Poverty (Pt. 1)

A word about poverty (or “pigs don’t wear necklaces”).

Jesus says in Luke 4 and again in Luke 7 that his work culminates in “preaching the good news to the poor.” “The Spirit of the Lord” anointed him for it. Like his ancestor David, Jesus is called up out of this Judean backwater Bethlehem and anointed. Out of a blue-collar rural family from a blue-collar rural town, Jesus (like David) is going to be hailed King. Called “Lord.” And all of his buddies, these guys who start getting called “disciples” once Jesus starts getting called “teacher,” are blue-collar guys. Fishermen. Disgruntled workers-turned-radicals called “zealots.” Half-criminal government shills that collected taxes. All the characters that populate a society, an economy oppressed and depressed by Imperial occupation. All of the rough, unlovely types by whom civilized people are made uncomfortable. The sorts of lower-middle class folks that politicians condescend to and pander to.

Jesus comes up from this neighborhood and doesn’t go make nice with the arbiters of power and culture and religion. He doesn’t seek their approval. He doesn’t apply for their certification programs. He doesn’t wait for their permission. There’s some Kingdom shit to do. And once it’s underway, news of it will get to the people for whom it will matter. Poor people. People for whom it will be a blessing. For those who have everything to gain and nothing to lose.

On the other hand, if you inaugurate a new Kingdom, people with a job in the old kingdom start to get worried they’ll be S.O.L.

People with no job to speak of couldn’t be happier.

For people who are poor, the Kingdom of God is good news. Jesus tells his students not to cast their pearls before swine, because what use do pigs have for pearls? Don’t bring the Kindgom to people who don’t have any use for a new Kingdom. It might be news to them, but it won’t be Good News.

For poor people, it'll be good news. That other kind of people? well, maybe not so much.

Our Evangelical emphasis on the transcendent meaning of the crucifixion (atonement theories, etc) often obscures the very immanent reasons the official defenders of religion and government had for killing this Jesus guy. They had a good racket and this new Kingdom, in which the poor get preference, was going to fuck the whole thing up. See: JD’s entry on “loss aversion.”

For those of us who are rich and still think that the Kingdom of God sounds like pretty good news, this puts us in a bit of an awkward spot. We don’t have the kind of lack, the kind of poverty that makes a new Kingdom with freedom and provision and healing and work to be done seem like living water to quench our thirst. We’ve got freedom through victory. We’ve got provision through labor. We’ve got healing through technology. We’ve got work to do, because there’s an empire to build.

But we do have guilt.

Sometimes we aren’t even sure what it is we feel guilty about, except for the sneaking suspicion that, even if we worked for our wealth, for our position, for our privilege, our comfort, we still don’t deserve it. Or maybe we know exactly what it is we feel guilty about and no matter how much we accomplish or how much we acquire, its never enough to make us “O.K.” again. Nothing ever seems to fix what we've done. Or maybe we find guilt, not with ourselves, but everywhere and in everyone else.

So, we have a poverty of forgiveness. A poverty of grace for ourselves and/or others.

And this is serious business. That’s a kind of poverty you can die from. (See also: Alcoholism; Depression; Gluttony; Eating Disorders; Promiscuity; Domestic, Civic, National Violence.)

So, for the sinner with a poverty of forgiveness, the forgiveness part of the Kingdom is pretty good news.

But once that poverty is addressed through faith in the blood of a lamb that washes away the sin of the world and delivers us from death…

What now? What else do we need, after we’ve plucked this particular bit of goodness from the news Jesus was anointed to preach to the poor? Can we just return to our unending wars to defend peace? Return to our stock portfolios? To our health care legislation? To our role in a society, an economy that soaked us in sin to begin with?

Now that we’ve been washed clean, can we jump back in the sewer and try really hard to avoid taking on the stink of shit ourselves?

When you read that story about the rich young ruler that Jesus asks to give up his wealth and position, how fast do you move to wave away the chance that challenge might apply to you?

More than that, when the poor start proclaiming to each other the other good stuff about this Kingdom news, do we start to defend the old kingdom in which we have freedom and provision and health and work to do? When the political, the economic, the somatic and the social aspects of the Kingdom News start to get preached from the poor to the poor, how quick are we to declare the existential part, the part that matters to us, the only part that is essential?

Isn’t it funny that the only part the privileged need is the only part that really counts?

(Up next: Charity vs. Caritas)