Jesus the Strategist

In general, the church's strategy to deal with poverty is twofold:

First, give poor people food and clothing.  That'll help them live another day.

Second, teach poor people the gospel, which will cleanse them from their sin.  That'll help them deal with their setbacks and get on the right track in life, so not be poor anymore.

Assumptions
There are a number of wrong assumptions that come up from this approach to poverty.

-That the poor are poor because of individual sin
-That the poor have less of Jesus than the middle class do

-That food and clothing is sufficient to meet people's needs

-That relief is the kind of direct help that is good enough.

The answer

Jesus' answer to poverty was a multi-faceted approach.

1. Healing
Jesus didn't just feed and clothe people, although he certainly did that.  He listened to desperate people, discovered their needs and used what resources he had to meet them.  This was a variety of things-- healing blind eyes, feeding poor, paying other's taxes, raising the dead, offering forgiveness of sins and more.  Jesus didn't come to the poor assuming he knew what they needed.  He heard their needs from their own lips.  That was his system of relief?

2. Ending Systemic Poverty

Jesus publicly spoke against the systems, political and religious, that kept people poor.  He launched a protest against the system of the Temple for keeping out the women and the Gentiles. And then he embarked on a program to undermine systemic poverty in his nation.  His strategy was to be executed although an innocent man, to plead his case before God and then to get the poverty pimps out of power.  His plan was shown to be approved by the resurrection.  And the systems were ousted by 70AD.

3. Create Community

Jesus' third strategy was to create a religious community that focused as much on helping the poor as they did on worship.  The primary economic action of the church was providing for the poor, not only for their own community, but for people in need around them.  The church leadership were assisted only if they were poor-- if they could provide for themselves then they would.  So

me of the more wealthy community members provided their own houses for meeting spaces.  But almost all money given to the church was used for programs for the poor.  This approach came from Jesus' teachings.

The strategy of the church concerning poverty is far removed from Jesus' approach, except for some Christian organizations (Mennonite Central Committee is happily one of the exceptions).  But when congregations deal with poverty in their communities, this three-pronged approach of Jesus is far from their minds.  There is much hand-wriging and perhaps a ministry to the poor that barely hangs on.  I challenge churches to consider a strategy to seriously make an attempt to undermine poverty in their communities.

Why All Activists Should Speak Out about Homelessness

I have a number of friends who are activists for various causes.  And I love the causes.  We are in a water crisis when corporations sell water back to those in drought.  Black men are being attacked by U.S. society.  Indigenous peoples have always been oppressed and attacked.  We live in an age of information and openness, and the realities of racism and sexism in our society are finally being revealed and we are speaking out and taking action.

My plea today, however, that no matter how serious and important your key issues are, you should also be talking about homelessness, and standing with the homeless community.  Again, I’m not saying your issue isn’t essential.  It’s just that the homeless are the focus of abuse of today’s American society.

I’m going to keep this short, so let me just give you a few statistics.

1.       The homeless are seen as worse than any other social group

Sociologists have studied the reaction of different social groups to American minds, using an MRI.  They have determined that we have a “disgust” response in our brain to certain social groups, including welfare moms, undocumented immigrants and Arabs.  Butthe social group with the strongest and most pervasive negative automaticresponse is the homeless.   Dr. Susan Fiske says that the homeless are considered “inhuman garbage piles”. 

The homeless are constantly feared, distrusted and the cause of anger of the far majority of housed people. Cities criminalize the very existence of the homeless, disallowing them to sleep, receive food or finances, and they arrest them for having bedding.  This is due to the overwhelming response of the housed who, without cause, blame the homeless for the ills of their society.

2.       The homeless are life-threatened than any other group

The average life span of an American is almost 79 years old.  The average lifespan of a homeless American is 48 years old, 36 percent lower than other citizens.  This is a result of stress and trauma, more than anything else.  90 percent of all homeless men suffer from PTSD or other stress disorder.  100 percent of all homeless women suffer fromPTSD.

Although most people consider this the fault of the homeless, it is not.  Most of the homeless find themselves on the street through no fault of their own, due to job loss or no cause eviction.  They are thrust into an impossible economic predicament and then treated like criminals, and due to the stress and poor health conditions, they die young.

3.       The homeless are severely attacked

About 64 percent of all women areassaulted in their lifetime.  About 92percent of all homeless women are assaulted. All kinds of homeless suffer attacks, and the number of attacks have risen 23 percent in the last few years. 

Although the actual numbers seem small, this is because very few attacks on the homeless are reported, because there is such a distrust between the homeless and the police.  If they report a crime, they believe that they will be accused of something.

4.       The homeless can’t hide

The majority of citizens can feel a certain amount of security from the oppression of society if they go into their home and lock the door.  The homeless don’t have that luxury.  Even those who live in cars or tents are just as vulnerable their shelter as they are outside of it.  They are sometimes dragged out of their shelter, only to have it taken from them, because their shelter is not seen to be their possession or to be under the protection of the fifth amendment.

5.       Truth brings freedom

We can change this, if we all work on it together.  The primary source of the suffering of the homeless is the false idea that all the homeless are criminals or immoral.  There are two ways that effectively change this point of view.  The first is spending time working on a project with the homeless, for then the homeless are seen as equals.  The other is if a loud minority continue to speak of the humanity of the homeless.  Not just their pitiable state (like I did here), but about their common humanity with us, the shared citizenship, the joy of life, their hope for the future.

Please, alongside your important issues, please speak about the homeless.  You can help give them the humanity they lack. 

Chronic Stress and Poverty

I’ve got some severe chronic stress in my life, and it will take a long time to recover from it.  It’s good that I know about it, and good that I’m working on bringing balance in my life.  Even with the balance, however, it will still take a long time, perhaps years, to recover from the years of emotional and physical pummeling I allowed my mind and body to suffer. 

Studies have shown that every single person who has suffered chronic poverty or homelessness also suffer from some kind of chronic stress condition.  This shouldn’t be surprising, but it isn’t something that we often think about either.  Ninety percent of homeless men suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and a hundred percent of homeless women.  A person who suffered from homeless for more than a year is a prime candidate for adrenal fatigue.   The chronically poor person will often suffer from a cognitive disorder related to stress, causing one’s attention to only focus on the short term.

Symptoms of chronic stress disorders might include:

• Insomnia
• Anxiety or depression
• Increased feeling of pain
• Lack of energy
• Increased need for protein and fats
• Decreasing ability to handle stress
• Morning fatigue—inability to feel alert for hours after waking
• Body pains, usually as a result of tensing parts of the body, such as the jaw.
• Overreaction to petty annoyances
• Frequent sighing
• Weight gain or loss without a change in diet
• Self-medicating with drugs or alcohol
• Trouble learning new information

Many of the poor and homeless experience these symptoms, causing increased mental health issues and more severe physical crises. Also, the longer one suffers chronic stress from being poor or homeless, the less likely one will have the cognitive ability to escape such states.

Our society somehow expects the poor and homeless to leave poverty by increasing the stress load they already experience.  If a person has a cognitive breakdown, unable to function in a modern work environment due to accumulated stress, then they are called “lazy” instead of what they really are: mentally broken by severe stress.

If you are poor or homeless and recognize that you are suffering from this level of extreme stress, there are some things you can do.  We need to recognize this: any change in our lives has a cost.  Any new discipline takes time or energy or both and if we are going to see improvements in our lives, we will have to sacrifice something we consider essential in our lives so we can make an overall change.  I know for me, I realized that I couldn’t keep expressing fury at small slights, because I was breaking down trust.

The other thing that made me realize that I had to deal with stress is because the stress I was experiencing was bleeding out to my wife, children and others I lived with.  Everyone had to deal with my stress, not just me.   If I was going to bring health to everyone (or anyone) I knew, I had to get to a place where I could control myself.

Here are some things that we can do to deal with our stress, bit by bit.  There are no quick answers here.  If we have dealt with (are dealing with) severe stress for years, it will take years to overcome those symptoms completely even after we get out of poverty.  This sounds overwhelming, but it’s not.  It just takes time. 

1.       Eat differently

In our moments of deep stress (which might happen parts of every day), our body wants to eat a lot of calories, usually filled with protein and sugars and fat.  It’s okay to treat ourselves with that every once in a while, but we need to keep it as a treat, not as a regular part of our diet.  There are three ways we can eat differently that will decrease our stress: 

-Eat fewer calories
-Eat frequently and regularly

-Eat more fresh vegetables, less meat and fats

I know that eating more veggies seems tough because fresh veggies are expensive.  One thing I’ve found is helpful is that carrots are pretty cheap, tasty and they are filling.  Some folks don’t have the teeth for carrots, so I’d recommend spinach, which is full of great nutrition and not expensive if you buy it in a bundle.  If you don’t like spinach plain, throw it in casseroles or sandwiches. Just look at your grocery store and see what sales you can find.  

Again, I know this transition is tough.  It’s hard for me, especially the reduced calories when my body is demanding food to have more energy to deal with the stress.  But you will get used to it eventually.

2.       Increase activity
This is usually known as “exercising”.  The problem with exercising is that we have to create a time and place to do it, and we might not be able to.  But we should just generally be finding ways to increase our activity.  If you have a car, instead of taking it everywhere, walk.  Or just walk around the block a few times.  I found that if I do a few sit-ups or push-ups in the morning right after I wake up that I’m generally more alert.

But what killed me early on in trying to exercise is doing too much.  When we lead a stressful life, what might be considered a beginner’s pace of exercise will exhaust us, and then we don’t have the energy to do what we need to the rest of the day.  Take it slow, ease into it.  Gentle, slow exercise is great to start with, and then increase it as you feel you are able.  Just don’t quit.

3.       Get in the zone

In my family, full of creative people, we have what we call “the zone”.  It’s a mind-space, a kind of self-hypnotism, where we can do creative work or deep thinking.  My one daughter writes novels, another daughter draws, my son paces and listens to music, I write essays, and my wife reads.  When we do this activity, our primary mind shuts down and we become really focused on our task.  I can get in the zone watching movies, or through prayer, others do this through meditation or listening to music.  The important thing is that you aren’t allowing your mind to “shut off” or to be passive.  Rather, we are focusing our energy on one activity.  This can replenish our whole mind to accomplish all kinds of tasks that we otherwise would be unable to do.

4.       Laugh
Depression is a real thing, and it results in sapping the energy from our lives, so we feel we can’t do anything.  And enjoying ourselves really helps us build our energy again, if only for a while.  Find someone you really enjoy being with and spend time with them.  Watch a movie you really enjoy or read an entertaining book.  Read stupid puns and jokes until you laugh out loud.  Once you start, you’ll find there’s a lot of things around you that are funny, even tragic circumstances in your life.  You’ll feel better and have more building blocks to deal with things in your life.  Try not to use alcohol or some other substance to instill joy in your life, though.  Because while it will temporarily fill this need, the overall cost is greater than what it gives you, throwing you into a deeper depression. 

5.       Get time off of the internet
Most of us have the internet now, and it is great.  We are able to communicate with people we never had before and we have so many more jokes to laugh at.  However, spending time on social media also sucks energy out of our lives.  I know that I would spend time on Facebook in order to feel like I’m connecting with others while I was also keeping at arm’s length from them.  It provided me with a false rest.  Recognize that interacting on the internet is work, although a low-level work.  So let’s take a break from it.  Instead of the internet, read a book, talk to a friend, take a nap.  Then get back on.  Because you need to…

6.       Get support
Honestly, the best place to find support for your chronic stress issues is the internet.  In general, most people don’t understand.  But there are plenty of people who do.  There is a support group called “stress.supportgroups.com”.  Find a place you feel comfortable with and an online group that you can vent to, and they’ll help you and you can help them.  If you can find a doctor or therapist (covered by Obamacare!) or pastor who can help you out, that’s great, too.  But don’t try to overcome stress yourself.  It’s too stressful.

7.       Be grateful
One of the greatest things to give you happiness is to regularly express your thanks for the people and things and situations that make your life better.  It isn’t enough just to think about it for a moment.  You need to speak how much you appreciate them.  The best thing is to find a person who has really helped you and express your gratitude to them.  In a letter or in person, but just do it.  After that, think of another person and do the same thing.  You won’t believe how much better you feel.

8.       Help others
One of the best ways to get out of our own stress is to help others with their stresses.  It is a key building block to happiness, and it exercises parts of our brain like compassion and hope that we might not otherwise be able to utilize.  It may be we can cook something for a friend, or seek to volunteer at a place that has helped us out.  But we will find our stresses reduce when we think about how to improve other’s lives.

One last thing I want to mention.  Any organizations out there that help the poor or the homeless, hear me out.  Part of our main task should be to reduce the stress of our guests.  If we give them too many hoops to jump through, especially when they are unnecessary, we aren’t helping them, but piling on stresses that make their lives more difficult.  Let’s provide entertainment for them.  Let’s see if we can give them breaks.  Let’s help them with better food and opportunities to volunteer.  But most of all, let’s be gentle and hopeful.

Sources:
NPR-- http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2014/07/14/330434597/this-is-your-stressed-out-brain-on-scarcity

The American Society on Stress-- http://www.stress.org/stress-effects/

Natural News-- http://www.naturalnews.com/019339_adrenal_fatigue_chronic_stress.html#

Psychology Today-- https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-the-face-adversity/201202/ways-manage-chronic-stress

Africa's Poor v. America's Poor

It is pretty easy to look at the homeless in the United States and say, "Yeah, they're poor, but they aren't as poor as the starving people in..." (name impoverished country, usually in Africa).

Certainly, if we are talking about physical depravity and lack of what helps us survive, those in the poorest countries in the world are worse off than the homeless.  The homeless are resourceful, and often live off the toss-offs of the wealthy country they live in.  A dumpster behind a single grocery story in the United States has better and more plentiful food than what is offered a whole city of beggars in a poor country.  In impoverished cities or nations, the problem is scarcity, and while some use that scarcity for their own advantage, the major problem is a universal one.

But if you look at the poor people of other nations, you can see a major difference between them and the poor of the United States:

Do you notice the differences?  The non-Americans were all obviously starving, that's one difference.  But the more obvious difference is that the non-Americans are with others, working with others, but the Americans are alone.  This is probably just a result of the style of the photographers, but it also reflects a reality both live with.  The poverty of Africa is a poverty of resource to certain communities.  The poverty of America is a poverty of community which results in scarcity.

The poverty of the homeless person or of the welfare mom or of the mentally ill is not a lack of food, but a lack of meaningful community.  Poverty is not primarily an economic reality.  Rather, it is a social reality that has an economic result.  The poverty of the third world is a poverty of a community.  The poverty of the United States is a poverty of individuals.

The poverty of the United States, which might also include starvation, but certainly includes dangers of hypothermia and dehydration and sickness due to stress and unsanitary conditions, but also has an added layer of daily rejection from society.  

Not only is a poor individual in the US facing a lack of their survival needs, but they also have people telling them how bad they are, forcing them to move on a regular basis, assumptions that they are criminal and people telling them how they are not doing enough.  They are rejected by a whole society, outcasts from community, forced to not only be poor, but to be isolated.

I am not sure which poverty is worse. 

Transforming Homelessness

The human brain is created to be infinitely flexible.   If a person loses their sight or hearing, the section of the brain dedicated to that sense is then reused for other purposes.  It takes some time, but any section of the brain can be transformed to a new skill.  Our brain is in a new context and then it re-forms to develop new skills to get used to the new context. While we are developing those skills, we are uncomfortable and scared, but eventually we get used to where we are and we change who we are to adapt to the new context.  This is the reason why humanity is the highest functioning animal.  Not just because we can change our environment, but because we do a dance with our environment, both changing and learning to change until we and our environment are adapted to each other.

A great example of this is the deaf culture of the last hundred and fifty years.  They were given an opportunity to build a deaf community that helps itself, born out of Gallaudet University in Washington DC.  From that community comes a new, complete language—American Sign Language—telephones, lights to answer telephones and a culture that looks and sounds—yes, sounds—different than any culture that had ever existed.  Many, if not most, modern deaf people would prefer to live as a deaf person, in the adaptive deaf culture than to get their hearing back and to try to live in “normal” culture.  They have taken their “disability” and made it a cultural strength, thus increasing the diversity and power of the broader culture, and importing their culture around the world.

Not every person or aspect of culture has this ability to adapt and change.  Most of us have certain abilities and so we are insisted upon to fit into the normative culture as it exists.  Since most people have the ability to adapt to things as they are, they do.  But not everyone has that opportunity.  For instance, the homeless.

The chronic homeless are a people who have all been de-normalized.  They’ve been told, individually, that they do not belong in “normal” society and that they must live apart.  They are denied a social network that can support them to fit into normal society.  Those who have lived on the street for a year or more have not only been without a home, but they have been denied opportunities to come back into the fold of normative culture.  And so they adapt to their new environment, and they form a new culture, based on their need to survive.

In their new context, they are taught that they are disgusting and shameful.  They learn this by the fear and anger that some people approach them with.  They learn this by their interactions with police officers, which has increased tremendously since they became homeless.  They learn this because of the fear they experience when they sleep—fear of being seen, fear of being woken, fear of being beaten in the middle of the night by strangers.   They learn that they are vulnerable people, partly because their sleeping gear and personal items are often stolen, but also because they now can receive things for free from generous people, both homeless and non-homeless.   They learn their helplessness because people offer them food for free. 

They also learn that they are criminals.  They learn this through police interactions, who basically treat them as criminals, or at least suspects of wrong-doing.  Because they are treated like criminals, they realize that they can act like criminals because they are already suffering the consequences of criminal activity.  So, clumsily, they learn some criminal activity.  But they don’t really put their heart into it, because they know, in their heart, they aren’t a criminal.  They are just someone who is trying to survive.  They will try using and abusing drugs and alcohol because it helps them to not care about the shame and blame that they are saddled with.  

But these long-term homeless folks still have the amazing brains that are adaptive.  They just are using them to survive in their new environment.  They aren’t useless or helpless, no matter how often people put them in that box.  But since they are expected to be both useless and helpless, they learn to adapt to that environment.

But what if that environment changed?  What if they were given opportunities to help themselves?  Then the homeless adapt toward that.  On a church property in Gresham, a small group of homeless have a place to sleep and cook and they take care of their own environment, all on a volunteer basis.  In Portland, a community builds its own homes and lives independently, with small help from their compassionate surrounding neighborhood.  Perhaps homelessness isn’t easy to adapt back to be “normal”.  But it can be adapted in order to be self-sustaining and in cooperation with the surrounding, normative communities.

The poorest communities in the world have escaped poverty.  It happens every day, all over the world.  It doesn’t happen because a large organization steps in and gives the people what they need.  It is because they develop within themselves adaptive communities that help themselves. 

It usually goes like this: a representative of a development organization steps into an impoverished community, and organizes a meeting with the community leaders and other interested parties.  The representative says that his organization wants to help them create a project to be a more sustainable community, but the community itself must decide what this project will be and they must determine how it would be done.  Over time, through discussions, arguments and anger, a decision is made by the community as a whole on one project.  The organization provides some seed money and some expertise to develop that project, and with money and labor by the community, the project is finished, and the community is improved.  Then the community moves onto the next project.

The development organization doesn’t come with their own agenda apart from one: creating a community that creates their own solutions and implements them.  They don’t have an idea of how the community should live, or what the solutions are, or how to create a better community.  They just provide the impetus and opportunity to create a greater level of sustenance.

This can work for the homeless.  It has been done through Right to Dream 2, and other sustainable communities.  It cannot be done without struggle and without sacrifice, because our society has determined that the chronic homeless are blameworthy, helpless and useless.  But the homeless themselves can change those false expectations, if they but given empowerment and encouragement.  The homeless have already proven that they are adaptive and community-oriented.  They just need to be given the opportunity to make their own changes,  to be given the opportunity of location and some seed money, to make their own changes.

As long as society is telling the chronic homeless who they are and how they should survive, the homeless will never make steps forward, for society is big on creating demands, but not opportunities.  The homeless need to be given the location, time and resources to make their own changes.   We will not see homelessness end, but we will see it transformed into a creative, adaptive culture that is still separate from but fits within normative culture. 

Public Poverty

Public poverty is being ignored by all except those who notice the troubled—cops and bleeding hearts.  All else turn away or turn aside or patch their pity with a coin.  Public poverty is crying out for help and being told to shut up. It is a desperate plea to be normal, and the eventual surrender of this hope when normalcy is a dream of the past.  Public poverty is too much honesty, revealing one’s difficulty and  shame and others assume that you are lying; it is the heaping of scorn when you are desperate for a little kindness.

If only poverty were this cute...

Really, poverty is like sex, only not as fun.  Some revel in it and don’t care where it is displayed, but a majority of people are fine with it in private, but disgusted with it in public.  Like sex, poverty should never be mentioned in polite company, and the more details someone describes poverty in, the more offensive they become.  "Poverty should only be discussed in counselling sessions, with social workers or pastors, but please don’t publicly discuss how you can’t pay your bills, and please don’t display your poverty in a way that all of us can see it."

The homeless are the professionally poor, those who have no choice but to represent the public poor. The homeless are scorned and even hated because they represent all that is wrong with our communities.  They are the indications that our nation is not an economic success, no matter how much of a powerhouse we are on the international economic stage.  The homeless are the crazy uncle you want to keep in the closet, especially when there are guests, but that is especially when he appears, naked and saying something insane.   Just by their existence, the homeless make us uncomfortable.

Would you please cover your poverty?

The real problem with homelessness is that it doesn’t know where to keep its place.  It appears right where you don’t want it to appear—around city hall, on freeway onramps, in public parks.  The public poor appear in the places where a city wants to showcase their friendliness or family nature.  Instead, they are revealed to be a hotbed of poverty and drunkenness.

But the public poor are simply doing what everyone else is doing, except on the street:  They are drinking a beer, they are laughing too loud with friends, they are asking for help.  They are desperately trying to forget about their miserable, mundane existence for only a moment.  They are trying to forget that the silence they experience daily, the turn of the head is scorn being poured upon them.  They are trying to erase the judgments that sentenced them to this miserable life, even the judgments that they put upon themselves.

Policy makers, in seeing the public poor as a serious social problem, do one of two equal errors.  First, they might force the public poor to be silent, to be out of sight.  For this, they create laws which make it illegal to be the public poor, or for them to be seen by the populace.  They might create a skid row, or at least move them out of the downtown area, out of sight, out of mind.  They might shuffle them into jails, as a housekeeper might sweep dust under a carpet.

But this is not a solution. For the more scorn and punishment policy makers apply to the poor, the more public poor there are.  This is because public scorn, public punishment is acceptable punishment, that which can be replicated and increased by the public citizenry.  That which is done in the public parks will eventually be repeated in homes and churches and elsewhere.  And the poor of a home is no longer cared for at home, but is moved to be homeless.  The poor of a church is no longer cared for at a church, but is seen as unacceptable anywhere.  If there is no place for the poor, the only place for them is the public areas.  And if the public areas are not acceptable, then the only place for the poor is no place.  Non-existence.

#22351, come in for your Compassion Treatment

The other solution for policy makers is to end poverty or end homelessness.  This means taking millions of public dollars and putting them into institutions for the poor.  In the past, it used to be missions to religionize the poor, as if their problem were a lack of religion.  Then they shelter the poor, stacking them like firewood, and herding them into cafeterias.  Now they want to eliminate the public poor by giving apartments or single-resident occupancies, so they can be poor in private.

The problem is that these solutions are too expensive for all the public poor, and the system of scorn will not allow them to be “rewarded” with a room without a kitchen with public money.  A different government, a different mayor and compassion dries up like a puddle in a drought.

The only real solution is equality.  Give the public poor a chance to determine what the solutions should be for themselves.  Yes, they will make mistakes, but we should give them that.  The only solution is to give the public poor the respect of a human being.  To look at them, to love them enough to smile and say “no”.  The only solution is to give them what they lack: a social network so they can solve their own problems.  Help them to see what opportunities exist and let them make their own choices.

Surprisingly, some may choose a life outside, without walls, without bills, without demands (or perhaps not so surprisingly).  They should be given a place to live in poverty, or to work their way out of poverty.  Some may choose education, some may choose a steady job (if one is offered) and some may choose reuniting with their family.  But if they are given respect and an opportunity to choose, choose they will.

What the public poor lack is opportunity of choice, and the respect to be offered a choice.  They are treated as dogs, as piles of garbage that should be cleaned up, as proto-criminals that will soon need to be arrested.  Instead, they should be treated as they are—citizens.  Treated as human beings who deserve to be heard just as much as we do.

Shame (Poverty of Spirit 5)

It could be rightly said that the theology of Christianity is the management of guilt.  Yet the theology of the New Testament has less to do with guilt than with shame.  Guilt is the personal experience of wrongs we have done.  Shame is the pointing of the finger, the rejection of our community and the judgment of those who do not consider us worthy.  The New Testament divides the judgment of God and the judgment of the community, which is unique among ancient writings.

The modern depictions of Jesus on the cross go into agonizing detail as to the pain of Jesus’ torture and crucifixion.  But pain was never the point of the gospel writers. Rather, they focused on the tremendous shame and rejection that Jesus’ experienced. We read not about blood and crushed bone, but rather betrayal, mocking, denial, false accusation, judgment, proclaimed worse than a murderer, hung on a tree outside the city of God, associated with bandits, misunderstood, forced to accept what he did not want, and finally surrendering long before his hung companions. 

Yet this flood of shame parted within his own will.  Despite all appearances, Jesus affirmed his right place with God, his ability to sway God’s forgiveness and quoting Scripture that declared God’s ultimate approval.  The power of Jesus’ death is that the truly righteous before God are denied that very place before men.

Jesus best experienced poverty when he was in this sorry state, receiving the greatest measure of rejection.  For truest poverty is not simply hunger, nakedness and homelessness.  Poverty of spirit knows not only economic loss, but is the reception of repudiation due to that loss. 

Poverty is the shame of not having what the average person seems to obtain without effort.  It is the recognition that one is an economic failure in a world in which economic gain is the only measure that truly counts.  When one’s worth is determined by income and one’s status by neighborhood and home, where does that leave the one who has no income or home? 

Poverty is the shame of having to admit one’s poverty.  To call a social service, to fill out a form requesting utility assistance, to discuss one’s situation with a social worker, to have one’s children go to school with holes in their clothes—it is freely admitting one’s failure.  It is an exposition of unworthiness, and the sidelong glance, the distrust, the assumption that the poor are trying to get something for nothing, just adds to one’s disrepute.

But perhaps the greater depth than this admission is the response.  If they say “yes” then the social worker is in agreement with our failure, and admits that we are truly pitiful, truly pathetic, among the least of the earth.  If they say “no”, despite our desperate need, then we are lower than pitiful, we are among the unworthy poor.  We are a failure, but we are undeserving of assistance.  We are only worthy to die on the street, cast within the stocks of public poverty.

Should Jesus come today, his cross might be to live on the streets, treated as a criminal by the police, having his spare bedding and clothing stolen by public servants, beaten by ruffians, and dying of hypothermia after having stumbled in exhaustion through a stream and falling into a gutter.  Perhaps Jesus’ cross today would to be committed in a state facility, declared incompetent, forced to take medication, forcibly bathed and stripped naked before nurses, mocked by other inmates who declare him more insane than they, dying isolated in a room with an IV pumping into an arm, declaring again and again “It is finished” until it finally is.

Yet shame need not end in shame.  For shame can be exchanged for peace, when experienced in community.  The community that is rejected together is not fully outcast.  Shame in loneliness is sorrow, but when that sorrow is shared and empathized, then shame evaporates into true mourning. And mourning, when accompanied with welcome hugs and support, can be transformed into full joy.

Pride and Humility (Poverty of Spirit 2)

A man's pride will bring him low, but a humble spirit will obtain honor. (Pro 29:23)

The opposite of lowliness is pride.  Pride, in the Bible, has little to do with hubris, the Greek definition of pride.  Hubris has to do with speaking oneself up, to puff up one’s accomplishments, abilities or who one naturally is.  Hubris is the evil of thinking one is more important or acting like one is more important than one really is.

“Pride” in the Bible, however is assuming or maneuvering oneself into a greater position than one ought.  It is the seeking of a higher station, the pushing aside of others in order to increase one’s position in society.  It is insisting upon oneself, in order to rule over others.  It is striving for a promotion, it is promoting oneself, it is seeking one’s increase over another.  This kind of pride is in direct opposition to poverty in spirit.

Some think that Jesus is saying that high social standing, or leadership in any way, is devoid of blessing.  It isn’t leadership itself that is the problem, but how one obtains it, and how one uses it that can be in opposition to God.

Jesus illustrates his different approach this way: "When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, 'Give your place to this man,' and then in disgrace you proceed to occupy the last place. But when you are invited, go and recline at the last place, so that when the one who has invited you comes, he may say to you, 'Friend, move up higher'; then you will have honor in the sight of all who are at the table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."  (Luke 14:8-11)

The path of pride is to directly strive and claim a position which is not our own in the hopes that we obtain it.  “Society is a battle,” say the “proud”, “a competition and only the strongest and wiliest can get ahead.”   Jesus disagrees.  It is those who embrace their poverty and lowliness who have places of significance… not because of their strength or self-promotion, but due to the recognition of their worth.  Recognition of worth does not happen by taking the position we feel we deserve.  Rather, it is taking a lower station and others recognizing the place we deserve.

Of course, this happens rarely in the world.  It happens in the kingdom of God.

The activity of leadership also differs, according to Jesus.  He says, "You know that those who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great men exercise authority over them. But it is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant; and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many."  (Mark 10:42-45)

 The proud use their station of leadership and power to secure and increase their position.  They insist upon their position and use all the power they have to retain their power, they lay the groundwork for wealth and respect for the rest of their lives.  For Jesus, the path of true authority embraces poverty, the poor and helpless among them, using all their power to assist and support others.  It is not about maintaining power and respect for oneself, but for the neediest among them. 

Of course, this is not the way of the world, but of the kingdom of God. 

Blessed are the Poor in Spirit

This is the first post of a series reflecting on Jesus' teachings and experience on poverty.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit.”

In the Bible, there are many states that are ‘in spirit’.  The brokenhearted are “crushed in spirit” (Psalm 34:18).  The forgiven has a renewed spirit (Psalm 51:10).  The righteous judge has a “spirit of judgment” (Isaiah 28:6).  To have something in spirit is deep in one’s soul, a part of one’s very inner being.

It is easy to understand a phrase like “crushed in spirit”, but more difficult to understand poverty in spirit, for we are so opposed to poverty in all its physical forms.  It is interesting that the only other place in the Bible which connects poverty and the spirit, apart from the beatitudes, is in the book of Proverbs: “It is better to be lowly in spirit with the poor than to divide the spoil with the proud.” (Proverbs 16:19)

Although the verse is short and devoid of a clear context, it is clear that poverty of spirit is connected with association with the physically poor.   The term “lowly” is qal, often associated with poverty and a low social station.  The term “poor” is anawim, which can also be translated as “outcast” or “insignificant.”  Poverty in spirit, then, is keeping company with the rejected, retaining a social station that is considered to be inadequate by “normal” society. 

This goes with the other beatitudes.  The blessed are those who are mourning because of the difficulties of their lives.  They are meek, thus vulnerable.  They are merciful, and so associated with those who have need.  They are persecuted, rejected by society at large. To be poor in spirit is to associate with the outcast.  It is to be hated by association. 

It is also hatred because of inadequacy. It is to be remembered that “poverty in spirit” isn’t just a spiritual state, but a physical state.  When Luke translates the same phrase, he interprets it as, “Blessed are you who are poor.”  (Luke 6:20).  Blessed are you who have less than you ought to live. 

Poverty is a human state, one which we all experience.  We all, at times in our lives, experience suffering we cannot push aside.  We all experience a sickness that doctors cannot easily solve.  Most of us experience economic loss to such a degree that we cannot live on our own. 

This poverty is the enemy of our lives. The majority of humanity rejects poverty and names it the enemy.  They declare wars on poverty, to destroy it. This is a fine occupation for a government and a community.  Poverty is to be seen as the true enemy of the state.  But it is also a part of the human experience and by the individual should be accepted as such.

In his exalted state, Jesus experienced only exaltation, only greatness and respect.  In his human state, he had to experience suffering, pain, disrespect and hatred, hunger and sickness.  Instead of seeing this universal human experience as being evil, he saw it as an opportunity.  Poverty and pain isn’t our enemy, but it is what drives us to dependence.  And dependence is the doorway to blessing.  If we did not have dependence, we would never receive anything.  Never could we have the riches of God unless we had the opportunity to be poor, to be rejected, to be sick.

Poverty is the doorway to grace, thus it is a state of blessing.

Poverty is seen as our enemy because in this world it is exposure to shame. For an adult to be poor is to be a failure, to fail at one’s responsibilities, to be an inadequate husband, an inadequate mother.  Poverty means that all one’s efforts to be self-sufficient have failed.  And in the world, to be self-sufficient is what is means to be an adult.

To be poor is to be forced to be dependent.  For this reason, poverty is blessed.