We can\u2019t forget that Jesus seems to have been somewhat poor himself. Though he was in the form of God, Jesus gave it up to take the form of a human. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Born into a carpenter\u2019s family, he had a feed trough as his first bed. Shepherds attending their \u2018flocks by night\u2019 were among the poorer people of Israel, and they were the first invited to meet him there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At a peak in his adult popularity, his response to a scribe who offered to follow him, Jesus said, \u201cFoxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.\u201d (Matthew 8:20). Even his body had to be laid in someone else\u2019s grave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And so we must ask ourselves this question: Is it even possible follow Jesus without dealing with poverty? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pastor and author Chuck Poole, in his article \u201cPaul and Jesus\u201d (Baptist Studies Bulletin<\/em>, August 2005) offers a suggestion about how we handle this quandary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He was wrestling with two particular statements by Jesus:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 \u201cGive to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.\u201d (Matthew 5:42)<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 \u201cSell your possessions and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near, and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.\u201d (Luke 12:33)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sayings like these, suggests Poole, \u201chave been placed, by the church, in a special category, the \u2018radical\u2019 gospel. But the truth is, what Jesus said about the poor is not the voice of \u2018the radical Jesus.\u2019 Rather, those are the words of the ordinary, everyday Jesus, the only Jesus we have.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s just that they sound so radical to our ears because they call us to actually live in ways that don\u2019t fit with our culture,\u201d he continues. \u201cSo we turn from Jesus to Paul, where we can debate justification and sanctification and spiritual gifts all day without changing how we spend and who we help.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He adds: \u201cJesus gets edged to the side as radical, in favor of the somewhat more manageable Paul \u2014 which leaves one to imagine that Paul himself would be more than a little bewildered by the prominence he sometimes now enjoys over, of all people, Jesus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n What Jesus said also showed that he was concerned about justice.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Visiting the synagogue back home in Nazareth (Luke 4:16-30)he read from a scroll of Isaiah\u2019s writing (61:1-2). It featured good news to the poor, release to captives, sight for the blind, relief from oppression. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It reflected the common good and justice intended in relation to the Sabbath and the Jubilee. The Sabbath was intended for people to rest on the seventh day, and this was extended to the land to lie fallow on the seventh year, indicating a kind of crop rotation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It was about rest, re-creation\/rejuvenation, and even environmental concern (respite for the earth). The Jubilee was about relief and second chances. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It was the 50th year, sort of a Sabbath of Sabbath years, that redistributed wealth among the people of Israel. It included forgiving debt, releasing slaves, and restoring land to former owners (Leviticus 25).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The root issues of environmental stewardship, economic resources and mutual responsibility come to the fore. Jesus was encouraging justice, justice in all its dimensions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Those in Nazareth who heard him that day would know the context of that particular passage in Isaiah. Just a few lines further, Isaiah had written, \u201cFor I the Lord love justice\u2026\u201d (61:8).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus directly aligns himself with prophetic tradition and with the Law in dealing with poverty.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus\u2019 concern for the poor seems to get overshadowed in popular Bible study and preaching. The part about addressing poverty gets lost, or at least it\u2019s so low on the priority list that it seems to be lost. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This could be because we get accustomed to the familiar, dazzled by the sensational, or devoted to building walls of security. Perhaps Jesus would challenge our legalistic self-satisfaction just as he did with his own local religious authorities: <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWoe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. (Matt 23:23)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus\u2019 references to Isaiah are significant. Isaiah and his contemporaries, such as Micah, Hosea and Amos, expressed much frustration with poor judgment in the faith practices of God\u2019s people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It seems that the religious priorities of the day were off base. In one sense, they were overdoing it! <\/p>\n\n\n\n The offerings, the festivals, the solemn assemblies, the songs, the incense and prayer, and the instrumental music didn\u2019t make believers always faithful. They were good, but they missed the mark if they weren\u2019t accompanied with justice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Jesus said, \u201cDo not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.\u201d (Matt 5:17) <\/p>\n\n\n\n It was a message not liked by all. In Luke 4, Jesus was run out of town for taking God\u2019s call to justice seriously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While today we may not be entirely ostracized, there are still risks associated with taking the gospel seriously. For most of us it would mean living a life different than the one we have now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s something that would be noticed. It\u2019s something that might require significant, sacrificial changes that we may not want to make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So the tendency becomes that we don\u2019t take Jesus\u2019 teachings seriously \u2014 that we pick and choose how, when and to what degree we will follow Christ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We worry ourselves with what the neighbors would think. What would friends think? What would family think? <\/p>\n\n\n\n Lost among the qualms might be the only question worth asking: \u201cWhat would God think?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tom Prevost, who served as a pastor, missions administrator and advocate for those experiencing poverty, lives in Chattanooga, Tenn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We can\u2019t forget that Jesus seems to have been somewhat poor himself. 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