Series: December 2024
Speaker: Rob McClellan
Today's Sermon
"We Care About the Poor: Who We Are Series"
I was running errands one day and I saw this woman pulling a wagon filled with stuff. She was clearly living on the streets. A while later, I saw her again, at least a mile down the road, still going. She just kept going.
The image has stuck with me. It stirs up all the old questions never satisfactorily settled. How does it come to the point where you’re dragging around all your possessions in garbage bags? Some of you who work in the city tell me you’re confronted with these living questions dozens of times a day. How do you respond, outwardly or inwardly, as a person of faith?
I was with my son the other day and we noticed an abandoned shopping cart far from the Safeway from which it came. He quickly recognized it for what it was, another person’s wagon. To hear him process it was interesting, and I could tell he was trying to offer a generous accounting, “Well, yeah,” I remember him saying, “it makes sense. It’s not safe to leave your stuff, so you need something to push it around in.” My heart broke a little as I heard him describe it. What does he think about our world that has so much and yet so many people in our midst for a whole host of reasons live like that?
Today we are going to talk about caring about the poor as part of our “Who We Are” series, but before I go further, I should be careful to point out that “the poor”—not exactly a phrase I like—should not be taken to refer to some easily identifiable other. Poverty comes in many forms and degrees. It’s not just “over there,” it’s right here, and there’s no shame in that. It’s not immoral not to have enough.
We continue our “Who We Are” series even though today begins the season of Advent, but that’s fitting because Advent culminates in the coming of Jesus. Our journey to become who we are culminates in the way of Jesus. Today we say that this must include care about the poor, not just that we care for them, mind you, as important as direct service is. To care about them is also to care about their plight, their opportunities, their struggles, and the things in our society that work against them. To care about them is not to use them as political pawns but to see them as people that deserve dignity and a good life.
It’s pretty simple—a church that doesn’t care about the poor may be an interesting gathering place or social club. It may be a retreat space (though real retreat ultimately connects you to the world). It may be a lot of things, but it is not a church. Concern for the poor is integral to the Christian faith because it was integral to Jesus’ faith and the faith of his ancestors. Ignatius of Loyola called failing to care for the poor a heresy. It is a fundamental violation of our faith. Different churches and different people may find different ways to do this based on their different gifts, but do it we must. And, as many of you know, in doing so we too are blessed.
Our scriptures have a lot to say about how to treat those who are lacking materially, about how our economics should work. Listen to this teaching from Deuteronomy:
Deuteronomy 15:1-11
15 Every seventh year you shall grant a remission of debts. 2And this is the manner of the remission: every creditor shall remit the claim that is held against a neighbour, not exacting it from a neighbour who is a member of the community, because the Lord’s remission has been proclaimed. 3From a foreigner you may exact it, but you must remit your claim on whatever any member of your community owes you. 4There will, however, be no one in need among you, because the Lord is sure to bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a possession to occupy,5if only you will obey the Lord your God by diligently observing this entire commandment that I command you today. 6When the Lord your God has blessed you, as he promised you, you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow; you will rule over many nations, but they will not rule over you.
7 If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted towards your needy neighbour. 8You should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it may be. 9Be careful that you do not entertain a mean thought, thinking, ‘The seventh year, the year of remission, is near’, and therefore view your needy neighbour with hostility and give nothing; your neighbour might cry to the Lord against you, and you would incur guilt. 10Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so, for on this account the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. 11Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbour in your land.’
Please, let us not rush to our idea of what’s realistic. The passage should challenge our assumptions about how things have to be. It should make us uncomfortable. Note, this passage is the root of the tragically misunderstood line in which Jesus says, “For you will always have the poor with you,” (Matthew 26:11). Deuteronomy makes the case that the ever presence of the poor should give birth to the ever presence of generous systems for caring for them.
In our second reading today, Jesus describe how he fulfills the prophesies of the Hebrew scriptures.
Luke 4:14-20
14 Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. 15He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.
16 When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
18‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
19to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’
20And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him.
21Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’
In Jesus’ own words, his arrival is about bringing “good news to the poor.” Jesus draws on the jubilee tradition of his people, in which debts were forgiven and the poor were lifted up. Our society shames and blames the poor. When you read the gospels, you’ll see Jesus is far more concerned about the rich.
When I say this is who we are, I am commending you as much as I am commanding you. You have shown it to be true about this church, that we care for the poor, and that is worth celebrating even if it’s also worth expanding. There are so many ways you are generous. What would it look like to step into it even more? We serve; what would it look like to advocate for the least among us? It’s a communion Sunday, when we come to a table of abundance. As we begin our sojourn to the manger, with bellies still stuffed from Thanksgiving, how might we imagine moving through the world pulling our own wagons, not hauling everything we have, but handing out jubilee everywhere we go?
Amen.