One day I was traveling downtown for a meeting that I had with a mentor in the city of San Francisco. I had taken the train into town and was walking a few blocks through the financial district on my way to the meeting. It is not uncommon, during those walks, for me to encounter the homeless lying on the street corners, sitting and asking for money, or trying to sell street newspapers in order to make a small amount of money. On this particular day, I was early for my meeting and was taking my time absorbing the life of the city. A few blocks into my walk, I came across a man lying against the newspaper boxes. He seemed to be sleeping on something, but it was hard to tell what. He had a few of his possessions around him. It was difficult to tell what was his clothing, his bedding, or his body, because he was so incredibly filthy. His hair was matted and in disarray. He seemed to be sleeping. My heart went out to him when I encountered him… not only because he was so dirty and seemed to have so little, but also because he was lying on the side of the street and his butt was completely exposed. As I was approaching the place where he was sleeping, my spirit was so torn within me. I kept thinking of all of the verses that talk about feeding those who are without food and especially about James 2 that says, “what it is it if you tell him ‘go and be well’”… but I was completely at a loss as to what to do. I thought of the verses about if you have two cloaks – give your brother or your sister the extra one, but I was wearing a suit – high heels, a skirt, and a jacket that I am sure would not have done him any good. I thought about waking him up, but was fearful of what he might do to me if I aroused him from his slumber. I thought about the good Samaritan who saw the man by the side of the road and took him to an inn and paid for his stay. I looked across the street and there was an Omni Hotel right there. I then envisioned what a fool people would think of me if I attempted to take this dirty, disheveled, and smelly man into their posh hotel. I didn’t care as much about what people would think – although the thought crossed my mind – but I continued to rationalize that the man lying there certainly would have rejected my kindness if I had offered. As I continued to walk, I knew in the depths of my being that God was stirring in me… and yet, even acknowledging His presence, I did nothing. I was immobilized. So, when I think about Jesus saying “whatever you do unto the least of these, you do unto me” – I know that on that particular day, I totally walked right by Jesus. I continue to think of that man, what has become of him, how he might have responded to me if I had acted differently. But, even more than that, I ask God to forgive me for the ways that my stupid pride, my world of excessive luxury, keep me from responding to Him in my daily encounters.
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Friday, May 30, 2008
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Biblical Context of Poverty
Poverty is mentioned over 2,000 times in Scripture. Yet, the meaning of poverty can be elusive. The people of God, throughout the Old Testament, had clear mandates about how they were to respond to those who were poor. Consider Deuteronomy 15:11, “There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward those of your people who are poor and needy in your land.” The anger of God toward the fasting and sacrifices of His people is expressed in Isaiah 58. God did not desire for the Israelites to only manifest religious duty, but also to respond to the needs the poor. He says about the type of fasting that He has chosen: “Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor with wander and shelter – when you see the naked, to clothe them, and to not turn away from your own flesh and blood?”(Is 58:7). The people of God throughout the Old Testament had clear laws about how they were to provide for those living in poverty.
In the Gospels, Jesus called attention to those who were hurting and in need – both physically and in the spiritual sense. When Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount and said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5:3), what did he mean? The tag line of that verse “poor in spirit” is written and spoken about by many scholars, thinkers, and preachers. Charles Finney identified with being poor in spirit and said, “Being poor in spirit implies that we see in its true light the tendency in us to every thing evil--that we understand that the habitudes of our minds, that our appetites and propensities, that nearly the whole power of the sensibility continually tends to selfishness.”[i] To be poor in spirit refers to the deep longing within us to be filled by something other than ourselves and the baseness of the world around us – the poverty that exists when we do not have the greater purpose of being in relationship with the God of the universe.
This leads us to ponder whether or not Jesus’ words in Matthew have the same meaning as when Luke writes, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” (Lk 6:20)? Is Luke referring to a different kind of poverty? Sometimes when we talk about poverty, we are referring to the physical lack of resources – fundamental human needs such as food, clothing and shelter. Is there any correlation between those who are poor in spirit and others who are physically poor?
Physical poverty is something that is concrete, observable, and for the most part measurable. In speaking of material poverty, Gustavo Gutiérrez, a Peruvian theologian and Dominican priest wrote: “Concretely, to be poor means to die of hunger, to be illiterate, to be exploited by others, not to know that you are being exploited, not to know that you are a person. It is in relation to this poverty – material and cultural, collective and militant – that evangelical poverty will have to define itself.”[ii] One of the questions that we must ask as followers of Christ – is what are we supposed to do, if anything, about this kind of poverty? As we grapple with that question, our pursuit of personal righteousness and Christ-likeness is a part of the motivation that compels us out of our own spiritual poverty.
Jesus had a lot to say about material poverty. There is great evidence indicating that He cared not only about His follower’s internal righteousness, but also about those who were considered the least of society. Jesus’ ministry begins with Him calling attention to His role in fulfilling all righteousness (Mt 3:15). When he was tempted by Satan in the wilderness, He reminds his tempter that physical bread is not the source of life that people need, but instead, “People do not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4). The juxtaposition in this passage of the pursuit of righteousness (obedience to every word that comes from God) and human’s physical need for sustenance and food (bread alone) reminds us that our connection and intimacy with God is of more importance than the needs of our physical and temporal selves. The most important needs that a human has are not physical, but deeply spiritual. The moment that we begin to ignore spiritual needs in the midst of material poverty, we have lost the battle. We must never seek to save our physical selves without care for the spiritual wellbeing of our souls. Nonetheless, Jesus calls us to not ignore the physical needs that we see around us. He says responding to the least of these is the equivalent of responding to His needs (Matthew 25). This idea is expounded when James talks about our faith in action. He says, “Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead” (Jas 2:15-17). This chapter is full of suggestions about how we as believers can respond to the physical needs and poverty that surrounds us.
Guttiérrez takes his understanding of poverty even further and suggests that we as Christ followers must adopt a new kind of poverty – evangelical poverty. Evangelical poverty embraces what the Messiah talked about in 2 Cor 8:9: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that through his poverty you might become rich.” We know how generous the Lord has been to us, thus we must not close our eyes and ignore the horrors going on around us, but engage and work to solve them. We must work to make a difference, one small step at a time by loving those who are poor and even those who are dirty, smelly, ugly, and rejected by society. By living alongside the poor, we will be witnesses of Christ’s love to the world. In fact, we will be spiritually transformed when we have direct encounters with the poor. Through their lives, stories, and experiences, and Christ working in their midst, we receive a great gift that we otherwise would not have known. Guttiérrez says it well: “Christian poverty, an expression of love, is solidarity with the poor and is a protest against poverty. It is a poverty lived not for its own sake, but rather as an authentic imitation of Christ; it is a poverty which means taking on the sinful human condition to liberate humankind from sin and all its consequences.”[iii]
In the Gospels, Jesus called attention to those who were hurting and in need – both physically and in the spiritual sense. When Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount and said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5:3), what did he mean? The tag line of that verse “poor in spirit” is written and spoken about by many scholars, thinkers, and preachers. Charles Finney identified with being poor in spirit and said, “Being poor in spirit implies that we see in its true light the tendency in us to every thing evil--that we understand that the habitudes of our minds, that our appetites and propensities, that nearly the whole power of the sensibility continually tends to selfishness.”[i] To be poor in spirit refers to the deep longing within us to be filled by something other than ourselves and the baseness of the world around us – the poverty that exists when we do not have the greater purpose of being in relationship with the God of the universe.
This leads us to ponder whether or not Jesus’ words in Matthew have the same meaning as when Luke writes, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God” (Lk 6:20)? Is Luke referring to a different kind of poverty? Sometimes when we talk about poverty, we are referring to the physical lack of resources – fundamental human needs such as food, clothing and shelter. Is there any correlation between those who are poor in spirit and others who are physically poor?
Physical poverty is something that is concrete, observable, and for the most part measurable. In speaking of material poverty, Gustavo Gutiérrez, a Peruvian theologian and Dominican priest wrote: “Concretely, to be poor means to die of hunger, to be illiterate, to be exploited by others, not to know that you are being exploited, not to know that you are a person. It is in relation to this poverty – material and cultural, collective and militant – that evangelical poverty will have to define itself.”[ii] One of the questions that we must ask as followers of Christ – is what are we supposed to do, if anything, about this kind of poverty? As we grapple with that question, our pursuit of personal righteousness and Christ-likeness is a part of the motivation that compels us out of our own spiritual poverty.
Jesus had a lot to say about material poverty. There is great evidence indicating that He cared not only about His follower’s internal righteousness, but also about those who were considered the least of society. Jesus’ ministry begins with Him calling attention to His role in fulfilling all righteousness (Mt 3:15). When he was tempted by Satan in the wilderness, He reminds his tempter that physical bread is not the source of life that people need, but instead, “People do not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4). The juxtaposition in this passage of the pursuit of righteousness (obedience to every word that comes from God) and human’s physical need for sustenance and food (bread alone) reminds us that our connection and intimacy with God is of more importance than the needs of our physical and temporal selves. The most important needs that a human has are not physical, but deeply spiritual. The moment that we begin to ignore spiritual needs in the midst of material poverty, we have lost the battle. We must never seek to save our physical selves without care for the spiritual wellbeing of our souls. Nonetheless, Jesus calls us to not ignore the physical needs that we see around us. He says responding to the least of these is the equivalent of responding to His needs (Matthew 25). This idea is expounded when James talks about our faith in action. He says, “Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead” (Jas 2:15-17). This chapter is full of suggestions about how we as believers can respond to the physical needs and poverty that surrounds us.
Guttiérrez takes his understanding of poverty even further and suggests that we as Christ followers must adopt a new kind of poverty – evangelical poverty. Evangelical poverty embraces what the Messiah talked about in 2 Cor 8:9: “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that through his poverty you might become rich.” We know how generous the Lord has been to us, thus we must not close our eyes and ignore the horrors going on around us, but engage and work to solve them. We must work to make a difference, one small step at a time by loving those who are poor and even those who are dirty, smelly, ugly, and rejected by society. By living alongside the poor, we will be witnesses of Christ’s love to the world. In fact, we will be spiritually transformed when we have direct encounters with the poor. Through their lives, stories, and experiences, and Christ working in their midst, we receive a great gift that we otherwise would not have known. Guttiérrez says it well: “Christian poverty, an expression of love, is solidarity with the poor and is a protest against poverty. It is a poverty lived not for its own sake, but rather as an authentic imitation of Christ; it is a poverty which means taking on the sinful human condition to liberate humankind from sin and all its consequences.”[iii]
[i] From the Gospel Truth – the Oberlin Evangelist. Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit. Prof. Finney, December 4, 1844. Copyright (c)1999, 2000. Gospel Truth Ministries. Taken from: http://www.gospeltruth.net/1844OE/441204_poor_in_spirit.htm.
[ii] Gutiérrez, Gustavo. A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation. Maryknoll, NY: The Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America, 2000, p. 164.
[iii] Ibid, p. 172.
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