For the Poor
Isaiah 61
How many of you have seen the Mission Impossible movies? Age check! How many of you remember the original TV series airing on Saturday nights. It ran from 1966 to 1973. There is one line which defined that series and it was, “Your mission, if you should choose to accept it…” Jesus, around age 30 entered his hometown synagogue, opened the scroll and publicly read from Isaiah 61. Now this passage was written 100’s of years before Jesus’ birth but they told of the coming of the Messiah and the Messiah’s mission. God says, “Jesus, this is your mission, if you should choose to accept it…” There are several things we learn from Jesus reading of this passage.
First is his identity. As Jesus reads these words, they come alive in him and reveal his identity. The word for ‘anointed’ in Hebrew is meshac from which we get the word Messiah. Jesus is proclaiming for all who were listening that he is the Messiah, God’s anointed one.
Second is his mission and ours. Jesus came to bring Good News to the poor. Jesus focused on those who were poor, disenfranchised and far from God. The Good News is that they are not forgotten, God has heard their pain and suffering and His kingdom is being birthed in their midst. And because it is His mission, we who are followers of Christ, meaning we seek to do what he did, this is our mission as well. If it’s not focused on the poor, then it’s not Jesus mission and it’s not the Good News he was to proclaim. Everything that Jesus says and does is focused on the poor and the disenfranchised. Third is timing. Isaiah 61 speaks of “the year of the Lord’s favor” which was time when the Messiah would be revealed in his coming and continue until His return. So you and I live in the between time. When tney thought they were forgotten, Jesus is proclaiming that they will receive God’s blessings and presence. Fourth is God presence. The presence of God’s splendor means that the presence of God will be revealed through the activity of God. Where once they thought they were alone in their trials, now they can know that God is with them. And the people will be actively working to build the kingdom of God. We will “rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.” God’s presence was most active and felt in Jesus the Messiah.
For the next three weeks, we’re going to focus on this passage. This week, we’re going to focus on the mission of Jesus Christ: proclaiming the Good News for the Poor. Next week, we’re going to look at the freedom that God gives from anything that restricts you in your life and the third week, we’re going to focus on God’s calling for your life.
Advent is meant to focus on the return of Christ and the Day of Judgment. Matthew 25 is really the only passage in the Bible that talks about what will happen on the Day of Judgment. There it says that on the day when the King returns, he will separate the sheep from the goats placing the sheep on the right and the goats on the left. (That’s not a political statement so don’t read into it!) And he will say to those on the right, Come and receive the receive kingdom which was prepared for you since the beginning of time “for I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was sick and you ministered to me, I was imprisoned and you visited me.” I think the most difficult thing in my life is living out Jesus’ call to “Follow me..” Faith is not just about believing in Jesus, though a lot of times we reduce it to. Faith is about doing and in Matthew 25, Jesus tells us exactly what we are to be doing. “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” This is what the mission of Jesus is and who the Gospel is for, the poor, the sick, the hungry, the thirsty and the imprisoned.
The Bible has a lot to say about the poor. More than 300 verses in the Bible focus on the poor, social justice, and God's deep concern for both. It was the command and expectation of all Jews that they would do their part in caring for the poor. Jesus came to bring the Good News to the poor. His mission is ours and so you are to bring Good News to the poor as well. That is your mission if you choose to receive Jesus and follow Him.
What does it mean to be poor? The Bible talks about three kinds of poverty. The first is generational poverty which is poverty that exists within a family or group for two or more generations. Those who are born in generational poverty continue in poverty due to numerous factors such as the attitudes, aspirations or lack thereof and the example their parents or grandparents have about money, society and work. Generational poverty can create an expectation in children that there's always going to be less than what they need. They bring that expectation into the world as adults and live in a crisis management orientation, focusing only on the here and now. Those afflicted with generational poverty also experience higher crime rates, poorer health outcomes, lower-quality educational opportunities and weaker job networks and employment opportunities.
There is another cause of generational poverty as well. The Huffington Post reported on a study which found that black women ages 36-49 have a average median wealth of just $5. That means they have no benefits and no savings to fall back on in case of emergency. The report goes on to explain the key to financial stability is wealth (for example, assets, savings, stock holdings, business income), which can be passed from generation to generation and eases the path for those struggling in their youth. However, for the more than 46% of single-parent black households that have zero or negative wealth, there is literally nothing to pass on — many households are struggling to stay afloat, living from paycheck to paycheck, meaning when a crisis hits, there’s little to fall back on, since their meager wages just meet expenses.
So what’s the Good News to those in generational poverty? We need to provide them hope that God loves them and the church is there for them to give them a hand up and not just a hand out. We do that providing new life pictures of what they can become, provide positive role models and support systems, giving opportunities for improvement in life skills like education, job training, connections outside their impoverished neighborhood and the basics like reading skills and GED attainment. One of the purposes of the church is re-parenting, teaching, encouraging, loving, mentoring and providing accountability. The best thing we can do is find those who are ready and want to work for change in their life. When we’re willing to do all we can do, God can do what we cannot.
One way we as a church have tried to be Good News in the life of one sister who is stuck in generational poverty is through Open Table. We have 12 individuals who have agreed to invest 1-2 hours a week for a year in the life of an individual to help them set goals, network and support and encourage significant steps forward so that individual might get out of the trap of poverty, not just for themselves but their children and grandchildren. We will be starting a new Table service a new sister or brother in 2014 and are asking you to consider participating by investing inn the life of another.
The second kind of poverty is situational poverty which is circumstances outside our control like a child born in poverty, loss of employment, divorce, mental illness, and physical disability. What is the response of the church to situational poverty? We need to be the vehicle where God’s mercy and justice comes through. We are to be the solution to siutational poverty, not the cause. Isaiah 56:6-9says, “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard….If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.”
As followers of Jesus, we get no points for coming to worship. This is what Christians do, we come together and remind ourselves who we are in this culture of darkness. We are meant to be light and salt. But then we go out from here and connect ourselves with God’s heart and that is with the poor. And the power and presence of God will be with us when we act as God toward other people especially the poor, the marginalized and the broken. Clarence Jordan, the author of the Cotton Patch Gospel writes, “The gulf between us and the poor is actually the gulf between us and God.” It’s why we don’t live at our means but below our means, so that we might have the resources to help those in need. The channel of God’s mercy and justice flows through you. Leviticus 19:10 says, “Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God.”
The third kind of poverty is the poverty of wealth or materialism. If your household makes over $38,000 a year then you are in the top 1% of the world. As a result, most of us are affected by the poverty of wealth or materialism. The poverty that Jesus most addresses is the poverty of wealth. Because wealth creates this comfort and complacency where not only don’t we see other people’s needs, we fail to see our own need and purpose in following Jesus. This is where Jesus strikes us most directly when he says, “where your treasure is, there will be your heart also.” “You can’t serve two masters: you will either love the one and hate the other. You can’t serve both God and money.
Christmas, more than any other time, has become a time of materialism and overindulgence. What a tragedy and travesty in celebrating the birth of the Christ who came to proclaim Good news to the poor and the year of God’s favor. I’m as guilty as the rest of you as I have more clothes than I need, more shoes than I can wear, and more toys than I actually spend time playing with. I justify it because I “need” it or it was 40% off so I got a bargain. And so we lavish our money and our gifts on our loved ones and ourselves, forgetting that it’s not our birthday and perhaps the best gift we could ever receive or give to another would be a gift to those who most need it: the hungry, the homeless, the outsiders, the unemployed and those who are poor and living at or below the poverty line.
Here’s the message of hope for me in the midst of my stuff and my struggle with materialism: Jesus came to bring Good News to the poor. And I am poor because too often I get caught in materialism. Jesus said, “it is harder for the rich to get into the kingdom of God than for a camel to go through an eye of a needle.” This Christmas, I need to remember what the mission is and I need to choose to accept it because that’s where real life and meaning and purpose is. Jesus calls us to one thing: to do what he did and be about what he was about. Advent is a time of active preparation for His return. So how do we actively prepare in this season? Five things: inventory your priorities. Get honest about your passions and where you spend your time and money. Second, simplify Christmas. Remember, it’s not your birthday. Every year there is the pull and tug of advertising and the release of the newest and latest. We have to get serious about this stuff again this Christmas because it’s so easy to fall into the habits of Christmas’ past. Christmas should be about the poor, the ones Jesus came for and not about us. Third, align your actions. That’s your service and resource (money) with God’s priorities. Fourth, commit to take the Just Neighbors course to better understand the plight of generational and situational poverty and how difficult it can be to break the cycle. Fifth, sign up for Open Table and do something about poverty. Jesus said, he came to bring Good News to the poor. That was his mission and it‘s yours if you choose to accept it and if you choose to receive him.
