He who mocks the poor shows contempt for their Maker; whoever gloats over disaster will not go unpunished (Proverbs 17:5).

Have you heard about the recent comments from Christian commentator Pat Robertson, about the earthquake in Haiti?  Sometimes the view of the situation can become distorted by speculation on a few words from a longer statement, so I'll include the majority of his controversial quote, for clarity's sake.  Here is what he said:  "Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it.  They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you'll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal... That island of Hispaniola is one island. It is cut down the middle; on the one side is Haiti on the other is the Dominican Republic.  Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. They need to have and we need to pray for them a great turning to god and out of this tragedy I'm optimistic something good may come. But right now we are helping the suffering people and the suffering is unimaginable."

But even with some of the greater context of Reverend Robertson's comments considered, most of us cannot help but respond with some sense of "Oh, Pat..."  Why, oh why does he keep saying things like this (I remember similar comments around the time that Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans)???  Doesn't he realize the way these comments are taken by the rest of the world?  Doesn't he realize how his comments reflect on the Christian faith in general?  Just about everyone knows that there's no honor in kicking someone while he's down.  But we who follow Jesus should be especially considerate in these situations!  We need to remember that he who mocks the poor shows contempt for their Maker.  We need to remember that whoever gloats over disaster will not go unpunished.

We also need to remember that sometimes our best comment is no comment.  Personally, I wonder if this is how Pat Robertson's foot has found its well-worn path into his mouth.  Namely:  he has his own talk show, where "Christian" commentary on current-day events is expected, day-in, day-out.  And when something has to be said about everything, we're naturally going to make stupid statements.  I do the same thing myself, sometimes -- and I'm especially aware of these dangers in preparing a whole year's worth of daily devotions on the Proverbs.  It's important for all of us to take the "lesson" that needs to be taught to Pat Robertson, and teach it to ourselves.  If you think you're any better than Robertson, I would challenge you to simply consider the challenges of constant content creation.  Just about every radio commentator I can think of has said something thoughtless, ridiculous, and offensive at some point or another -- because, think about it, radio commentators have to fill up hours of air-time every day.  And all of us, too, have said stupid, regretable things at some point or another.  This isn't necessarily a defense of Pat Robertson's comments; he still said really foolish, anti-biblical things for which he is fully responsible.  Still, we need to be careful in pointing fingers at Pat Robertson, even as he's pointing fingers at the Haitians...

We're all susceptible to these dangers, whenever we try to become "experts" in an area of life in which we have no place playing that role.  Coming back to the poverty and disaster situations, even world-class economists and geologists cannot explain or solve the most basic problems of poverty and earthquakes -- so why on earth would we try to do so?!?  We just have to accept that the poor are among us, and we're all not so far from falling victim to the same fate ourselves.  Instead of pointing fingers to condemn, we need to offer hands to help, to be good neighbors.  I don't know if that necessarily makes for good television commentary -- but it certainly makes for a good life.