25:31-40? Or when we read James 5? I would ask that you reflect on what it is we can do both as acts of compassion such as our pantry and also acts of justice to help all people who are struggling.