I have always been troubled whenever Jesus’ words, “The poor you will always have with you,” have been quoted because I usually hear them as a justification for poverty.
It is a justification that often comes from the lips of those who have more than enough.
I spoke recently to a large gathering of people of faith on the issue of economic justice and the need for the church to lead the way in that effort.
I was aware of the latest report concerning the number of people living in poverty in America. That number stands at 46 million, with half being children.
Background on Jesus’ words
But let’s be clear about the context that caused Jesus to utter those words in the first place.
Mark sets this event within the backdrop of the Festival of Passover. Jesus is at the home of Simon the Leper. While Jesus is eating, a woman comes up carrying a bottle of expensive perfume. She opens it and pours it on his head.
Her action anticipates that this Passover would take on a greater significance. Jesus’ body would be broken and his blood shed to deliver us from the bondage of sin.
The simple and extravagant act done by this woman underscores that what Jesus will do will be just as extravagant and foolish in the eyes of those who do not understand who he is and what God is up to.
Those who objected to her act, complaining that the money used from the sale of the perfume could have been used to feed people who were living in poverty, have some credibility if they were really concerned about that group of people.
But as I read this passage there is no evidence that those who objected were really concerned about people.
They were angry with Jesus, and this act simply gave them more ammunition to string him up.
Yes, as Jesus says in Matthew, “you always have the poor with you” and we ought to begin to wrestle with why that is.
Why?
I remember a question posed by Dom Helder Camara, a Latin American theologian and churchman, who asked: “When shall we have the courage to outgrow the charity mentality and see that at the bottom of all relations between rich and poor there is a problem of justice?”
This single and momentous event of the Christian story, the cross, tells us that in the face of greed, violence and self-centeredness God is up to something.
The one who went up that hill, who suffered, bled, died and rose — indeed rose with healing in his wings — came to reorder our economy and reshape our economic priorities.
The cross of Jesus points to God’s extravagance, his generosity. God in Jesus makes room.
God in Jesus even changes our language. Hear the words again — when we pray, we pray to “Our Father,” and we pray “give us this day our daily bread.”
So whenever I look out and see a family sleeping in their car, or pass a young person with all of their earthly belongings in their backpack, or sit across from someone that I’ve just bought a meal for because their unemployment has just run out and in a matter of days they will have to vacate their apartment, I become keenly aware of the presence of Jesus in every one of those bodies.
Equally, I become keenly aware of the need for the collective Christian community to act with faith and boldness to turn the nightmare of poverty into a table where there is enough for everyone.
Ken Wheeler is pastor of Cross Lutheran Church, an ELCA congregation in Milwaukee. He served 18 years as an assistant to the bishop of the Greater Milwaukee Synod of the ELCA.
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Thanks, Pastor Wheeler! I clearly remember the first time I heard Jesus' words used as an excuse to ignore poverty -- way back in the 1960s in opposition to the "war on poverty." It's sad such opposition continues today, but heartening to see the commitment of so many who have been energized in recent months to address the scandal of poverty.
Thank you for bringing this to light. I tried to make a top ten list for the book of Matthew one time. Based on the number of times mentioned, the number one in importance for Jesus was faith and number two was economic justice. Though not a real test for what is important in scripture, It does point out an area of significance.
This sounds a bit like trying to rationalize an uncomfortable piece of Scripture. The line "Those who objected to her act, complaining that the money used from the sale of the perfume could have been used to feed people who were living in poverty, have some credibility if they were really concerned about that group of people" strikes me especially like an attempt to rationalize what is happening in the pericope. I think the 8th Commandment* requires us to assume they really were concerned about that group of people.
What does it mean that something can be more important than feeding the poor? Put simply, I think this passage warns against making the church's mission entirely about feeding the poor/economic justice. Economic justice is important, for sure, but the church's mission is proclaiming Christ crucified and risen for you. Lots of people touched by the Gospel certainly work for economic justice, but if we make it all about economic justice, we leave God out of the equation.
Agreed, Peter. Jesus fed the 5,000. Why didn't he feed everybody the whole world over? Isn't that what Satan tempted him to do when he told him to turn stones into bread? Obviously, Jesus' ministry was about something else. Jesus wouldn't want to be just "the Bread Messiah." "Man doesn't live by bread alone," Jesus said. If we give people bread, but not Christ, haven't we denied them the most important thing?
Peter--I agree with your comments entirely.
When the church becomes just another charity it ceases to be the church.
And when we convince ourselves, in our pride, that it is up to us to right all the world's wrongs, we deny the need for our Savior.
When Jesus fed the 5000, he did not distribute the food himself, but told his disciples, "you give them something to eat." And there were baskets left of food, which last us to this day. I take the point that Jesus was not a bread king, but we waste him when we try to cordon off our relationship with God, restored in Jesus, so that it won't affect our relationships with our neighbors in real, concrete ways. "Jesus," as a wise person whose name I can't remember now wrote, "always brings his friends along with him."
"You do not always have me" is a major red flag of irony in the context of the rest of Matthew, who writes that Jesus promised his disciples to be "with you always, even to the end of the age."
In the hungry, thirsty, sick, naked, imprisoned, and strangers, as Matthew writes in chapter 25, do we not also have Jesus with us?
We have not missed our chance, by being born in another time and place, to love our Lord with the extravagance of this woman.
Of course, however, we fail at this and, just like the goats, ignore Jesus' presence in the least of his brothers and sisters, or actively mistreat him. We do not know what we are doing. I can write this now and think I get it, but on some level I know I will still go on crucifying him instead of pouring perfume on his head more often than not. I ought not to be able to type this without tears, and yet here I sit, hard-hearted enough to do it.
It is because I am such a sinner that he came to give me his life and forgiveness and the faith (though it is weak) to trust that if his presence in the bread and wine is there for my forgiveness and for that of the world, then his hidden presence in my neighbor (and for others, in me) is no less for the purpose of restoration and healing.