20 February 2014 - poor over

20 February 2014 - poor over

Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters.
Did not God choose those who are poor in the world
to be rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom
that he promised to those who love him?

Jesus himself "though he was rich ... became poor" in order to make us rich (cf. 2 Cor. 8:9).  He comes not to be served but to serve (20:28).  His love reaches down from the inestimably large gulf between God and man.  And he calls us to love one another as he loves us (cf. Joh. 13:34).

"The Lord hears the cry of the poor."  So what business do we have making distinctions among ourselves and becoming "judges with evil designs".  It isn't just the wealthy to whom we give undue priority.  There are many ways in which the worldly and successful people have a certain allure.  They speak to us of the promises of happiness and fulfillment in this life.  Their very lives seem to say that we do not need God.  Just as we try to build lives of comfort for ourselves so to do we surround ourselves with lives that help us to forget that such comfort is temporary.  We look away from the weak, the infirm, the sick, the poor, the lonely, and the unloved because they remind us that we are not now in heaven.  They remind us that the comforts we accumulate may be snatched from us at any moment.  Often they show us the joy that can be had in God in spite of circumstances in this world.  And that can challenge us.

Look to him that you may be radiant with joy,
and your faces may not blush with shame.
When the poor one called out, the LORD heard,
and from all his distress he saved him.

When Jesus tells his disciples that he must suffer Peter rebukes him.   Peter succumbs to the temptation to insist on this-worldly happiness.  We recognize that this is a temptation that faces even we who think ourselves devout.  After all, just before he rebukes Jesus, Peter confesses that he is the Christ, a revelation from the Father in heaven.  The cross is always a stumbling block.  If we look at it truly, if we gaze at it from our hearts, and if we allow it to change us, we can only say with Paul, "whatever gains I had, these I have come to consider a loss" (cf Phi. 3:).  Paul can say this because he has "been crucified with Christ".  He has let the vision of the cross change him from the inside out. 

The cross renders all of our supposed distinctions between groups of men as insignificant.  Now there "is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female" for we "are all one in Christ Jesus."

If we don't stop "thinking not as God does, but as human beings do" we will always give at least a slight unconscious preference toward those rich in the things of this passing world.  We may try to say that we are only human beings and so it is only natural for us to think this way.  But we are more than that.  We "have the mind of Christ" (cf. 1 Cor. 2:16).  God loves us even though we are poor.  Let us embrace our poverty so that we can help make the whole world rich in the things of God. And let us glorify him.

I will bless the LORD at all times;
his praise shall be ever in my mouth.
Let my soul glory in the LORD;
the lowly will hear me and be glad.