Monday, January 11, 2010
Flip the Script: Privileged Are the Poor
One would think in a Superman world, there is no need. No desperation. No bad characters bringing suffering requiring rescue. Until, of course, Monty Python gets their blimey hands on the story. Because in their story, bicycles still break down and the hero becomes the bicycle repairman.
As they did so often, Monty Python flipped the script. They have brought about the unexpected. Broken with tradition. Made us laugh using what seems ridiculous.
Flipping the Script is often the best way to explain what happens toward the end of the movie Eight Mile. After struggling time and again in the freestyle rap battles at the local club, B-Rabbit, tries a new tactic. He anticipates the personal attacks of his opponent by naming them on himself first. In a way he makes himself strong, by first making himself weak. He flipped the script.
And in Matthew 5 and Luke 6, we see Jesus flip the script when he announces the blessings of the now present and ever approaching kingdom of God. This common form of literature, commonly known as Beatitudes, announced who was privileged in the world. Indeed, the word blessed is used giving it a religious connotation. It received this religious connotation because the ancients saw religious life, social life, and political life as inseparable. A people’s faith affected how they related to their fellow humans, thus affecting the structure of their political institutions and offices.
Beatitudes traditionally announced the blessings of God on the rich and the powerful. They, it was assumed, had been faithful and righteous resulting in material wealth and social and political power granted them by God.
It was based on a view of God as almighty and willing and able to vanquish his foes by overcoming them with force. When nations went to war, it was a holy war which would determine whose god was more powerful. Thus the military, political, and social victors were viewed as those most faithful to the one true god. When someone fell into suffering, or debt, or lost his status in society, he must have been a sinner.
You can find hints of this belief system throughout the ancient world, even in strands of ancient Judaism. Reading the Old Testament Prophets, we find a strong critique of this view. It critiqued the prevailing view of life as idolatrous. It critiqued leaning on other gods, or those with power and wealth who worship these gods, and oppressing one’s neighbor to gain wealth rather than depending on the one, true God to sustain and provide while taking care of one another. This critique is the tradition in which Christ arose. It is in this way in which Jesus, through his life and teaching, flipped the script.
To truly understand this, let’s address a few misconceptions. Many people read Matthew 5:3 and assume “poor in spirit” is simply a matter of one’s inner being. The reality of understanding this phrase is much more complex. In Hebrew thought, the idea of being poor connoted ideas both of poverty and humility, an attitude often related to poverty. These were often seen as one package. There is some thought that Matthew adds this phrase “in spirit” not found in Luke to make it a personal spiritual matter. When reviewing the message in the remainder of Matthew, that doesn’t seem to hold water. He takes a strong stance against the rich and powerful. Also, “in spirit” serves as an idiomatic phrase which tends to be distorted when read in our cultural context in which we search solely for individual meaning to the neglect of the communal.
It is better understood when we realize that Matthew wrote in a context of rivalry with other Jews, influential Jews connected with the Roman empire, and sought to demonstrate that Jesus’ disciples were the true Jews. While Matthew’s opponents sought wealth and security from a foreign power and its gods, they participated in the foreign oppression and exploitation of the poor.
“Poor in spirit” thus means an attitude in which a people stands up for and stands beside the poor in solidarity at risk of their own welfare.
Another misunderstanding is the purpose of Luke. Many have believed that Luke is writing to show that this faith is really no threat to the Roman empire. Therefore, blessing the poor and announcing woes on the rich has tended to be interpreted more symbolically. However, the reference to Caesar’s census prior to Christ’s birth, the arrest of John by Herod, and the material nature of the temptations in the wilderness, sets the stage for Luke getting in the face of the powerful with this gospel.
And the question will often arise, “What about when Jesus says, ‘The poor you will always have with you,’”? This is actually a direct reference to Deuteronomy 15 in which the point of the phrase is that we should always give to the poor because there will be need. However, earlier in that chapter, the point is made that if God’s people obey his commands, then there will be no one in need. Jesus is actually challenging the motive for the question by asking, in effect, if the questioner really does care for the poor or is looking to impugn the woman anointing Jesus. In other words, is the questioner obeying God’s commands?
So now we can start to grasp how Jesus flipped the script. To Jesus, the rich are not privileged. It is the poor. Try to make sense of this phrase: Privileged are the poor. Privileged are those who are broke? Who do not have enough to eat? Lack shelter? Clothes to wear? How could this be?
It is because Jesus announced a different kind of kingdom. He challenges prevailing views of the Creator and how this creator operates. Following in the tradition of the prophets, established by the gospel writers as the one who fulfills the words of the prophets, Jesus announces the Creator of the universe stands by the poor. While humanity may have become idolatrous, even making the Judeo-Christian god an idol in many ways, the Creator has not changed. We have.
We have scapegoated the poor for their lot in life. We have ignored the ways in which humanity has failed to love its neighbor, allowing inequality and injustice to thrive for our own benefit. We have joined in the ways of the nations of the world.
The nation of Christ is different. It is not new for it existed before the rebellion of humanity and the formation of self-consumed nations. But it is a light to the world. Its king names the poor as privileged. Its king extends this grace proclaiming that those who are abused and ignored, and consumed and discarded by the world, will be healed and restored and loved in the nation of God.
Latin American theologian Gustavo Gutierrez says it like this:
“God has a preferential love for the poor not because they are necessarily better than others, morally or religiously, but simply because they are poor and living in an inhuman situation that is contrary to God’s will. The ultimate basis for the privileged position of the poor is not in the poor themselves but in God, in the gratuitousness and universality of God’s agapeic love.”
This meaning God’s sacrificial love.
It extends this grace to us, whether we are rich or poor or somewhere in the middle by inviting us to take up the image of the Creator within ourselves and stand with the poor. By taking this risk of standing with the poor at all costs with full reliance on God to provide. Even if it means our own poverty.
People are doing this here. In New Hope…In the citizenship class… In feeding the poor at the Austin Street Shelter and through our food pantry... It is seen when the homeless are put in permanent housing which gives them dignity and a chance to start over. It is seen in places where fair wages are paid that enable workers to feed their basic needs.
Perhaps, it could be seen in the struggle for more fair trade on the part of our country. Or perhaps in the struggle for the remission of debts for third world countries. Or in the call to go beyond a minimum wage to a living wage. And many other social and political changes that would restore the poor.
Privileged are the poor for theirs is the kingdom of God. Theirs is the nation of God. Grace is extended to us in that God reaches out providing salvation for the poor and inviting us to take up that cause and be restored to the freedom of the truly human. To be healed of the mutations suffered throughout history as humanity rebelled and made humanity something it was not intended to be. The human life is not about the self. It is about us all.
So we shall resolve to stand up with the poor, knowing their privilege. Refusing to accept their lot, we stand together to be sure they are clothed, and fed, given shelter, and treated, and taught. We shall resolve to oppose institutional structures that create and exploit poverty. Then we will truly experience the grace God has already given us. Then we will know that while the nations of the world seek to control us, we will once and for all be set free.
As they did so often, Monty Python flipped the script. They have brought about the unexpected. Broken with tradition. Made us laugh using what seems ridiculous.
Flipping the Script is often the best way to explain what happens toward the end of the movie Eight Mile. After struggling time and again in the freestyle rap battles at the local club, B-Rabbit, tries a new tactic. He anticipates the personal attacks of his opponent by naming them on himself first. In a way he makes himself strong, by first making himself weak. He flipped the script.
And in Matthew 5 and Luke 6, we see Jesus flip the script when he announces the blessings of the now present and ever approaching kingdom of God. This common form of literature, commonly known as Beatitudes, announced who was privileged in the world. Indeed, the word blessed is used giving it a religious connotation. It received this religious connotation because the ancients saw religious life, social life, and political life as inseparable. A people’s faith affected how they related to their fellow humans, thus affecting the structure of their political institutions and offices.
Beatitudes traditionally announced the blessings of God on the rich and the powerful. They, it was assumed, had been faithful and righteous resulting in material wealth and social and political power granted them by God.
It was based on a view of God as almighty and willing and able to vanquish his foes by overcoming them with force. When nations went to war, it was a holy war which would determine whose god was more powerful. Thus the military, political, and social victors were viewed as those most faithful to the one true god. When someone fell into suffering, or debt, or lost his status in society, he must have been a sinner.
You can find hints of this belief system throughout the ancient world, even in strands of ancient Judaism. Reading the Old Testament Prophets, we find a strong critique of this view. It critiqued the prevailing view of life as idolatrous. It critiqued leaning on other gods, or those with power and wealth who worship these gods, and oppressing one’s neighbor to gain wealth rather than depending on the one, true God to sustain and provide while taking care of one another. This critique is the tradition in which Christ arose. It is in this way in which Jesus, through his life and teaching, flipped the script.
To truly understand this, let’s address a few misconceptions. Many people read Matthew 5:3 and assume “poor in spirit” is simply a matter of one’s inner being. The reality of understanding this phrase is much more complex. In Hebrew thought, the idea of being poor connoted ideas both of poverty and humility, an attitude often related to poverty. These were often seen as one package. There is some thought that Matthew adds this phrase “in spirit” not found in Luke to make it a personal spiritual matter. When reviewing the message in the remainder of Matthew, that doesn’t seem to hold water. He takes a strong stance against the rich and powerful. Also, “in spirit” serves as an idiomatic phrase which tends to be distorted when read in our cultural context in which we search solely for individual meaning to the neglect of the communal.
It is better understood when we realize that Matthew wrote in a context of rivalry with other Jews, influential Jews connected with the Roman empire, and sought to demonstrate that Jesus’ disciples were the true Jews. While Matthew’s opponents sought wealth and security from a foreign power and its gods, they participated in the foreign oppression and exploitation of the poor.
“Poor in spirit” thus means an attitude in which a people stands up for and stands beside the poor in solidarity at risk of their own welfare.
Another misunderstanding is the purpose of Luke. Many have believed that Luke is writing to show that this faith is really no threat to the Roman empire. Therefore, blessing the poor and announcing woes on the rich has tended to be interpreted more symbolically. However, the reference to Caesar’s census prior to Christ’s birth, the arrest of John by Herod, and the material nature of the temptations in the wilderness, sets the stage for Luke getting in the face of the powerful with this gospel.
And the question will often arise, “What about when Jesus says, ‘The poor you will always have with you,’”? This is actually a direct reference to Deuteronomy 15 in which the point of the phrase is that we should always give to the poor because there will be need. However, earlier in that chapter, the point is made that if God’s people obey his commands, then there will be no one in need. Jesus is actually challenging the motive for the question by asking, in effect, if the questioner really does care for the poor or is looking to impugn the woman anointing Jesus. In other words, is the questioner obeying God’s commands?
So now we can start to grasp how Jesus flipped the script. To Jesus, the rich are not privileged. It is the poor. Try to make sense of this phrase: Privileged are the poor. Privileged are those who are broke? Who do not have enough to eat? Lack shelter? Clothes to wear? How could this be?
It is because Jesus announced a different kind of kingdom. He challenges prevailing views of the Creator and how this creator operates. Following in the tradition of the prophets, established by the gospel writers as the one who fulfills the words of the prophets, Jesus announces the Creator of the universe stands by the poor. While humanity may have become idolatrous, even making the Judeo-Christian god an idol in many ways, the Creator has not changed. We have.
We have scapegoated the poor for their lot in life. We have ignored the ways in which humanity has failed to love its neighbor, allowing inequality and injustice to thrive for our own benefit. We have joined in the ways of the nations of the world.
The nation of Christ is different. It is not new for it existed before the rebellion of humanity and the formation of self-consumed nations. But it is a light to the world. Its king names the poor as privileged. Its king extends this grace proclaiming that those who are abused and ignored, and consumed and discarded by the world, will be healed and restored and loved in the nation of God.
Latin American theologian Gustavo Gutierrez says it like this:
“God has a preferential love for the poor not because they are necessarily better than others, morally or religiously, but simply because they are poor and living in an inhuman situation that is contrary to God’s will. The ultimate basis for the privileged position of the poor is not in the poor themselves but in God, in the gratuitousness and universality of God’s agapeic love.”
This meaning God’s sacrificial love.
It extends this grace to us, whether we are rich or poor or somewhere in the middle by inviting us to take up the image of the Creator within ourselves and stand with the poor. By taking this risk of standing with the poor at all costs with full reliance on God to provide. Even if it means our own poverty.
People are doing this here. In New Hope…In the citizenship class… In feeding the poor at the Austin Street Shelter and through our food pantry... It is seen when the homeless are put in permanent housing which gives them dignity and a chance to start over. It is seen in places where fair wages are paid that enable workers to feed their basic needs.
Perhaps, it could be seen in the struggle for more fair trade on the part of our country. Or perhaps in the struggle for the remission of debts for third world countries. Or in the call to go beyond a minimum wage to a living wage. And many other social and political changes that would restore the poor.
Privileged are the poor for theirs is the kingdom of God. Theirs is the nation of God. Grace is extended to us in that God reaches out providing salvation for the poor and inviting us to take up that cause and be restored to the freedom of the truly human. To be healed of the mutations suffered throughout history as humanity rebelled and made humanity something it was not intended to be. The human life is not about the self. It is about us all.
So we shall resolve to stand up with the poor, knowing their privilege. Refusing to accept their lot, we stand together to be sure they are clothed, and fed, given shelter, and treated, and taught. We shall resolve to oppose institutional structures that create and exploit poverty. Then we will truly experience the grace God has already given us. Then we will know that while the nations of the world seek to control us, we will once and for all be set free.
