Impoverished

It's blog action day.

So I've been thinking about poverty and, to be honest, it's something that's been bugging me for years.

In the Bible, Jesus talked about poverty, like, 90 million times. Jesus talked about abortion, gays, flag burning and other hot button topics exactly zero times.

So why aren't we having a war on poverty? Why isn't every Christian doing what Jesus commanded: give everything you have to the poor.

"Oh," you say, "but Jesus said the poor will always be with you. So, you know, don't worry about the poor and save yourself."

Okay, did you read the whole story? He says it in response to Judas (of all people) giving Mary Magdalene a hard time for buying some oil to pour on J's feet in those last days. And Jesus, in effect, says, "Look, you'll have your whole life to help the poor. But I'm only going to be here for a couple more days. So chill out, Judas."

So why do we spend so much time trying to proof-text hot button issues and find excuses to get around Jesus' ideas about helping the poor and loving everyone and turning the other cheek and forgiving your enemies and all those other hard things he asked us to do?

Oh yeah -- because they're hard to do.

Or am I reading a different Bible than everyone else?