Luke 4:14-21

¹⁴Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. ¹⁵He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. ¹⁶When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, ¹⁷and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: ¹⁸“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, ¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” ²⁰And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. ²¹Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

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My daughter came to my home several days after Christmas.  We were going to drive together to visit my son, so there was no real need to travel north for Christmas….We'd all be togther soon after.  “It would be a perfect time to volunteer at the Salvation Army to help serve meals for the poor and homeless,” I decided. 

The Salvation Army hall was a festive gathering of people who had stood in a long line for a vacant seat.  Most of them had nothing….and yet they offered a “Merry Christmas” greeting as they passed you by. The tables were decorated.  Beautiful dinnerware was used.  A soprano from the Opera sang Christmas carols.  And days of cooking provided a delicious dinner of ham, yams, peas, mashed potatoes, fruit salad and a fantastic selection of pies from a local grocery store and restaurant. 

Not only the ambiance of a happy celebration, but the number of laughing children surprised me.  I had been expecting the typical homeless stereotypes in torn and dirty clothes and instead experienced a majority of families who could easily have blended in with my own social mileu. I never experienced the reality of extreme poverty so close to home. And it was shocking!  So many children!

   Child poverty is rampant in the U.S., and one of its most immediate effects is hunger. Fifteen million children throughout the country are eligible for free school lunch, and more than half of food stamp recipients are kids.

Poverty is no stranger in the United States.  For one out of every five students eating what is possibly their only meal of the day is the highlight. That's right, 20 percent of American children live below the poverty line and are undernourished because food is an unaffordable luxury for their families. We're not talking about Somalia or some other extremely impoverished country -- we're talking about the U S of A!  It is appalling that infants are dying and growing children's minds and bodies cannot develop as they should in this, the richest nation in the world.  That a person in America of any age suffers from hunger, be it "moderate" (whatever that might mean!) or "severe," is a crime.

--"40,000 soup kitchens and food pantries...with more than 900,000 volunteers"--
    cannot keep pace with the increasing need.”N.Y.Times 

 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor,” said Jesus.  The good news?  Could it be that he thought his followers would care and share with the poor…..that they would love them as much as they loved themselves.  I think that was supposed to have been the good news………….what happened?

There are so many videos on this topic.....here are a few for you to click on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCXXgrL0Znk  children and poverty…..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsTu-rIWQ_0  world hunger

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx760Wv2oS4  M.Edelman on child hunger

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkJtf0EUUfg  every 5 seconds a child dies
Since this video was made.....it is now every 3.5 seconds a child dies.

• Every year 15 million children die of hunger
• For the price of one missile, a school full of hungry children could eat lunch every day for 5 years
• Throughout the 1990's more than 100 million children died from illness and starvation. Those 100 million deaths could have been  prevented for the price of ten Stealth bombers, or what the world spends on its military in less than two days!

The World Health Organization estimates that one-third of the world is well-fed, one-third is under-fed one-third is starving- Since you've started reading these notes at least 200 people have died of starvation.

• One in twelve people worldwide is malnourished, including 160 million children under the age of 5. United Nations Food and Agriculture
• The Indian subcontinent has nearly half the world's hungry people. Africa and the rest of Asia together have approximately 40%, and the remaining hungry people are found in Latin America and other parts of the world. Hunger in Global Economy

Nearly one in four people, 1.3 billion - a majority of humanity - live on less than $1 per day, while the world's 358 billionaires have assets exceeding the combined annual incomes of countries with 45 percent of the world's people. UNICEF

• 3 billion people in the world today struggle to survive on US$2/day.

In 1994 the Urban Institute in Washington DC estimated that one out of 6 elderly people in the U.S. has an inadequate diet.

• The infant mortality rate is closely linked to inadequate nutrition among pregnant women. The U.S. ranks 23rd among industrial nations in infant mortality.
• One out of every eight children under the age of twelve in the U.S. goes to bed hungry every night.
• Half of all children under five years of age in South Asia and one third of those in sub-Saharan Africa are malnourished.
• In 1997 alone, the lives of at least 300,000 young children were saved by vitamin A supplementation programs in developing countries.
• Malnutrition is implicated in more than half of all child deaths worldwide - a proportion unmatched by any infectious disease since the Black Death
• About 183 million children weigh less than they should for their age

To satisfy the world's sanitation and food requirements would cost only US$13 billion- what the people of the United States and the European Union spend on perfume each year.

• The assets of the world's three richest men are more than the combined GNP of all the least developed countries on the planet.

Every 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger!!!

Not only should we preach about charity to those less fortunate…..we in the U.S. must preach about changing the system that allows the richest 2% of the people to own more than the rest of the entire population.  Never since the Great Depression of the 20’s have the laws in the U.S. allowed the wealthy to accumulate such vast sums at the sacrifice of the poorest workers.  Corporate executives grab huge bonuses while the salaries of the poor do not even keep up with inflation.  The poor are getting poorer. 

Let’s face it.  Poverty is partly determined by political decisions about how policies should be directed. 

This world today is not what Jesus had in mind, is it? 

What happened in our churches?  Isn’t it up to us, the pastors in the church, to inform its members about what Jesus demands of them.  And then ask its members to stand up for the Christian ideals that Jesus came to teach us....both financially and actively to serve and seek better laws and policies? 
 
The dominant religion in the world is Christianity, what have all those Christians done about the poor, the oppressed, the sick, those imprisoned unjustly………?   Not very much, it appears. Universal health care is still being debated in the U.S.

Whose fault is it?  Think about it.