We are all Beggars

Are We Not All Beggars? By Elder Jeffrey R. Holland Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

The writer of Proverbs would make the matter piercingly clear: “He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker,” and “whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor … shall [also] cry himself, but shall not be heard.”⁵

In our day, the restored Church of Jesus Christ had not yet seen its first anniversary when the Lord commanded the members to “look to the poor and … needy, and administer to their relief that they shall not suffer.”⁶ Note the imperative tone of that passage—“they shall not suffer.” That is language God uses when He means business.

Given the monumental challenge of addressing inequity in the world, what can one man or woman do? The Master Himself offered an answer. When, prior to His betrayal and Crucifixion, Mary anointed Jesus’s head with an expensive burial ointment, Judas Iscariot protested this extravagance and “murmured against her.”⁷

Jesus said:

“Why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work. …

“She hath done what she could.”⁸

“She hath done what she could”! What a succinct formula! A journalist once questioned Mother Teresa of Calcutta about her hopeless task of rescuing the destitute in that city. He said that, statistically speaking, she was accomplishing absolutely nothing. This remarkable little woman shot back that her work was about love, not statistics. Notwithstanding the staggering number beyond her reach, she said she could keep the commandment to love God and her neighbor by serving those within her reach with whatever resources she had. “What we do is nothing but a drop in the ocean,” she would say on another occasion. “But if we didn’t do it, the ocean would be one drop less [than it is].”⁹ Soberly, the journalist concluded that Christianity is obviously not a statistical endeavor. He reasoned that if there would be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over the ninety and nine who need no repentance, then apparently God is not overly preoccupied with percentages.¹⁰

to this very group who had themselves been turned away, Amulek says, “After [you] have [prayed], if [you] turn away the needy, and the naked, and visit not the sick and afflicted, and impart of your substance, if [you] have [it], to those who stand in need—I say unto you, … your prayer is vain, and availeth you nothing, and [you] are as hypocrites who do deny the faith.”¹⁵ What a stunning reminder that rich or poor, we are to “do what we can” when others are in need.

I bear witness of the miracles, both spiritual and temporal, that come to thosewho live the law of the fast. I bear witness of the miracles that have come to me.Truly, as Isaiah recorded, I have cried out in the fast more than once, and trulyGod has responded, “Here I am.”¹⁷ Cherish that sacred privilege at least monthly,and be as generous as circumstances permit in your fast offering and otherhumanitarian, educational, and missionary contributions. I promise that God willbe generous to you

In that regard, I pay a personal tribute to President Thomas Spencer Monson. Ihave been blessed by an association with this man for 47 years now, and theimage of him I will cherish until I die is of him flying home from then–economically devastated East Germany in his house slippers because he hadgiven away not only his second suit and his extra shirts but the very shoes fromoff his feet. “How beautiful upon the mountains [and shuffling through an airlineterminal] are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace.”²⁰More than any man I know, President Monson has “done all he could” for thewidow and the fatherless, the poor and the oppressed.