First Sunday of Lent

Scripture: Luke 4:1-13
photo credit: by anonimus [public domain], via wikimedia commons

In today’s lectionary reading, Jesus is led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness. He stays there for forty days, eating nothing, and being tempted by the devil.

Now we might think of the devil as a red guy with horns and a pitchfork. And we might think of temptation as being asked to do something we know we shouldn’t: “command this stone to become bread… worship me… throw yourself down from here.” But the devil here isn’t exactly that devil. The Greek word we translate as devil is diabolos, the slanderer, the accuser.

For too many of the people we serve, poverty is a constant encounter with this devil.

This devil is there when politicians insist that we have to test every welfare recipient for drugs. He’s there when people criticize the food stamp users for buying comfort food. He’s there when someone claims that the reason people are is that that they’re lazy.

The slanderer is found in all those little accusations that tell people they’re less than fully human.

In her book Hand to Mouth: Living in Bootstrap America, Linda Tirado captures this feeling well:

You have to understand that we will never feel not tired. We will never feel hopeful. We will never get a vacation. Ever. We know that the very act of being poor guarantees that we will never not be poor. It doesn’t give us much reason to improve ourselves. (Kindle Edition, Location 94)

The temptation here is to be the person the world is telling them to be: someone who will never feel not tired, someone who will never feel hopeful, someone who will never not be poor.

At Back Bay Mission, the first step is often overcoming that temptation and escaping that devil. That’s why we treat everyone who walks through our door as the precious child of a loving God.

People know that when they come to the Mission, they’ll be treated with love and respect. We will be their partners in their journey out of poverty, walking with them every step of the way. We will be there to empower them to take control of their lives.

We empower our clients through a variety of ministries. We help them tap into their creativity in Art in Living classes. We teach them take control of their money through financial literacy classes. We give them the knowledge and skills they need to maintain their homes. And soon we’ll add Bridges Out of Poverty classes so they can identify their assets and make plans to escape the wilderness of poverty.

We provide our clients with a lot of tools. One of the most important is the knowledge that the slanderer has no power over them. They really can take control of their lives and realize their own dreams.