You Always Have the Poor: What Did Jesus Mean?

'Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, "Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?" (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) Jesus said, "Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."'

--John 12: 1-8

There are sayings in the Bible that are not always easy for us to hear.  When these sayings come from the mouth of Jesus they are even more difficult, and one of the sayings of Jesus for which this is most true is the final line from our text today:  "You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me."

Homeless Jesus

The question of how we deal with poverty is one with which people have wrestled for centuries.  Sadly, the answer to that question so very often through history has been:  we don’t. Traditionally, the needs of the poor have been neglected in order to meet the needs of the rich, and whenever poor folks have tried to rally together for change, they have been more often than not squashed by those in power. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King—whose feast day in our church was this past Thursday—was perhaps the loudest modern voice of the movement to not only address the needs of the poor but to deconstruct the systems that perpetuated this divide by empowering the poor  and encouraging those of means to work WITH the poor for change, rather than treat them as a charity case.  He once said:  “A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies…True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”  He called this revolution a Poor People’s Campaign. If that sounds familiar, it’s because the movement of the same name being spear-headed by The Rev. Dr. William Barber right here in North Carolina is carrying on the legacy of King’s original. 

  

For more information on the new Poor People's Campaign go to www.poorpeoplescampaign.org 

Let’s be honest, though, restructuring those edifices and deconstructing those systems is a big, big task.  Furthermore, we are too often tempted by that enormity to echo the words of Jesus as though we cannot—and maybe even should not—attempt to create a society where poverty is eradicated.  Besides, even if we did try, it’s way too big; after all, Jesus himself says we will always have the poor with us, so why even bother?  Everyone from pastors to government officials have quoted this phrase from Jesus and used it as proof that working to alleviate poverty on the whole—rather than just flinging a coin to a beggar from time to time—is neither a realistic goal nor something Jesus actually expects us to do.  I would, with all Christian love, like to challenge such suggestions today and dare to offer that Jesus’ statement does, in fact, serve as a mandate for us to do all we can to not only address the needs of individuals who are living with poverty but also the systems that keep them there.  

I do want to preface all of this by saying that much of the light that I intend to shed on this statement from Jesus comes from The Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis a Presbyterian pastor (and seminary colleague of my wife Kristen) and author of the book Always with Us?  What Jesus Really Said About the Poor.  In her book, Dr. Theoharis examines this story—which can also be found in each of the three other Gospels, in Matthew, chapter 25, Mark, chapter 14, and Luke, chapter 7—and she proposes that this entire story is itself a call for the followers of Jesus to care for the poor, rather than brush them off by referencing Jesus’ statement with the same flippancy of Judas.

The Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis and her new book, which can be purchased here. 

So let’s dig into this story. First off, the meal to which Jesus has been invited is hosted by Mary, Martha, and Lazarus of Bethany, a town whose very name means, in Hebrew, “the house of the poor.”  Right off the bat poverty is at the forefront of this encounter.   It is here, in the midst of poverty, that Jesus is anointed—it’s his feet in John’s version and his head in the other versions.  And what does Messiah mean in Hebrew??  Anointed one!  It’s the people living with the everyday realities of poverty who recognize Jesus for who he is. It is one of them who anoints him, not a person of means. Mary’s action reinforces that Jesus has come to bring good news to the poor, and what’s more, to model for his own followers that they are to do the same in both word and action.  This very model clashes with everything the people around him—including his disciples—know about wealth and power.  Power flows from the wealthy, after all.  It was true in their day, and it’s true in ours, but here the power to authorize Jesus’ Messiahship comes from the action of a poor person, not a wealthy one. 

But what about Mary’s action?  What she does isn’t in the slightest way frugal.  Doesn’t it seem even a little wasteful to take that jar of nard—which was worth about a year’s amount of wages—and use all of it to anoint Jesus?  In the other three Gospels the disciples as a whole chide Mary for this move—and point out that nard could've been sold and the money spent to help the poor —while in John it’s Judas who is named as the one doing the chiding—although John makes a point that Judas didn’t really care about the poor, effectively making him a scapegoat.  We can, on some level understand the disciples’ response, though, can’t we?  This poor person takes the one thing in her house that’s worth the most money, and instead of selling it and helping her siblings get by, she wastes it.  Doesn’t that seem irresponsible?

Mary of Bethany anoints Jesus' feet.

Maybe to us, but that’s not the point. If it were Jesus would have addressed it, but if he anything he commends Mary's action. Here, then, is where Jesus’ words sometimes get twisted.  We hear him say, “You will always have the poor with you,” and we are tempted to think that he is justifying poverty in his or any society.  But to fully understand what’s going on we have to be aware of the fact that Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy, chapter 15. In that chapter Moses says to the people that there will never cease to be a day when the poor are not with them precisely because they have not followed God’s laws mandating that they always care for the poor in their land, both the citizen and the foreigner.  Deuteronomy 15 is a call for the people to not just throw their money at the problem of poverty, but it is a commandment to organize their society around the jubilee—the regular practice of forgiving debts and restoring land to families.  This is justice, not charity, and that is what God’s law called for God’s people to live by.  Jesus’ disciples would have known this by his simple statement of “you will always have the poor with you.”  He didn’t even need to finish the whole reference to Deuteronomy for them to get the point!  As Dr. Theoharis herself puts it:  “Jesus is suggesting that if the disciples and other concerned people continue to offer charity-based solutions, Band-Aid help, and superficial solace instead of social transformation with the poor at the helm, poverty will not cease.”

Jesus’ statement is not a denouncement of the poor, nor is it an invitation for us to ignore the needs of the poor when we encounter them.  We must never forget that, as God is not only aligned with the poor throughout the Hebrew Scriptures but is present in and of the poor in the person of Jesus himself. When we see the poor, we see Jesus, we see God.  But the temptation is so often there for us to toss our money toward the individual and feel like we did our part.  This is the perspective of the disciples.  This is what they suggest be done with the nard, sell it and use the money to do, well, something.  Jesus, however, by quoting Deuteronomy, makes it clear that it is about more than throwing money at a problem.  It is about coming together to create a society where rich and poor are outmoded concepts, confined to a bygone era where power was top-down.  The dream of Jesus is something that we see lived out later in the Acts of the Apostles, where, following his death, the believers finally got it.  They held no debts toward each other—echoing the jubilee model from Deuteronomy—and there was no such thing as private possessions and wealth among them.  It took a while, but the folks we often call the early Church understood that being a Christian was about not only praising Jesus but, in tangible ways, continuing his work of planting the seeds and tilling the soil for the Kingdom to grow. 

Each of us, in our own way, can be more attuned to the systemic issues at play when we address the concerns of poverty.  It’s not an either/or of whether we should help individuals versus address those systems.  It's a both/and. That’s what Jesus is getting at when he denounces Judas’ flippant gripe. That is the revolutionary work that is before us, work grounded in equality and justice, rather than mere tolerance and charity. We can ask ourselves what actions we can take that are longer-lasting and more impactful.  We can, instead of criticizing the poor person who we think is being irresponsible with her money and possessions, ask how she got into her position in the first place and wonder what Jesus would say and do about that, and respond in kind. We can pay attention and hear Jesus’ words not as an excuse for complacency but as an invitation to create a society where, in fact, Jesus IS always with us because our hearts, our minds, and our hands and feet are always positioned toward Jesus, toward those in need, working with them, and with the living Christ in our midst to alleviate poverty and injustice and establish the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.  That, to borrow the words of Saint Paul, is how we will know Christ and make him known. 

The Power of the Prodigal

Jesus told them this parable: "There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.' So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, 'How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands."' So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his slaves, 'Quickly, bring out a robe--the best one--and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!' And they began to celebrate.

"Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, 'Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.' Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, 'Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!' Then the father said to him, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.'"

--Luke 15: 11-32

Pompeo Batoni's The Return of the Prodigal Son

Is there a parable of Jesus that is more widely known than this one?  All you have to hear is the first eight words—“There was a man who had two sons.”—and immediately you know which story is about to be told.  Of all the parables of Jesus there is perhaps not a single one that captures the message of reconciliation, forgiveness, and unconditional love as the story of the Prodigal Child.  But when we let it sink in, we find that it is also a story that is completely illogical, one that does not act in accordance with our rational thinking, and one that turns the tables on the whole notion that people get what they deserve.

Let me ask you something:  if this parable were a real story—that is, if it played out right now in our own time—would you hear it differently?  If you heard the story of a teenager who burned every bridge that he could among his family and his friends, took all their money, got in trouble with the law, wallowed in debauchery, and eventually, when he burned through all of that, decided to come home, would you encourage that child’s parents to welcome him back with open arms?  And when the parent does just that, I wonder how you would respond to such treatment.  Would you think that’s actually good parenting to just forgive someone who has not only been disrespectful but has actually been unlawful?  And let’s say you knew that child’s older sibling, who has been a straight-A student, worked hard, and done right by the family.  Wouldn’t you understand that sibling’s outrage when the parent not only welcomed the delinquent child back but treated that child as good as, if not better than, the older sibling?  By all logic and rationale, the parent should not have welcomed the delinquent child back home, and all of the hard work that the older child had done would be rewarded.  That, after all, is what each child deserves. Yet, as we see time and time again with Jesus, our human logic and rationale are discarded in favor of mercy and a love that knows no limits.  

The intent of this and every parable was then and is now to get the listener to see themselves in the story.  Most of us, I suspect, have been both children:  we’ve been the prodigal one—troubled and in need of coming home—and we have been the older sibling—resentful of others who have known a forgiveness that we don’t think they deserve.  But I wonder if our goal, in addition to finding which child we identify with, is to move to the place where we can emulate the mercy and love shown by the father, whose forgiveness of the prodigal stems only from the sheer joy he gets upon seeing his child once more, and whose generosity toward the older child is so great that can embrace him in his hurt and remind him that “all I have is yours, and you are always with me.”  The father does not treat the children the way they deserve, but rather he treats them both with mercy and love. We live in a world that demands that we treat others based on what they deserve.  Our culture tells us so at every turn. A lot of folks, both religious and not, believe in the notion of Karma, that things work out for people based on their character, on what they deserve. The parable of the Prodigal Child invites us to treat others like the father in the story, based on mercy and love.  It is a tall order, and one that we may not feel we are up to, but as followers of Jesus we can do just that.  

One way in which we can do this is to pay attention to the words that Paul wrote to the faithful in Corinth, which was partnered with this parable in Sunday's lectionary:

'From now on, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.'

--II Corinthians 5: 16-21

Paul begins this section of the second letter with the powerful phrase, "we regard no one from a human point of view."  Do we realize how radical this is?!  This statement undermines every human institution, every human system, and every human category.  All of it has become obsolete. Labels we have given to each other, including the labels of "deserving' and "undeserving", have been wiped out by the actions of Jesus on the cross. The old has passed away, and the new has come.  Every one and every thing is now a new creation, and worldly wisdom has been nailed to the cross.  Something earth-changing has occurred in this Jesus Movement, which Paul understood so well, and it still has has sweeping implications for all of humanity.  It's not just about where we will spend eternity, but also about how we are to live here and now.  It has changed how we think about each other and how we think about God. The vengeful image of God may have been common before, but in Jesus we have the good news that God the parent is not an angry deity out to get even with those children who have disobeyed.  Whatever once was broken between parent and children has been restored in Jesus, and nothing in the world will ever be the same again.  The new has come.  THAT is Paul's whole theology in a nutshell! John Chrysostem, that early doctor of the church, put it this way:  “We ought to live for Christ, not just because we belong to him, not just because he died for us, and not just because he rose again on our behalf, but because we have been made into something different.”

A bit of a jerk, but Chrysostom understood the newness of a life in Christ.

What is that something different into which we have been made?  Perhaps it is a more loving, more merciful, version of ourselves.  Perhaps the Jesus Movement in our own lives has shifted us away from the judgmental nature of that older sibling in the story and moved us closer to the generous image of the father.  God’s love for us in Jesus has made human labels and logic irrelevant and has restored us and all of creation, so should we not be agents of restoration ourselves?  Can we not, perhaps, treat others with mercy rather than judgement?  What if we let go of this heretical idea that there are some who are “deserving” and some who are not?  In a society that uses words like “illegal” to describe actual human beings—brothers and sisters in the household of God—can we not remember that Jesus has ripped away such labels and made us all a new creation, a better creation, and can we not rip away those labels ourselves and see one another as members of the same family?  Grace is the agent that rips those labels away.  Grace isn’t about what we deserve, and it’s not something we can earn.  It’s a gift freely—one might say, illogically—given to every member of the family of God.  It is grace which the father imparts to both of those children in the parable.  It is grace that God has imparted to us, and it is grace that makes all things new.

The Jesus Movement has changed everything.  We are no longer to look at the world with human eyes that are so often clouded by the scales of bitterness and judgement.  Instead, let us look at the world the way the father looks at the Prodigal Child, for that is how God looks at us, not with bitterness or judgment, but with mercy and a love that knows no limits.  The good news for us today is that not only are we know that grace and are inheritors of that love, but we can transform this world by being "ambassadors for Christ" through the grace and love that we impart to this hurting world, letting the scales fall from our eyes and helping those in positions of power do the same, so that all may see clearly.  Then all we will see is a brother and sister, and all we have in our hearts is love.