It has been said that if our church gives a penny to every person, eventually we will have nothing and nobody will be in a better place. That is a true statement, right? We have property here and across the street and across the hill at the manse – if we just liquefied all of those assets and turned it into a big giant pile of pennies and just one person at a time handed out pennies to be merciful, eventually we would have nothing and nobody would really be benefited from the work that we do. You see, this call to balance open-handed mercy and the fact that the poor will always be with us takes mediation. It takes wisdom. And God gives us an office for that.

Psalm 41:1–13 says that the man is blessed who considers the poor. The word considers is a very visual word. The word considers doesn't mean that you just go by a poor person's house and say, Oh, that’s really sad. It’s really sad that they live that way. Or you see poor children on the streets and you say, Oh, that’s too bad, and then you go on living your life. The idea behind the word consider is that we are called to contemplate and we are called to meditate. It implies that we put our thought into what has caused this to be and what is actually needed for the sake of help. Consider the poor. This is important as we talk about mercy ministry, because what is given to the poor and what is given at times in the name of mercy is not always helpful. Can you believe that? There are times when the church says, I am being merciful, and I am going to give you things in the name of mercy and the church does not actually help anyone. Again, this is why we need a diaconate to consider these things, to meditate on these things and to facilitate mercy in the life of the church.¹

Nathan Eshelman