The Magazine

Jesus’ response to Judas, “you will always have the poor with you,” has proved grimly prophetic. It is partly because any structuring of society will have both “sinkers” and “risers”, and partly because greed and selfishness seem ever-present realities.

The contrasts are extreme, and you don’t have to look all that far to find them. I see them when I go to Papua New Guinea (which I do again this September, amongst other things seeking out next year’s Lent Appeal Project); but they are here in Norfolk as well, both in deprived urban areas and in parts of our rural communities too.

Does it have to be like this? Is poverty solely about lack of economic wealth? Where do spiritual poverty, the poverty of loneliness, the poverty of time to breathe deeply, relax with those we love, or to fulfil properly the range of possibilities within us fit in? Or the poverty of a childhood that fails to flourish for a variety of different reasons?

And are there things we could or should be doing? The encouraging truth is that many things are being done both by people in our wider communities, and by people in our churches. We hear of a wide variety of them at meetings of the Social Community and Environmental Concerns Forum.

Recently a shared initiative with the Church Urban Fund, which we call Imagine Norfolk Together, has harnessed commitment to several new ventures in Great Yarmouth and King’s Lynn, including the provision of Winter Night Shelters in both towns. In both these towns, in many others, and in Norwich itself, some remarkable things are being done.

We have recently said goodbye and thank you to Sir Richard Jewson as Lord Lieutenant of the county. At his farewell, we heard something of the growth of the Norfolk Community Foundation over the last 15 years. It supports the work of hundreds of charities across the county, big and small, church and secular – all seeking in various ways to alleviate poverty.

At its inception Sir Richard, newly appointed, stuck his neck out and said, “This is something I am going to put my shoulder to. There were plenty of people saying: ‘Wait, see how it goes; don’t risk your early reputation on something that’s untested.’” It was a significant piece of reaching out. The Community Foundation is now well established and seeking still to do more: to continue reaching out to the furthest corners of the diocese and county.

In the end “reaching out” is a very large part of the response that’s needed – in practical help, in understanding of the particular poverty, with money sometimes, and more often with time and care. Jesus is God’s act of reaching out to us. Poverty of so many types is eased when we join in that reaching out.