Blessed are the Poor
Luke 6:17-26
Well, I’ve been back and forth for several hours today trying to figure out how to understand today’s passage. According to most of the commentators I’ve read, we should spiritualize the “poor” in Luke’s beatitudes. According to this reading, being poor has to do with humility, while being rich refers to pride. On the other hand, some commentators keep the literal meaning of poor as referring to economic and social poverty. Good folks, it seems, are on both sides of this debate.
For my part, I just can’t shake the feeling that it is a little too convenient for me, a decently well-off white male, to spiritualize the sting out of Jesus’ words to the rich. Moreover, I think that understanding God’s kingdom through the lens of justice makes the more concrete reading of poverty and riches make sense. Just think, for example, how often poverty results from past and present injustices and/or lack of mercy and compassion. Moreover, think of how the well-to-do often benefit from historic and present injustice, even if indirectly. And, think about those times when the disenfranchised in the world (say in times of famine or ethnic violence) meet tragedy because the well-to-do refuse to lend a helping hand. For God’s just kingdom to take hold in this world, these systems of injustice and lack of mercy will need to be overturned. Thus, it makes complete sense to tell the poor that the kingdom belongs to them. Why? Because the God of justice and compassion will take up their cause. And, it makes sense that the rich would be the object of woes. Why? Because, the injustices that prop up their high positions will be toppled. None of this is to say that Matthew’s more spiritual take on the beatitudes isn’t also correct (Jesus could well have spoken of poverty in literal and figurative terms). Nor is it to paint with a broad brush to say that poverty equals good character, while riches equal bad character. What it is to say is that the present systems of society will be turned upside down when faced with God’s justice.
If we are to take the passage as I have suggested above, there are important ramifications for the way that well-off Christians understand the world. First, Jesus’ words should challenge the way we understand the poor in society. Can we approach the poor like our just and compassionate God, rather than blaming them for the plights and thereby absolving ourselves of responsibility? And, the word to the rich challenges our uses of economic and social capital. In Acts, we see the rich members of the Christian community sharing and selling their possessions in order to provide for the poorer members. In this, it is possible to use wealth for the kingdom rather than in tandem with the broken systems of the world. Of course, living according to this understanding of reality may lead to the world hating us. Yet, according to Jesus that is also a blessed state. The problem comes when we look so much like the world that it celebrates us according to its own standards.
I, like you, have wrestled with the figurative vs. literal debate of this passage. Recently, I have felt that it must be both. Without the literal, we can forget to put into practice actual tangible justice- creating that God calls us to. And without the figurative, there is less space for us to enter into the imaginative experience that is spiritual transformation. I really love how the message translation ends in this passage, "Your task is to be true, not popular", which invites us to take a look at what we are doing and where our heart is. I think God desires us to be in proximity to the poor. We can't work for God's justice if we only see "poor" as an inconvenience or a threat to our livelihoods. I have heard from some people how they really dislike living in this current culture because it's hard to be a christian. It's hard to approve of things. Movies give immoral messages, education is enculturation, our taxes are used for things we disapprove of. But what if the christian life is less about US disapproving of others and separating ourselves from what we dislike and more about OTHERS disapproving of us because of how we connect and care for others. We don't do good to others because of their status or approval or morality. We do good to others simply because they are human. The poor are hated by the world. Seems to me that while we are all upset about what the world loves, we should maybe be paying more attention to what the world hates and love it. Maybe.