God’s Love

The stark realities of the world food crisis have made hunger a priority item on the agenda of American churches. With television bringing the hollow faces of starving children into our living rooms, it has become impossible for the community of faith to remain silent or unresponsive. It is tragic that millions must die before the crisis will capture the attention of the more prosperous peoples of the world; it will be doubly tragic if the church’s response remains at the superficial level of self-righteous charity.
The congregation that fasts, contributes money and studies hunger during Lent may feel that it has discharged its obligation of concern, but the meaning of the church as the people of God is much more intimately tied to the welfare of the hungry, the poor, the needy and the oppressed. What is demanded is no less than a renewed understanding of the church’s biblical and theological resources so that we might be in the vanguard of the movement to reorder values and priorities in a suffering world. As we respond to the crisis, we must also challenge the biblical and theological assumptions which have allowed the church to participate uncritically in structures that contribute to the root causes of global hunger and poverty. Only then will the church be free to join the attack on those underlying causes as it ministers to the immediate victims.
The biblical word on the relation of the community of faith to hunger and poverty is clear and unambiguous. It is therefore all the more surprising that in calling upon local churches to respond to hunger issues so little recourse has been made to biblical materials. What imperatives for concern with hunger and poverty are given to the community of faith in the biblical witness? What understandings from biblical theology should inform our acting out of that concern?
God’s Love for the Poor
Hunger and poverty cannot be separated in analyzing the biblical material. Hunger accompanies poverty. Famine can strike an entire land, rich and poor alike, but it is still the poor who go hungry while the well-to-do buy food from other lands (cf. Gen. 12:10; 42:1-2). In both the Old and New Testaments hunger is linked with other terms describing those who have been forced by societal conditions into a marginal existence -- the poor, the needy, the widow, the orphan, the oppressed.
God especially loves and cares for the poor: "‘Because the poor are despoiled, because the needy groan, I will now arise,’ says the Lord; ‘I will place him in the safety for which he longs’" (Ps. 12:5). "The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord and the poor among men shall exult in the Holy One of Israel" (Isa. 29:19). "For thou hast been a stronghold to the poor, a stronghold to the needy in his distress" (Isa. 25:4). God will not forget or forsake the poor or the needy (Ps. 9:12, 17-18, 10:12; Isa. 41:17).
It is important to note that God’s love for the poor does not imply an acceptance of their condition. He loves them in order to deliver them from poverty. It is regarded as an evil (Prov. 15: 15), and God’s response is to deliver his people from it. God promises not merely to love the poor and the hungry but to be active in their behalf: "I will satisfy her poor with bread" (Ps. 132:15).