The Poor & Poor in Spirit

 I'd like to share with you this morning what brought me to this call and what I've learned along the way as a pastor.

At 23 in 1994, I walked away from the Christianity handed to me. You could call me a deconstructionist OG. A crucial reason why I left was that I felt the Christianity given to me was too silent on issues like racism and poverty. In fact, when it wasn’t quiet on these matters, it came down on the side of the wealthy and the powerful. I didn’t see Jesus. And how I wanted to see Jesus!.  

Dr. Martin Luther King’s work and words were my first glimmer of a more liberative approach to the Jesus way. 

And then as a 27 year-old undergraduate – yes, I was on the 10-year college plan – I took an upper-level class simply called “Christian Theology.” Dr. Mary Cunningham introduced us to Dr. James Cone and liberation theology. Some two years later, I’d be in Dr. Cone’s Systematic Theology class at Union Seminary!

Liberation theology spoke loudly, and I heard its truth. To borrow words from the Tao Te Ching, Liberation theology preached that God, like water, flows to “rock bottom” to raise up those found there, those who've hit rock bottom.

Christ, our living water, broke into time and space, and flowed directly to those pushed to the bottom, to those with their backs against the wall. Of all realms to enter, God in Christ chose to enter the realm of the poor and the oppressed. Christ didn’t choose the high places where the wealthy and powerful reside and reign from. He didn’t choose Rome’s kingdoms or Jerusalem’s temple palaces. In fact, Jesus forewent the highest realm there is, his throne in heaven, and chose the forgotten and discarded places, the disinherited places, places where the poor and the oppressed struggle and strive. 

In Christ, God chose solidarity with those with their backs against the wall. 

In a few weeks, we’ll again recall the story of a young family in Western Asia welcoming a child born in a barn, forced to flee as refugees to a foreign land, only to return to a home still occupied by a ruthless, oppressive empire. God chose this context as a first impression, Christ’s introduction to the world!

Jesus, some 30 years later, introduces his ministry this way: 

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me. He has sent me to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to liberate the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Liberation theology resonated with me at the profoundest level. I came out of seminary with Dr. Cone’s words ringing in my ear and heart, “In Christ, God enters human affairs and takes sides with the oppressed. Their suffering becomes his; their despair, divine despair. Through Christ the poor [are] offered freedom now to rebel against that which makes [them] other than human.”

I found Jesus again! Liberation theology helped me see Jesus again, and I'm here following my call because of Jesus, the one who liberates.

I’ve been a pastor for some 19 years now. And I’ve come to see some things. 

Maybe foremost is this: Human vulnerability and suffering come in various forms and find us all. Jesus, in Matthew 5, gives us a short list of the myriad ways humans suffer and experience vulnerability.

Blessed are those who mourn.

Blessed are the persecuted. 

Blessed are those starving for righteousness and justice.

Blessed are the poor in spirit.

Yes, Jesus prioritized society’s down and out ones, as Dr. Cone preached. Blessed are the poor, woe to you who are rich, Jesus says.

But Jesus also says, Blessed are the poor in spirit. That “in spirit” is our guide here into the community of the blessed.

Poor in spirit - what does this mean? Here’s a paraphrase: 

Blessed are those who recognize that spiritually, emotionally, way down in their souls, they don’t have enough, aren’t strong enough, are wholly dependent on God. 

Want to see a model of the poor in spirit? Go to an AA meeting! They know what Jesus means deep in their bones.

Blessed also are the mournful, the heartsick, the grieving, the tearful. 

Blessed are those who feel persecuted – maybe by chronic illness, by clinical depression, by unresolved trauma, by unrelenting regrets. 

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for fairness and justice in the world, but go unfed and unquenched..

Blessed are the brokenhearted. 

Blessed are the vulnerable.

Blessed, really? How? 

Well, God has found favor with you! For God chooses rock bottom!

Are you spiritually amiss and feeling lost today? Are you heartsick? Are you grieving? Are you suffering or in pain? Do you feel persecuted? Do you hunger and thirst for justice and feel the hunger pangs of an uncaring world? Are you brokenhearted?

If the answer is yes, this is the Christian call:

Know that God in divine grace finds favor in you, dwelling with you at the rock bottoms of life. This God is your refuge and strength that will never leave nor forsake you! This is the gospel!

But don’t stop there. There’s more to our calling. There’s this:

In your pain and vulnerability, see yourself in the most vulnerable!

Connect your pain and vulnerability to other’s pain and vulnerability, namely that of the most marginalized among us. 

Let your pain and vulnerability move you to spiritual solidarity - at-one-ment - with those who are perennially on the outside looking in, who know the vicious sting of poverty, injustice, and inequality. 

Be in spiritual solidarity with those whose backs are against the wall.

I close with Philippians 2. 

Be of the same mind that was in Christ Jesus who

 did not regard equality with God
    as something to be grasped…

Full equality with God is not in our wheelhouse. But letting go of status, status quos, and comfort zones to truly see and feel the pain of the invisible and ignored, that we can do and are called to do. 

Be of the same mind that was in Christ Jesus who

emptied himself,
    taking the form of a slave…

Becoming enslaved to liberate the enslaved may be too much to ask. But emptying self and being in spiritual solidarity with the oppressed, the hated and despised – that we can do and are called to do. 

Be of the same mind that was in Christ Jesus who

humbled himself
    and became obedient to the point of death…

Peacefully carrying our own cross to the point of death to liberate others, that may be too much to ask. But humbling ourselves and being in spiritual at-one-ment with the discarded and disinherited, that we can do and are called to do. 

And God who exalted Christ, will, in the same way, exalt the poor and the poor in spirit together, united in their vulnerability. Like a rising tide lifting all boats, our rising Christ will exalt the empty and humble, from the bottom up. Together, we will rise with Christ, liberated to actualize God’s kingdom forever.

May it be so. Amen.