The Poor

+ from the homily, “The Hope of The Poor”

Just before she died at the age of thirty-four, Simone Weil, in one of her last letters, wrote a reflection based on a production of King Lear she had recently seen. In her letter she makes a statement that transcends the play: “There is a class of people in this world who have fallen into the lowest degree of humiliation, far below beggary, and who are deprived not only of all social consideration, but also, in everybody’s opinion, of the specific human dignity, reason itself—and these are the only people who, in fact, are able to tell the truth: All the others lie.”

It is only the poor that can tell the truth. This is why God is always calling us to the poor and afflicted, to those who have been reduced far beyond begging, to those who are deprived of human dignity, of reason itself, because they are Christ’s and Christ is theirs: we cannot have Christ without them. Only the poor can know themselves and God. Only the poor are promised the the kingdom of God. And God is calling us to the poor because his nature is now becomes ours, which means we can only be ourselves as we give ourselves away to the poor, the needy and the afflicted. Rowan Williams says, “The Christian life is about gratitude, a detachment from possessions grounded in the recognition that God’s gifts are restless in the hands of the receiver until they are given again.” Only the poor and the afflicted can tell the truth, because only the cross and the one who bore it can tell the truth! And only those who bear the cross can tell the truth. Truth must plumb the depths of affliction, or else it’s a lie.

Every day when we pray Suffrage A in the daily office we pray “Let not the needy, O Lord, be forgotten; R. Nor the hope of the poor be taken away.” This is rooted in Psalm 9 that us, as the Psalms make clear over and over again, “God will never forget the needy; the hope of the poor will never perish.” This is why, I believe, on the Cross Jesus prays Psalm 22 with his cry of dereliction: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” This is a Psalm that ends with a promise of blessing. What is that blessing? That God will never forsake the poor. In the very moment Christ feels God cannot hear him, he confesses that God always hears the needy and the afflicted. Christ knows in this moment what he already realized in the Garden: he must become poor, as well. Sacred Commons, we too must realize that God only and always hears the cry of the poor. The Psalmist emphasizes this repeatedly, “The Lord hears the cry of the poor.” In our Psalm today we read, “ The Lord gives justice to those who are oppressed, food to those who hunger. The Lord sets the prisoners free; the Lord opens the eyes of the blind; the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; The Lord loves the righteous; the Lord cares for the foreigner; he sustains the orphan and widow, but frustrates the way of the wicked.” When we look at the whole testimony of Scripture, it becomes strikingly clear that God takes up the cause of the poor. God in fact, through Christ, became poor. The apostle Paul writes in 2 Cor 8, “that though Christ was rich, for our sake he became poor.” And it’s out of the poverty of Christ that abundance flows. Walter Brueggemann says, “It takes poverty (not wealth) to produce abundance. Jesus gave himself to enrich others, and we should do the same. Our abundance and the poverty of others need to be brought into a new balance. Paul ends his stewardship letter by quoting Exodus 16: "And the one who had much did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little." The citation is from the story of the manna that transformed the wilderness into abundancy.” God’s choice, God’s election, God’s preferential option of the poor is anchored in God’s liberation of Israel from slavery in Egypt. Everything flows from this. It becomes the touchstone for Israel’s treatment of the poor, resident aliens, and the marginalized. Our Psalm today, it says “God gives justice to those who are oppressed, and food to those who hunger.”  This is all rooted in the primary cry of the poor and afflicted in scripture, which is the cry of God’s people in Egypt! “God heard their moaning and God was mindful of his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God saw the Israelites, and God knew …” (Exodus 2:24) Exodus 3:7 “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering." The whole witness of scripture is that God is the God of the poor. God hears their cries; God rescues them from the wicked who prey on them, and God delivers them from their affliction. Specifically, the Psalms bear witness to a God who never forsakes the poor to their poverty, never leaves the afflicted in their affliction. And then, in Proverbs, the attention is turned to the people of God. “That those who are kind to the poor lends to the Lord,” and then a warning, “If you close your ear to the cry of the poor, you will cry out and not be heard.” This is why God reminds the people repeatedly, “Remember you were slaves, you were afflicted, you were poor.” God frees Israel, but ironically into wilderness, a wasteland with poisonous snakes and scorpions — it’s so rough that Israel wants to got back to slavery. Why does God do this? because, “God knows they’ll never know how to live with plenty if they forget how they were poor, and if they do not learn how to live in divine, as opposed to human, poverty.” - C.E.W

We hear a form of this in a mantra of our culture today. So often it’s said, “never forget where you come from.” Keep divine poverty central in your life. Remember when you had nothing! Remember when you went to bed not knowing how you’d pay your bills! Remember when you had to choose between groceries or medicine! Remember when you didn’t know how you were going to make it! Remember when the odds looked insurmountable! Stay close to suffering. Stay close to suffering because God does. And if you stay close to suffering you’ll stay close to God. Because God is the God who, not only hears the cry of the poor and afflicted, but joins them.

If the Gospel tells us anything, it’s that the goodness of God doesn’t “move us on up” but “plunges us down in”. The Good News is about a God that moved into the hood, not out of it, into the barrio not out of it, into 44505 into 44506 not out of it, into to Nazareth where “nothing good can come from”. If you stay close to the poor, if you keep divine poverty, if you remember where you come from, you’ll stay close to God. And it’s only God, through the poor, that can tell us the truth! All others lie! Keep divine poverty central in your life. If you can afford groceries and medicine, it’s for the sake of those who can’t! From the Beginning to the End, Abraham to Revelation, the blessing always flows out. Abraham is blessed to bless all peoples, all nations. In Revelation the nations and the kings of the earth enter into the city whose gates will never be shut - all are welcomed into the kingdom. It’s always been for the life of the world, for the sake of others. That’s the entire thrust of scripture that culminates in Christ! In our Gospel text today the Syrophoenician woman calls forth the larger, outflowing vision of God’s grace to the Gentiles and Jesus immediately recognizes the God-given wisdom of her words and affirms her outspokenness! What ever God is doing, has done, will do in your life - it is always for the sake of others. It is never to terminate upon you, but to flow out. And the poor communicate this truth of God to our lives.

In fact James says, “Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?” This, perhaps, may shock some of us, but it shouldn’t. God chooses things we have been conditioned not to choose. 1 Cor 1:27 “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are…” It is only they, who have been reduced to that which the world chooses not, that can tell the truth. All others lie. We are not telling the truth if the poor disagree with us!

Because of this we must ask the question, who are “the poor”? To be sure, “the poor” are not, and should never become merely a political agenda, a politicized commodity for policy. Until we can name them, until they are faces we see, and bodies we hug, neighbors we eat with, and lives we join, we will never know the poor nor the gift of faith deposited within them by God. The poor are the needy and the afflicted neighbors among us who lack the goods God means for them to have and, to quote Simone Weil, they are those “deprived not only of all social consideration, but also, in everybody’s opinion, of the specific human dignity, reason itself” and are treated as less than the sons and daughters of God that they are. The poor are those who have no food, and the poor are those who have food but no one to share it with. Widows and orphans, the homeless, refugees at our borders. The poor are those with neurological and physio-divergent needs that society and the status quo is unwilling to adapt for and serve. The poor are our children, the elderly, and those who are immunocompromised facing health risks in a pandemic. The poor are the very young and the very old among us. The poor are those who are dependent upon others in a culture that so often tells us our value is tethered to our production and contribution. The poor are drug addicts, alcoholics, those experiencing domestic abuse…they are the poor. And, without “spiritualizing” poverty away, we have to recognize that we are the poor as well. Each of us is intensely poor in some way, many times in ways we’re not mindful of. And, if the witness of Scripture, which points to Jesus, teaches us anything - it’s that each of us are called to join Christ in becoming poor… for the sake of the rich and poor alike. If Jesus is telling the truth, and I believe he is, then discipleship begins and ends with serving and giving to those in need - for we “cannot serve both God and Money.” and everything comes down to what we have done — or left undone — for “the least of these.”

“Has not God chosen the poor to be rich in faith.” My prayer today is that God will have mercy upon us where we have dishonored the poor. That God will have mercy upon us where we have built both highways and theologies to bypass the poor. That God would give us the gift of faith that He has chosen to give to the poor in abundance, by joining them. And that, in ways promised to be unseen and unnoticed, we may fellowship with Christ in the poor at kitchen tables, boardrooms tables, courthouse tables, prison tables, hospital tables, classroom tables, cafeteria tables, but most of all - at The Table, the Lord’s table. For he has said, “I am with you always.” But, may we continuously remember how he is with us, in the poor in “the least of these.” We can’t have him without them. Not that we objectify them as an object of faith, for this would be using them - and there are moments when thinking about God separates us from Him. “God is not present, even when invoked, where the afflicted are simply an occasion for doing good.” But my prayer today is that God would give us the miracle of holy joining, and in our joining that God would grace us with the gift of faith that comes by hearing…that we could hear and believe the word of the One Crucified who is present not only in our poverty but in “those of this world who have fallen into the lowest degree of humiliation, far below beggary…who are deprived not only of all social consideration, but also, in everybody’s opinion, of the specific human dignity, reason itself.” For indeed, “These are the only people who, in fact, are able to tell us the truth. All others lie!” Lord in your mercy, give us the grace for this kind of faith. Amen