Are poor people poor because they are sinful?

The Gospel of John (Chapter 9) tells a story about Jesus coming across a blind panhandler on the street.

If you live in my city, you know disabled panhandlers are a common sight at a lot of street corners.

The people walking down the street with Jesus saw this blind panhandler and asked: “Teacher, who sinned? This man or his parents that he was born blind?” (Gospel of John 9:2).

Jesus answered right away: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him” (Gospel of John 9:3).

I wonder: Do we look at people the way Jesus’s friends looked at the blind panhandler? How quickly do we jump to the conclusion that someone must be a sinner? Or that someone must be part of a sinful family?

It’s worth noting, too, that it was this man’s disability and poverty that Jesus’s friends took as proof of his sinfulness.

He must be blind and poor because he is sinful or his people are sinful.

Or another way to put it: He is getting what he deserves for being sinful.

It could have been any blind man begging for money on that street corner. How many blind homeless men stood on street corners back in those times? From what we read in the Gospels, Jesus and his friends seemed to run into them as often as I see them here in my own city today.

So, the question is not really about one blind beggar; it’s about all blind beggars. It’s about all disabled, homeless, and poor people. It’s about all people who are suffering from something that cuts them off from the “normal life” others enjoy.

What sin did they or their people commit that caused this hardship to come upon them?

I’m leading you to this assumption (that Jesus’s own friends carried with them through life): This person is suffering because he or she has a character defect.

I think we, like Jesus’s friends, want this to be the case. It offers a simple explanation for something that is awfully hard to explain. It offers some sense of control (“if I don’t sin, I won’t suffer”) or superiority (“I’m doing better than that person”) if we can keep our own lives on the “straight and narrow.”

Jesus’s answer to the question (and then his action to heal the man and restore him to community) shows us that our assumptions are off base in three ways.

First, poor people are not poor because they are sinful or because they come from sinful people. Shit happens in a broken, fallen world and, sadly, it falls on some people more than others. The way of Jesus Christ is not to shrug and walk away, but to heal, make whole, and restore equity. Jesus’s friends might have passed by the beggar and thought: “He’s getting what he deserves. It’s not my problem.” Jesus stopped and gave the man all that he had to give him.

Second, we are not qualified to interpret circumstances into judgment for people groups or persons. As human beings, we sure do love to jump to conclusions about other people and their sins. Jesus calls us to do better. We must reject and strain out ever ounce of prejudice we bear toward other people. We must test every assumption we have about people. This is love.

Third, Jesus sees the glory of God hiding in every person and every situation. Jesus’s friends saw sin lurking. Jesus saw glory waiting for revelation. Look closely at how Jesus interacted with the world and it is clear he looked at all of life this way. He got most annoyed with people who wanted to keep dragging him back to all the bad things in the world. Jesus saw glory in everything and didn’t want to waste time on anything less. Do we allow ourselves to see the glory of God in everyone and everything?

There are many people these days who are trying to empower themselves by getting us to judge and reject persons or people groups.

This is not the way of Jesus Christ. Let those of us who want to follow him choose to see the glory of God in all people and all things.

And let us choose to use the power we have–economic, political, social, and spiritual–to honor and restore that glory.

Grace and peace.