Providing for the poor

Lev 25: 35–43

Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 14 Oct, 2007

JESUS SAID, “You will always have the poor with you.” He wasn’t callous about the poor, but realistic about the need in the world and our responsibility in the face of that need.

Today begins Poverty Week in NSW, and what better topic for Christians to concern ourselves with, than the poverty in our land and throughout the world?

I am sure I have said it before, but it bears repeating, that, if you own your own house or flat, you are rich by the world’s standards; if you own a car, you are super–rich, if you have a regular job, and don’t have to stand in queue every day hoping that someone will give you work today, you are living beyond the wildest dreams of many people.

Here in Australia, apart from in some of the really depressed Aboriginal communities, you don’t find a lot of the absolute poverty that you do in other parts of the world. Here, our poverty is relative. We have many people who are out of the loop when it comes to the ordinary things of life.

Never think that relative poverty is OK, though. Is relative sickness OK? Can you neglect a gangrenous leg because it’s only partial death, not total death?

There are places where people’s homes are on the rubbish heaps. The children live from what they pick out of the day’s garbage. That’s abject poverty. There is too much of it.

In Australia too many people have to sleep on a friend’s lounge because they can’t afford rent and have no steady income. But they can probably get medical care when they need it, and occasionally can afford a treat. That’s relative poverty.

As Christians we have to be aware of poverty in our own country and in the world we live in, because we have a duty, going back to the earliest days of God’s people, to care for the poor in the name of Jesus.

I want us to look at it from three positions today: what the Old Testament teaches about poverty, what the New Testament teaches about poverty, and, finally, examples of poverty today and how Christians can respond.

THE OLD TESTAMENT

 From the earliest days, the Jews were taught to be responsible for the poor.

In the passage we read today, we saw how strictly the Israelites were enjoined to care for the poor.

In the first place, the Israelites were taught to ensure that a poor countryman should be able to continue living among them.

 ^{LEV 25:35} “ `If one of your countrymen becomes poor and is unable to support himself among you, help him as you would an alien or a temporary resident, so he can continue to live among you.

God keeps insisting to the Israelites, “You are strangers and aliens in this land yourselves. Look after strangers and aliens among you, and don’t do any worse for your fellow countrymen than you would for a foreigner.”

That’s important. Haven’t we seen it ourselves, how sometimes we Christians will do everything necessary to look after someone from outside, but we think, “God can look after Christians!” And we don’t help our own.

The Israelites were expected to be more even–handed about citizens and foreigners than just about any other nation of their time.

It is a matter of justice.

³⁶ Do not take interest of any kind from him, but fear your God, so that your countryman may continue to live among you. ³⁷ You must not lend him money at interest or sell him food at a profit.

Furthermore, as you just saw, you can’t make a profit from a poor person.

This is one of the rules which is most often broken in our own country.

If you are poor in Australia, you will be encouraged to get into debt as well.

There are plenty of businesses offering you no interest for a year, two years, who knows how long. People sign up because they want things, and they figure they will be able to pay when the time comes.

There are so many businesses which tell you that a bad credit rating is no obstacle.

And then there is the incessant touting for business by financial institutions. When I went into Theological College, I dropped from $500 a week ― the same job would pay arond $1000 a week now ― I dropped to aroujnd $50 a week, which covered transport to and from College. I became painfully aware of the threats that Banks and Insurance companies used. “If you don’t have our product, you’ll be high and dry when you retire, if you don’t have our credit card, how will you pay...?” It goes on and on. It is specifically geared to make people feel financially insecure.

God reminds his people that they are a nation of refugees in a temporary home.

³⁸ I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.

Battlers had better remember to understand other battlers. The real battlers aren’t the mum and dad shareholders in Telstra. It’s the people who sometimes go to Anglicare for ¥help to make it through the week.

God reminds us that we are refugees in a temporary home ― but we have a God who brought us here and cares for us!

God demands that we be generous, that we give the poor relief.

^{LEV 25:39} “ `If one of your countrymen becomes poor among you and sells himself to you, do not make him work as a slave.

This is not the harsh rules of “mutual obligation,.” This is responsibility tempered with grace. God doesn’t say, “Oh, let him off!” He says, “Let him take responsibility, but meet him part way so it is not too harsh.”

⁴⁰ He is to be treated as a hired worker or a temporary resident among you; he is to work for you until the Year of Jubilee. ⁴¹ Then he and his children are to be released, and he will go back to his own clan and to the property of his forefathers. ⁴² Because the Israelites are my servants, whom I brought out of Egypt, they must not be sold as slaves. ⁴³ Do not rule over them ruthlessly, but fear your God.

In the Jubilee year, even if someone had only been a slave for a few months and still had years to work to pay off the debt, he still had to be released from the duty of repayment.

But this is only a fraction of the entire Old Testament teaching on care for the poor.

For example, we must deal with the poor without favouritism. In Exodus we read,

^{EX 23:6} “Do not deny justice to your poor people in their lawsuits.

But be careful not to go too far the other way, because God also tells the Israelites,

^23:4 When you give testimony in a lawsuit, do not pervert justice by siding with the crowd, ³ and do not show favoritism to a poor man in his lawsuit.

We do have to make sure that the poor are provided for.

In Exodus 23:11, we read

...during the seventh year let the land lie unplowed and unused. Then the poor among your people may get food from it, and the wild animals may eat what they leave. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove.

You have to leave something to make sure that the poor are catered for.

In Leviticus, God expands on this principle, and says,

 ^{LEV 19:9} “ `When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. ¹⁰ Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God.

So there is plenty in the Old Testament about caring for the poor. We haven’t started on the Psalms or the prophets.

THE NEW TESTAMENT

When you come to the New Testament, the first thing to remember is that Jesus and the disciples lived in a world where, by and large, the rules set down in Moses’ day still applied. Jesus didn’t repeat what the Old Testament said, because everyone knew it anyway.

But Jesus certainly didn’t contradict what the Old Testament said, either.

When John the Baptist asked Jesus if he was the messiah or not, Jesus told him to look at the evidence. We read,

^{MT 11:4} Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: ⁵ The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor. ⁶ Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.”

When the poor are hearing good news for a change, that’s evidence that something good has happened.

I had a chance to watch a focus group a little while ago, where all the participants were people who had come through struggles and were battlers.

I can’t tell what they said, not in detail, but I can say that not one of them felt he or she heard much to be happy about. Family members on drugs, the problems of getting by on unemployment benefits, being done over by the system ― they knew it all, and that was what they talked about.

But Jesus went beyond the Old Testament.

The law of Moses was negative, in a sense. It told the Israelites what not to do ― don’t treat the poor badly, don’t reap to the edges. Leave room for the poor to manoeuvre in, wo that they can get by.

Jesus has a lot more positive things to say about the poor.

For example, he tells us,

 ^{MT 19:21} Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

It’s more than just leaving people room ― it’s about taking positive action to benefit the poor.

In Mark 12, Jesus tells his disciples that a widow who put a couple of cents into the offering gave more than the rich people who put in hundreds, because they gave a little bit of their wealth, but the poor woman put in nall she had. Jesus recognises that taxes impact more heavily on the poor than on the rich. Any modern economist would recognise the principle ― they’d call it the principle of progressive tax scales. Once again, it’s about having a positive attitude to the poor.

In Luke’s gospel, we read,

^{LK 6:20} Looking at his disciples, he said:
“Blessed are you who are poor,
   for yours is the kingdom of God.
²¹ Blessed are you who hunger now,
   for you will be satisfied.

It’s more than just leaving something for the poor, and it’s more than making sure we give to the poor, but it’s reassurance that God is biassed in favour of the strugglers.

Jesus puts it very graphically to the well–to–do Jews of his day:

^{LUKE 14:13} But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, ¹⁴ and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

In the book of Acts, we read about the Roman, Cornelius, whose gifts to the poor were remembered by God, which was why God specially singled him out to be the first among the Gentiles to believe in Christ. Giving to the poor is close to God’s heart, and he rejoices when he sees us do it.

WHAT TO DO

There is so much in the Bible about poverty. Do you know what the sin of Sodom is? Ezekiel says,

 ^{EZE 16:49} “ `Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.

Homosexual rape was just a symptom of a pervasive selfishness, a tell–tale sign of their radical self–interest. And it was that ― their arrogance, their gluttonous unconcern, their rejection of the poor and needy ― it was that which brought judgment on them.

As I said at the beginning, it is Poverty Week, and we need to concern ourselves with the issues of poverty.

I have heard so often about people who have suddenly had their welfare payments cut off, and it turns out that they were being punished for failing to attend some assessment procedure, but the clerk responsible forgot to send out the letter to say they had to attend. There is no penalty for the clerk, but a family goes without food. There are horror stories which make me angry just to think of them.

What about the farmers? For a couple of months, it looked as though we might have a break in the drought. But I think that last nights figure was 70% of the State severely drought–affected. Drought leads to poverty.

The Government has sent the army to the Northern Territory to make all the kids have health checks. That’s a form of abuse in itself. But what is being done to deal with poverty in Aboriginal communities? Poverty, drug addiction, abuse ― they all tie together.

We can do one of four things.

We can deny poverty, and join with those who abuse the poor. To do that is to deny our Christian faith, but it is an option.

We can ignore it and hope it goes away.

We can shake our heads and cluck our tongues and say how awful it is.

Or we can take action.

What action can we take, though?

Who is fighting for mutual obligation to apply to those who make the rules as much as to those who have to obey them? If those who rob the poor of their wages had to pay for their errors, far fewer would occur.

We can’t restart the rains, but we can be city folk who care for the country people, who listen to them and pray for them and advocate for them. I once suggested that the churches in our area could each adopt a church of another denomination in a drought–affected area, and write to them once a month, just to encourage them.

We could run a local food collection drive and give the collected goods to Anglicare or St Vincent de Paul.

There is so much to do. The needs are so great.

I’d love us to be able to help the people overseas who all need our assistance, but let’s start where we are with what we can do. God will lead us to expand our vision as we have the resources. Everyone starts somewhere!

We are small, and our resources are limited. But we can do something, and God will bless us for it when we do.

Let’s make a start on changing our part of the world, because Jesus will say to us,

Well done, good and faithful servant!

May we all hear that voice soon! AMEN

© Peter R. Green 2007. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)