We read in Ezekiel 16:49
“Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.”
I post this out of concern that I think we are getting more and more ripe for destruction here is Salt Lake Valley. This was reported in the Salt Lake Tribune yesterday. A city council meeting was held in Draper (a suburb in the Salt Lake Valley) where the citizens protested the proposal of having a homeless shelter built and it was reported that they even booed a homeless man trying to tell his story. See article below.
http://www.sltrib.com/home/
From the article:
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| Hecklers in the crown shout at Laurence Horman, who is homeless, as he tries to tell his story, during an open house for two new potential homeless shelter sites in the Draper area at the Draper Park Middle School auditorium, |
The group, which poured out the door of the school's 700-person-capacity auditorium, booed as Lawrence Horman called for compassion for homeless residents.
Horman told the group he was homeless. He lives in an orange shipping trailer with electricity from a nearby power pole on a commercial lot, he told The Tribune. The audience booed him as he called for patience.__________________________________________________
"It has been supposed that wealth gives power. In a depraved state of society, in a certain sense it does, if opening a wide field for unrighteous monopolies, by which the poor are robbed and oppressed and the wealthy are more enriched, is power. In a depraved state of society money can buy positions and titles, can cover up a multitude of incapabilities, can open wide the gates of fashionable society to the lowest and most depraved of human beings; it divides society into castes without any reference to goodness, virtue or truth. It is made to pander to the most brutal passions of the human soul; it is made to subvert every wholesome law of God and man, and to trample down every sacred bond that should tie society together in a national, municipal, domestic and every other relationship."
We need to start sharing our bread with the hungry, bringing in the poor into our houses, feeding them, relieving their burdens, covering the naked and, most poignantly, stop hiding ourselves from our brothers and sisters. Instead we cross the street to avoid the beggar, instead we turn our eyes away from those dressed poorly, instead we avoid the dirty and downtrodden.
Heaven help us. Forgive us of our trespasses.
Heaven forbid we make a shelter for the homeless and needy in MY BACKYARD-- "it will lower our property values here in the shadows of the Draper Temple." Such low-lifes are not allowed so close to God's holy place. I would rather live in my secluded dream world of lollipops marshmallows and rainbows than to lend the furthest stretch of MY BACKYARD to help any poor bastard. I worked hard to get my status and home value here in DRAPER...
ReplyDeleteWhy don't THEY buckle down and work hard LIKE I DID?
BTW, where is Sandy, Riverton, West Jordan? THEY ought to be doing this dirty work instead of me!
This hit home to me because today I stopped at a corner store to grab a snack and saw 4 homeless people outside. I parked as far away from them as possible and walked inside while averting my eyes. I did my best not to think of them as I looked at chips and soft drinks, and after buying my unneeded food, I hurried back to my car so as not to be asked for anything... I wish I had read this earlier and could have been more Christlike in my thinking and behavior.
ReplyDeleteThis is the magic of the atonement. We can always turn back to God, His hand is stretched out still.
DeleteChrist said when you do it unto the least of these, you do it unto me. The outstretched hand of the beggar is the hand of God.
God does not want us looking back at our mistakes, he wants us to look forward, and choose what is right. Sodom and Gommorah would have been spared if only a few righteous men were there. We can be those righteous men in our day.
Well, I must ask: Do YOU bring the poor into your home?
ReplyDeleteI can say that I don't. Not because I see them as unworthy, but because I don't bring strangers into my home, period. I'm unwilling to risk my family's safety. Sorry.
It is very easy to point a finger at others when perhaps we should work on our own shortcomings first. (Yes, I have many, many of those)
Yes, Michael, I have brought poor people into our home, several times. Once it was a family who had been stranded from another state; another time it was a backpacker freezing in a blizzard at Point of the Mountain. Connie and I are still convinced he was an angel sent to test the Saints.
ReplyDeleteAnother time it was a poor woman whose roommate had stolen her boyfriend and kicked her out. We befriended her and years later she is still like family, and in fact adopted one of our grandchildren. She joined the church while living with us, and ironically, the roommate who had thrown her out is LDS now, too.
In none of these instances were we ever afraid for our family, because for one thing, the first thing I did in every instance was ask a quick prayer, "Lord, should I pick this person up?"
Only once did the spirit impress it upon me that I should keep driving. Only once.
This isn't to minimize anything you have said here, because you are right that I need to think a lot more about people who need my help. Thank you for the reminder. I just wanted to say that Sodom and Gomorrha were, in fact, destroyed for the sexual perversions in them as well as the selfishness:
ReplyDeleteEven as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. —Jude 1:7