The rich get richer and the poor get poorer (by Jennings)

In Matthew 13.12, Jesus says, "Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them." The first time I checked this with a translation team, I asked them if the saying was clear to them. Oh yes, they said, we have a similar saying in our language. Great. But in this context, Jesus is speaking in a spiritual sense, not about money. Is that how a reader/hearer would understand it? No, they would understand it to be about money. Because that is clearly true.



I've been thinking about this saying lately, because I read a book -- Evicted, by Matthew Desmond -- about how hard it is to get out of poverty in the U.S., and I watched a documentary called Poverty, Inc. that makes the same point about the developing world. Systems are set up in such a way that it is much easier for wealthy people to get loans, to set up businesses, etc., than it is for poor people. So the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The one who has (money) will be given more (money), and they will have plenty. The one who doesn't have (money), even what little they have will be taken away.

Here, we've seen similar things... people with very little means who are pushed down even farther, or prevented from rising. Here are a few examples.
Tiba, who works as a weekend-only night guard, makes $45 per month. In recent months:
- his young son threw a rock that broke a neighbor's TV: $100
- his brother died and he's on the hook to pay for the coffin: $70
- another family member died, and he didn't have to pay for the coffin, but he had to house and feed visiting family members for as long as they cared to stay (common practice)

Mugisa was between jobs for awhile, but worked as a tailor and part-time handyman, doing odd jobs. His wife has diabetes and is often too ill to work, so he is the sole breadwinner. His brother died a few years ago, and he inherited the "orphans", so he is raising them (and paying for all their needs) in addition to his own children. A couple of years ago, he got a job as a night guard and earns a good salary... over $100/month. He also gets health benefits for his family, though not for his brother's children because he has not legally adopted them. He managed to buy a piece of land, and he needs to build on it quickly or the government will take it away. (This is to prevent land speculation.) He borrowed $500 from friends, bought all the materials, and got ready to start building a house. Then his brother's daughter fell out of a mango tree, very high. She broke an arm, cracked some ribs, and -- most seriously -- hit her head very hard. She needed to be hospitalized for several weeks at Nyankunde hospital, which is excellent but not cheap. He borrowed from family and friends to pay for her care and transportation. Meanwhile, he wasn't working on the house, and people (his future neighbors...) started stealing the building materials. The daughter got well enough to go stay with relatives eventually. But then she slipped on an avocado peel and re-broke her arm. Mugisa was going to do some construction work for us, to earn some extra money, but he had to give up that job to go take care of her.

Atana is also a night guard, earning around $150/month. He got a puppy. He asked the local vet about rabies vaccine, but he was told the puppy was too young. Then the puppy got rabies and bit 9 people, including his own daughter. Fortunately, there was treatment available in town. He's on the hook to pay for multiple shots for all the bite victims, which comes to over $900, several months' salary.

Richard is a translator, making around $200/month in an expensive city, Goma. He borrowed a few hundred dollars so his wife could start up a small business, buying shoes in Uganda and selling them in the market in Goma. The loan was enough for her to make an initial trip to Uganda and buy shoes. But they were stolen in transit back to Goma. Loan money gone (debt forgiven), no shoes, no money to buy more. So much for that.

Fortunately, all these men have jobs, they're hard-working and smart, and they have friends and family to help them. They are not the poorest of the poor. But these are examples of life obstacles that can keep people from making advances... from building a house so they don't have to pay rent any more, or get a little business going. That's not to mention landlords demanding three months' rent ahead of time or schools kicking children out for not paying their school fees, right before final exams. Or inflation that is hitting the whole country hard, but hitting the poor hardest. So when people interpret Matt 13.12 as being about the fate of the rich and the poor, it's hard to argue.