Reclaiming the Gospel, Part 2B – Good News for the Poor

“Blessed are the poor, for the Reign of God is rightfully theirs.” That phrase sets off Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. It also sets off the contrast between Jesus’ teaching and the prevailing notions of the society around him. It is also a major reason why those in power turned on him, sending him to death on a cross. He was undercutting the foundational understanding and structure of the whole society. It was not simply Jewish society that was being undermined in Jesus’ ministry. It was also Roman society, and our as well.

Look around at the various nations of the world, and find one example where the poor are the ones calling the shots, designing the laws, and being the driving force behind systems of justice at play. I’ll wait. Well, I won’t really, as there would be no point. The poor are never allowed to be placed in charge. They are never the ones granted voice, power, and authority to re-engineer how a society and its economy run. They may indeed be the economic backbone of labor driving an economy, but they are hardly the ones for whom that economy functions.

When Jesus preached good news for and to the poor, he unsettled the power structure of society around him and the justifications in place for the economic and social inequalities that pervaded all parts of society. The poor became slaves as their only recourse to repay debts that were beyond their meager income. They became poor due to forces beyond their control, like famine, pestilence, theft, illness, and the like. Rather than the society bearing the burden of their needs, they were forced to bear the burden on their own, even to the point of selling off themselves and their children to resolve their debts. That almost sounds like medical bankruptcy in the United States, doesn’t it? Once one has lost the basics for existing and contributing to a local economy, we make it cost them even more to participate in what they cannot afford. Predatory lending was not created in the last few decades. It’s been around since before Jesus’ time.

Jesus, yes, the same one who taught us to pray with the words, “Forgive us our debts in the manner in which we forgive those who are indebted to us.” What would applying that principle to modern banking systems look like? Forgive debts? Who are you kidding! Well, our banking system is more than willing to forgive the debts of large corporations and the extremely wealthy, but far be it for them to forgive the debts of those who actually need that forgiveness.

If Jesus had been allowed to continue preaching and teaching, the effect could have been disastrous for the economic and political power structure in Israel and the Roman Empire as a whole. After all, we can only be forced to pay our debts if we feel obligated to do so. If God’s Reign actually belongs rightfully to those with the least resources, what is to say they will continue to stay in their lane and in subservience to their social superiors?

Rather than portray future blessing as something the poor could look to in a future reality, Jesus was teaching a subversive narrative that God already loved and cared for the poor. He said that God’s Reign was already theirs, including all the blessings it entailed. Indeed, as the early church gathered in the aftermath of Jesus’ resurrection, they started living according to a new paradigm.

“Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common” (Acts 4:32). Those who benefit the most from such a structure and practice are those who would otherwise have been poor. The good news of the gospel is that in God’s economy, everyone’s needs are met abundantly. The flip side of that is Paul telling Timothy that greed, the love of money, is the root of all evil. It seems we've been living and preaching that flip side, instead.


#Gospel #Poverty #Poor #Politics #Governance #Economy #Economics #Greed #ReignOfGod #GodsReign #Debt #Debts

— ©Copyright 2023, Christopher B. Harbin 



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