relationships and community on Beggars

For most of us, it’s a personal experience of poverty that helps us transcend our often narrow experience of the world. In this excerpt from theologian Marva J. Dawn, the former Regent College profess...

There is an old story of a king who went into the village streets to greet his subjects. A beggar sitting by the roadside eagerly held up his alms bowl, sure that the king would give handsomely. Inste...

Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread.

Saint Aidan was an Irish monk who later became bishop of Northumbria (Northern England and Parts of Scotland) in 635. He also founded the famous monastery at Lindisfarne. There is a story told of his ...

Heavenly Father, we come before you as beggars in need of your voice. As we lift up our thoughts, songs, and prayers, we lean in to hear how you would speak back to us. We yearn to hear the voice of J...

When I was in college I sometimes visited Bel Air Presbyterian Church, as did many of my friends. At that time Bel Air was known for being a place celebrities liked to visit. (This was not my favorite...

We didn’t have a lot of rules [at the food pantry at St. Gregory, an Episcopal congregation in San Francisco]. You could be a drunk or junkie, but you couldn’t volunteer if you were high. You couldn’t...

One day, as Leo Tolstoy, the renowned Russian author, was walking down the street when he encountered a man in worn, shabby clothing. The homeless man asked him if he had any money to spare. Tolstoy s...

A notorious miser was called on by the chairman of the community charity. “Sir,” said the fund-raiser, “our records show that despite your wealth, you’ve never once given to our drive.” The man repli...

One Sunday, an usher brought to me an offering plate holding a bacon biscuit that a college student had deposited in the morning offering. A little note attached said, “Silver and gold have I none, bu...

When I don’t have any [food to bring my family], I borrow, mainly from neighbors and friends. I feel ashamed standing before my children when I have nothing to help feed the family. I’m not well when ...

I never find “Blessed are the rich,” or “Blessed be the noble”’ but Blessed be the meek,” and, “Blessed be the poor,” and, “Blessed be the mourners, for they shall be comforted.”-And yet, O God!, most...

One burden of homelessness is this: you’re always a stranger, counting on someone’s good graces.

We bring before you, O Lord, the troubles and perils of people and nations, the sighing of prisoners and captives, the sorrows of the bereaved, the necessities of strangers, the helplessness of the we...

The bread which you do not use is the bread of the hungry; the garment hanging in your wardrobe is the garment of him who is naked; the shoes that you do not wear are the shoes of the one who is baref...

If our goods are not available to the community, they are stolen goods.

Almighty and most merciful God, we remember before you all poor and neglected persons whom it would be easy for us to forget: the homeless and the destitute, the old and the sick, and all who have non...

I heard a story about a little boy who wanted to give God an offering but had nothing to give. He sat on the floor, watching people pass by and place their offerings in large wicker baskets. How he lo...

The socioeconomic rootedness of the word ‘poor’ does not permit exclusively the spiritual poverty interpretation, and the ‘in spirit’ demands that this be more than simple economic oppression…[neverth...

Blessed are the sat upon, spat upon, ratted on.

There was a rich young man who had a series of disappointments that made him feel that life was not worth while, as if he really had nothing left to live for. On his way to the river where he intended...

Blessed are they who have no locks on their door.

An American woman visiting the Philippines, observed an elderly woman on the outskirts of Manila. She looked poverty-stricken and walked with the help of a cane down into a ditch alongside a main road...

We cannot know the inheritance of God without identifying with the poor in spirit, without the poverty that says, “I am naked and poor and wretched and I need a Savior or I’ll die. I’m desperate for y...

Jesus never concealed the fact that his religion included a demand as well as an offer. Indeed, the demand was as total as the offer was free. His offer of salvation always brings with it the requirem...

[The Poor in Spirit have] a complete absence of pride, a complete absence of self-assurance and self-reliance.

If you could cut one or two Beatitudes, which would you drop from the list? Perhaps the ones about the righteous or the persecuted or those who mourn? What might you add? “Blessed are the driven, for ...

Riches are the pettiest and least worthy gifts which God can give a man. What are they to God's Word, to bodily gifts, such as beauty and health; or to the gifts of the mind, such as understanding...

I am waiting for the meek to be blessed and inherit the earth... without taxes.

If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.