John 12.1-8: Bratton Clovelly, The Fifth Sunday of Lent, 17/3/2013
Luke 6.17-26: St Columba's Church, Gruline, The Third Sunday Before Lent, 17/2/2019
‘The poor, you will always have with you.’ Surely one of the most misread and misrepresented verses in all the gospels. Poverty is unfortunate but it is the way things are; there will always be poor people - so why spend time trying to eradicate poverty? For generations Jesus’ words have been used as an excuse for non-involvement in social and political reformation. But surely that was not what Jesus meant. How can I be so sure?
Well firstly, Jesus was numbered among the poor of his day. When the Son of God became human he chose to become son of a carpenter, not the poorest of trades but amongst the poorest of society. In his ministry he had ‘nowhere to lay his head’ (Mt 8:20, Lk 9:58) - and he soon became a moral outcast once he began to challenge the conventional view of the law. All these things made him ‘poor’ in the society of his day. Mark’s gospel emphasises Jesus’ affinity with ‘the crowd’, the ’people of the land’ [1]. It is clear from what we know of his social status that Jesus of Nazareth, from the start, was one of them.
Secondly, Jesus’ teaching reverses the roles between the rich and the poor. According to Luke (4.14-21), at the beginning of his ministry Jesus went to the synagogue at Nazareth and read out a passage from Isaiah which some commentators now call The Nazareth Manifesto, this was Jesus’ declaration of intent: about the people he would spend most time with, about the concerns at the heart of his teachings. He said that he was going to bring good news to the poor. [2] His ‘beatitudes and woes’ also reinforce these teachings:
Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. (Lk 6:20-21)
....
But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
Woe to you who are full now, for you will be hungry. (Lk6:24-25)
Thirdly, we know that Jesus applied these words, in a wandering ministry predominantly among the poor, engaging with the rich but challenging those privileged ones who misused their power in oppressing others, calling on them to change.
Jesus taught that in the kingdom of God, those who suffer in this life will be comforted and the comfortable ones who contribute to the suffering of the poor will bear the consequences. And so the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Lk 16:19-31), where the rich man is condemned to Hades because in life he had ‘received good things’ (Lk 16:25), feasting sumptuously every day while neglecting Lazarus at his gate.
In Jesus’ society the wealthy elite saw themselves as the ‘righteous’. But in Jesus’ teaching (Matthew 25) the righteous are those who feed the hungry, quench the thirsty, welcome strangers, clothe the naked and visit the prisoner; they are those who bring good news to the poor, in recognition that Jesus is to be found in the poor, that the actions of people towards the poor are actions towards Jesus himself: ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ (Mt 25:45)
Think of the stories of the ‘good Samaritan’ (Lk 10:30-37), the ‘unforgiving slave’ (Mt 18:23-35) and the ‘prodigal son’ (Lk 15:11-32), how they reinforce this ‘reversal of perspectives’, how they accomplish ‘a victory of human kindness over inflexible principles and hardened attitudes’. [3]
In Jesus’ teaching there is a place in the kingdom for the wealthy ones who can transform themselves through acts of kindness and generosity. So his call to the rich ruler to sell all he owned and distribute the money to the poor, is a call to freedom and redemption. ‘Then you will have treasure in heaven’ (Lk 18:22), Jesus told him. Jesus’ teaching carries good news for all - including the wealthy elite - who turn to ‘seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness’ (Mt 6:33).
Now all of this is the background to the current debate between Church leaders and government over welfare policy. The Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill, which is before Parliament, would limit the increase in most benefits and tax credits to one per cent a year for the next three years. The Children's Society says that the one-per-cent limit is ‘well below the rate of inflation predicted by the Treasury’, and ‘will push 200,000 more children into poverty’.
Last week’s Sunday Telegraph published a letter, signed by 43 bishops, which called on the Government ‘to take action to protect children from the impact of this Bill’. The letter said that ‘...the change will hit the poorest the hardest. [...] If prices rise faster than expected, children and families will no longer have any protection against this. This transfers the risk of high inflation rates from the Treasury to children and families, which is unacceptable. Children and families are already being hit hard by cuts to support, including those to tax credits, maternity benefits, and help with housing costs. They cannot afford this further hardship penalty. We are calling on the House of Lords to take action to protect children from the impact of this Bill.’ [4]
Now, one of the great strengths of the Church is that it relates to both rich and poor alike. Most parishes embrace people of all positions on the social scale, and the Church brings the richest and the poorest people together around the Lord’s Table.
And this fits with Jesus, who ate with both rich and poor. When not among ‘the crowds’, Jesus sat around meal tables sharing fellowship with invited guests. Controversially, he ate with moral outcasts such as the tax-collectors Levi (Lk 5:27-32) and Zaccheus (Lk 19:1-7). Shockingly, for his day, women were included, among them Mary who anointed Jesus with ‘a pound of costly ointment’ (John 12.3).
But his meals were also shared with - and often provided by - people who were not outcasts. He ate in the homes of leading Pharisees, and many of his meals were paid for by wealthy supporters such as Joanna. Jesus’ fellowship meals brought together devout Jews and the ‘outcasts and sinners’ and the poor of the land, and so deeply challenged the divisive social and religious conventions of the time.
Jesus was biased to the poor, but not in a way which can be taken as prejudiced against the wealthy. This provides challenges for contemporary Christians of all political leanings and of all social classes. In the seminal book ‘Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger’, Ronald Sider wrote that ‘God is not partial; nor is God neutral’:
God is not partial. He has the same loving concern for each person he has created. Precisely for that reason he cares as much for the weak and disadvantaged as he does for the strong and fortunate. By contrast with the way that the comfortable and powerful of every age and society always act toward the poor, God seems to have an overwhelming bias in favour of the poor. But [it] is only when we take our perverse preference for the successful and wealthy as natural and normative that God’s concern appears biased.
God, however, is not neutral. [...] God is on the side of the poor! The Bible clearly and repeatedly teaches that God is at work in history casting down the rich and exalting the poor because frequently the rich are wealthy precisely because they have oppressed the poor or have neglected to aid the needy. God also sides with the poor because he disapproves of extremes of wealth and poverty. The God of the Bible is on the side of the poor [not] because he is biased, [but because] he is a God of impartial justice. [5]
When we are considering our position in the debates of our day on issues of poverty and wealth; as we approach the Lord’s Table in fellowship with all God’s people, let’s recall where Jesus stood on these things, and seek to place ourselves alongside him there.
Notes
The body of material in this sermon is edited down from an academic essay of mine, ‘Does Jesus of Nazareth have a bias to the poor?’ (unpublished)
[1] Ched Myers, Binding the Strong Man, p. 156
[2] This paragraph is lifted from my sermon, Learning cooperation in the body, 27/1/2013
[3] Merkel, H, The Opposition Between Jesus and Judaism in Bammel, E, Moule, C.F.D (eds), Jesus and the Politics of His Day, p.136/7
[4] Children will suffer, bishops warn, Church Times, 15 March 2013
[5] Ron Sider, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, p.76
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