It Isn’t A Suggestion

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

March 23, 2014

The Third Sunday in Lent

It Isn’t A Suggestion

Deuteronomy 15:11

Since there will never cease to be

some in need on the earth,

I therefore command you,

Open your hand to the poor

and needy neighbor in your land.

“The poor should stop being poor.”

It is as simple as that.

At least according to a business commentator

I heard recently on television.

He was simple, direct, to the point:

“The poor should stop being poor.”

(Todd Wilemon interviewed on The Daily Show,

March 6, 2014)

That really should put an end

to the long and contentious debate

we’ve been having in this country

the last couple of years,

the debate we’ve been having

throughout the world,

about the growing gap between rich and poor,

the fact that the rich are  growing richer,

while the number of poor continues to grow.

“The wealthiest 10% now take a larger slice

of the economic pie than they did in 1912,

the peak of the Gilded Age.”

(The New York Times, March 12, 2014, Page B4)

The facts of income inequality aren’t debated;

they’re clear.

What do to about it, though,

or even whether we should do anything about it,

that’s what has been contentious.

So it’s good to have some certainty

injected into the debate:

“The poor should stop being poor.

They should work harder,

lift themselves out of poverty,

stop being lazy,

dependent,

takers,

willing to let others take care of them.”

This is what we are hearing more and more frequently

from voices loud and strident,

even indignant,

voices sure of themselves.

“This is just capitalism at work”, they say,

“the poor can have their share,

if they’d only work harder.”

                                            

What are we to do,

we who are, before we are anything else,

disciples of Jesus Christ?

What are we to do,

who are we to listen to,

we who want live by the Word of God

as we follow Jesus Christ?

Jesus seemed to have muddied the waters when he said,

“You always have the poor with you,”

(Matthew 26:11)

a comment that has been interpreted over the years

as meaning that there really isn’t

a lot we can do, you and I,

that poverty is just a part of life as we know it,

so while, yes, we should help,

we don’t need to lose sleep over it;

there is only so much we can do.                         

But was that what Jesus was really saying?

Was that what Jesus wants us to hear?

Of course not.

When he said those words, he was echoing

the words we heard Moses speak in our lesson,

words Moses spoke to the children of Israel

at the end of their time in the wilderness,

as they were preparing for their new lives

as a covenant community in the Promised Land.

Moses was stating life’s sad reality:

“there will never cease to be

some in need on the earth.”

We know that’s true now,

just as it was in Moses’ time.

But we can’t stop there,

because Moses didn’t stop there;

he kept speaking, with a call to action:

“I therefore command you,

Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor

 in your land.”

“I command you.”

Moses didn’t say to the children of Israel,

“Here’s a suggestion;

here’s something for you to ponder;

let me share my thoughts with you for your consideration.”

He said,

“I command you:

Open your hand to the poor

and needy neighbor in your land.”

That’s the simple,

the concise statement we are looking for;

we who are followers of Jesus Christ.

We are not to “tell the poor to stop being poor;”

we are to open our hands to the poor;

open our hands to the needy.

Open our hands to our neighbors.

Moses’ words are God’s words

to the children of Israel,

and to you and me,

and they set our course,

give us our basic operating instructions.

It is a message that we find repeated again and again,

so consistently throughout the Bible,

a book that is often filled with

frustrating inconsistency.

God makes clear through Moses,

God makes clear through the prophets,

God makes clear through the psalmist and the teachers,

and God makes clear through our Lord Jesus Christ,

that we are called to share God’s

heartfelt concern for the poor:

“If you close your ear to the cry of the poor,”

says the Lord,

“then when you cry out, you will not be heard,

for those who oppress the poor insult their Maker.”

(Proverbs 21:13 and 14:31)

The stranger, the man, the woman, the child,

those who struggle to make ends meet,

who worry about food, shelter, clothing –

that person, those people, that family:

they are our neighbors,

and aren’t we called to love our neighbors?

We are not to condemn.

We are not to criticize.

We are not to judge.

The man who lost his job,

the single mother who juggles two jobs

and still can’t quite make ends meet,

the biblical widow or orphan:

they are all our neighbors,

all with needs.

Are there some who choose not to work,

who try to take advantage of

programs created to help?

Of course there are,

just as there are “wolves on Wall Street”;

just as there are drugs in sports;

just as there is corruption in police departments;

just as there is cheating among the students at Harvard.

We cannot condemn the whole for the larceny of the few.

Dr. Mark Rank, a professor at Washington University,

wrote in the New York Times last November,

“Few topics in American society

have more myths and stereotypes

surrounding them than poverty,

misconceptions that distort both our politics

and our domestic policy making.

They include the notion that poverty affects

a relatively small number of Americans,

that the poor are impoverished for years at a time,

that most of those in poverty live in inner cities,

that too much welfare assistance is provided,

and that poverty is ultimately a result of

not working hard enough.

Although pervasive, each assumption is flat-out wrong.”

(“Poverty in America is Mainstream”,

The New York Times, November 2, 2013)

Each assumption is flat-out wrong.

Poverty knows no bounds –

geographic, cultural, ethnic: 

poverty is everywhere,

in the inner cities, and in the rural countryside.

I’ve seen it in inner city Buffalo, New York, Philadelphia.

And I’ve seen it in the rural countryside:

Drive the roads of Sullivan county in the Catskill region

of New York State or some of the back roads

near where I vacation in Vermont each summer

and you’ll find as many people

living in rural poverty as you will in any inner city.

John the Baptizer put it so simply:

“Whoever has two coats must share

with anyone who has none;

and whoever has food must do likewise.”

(Luke 3:11)

If we want clarity as disciples of Christ,

an answer to how we are to help those in need

in a way that is faithful, there it is.

To stand with arms folded,

a judgmental look on our face is faithless,

faithless: there is no other word.

Lent is a time for us to turn our minds,

our hearts to repentance,

repentance for all our sins,

including the sin of pride,

the sin of arrogance,

the sin of judgment,

the sin of self-righteousness,

the sin of hard-heartedness.

In the first letter of Timothy we find advice

that can help us repent and find a new direction,

advice that was directed at the rich,

but which is good for us, too:

As for those who in the present age are rich,

command them not to be haughty,

or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches,

but rather on God …

They are to do good,

to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share,

thus storing up for themselves

the treasure of a good foundation for the future,

so that they may take hold of the life

 that really is life.

(1 Timothy 6:17ff)

“Do good”

“Be rich in good works”

“Be generous”

“Be ready to share”

Do not judge or condemn

the child who would otherwise

go to school hungry;

feed him.

Do not judge or condemn

the single mother with three small children;

help her find a a job that pays a living wage;

help her find a place for her and her children to live

that is clean and safe;

help her to care for her children.

Do not judge or condemn the man left behind

in a part of the city abandoned by businesses;

Help him to learn new skills,

and then help him to find work that will not only

set him back up on his feet again,

but restore his sense of self,

his pride as  the child of God he is.

                 

Yes, the poor will always be with us…

here in this world,

the world we have created.

But not in God’s world,

not in God’s kingdom.

In God’s kingdom, all are fed,

all are cared for,

because all are loved.

“Your kingdom come, O Lord,

Your will be done,

on earth,

as it is in heaven.”

AMEN