March 9, 2003
When Poor is Rich
The Rev. Dr. Riley E. Jensen

A mentor of mine had one of those photographic memories that many of us admire so much.  His mind was like a computer.  Any information in it could be recalled almost instantly.  His sermons were preached without notes and he had the wonderful ability to recite long passages of scripture from memory and with feeling.  The Lord knows that I am a sinner saved by grace, and one of the sins that comes quickly to the fore whenever I think of this gift possessed by my friend and mentor is the sin of jealousy.

My friend was not flamboyant and he could never be accused of flaunting his gift except every year during the Lenten season.  Every year during Lent he would challenge the mere mortals in his congregation to memorize the Sermon on the Mount with the reward of a dinner on the town with their esteemed pastor.  That’s 3 chapters of solid scripture found in Matthew 5 -- 7.  That is (depending upon the translation) 34 paragraphs and 111 verses of what some believe is a condensation of the whole of Jesus teaching.  In other words this stuff is nuclear, power-packed, every word explosive with meaning.

However, fear not!  I am not going to issue a similar challenge this morning.  And let the record be clear.  It is not because I can’t do it, but if I did do it, I would have no time for sermon preparation.  Nevertheless, the challenge that I will issue (without the incentive of a reward) is for you to spend these next six weeks of Lent reading, and pondering, and praying over the power-packed teachings of the Sermon on the Mount while I lift up some meditations on that group of sayings that begin the Sermon on the Mount called the Beatitudes, hanging there like a string of pearls.

Well over 100 years ago (between 1880 and 1882), when the French were attempting to build a canal across Panama, they constructed several large hospitals.  We know that we have come a long way in our practice of medicine since then.  But the way those hospitals were organized provide a prime illustration of that fact.  For, in those days patients were assigned to wards, not on the basis of the disease they contracted but rather by nationality.

The logic at the time was that every patient in a given ward would speak the same language, thereby making communication easier.  However, it also meant that every ward had both yellow fever and malaria patients.  One tragic result of what seemed at the time to be a common sense organizational scheme was that three-quarters of the persons admitted to the hospital died.  Of course, now we know what they didn’t then, that if patients had been assigned to wards by disease rather than by nationality, the death rate could have been reduced sharply.

My whole point this morning is that just when we think we have our categories fixed neatly, someone comes along to introduce us to new possibilities.  It was the mystic theologian, Henri Nouwen, who was fond of reminding his students, “Learn not to resent the interruptions of life because that is where true life is lived – in the interruptions.”  Because we are separated by time and culture, it is hard to fully appreciate the new thing that Jesus was doing.

But this group of pithy sayings that seem to ring out their truth with staccato clarity at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount are not so far removed in time or clouded by culture that there is not an ironic dissonance on the ear of understanding whether in that time or this.  For there is one body of interpretation that holds that the whole Sermon on the Mount comprises “the ethics of the kingdom”.  In other words this is a description of that future time when we will hold our citizenship within the boundaries of the pearly gates.  Therefore, according to this understanding, we need not be concerned with the high and unrealistic demands that are placed upon us.  Because this is the description of the way of life in the life to come but not this one.

And you will probably agree after examining Beatitude No. 1, “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God.”  The attention-getter for you and me this morning is that things haven’t changed that much in 2000 years.  We’re still operating with the old categories.  The Sermon on the Mount hasn’t yet “sunk in”.  We’re still dividing the world between the haves and the have-nots, the rich and the poor.   And as we know that gulf is getting ever wider as we find ways to justify theories of trickle down economics and tax breaks to reward the rich for being rich.  In our vocabulary, rich is still a positive word and poor is still a negative one.  For 2000 years our system of dividing the world hasn’t changed, with the result that we are still operating on the old assumptions.

And those assumptions have to do with how happiness is achieved.  If we are concerned about happiness, so is Jesus.  That is what the Beatitudes are all about.  The Greek word, “makarioi” (blessed) means the highest state of happiness and well being, the sense being, the very state of happiness which the gods themselves enjoy.  “Blessed – happy are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God.”

Some think that when Jesus originally gave this beatitude, he said, “Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of God,” and that the words “in spirit” were added only later in order to clarify the meaning of poor.  The emphasis is clearly that poverty is not a condition to be looked down upon, but that there is an element of poverty which God honors.  I want you to hold that though because I will get back to it.

Here at the beginning of Lent I can tell you that one of the reasons I look forward to Christmas is that it usually sets up my reading list for the year.  In my reading I love variety and so this year I plan to complete Edmund Morris’ two-volume biography of Theodore Roosevelt.  I will be lucky to make it half way through John Dominic Crossan’s monumental work on The Birth of Christianity.  I will save Elie Weisel’s thought-provoking novel, The Judges for a time when I am in a reflective mood and want to contemplate the meaning of it all.

But to get myself off to a fast start and to get a sense of accomplishment, I can say that I have already completed Tom Brokaw’s somewhat self-congratulatory auto-biography, A Long Way from Home.  It’s a quick read, somewhat ponderous at times, but since Tom and I are about the same age, I resonated with his theme of “boy from humble roots makes good”.

Those of us who never went through the Depression but were raised by parents who did, have a tendency to romanticize poverty.  Sure there was a time when we probably could have been classified as poor but we never knew it.  There was always food on the table even if it was bean soup for the second or third day in a row.  There were always clothes to wear even if they were hand-me-downs and patched.

That kind of experience with poverty can be deceptive because it makes one prone to romanticize it and think of it as an experience that ennobles the human spirit.  But those of you who have known what it’s like to be really hungry, who have had to live with the anxiety of where your next meal is coming from or whether or not your parent will find employment -- for you, poverty is a condition that crushes human dignity like a bulldozer.

For any who have known the dehumanizing effects of having to fight for survival, the beatitude, “Blessed are the poor” (whether in spirit or not) is an exceedingly puzzling teaching.  Furthermore, when this saying finds application in the story of Jesus being anointed by the woman with expensive perfume, we are likely to find ourselves crying out with the disciples, “Why this waste, for this ointment might have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor.”

First of all, we must ask not only of the parable but of ourselves, “Is giving to the poor always a conscious alternative in the use of our resources?”  Would that it would be so, but sadly such benevolent giving too often does not even make the list of options.  So right off-the-bat we have to recognize that there is always some self-deception involved in the use of our resources.  For the disciples the issue was much more than just a simple trade-off.  You can bet that perfume would not have been sold for money to give to the poor no matter what.

You see, it was not a waste because it could have been better used in some other way.  It was a waste because the disciples did not understand the significance of the occasion for which it was being used.  What we have here is a symbolic action that points to a higher reality.  As G.K. Chesterton said, “Sometimes, in order to tell the truth, you have to exaggerate.”  We live our lives by symbols, and the symbol must be consistent with the intended message.  It’s just not the same to toast a wedding couple with water as it is champagne.

Therefore, the symbol must be consistent with the intended message if it is to point to a higher reality.  What a waste pouring all of that expensive perfume out unless something else is happening.  And, of course, something else was happening, for in that act the woman was recognizing not only who Jesus was but who she was.  It was in fact the kind of giving and selfless act that is so typical of the “poor in spirit”.

Yes, the gift of expensive perfume certainly could have cancelled someone’s poverty.  But even if it had been used for that, the disciples’ solution represents a terrible misunderstanding of the plight of the poor -- and more than that -- a terrible injustice to their dignity.  For the poor are more than mouths to be fed.  They are also human beings who have needs which money cannot meet.  Thus the censure brought by the disciples was an oblique insult to the poor.  There is a kind of paternalism that says “If I give the money, I have done my bit.”  But as Mother Teresa of Calcutta has reminded us, “The great tragedy of the poor is ostracism.  Who will stand next to them, certainly to feed them, but also to help them know love.”

Certainly the gift could have canceled someone’s poverty, but at this time, it was more important to offer it as a gift to the Lord of life.  The woman’s act was symbolic of a higher reality.  Secondly, it should not escape our notice that the woman’s act was sacramental and indicative of an inward reality.  For that is what a sacrament is, an outward sign of an inward reality.

As the disciples looked at the act of this woman, they couldn’t understand it.  For them it was a flagrant indulgence; but what they missed was that for her, this was a sacramental act.  It was an outward sign of an inward reality.  Her loving act represented the happy freedom of the poor in spirit.

For us, poverty means scarcity, giving up, not having enough, and risking our abundance.  That is how poverty is viewed in the negative sense, and, of course, many have and are experiencing it in the practical and terrible real-world sense.  But the beatitude as illustrated in this story is meant to show us the positive aspect of poverty while not leading us into a denial of the demands of justice.

H.A. Williams describes poverty as a positive quality in the following way, “Poverty as a positive quality means the recognition that in the most real sense, the world is mine, whoever owns it in the narrow, technical sense.  Poverty is thus the ability to enjoy the world to the full because I’m not anxious about losing a bit of it, or acquiring a bit of it.  Poverty takes pleasure in a thing because it is, not because it can be possessed.  Poverty is thus able to taste the flavor of life to the full.”

Years ago when I was serving in the state of Washington the churches there banded together to support a massive response to famine conditions which at that time were prevalent in Brazil.  Farmers and corporations chipped in to send hundreds of tons of grain to help relieve the situation.  And the church sent along observers to ensure that the grain was delivered to the intended recipients.  When the observer from our church returned, I will never forget the report made to the congregation.

She assured us that the help was needed and appreciated, and that it would go a long way to relieve much of the suffering brought on by the famine.  Then she said something that cut to my heart, “While the poor and needy of Brazil needed and welcomed our gift, I came away with the dramatic understanding that we needed to give that gift more than they needed to receive it.”

You see, that is the deep and profound meaning of the “poor in spirit” to which Jesus is calling us.  This woman in the biblical story is to be numbered among the “poor in spirit” because for her, the expensive perfume was not to be hoarded – it was to be awarded.  Under other circumstances this might have been a foolish act, but there is no rule of thumb for the good reason that every thumb has a different print.

Certainly when Jesus said, “The poor you have with you always,” it was not a statement of selfish indifference.  For we have the record of a life that contradicts that argument.  What he was doing was elevating the positive quality of the poor in spirit – a quality we can all possess because the poor in spirit are able to recognize the meaning of the moment, and live it without grasping on to something that is not there.

And so, you see, there comes a time when poor is rich, for the rich have only their possessions, but the “poor in spirit” have the world which God has given them.