February 11, 2007

Blessed are the Poor
 

by Rev. Dr. Jim Carlson

Luke 6:17-26

(Slide) Picture from the Dominican Republic – if these folks were blessed, it was hard to see from my perspective.

So when we open up this section of the book of Luke and read Jesus saying, “Blessed are the poor” and “Woe to the rich”, for most people it’s a little hard to believe. Most of us would easily take the “woes” of the rich over the “blessedness” of the poor any day of the week.

So is Jesus just talking crazy? Are the words “poor” and “rich” really code words for something else? What’s going on here?

These are the kinds of questions that have been asked of this passage ever since it appeared in Luke’s gospel. Just to give you a little background, this gospel was written late in the first century AD. It’s almost universally agreed that Luke either had a copy of Matthew’s gospel or used some of the material Matthew used when Matthew wrote his gospel.

That’s important because this passage is Luke’s abridged version of Matthew’s very famous “Sermon on the Mount”. Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount contains well known passages most people have heard like, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in Matthew goes on for three chapters. Luke’s version is not on a mountain, but on a plain. And it only takes up one chapter. So we know that Luke is abridging whatever he got his hands onto, and we know he’s telling it in a way that fits into the kind of gospel he wants to write.

(Slide) When Matthew tells us about this sermon, Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” And he lists no woes against the rich. When Luke tells us about this sermon, he says, “Blessed are the poor”, and he follows it up with “Woe to the rich”.

Do you see what a big difference there is between them? What I want you to see is that Luke phrases these words of Jesus in the way he does because he thinks Jesus’ ministry was about lifting up the poor and taking the wealthy down a peg.

Before you get confused, let me show you how Luke’s version of this sermon fits into the rest of his gospel. (Slide) From the very beginning of his gospel, Luke talks about the life of Jesus as God’s way of evening the gap between the rich and the poor of the world.

Take a look at Mary’s response when she hears that she will get pregnant with Jesus: “He has filled the hungry with good things and has sent the rich away empty.” When John the Baptist is preaching in chapter 3, John’s practical advice for being his follower in all cases involves fixing an unfair economic system so that the poor are treated fairly.

When Luke tells us the story about Jesus’ first appearance as a Rabbi in his home town of Nazareth, the first thing Jesus says is that he is there to preach good news to the poor. Most of his ministry up to this point has involved healing the sick, which was one of the greatest factors contributing to poverty in that society.

When John the Baptist sends some representatives to meet Jesus and see if Jesus was the savior John had been predicting, Jesus tells those representatives to make up their own minds, and he points out that the poor are hearing good news. That’s obviously proof that Jesus is the savior.

Luke is the only gospel which contains the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, in which the rich and the poor both receive a reversal of their earthly lives after they die. Luke’s gospel is the only one to have the story of the widow who puts her last penny in the offering plate and is blessed by God for doing so.

Luke includes the story of the rich ruler who tells Jesus he follows all the laws of Moses and wants to know what else he has to do to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Jesus tells him to give all his stuff to the poor and join Jesus’ followers. Luke is the only gospel with the story of Zaccheus, who is told that salvation has come to his house when he tells Jesus that he gives half of his earnings to the poor.

Am I building up a strong enough case here? Luke really sees Jesus’ work as an announcement that God is going to reverse the fortunes of everyone in the world. And this sermon on the plain fits in perfectly with what Luke does throughout his gospel.

(Slide) Those who are poor will receive the kingdom of God. Those who are rich will receive no reward in the kingdom. Those who are hungry now will be full. Those who are full now will be hungry. Those who grieve now will laugh later. Those who laugh now will cry later.

Those who are rejected by society now because they believe in Jesus will be rewarded by God later. Those who are popular and well thought of in this life will be outcasts in the next.

The tough part is that Luke doesn’t say much here about why these things would be reversed. He doesn’t tell us that the rich have taken advantage of the poor, although he does in other places. He doesn’t say that the poor have been good God-fearing people despite their poverty, and because of that God is going to “hook them up” later.

None of this has to do with the poor being good or the rich being bad. There are lots of good rich people in Luke. So when we ask ourselves what this means to us, we need to avoid talking about this passage in terms of what we as individuals do. (repeat that line)

Unfortunately, that’s what a lot of people talk about when they talk about helping people deal with economic inequalities in the world. Think about what we do in the church. We hold seminars on personal finances. We talk about how families can get out of debt and how to spend money wisely.

We also talk about how poor people use bad judgment and make their own problems worse. We generously offer programs in low income areas that help poor people make better choices so that they can break the cycle of poverty.

There’s nothing wrong with any of that. In fact, I think we could do a lot more of those kinds of ministries and programs than we’re already doing. The problem is that in our focus in individual responsibility, which is at the heart of what it means to be an American, we’ve ignored what Luke’s telling us about the larger picture.

Luke’s saying the system is broke. The whole economic structure which makes us the richest nation in the world simultaneously creates debt and poverty for most people while creating untold wealth for those who already have a lot of money.

And that’s in this country. The world economic system works great for us, but we live in a world where much of the population lives on less than a dollar a day in income. We comfort ourselves by saying things like, “Well, we’re just more productive than they are. We deserve to be rich because we work harder than everyone else or because we believe in Jesus.”

What a pile of baloney! Do you think the undocumented Mexican immigrant who works on the cleaning crew at the mall or shampoos the carpets at Country Springs or busses your table at the restaurant is poor because he or she doesn’t work hard enough or isn’t God fearing?

Do you see how ridiculous that whole line of argument is? The system is broke in our day and age just as it was broken in Luke’s day and age, and Luke’s telling us that God isn’t happy about it.

The system in Jesus’ time was broken in different ways for different reasons. People were either born into poverty or born into wealth, and it was nearly impossible to go from being poor to being rich without invading a nearby village and taking their stuff.

Today the system is broken in different ways. While individual choices may contribute to some of its brokenness, the lion’s share of the damage to middle and lower income folks occurs because the system is broken.

Let me give you some examples. A report came out last week showing that Americans now have the lowest savings rate since the time of the depression. We haven’t had so little in the bank in 74 years. Of course, you can say, “Well people should just spend their money a little more wisely and they wouldn’t have this problem.”

Fine, that’s correct. But how do you spend your money wisely and climb out of poverty and debt given the following realities in our country:

One: Our entire existence, from the time we wake until the time we go to bed at night is blanketed with advertisers attempting to entice us to spend our money. When you pick up the newspaper, when you turn on the TV, when you turn on your computer, when you turn on your radio, when you walk through your neighborhood, when you open up your mailbox, when you turn on your cell phone, when you ride the bus, when you attend a concert or a sporting event; we are constantly being offered opportunities to spend our money on things that we need, or things that would make our existence so much better.

Me in the shower listening to the Score.

I don’t care who you are, that kind of pressure affects our conscience, it influences our judgment, and colors the choices we make. The system is built to talk us out of our money. And not just out of our money, but also out of the money we expect to earn in the future.

Here’s number 2: You don’t have enough money buy the house or the car or the video game or the furniture or the electronic gadget or college tuition? No problem. It doesn’t matter how much money you have or how much money you make or even if you’re currently in bankruptcy. There is someone out there, probably lots of someones, who are begging for the chance to loan you money so you can buy that stuff you see being advertised.

I hear almost daily advertisements by people who want to loan you money for a house. They say that even if you have a FICO score of less than 500, which is about equivalent to saying you are bankrupt, they’ll still loan you money for a house.

We now have interest only loans where lenders will loan you money for the house, and all you have to pay is the interest on the loan. Your mortgage payment is really low, but you never make any strides toward paying off the house. Back in the day we used to call that loan sharking. Now we call it competitive business practice. And no one bats an eye because the system is broken.

Those who would defend the system will tell you something like this: if people stop buying so much stuff and spend less money, they also won’t be employed making all that stuff, and they’ll end up unemployed and won’t be able to buy anything.

That kind of statement completely ignores the reality that the people who are making he stuff are no longer us for the most part, but people in other countries, mostly in China, who work for even less money and in worse conditions than the undocumented worker who just cleared your plate at the restaurant.

We also are told that if we infringe on an advertiser’s right to promote his or her product, we’ll be limiting free speech and interfering with the free market, and that the market will eventually purge itself of any fraud without the help of the government or consumer groups.

But I have to really wonder, would the health care system in this country really go down in flames if we fixed the system so that drug makers can no longer spend more money advertising a drug than they spend researching and testing it?

Would our economic health really suffer if we fixed the system so that creditors are no longer allowed to offer credit cards and mortgages to people who are currently in the process of bankruptcy, or others who honestly can’t afford them?

Would it really be so bad if we fixed the system by taking a fraction of what we spend on the war on terrorism and instead use that money to pay for healthcare for the 40 million people of our fellow Americans who can’t afford health insurance?

Will our country fall into financial ruin now that we’ve given a raise to those who work for minimum wage? They haven’t had a raise in 10 years. Were we so wrong to fix the system? Last year they couldn’t get it passed. And they only passed it this year because it included tax breaks for businesses.

I’ve focused mainly on how the system is broken in our own country. In other parts of the world it’s even more broken. Luke is telling us that as followers of Jesus, we need to advocate, on God’s behalf, the fixing of system that keeps lots people poor while keeping a small number of people very wealthy.

The kingdom of God is about equality; it’s about leveling the playfield. It’s about feeding the hungry and comforting those who grieve and embracing the outcast.

It’s also about bringing accountability to those who have benefited on the backs of others. It is about opening the eyes of those who think life is just a big party while their neighbors go without adequate clothing and water and shelter.

It’s about opening closed social systems which are designed to keep people out rather than build them up. It’s personal. It gets into your personal business. It’s more pervasive than advertising if you can believe that.

Jesus proclaimed an end to the broken system and the start of a new, fairer system. Yes, the system is still broken. And yes, we have to make good choices within that broken system. But Jesus proclaimed a hope that someday the system would be fixed.

He thought God would make that happen. And God still wants to do so today. But God doesn’t want to wave a magic wand and make things better. God wants to use you and me to make it better. God has given us the tools to make it better. And God already started the process when Jesus said, so long ago, “Blessed are the poor.”