The
Way of Giving and Receiving
How
many of us can remember a November when we haven’t shared in a food drive, or
helped serve dinners for those struggling with homelessness, or invited a
lonely neighbor over for dinner? How many of us have given money for food or
assembled food baskets for those in need? For most of us, this I the time of
year when we remember our responsibility to those who live at the edges of
society. It says a lot about our character as people of faith that we have an
impulse to share with those whose needs are greater than our own; that we share
with those who so often feel forgotten.
It
is a season of great generosity. But is it also a time of justice? Let’s turn
to the example of Jesus to look for some answers. This is from Mark 12:38ff.
Jesus
taught: “Beware of these teachers of religious law! For they like to parade
around in flowing robes and receive respectful greetings as they walk in the
marketplaces. And how they love the
seats of honor in the synagogues and the head table at banquets. Yet they
shamelessly cheat widows out of their property and then pretend to be pious by
making long prayers in public. Because of this, they will be more severely
punished.”
Let’s
stop there for a moment. Notice how Jesus describes the Scribes. A Scribe’s
primary occupation was writing out copies of the Jewish Scriptures and teaching
people about the details of following Jewish religious law. In Mark’s gospel,
Jesus makes the point repeatedly that the Scribes, these leaders and law
experts, expect privilege and status. Jesus wants those who follow his Way to
be last and “servants of all.” But the Scribes use religion as a veil for
economic opportunism. Let’s see how this scene plays out.
Jesus
sat down near the collection box in the Temple and watched as the crowds
dropped in their money. Many rich people put in large amounts. Then a poor
widow came and dropped in two small coins. Jesus called his disciples to him and
said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has given more than all the others
who are making contributions. For they gave a tiny part of their surplus, but
she, poor as she is, has given everything she had to live on.”
I
was always taught that Jesus wants his followers to see the contrast between the
religious hypocrisy of the scribes and the genuine piety of the poor woman. The
interpretation comes straight from John Calvin, granddaddy of our Reformed
tradition. Calvin says the poor should not hesitate to express their devotion
to God cheerfully out of their slender means, “for if they consecrate
themselves, their offering, which appears to be mean and worthless” is not
insignificant to God. According to Calvin, God wants self-denial, and the poor are
the prime example. He wrote that around the year 1560. It is part of a long
tradition in Christianity. Our exemplars embrace poverty, give their last
pennies away to find happiness, boast of sufferings, and befriend suffering in
order to find peace.
But
here’s the thing: I don’t think Jesus holds the poor widow’s ultimate financial
sacrifice up as a model for self-denial. Let’s rethink this.
The
Way of Jesus has taken him and his followers to Jerusalem. They may feel a
little out of step with the hustle and bustle of urban life. Think about how it
feels to visit New York City on a crowded day during the holidays. For me it’s
amazing and scary all at the same time. The full array of humanity is there to
see: rich and poor, greedy and generous, with religion and commercialism mixed
into one onslaught for the senses. Imagine it’s the same in Jerusalem. Swarms
of people are there, rich and poor, powerful and powerless. Jesus makes his way
to the Temple treasury. The Temple has 13 trumpet-shaped chests along the walls
of a space called The Court of Women. Worshippers toss their financial
offerings into these chests. Some of the donors are rich people who give from
their abundance. But Jesus singles out one woman. We know two things about her.
She is poor, and she is a widow. In Jewish law, she is a member of a protected
class. Hebrew Scripture clearly calls people to care for widows because they
have no support net (Deut. 14.29). Jewish faith understands God’s creation has
enough for everyone to flourish. If there is poverty, it’s because some have
filled their pockets first. So, instead of being a recipient of Temple funds,
the poor widow donates two little coins. She gives all that is left of her
whole life.
Jesus
says, “She just gave everything she had to live on! She gives from her
destitution!” His words are not praise, but a lament for the disgusting
injustice that creates the condition for this scene. He watches a woman give
her last coins to support the oppressors who keep her in poverty. She helps finance
the system designed to keep her poor. Jesus does not admire the poor widow’s
generous spirit of self-denial. Jesus is horrified by a religion-supported
economic system that creates classes of haves and have-nots. Instead of
protecting widows, the Scribes exploit them in order to feed their
self-important status. For Jesus, the Temple becomes a symbol of that which preys
upon and then devours the resources of the poor. And Jesus objects.
We
see the equivalent of the poor widow in our communities. We have lots of
cultural stereotypes that go with the word “poor.” One stereotype is poor
people are lazy, unintelligent, inarticulate, and overly emotional. Another
stereotype is poor people spend money on frivolous things. If poor people just
gave up on cigarettes, lottery tickets, and IPhones, they would pop up into the
middle class. Have you ever wondered where these stereotypes come from?
The
poor are not some lump of people at the bottom of society who are just there as
the underclass, permanently outside the mainstream of American life. In today’s
American life, the poor are working people. Poverty happens to working-class
Americans. In America, we are not just divided by economic status. Economic
status is all tied up with social status. I hear a lot about how we are living
in a divided nation politically. But politics is all tied up with social
status, too. America’s class system is the elephant in the room of our schools,
our justice system, our county council meetings, and yes, class is the elephant
in the room of our churches. So let’s talk about it.
Martin
Luther King Jr. identified three elements working together to cause oppression
in America. Each element works separately but in tandem with the other two to
create a storm of lost opportunity for millions of Americans. The first element
is racism. Racism puts white American men in control of a system that has keeps
non-whites, and especially women of color, out of positions of power and
opportunities for advancement.
The
second part of the triangle of oppression is classism. As he peeled back the
layers of American oppression, Dr. King realized racism was not operating
alone. How could it be that people of the racially dominant group could be
oppressed with a power equal to that of racism? For instance, poverty is not
just a problem for African-Americans living in blighted inner cities. We know
part of Trump’s rise to power came from expectant, working-class, rural, white,
Coal and Rust Belt voters living in poverty. They believed the promise that
their jobs and their prosperity would return. A poor white person has a
parallel struggle to a poor person of color regardless of white privilege. But,
the white working class continues to sink into deep poverty and the white
middle class continues to disappear. The oppression and resentment of poorer
white Americans is real. How can that be? And how can be that people of color can
reach the highest levels in business, education, and government, despite their ethnic
and cultural background? King linked it to classism -- the belief that people
from certain social or economic classes are superior to others.
Let’s
stop here to reflect on how race and class are related. Most of the American
lower class is white. Most of the American prison population is white. White
privilege does not always overcome classism. However, a lower-class white
person still has more opportunities handed to them than a fellow lower-class
black person simply on the basis of skin color. The working-class white person
may still feel superior and resent non-white groups including black and brown
immigrants and Muslims. It is a divide-and-conquer tactic used by those in
power to turn marginalized groups against each other to protect the upper
class.
The
third part of the triangle is poverty. If poverty alone were alleviated, if
each person truly had enough food, wealth, healthcare, and a good job, it would
ease the oppression caused by racism and classism. But it would not end that
oppression. Dr. King said, “In the final analysis, the rich must not ignore the
poor because both rich and poor are tied in a single garment of destiny. All
life is interrelated, and all [people] are interdependent. The agony of the
poor diminishes the rich, and the salvation of the poor enlarges the rich. We
are inevitably our brothers'[and sister’s] keeper because of the interrelated
structure of reality.”
As
I said earlier, I think most Americans are generous people. We want to help. We
want to heal. But how do we achieve and maintain equality and embrace
diversity? The idea of offering charity for the poor is part of who we are.
Charity is an attractive quality. But Generosity is not enough. Charity is not justice.
The way for the poor to have a better life is for them to have more power. We
stand for generosity with justice. Generosity with justice means we aren’t just
charitable toward the poor. Charity can be given in a way that’s deeply hurtful
and in the long run counterproductive. Generosity with justice means we offer
help that says, "Let’s work together, let’s stand together, in ways that
make us fully and equally powerful as we seek to fulfill our common interests
and individual needs.” Where inequity exists, we will not accept the
widely-held perspective that blames the victims. Generosity with justice allows
us to feel the pain of these oppressive and unbalanced social, religious, and
economic systems, regardless of our privileged or unprivileged position.
Our
generous outreach at this time of year is awesome. It’s good to share our food
those who are hungry. It’s even better when we share food and fix that causes
of hunger. We feed the hungry and work to make food available to all. We offer a
drink to the thirsty, and make sure that water everyone has the right to clean,
abundant water. We clothe the naked and remember that only when the necessities
of life are met, only then have we all experienced what it means to be fully
human. We work for the dawning of a new world in which the powers of domination
and inequity are toppled, where the poor are not asked to subsidize their own
oppression, where power and equality are restored to the dispossessed. This is
the true Way of Giving and Receiving. We dream it. We pray for it. We breathe
it. We live it.
Sources:
“Classism
and Economic Injustice,” http://www.uucr. org/sermons/classismandeconomic.html
Ched
Myers, Binding the Strongman,
pp.318-323.
Rev.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Prize Speech, http://evergreenuu.
org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=CMZGEPaRv9o%3D&tabid=192
“Don’t
be charitable to the poor...” http://thewitness.
org/archive/oct2001/zweiginterview.html
“Deep
Interrelatedness and Transformation,” http://www.classism.
org/human-arising
"Thanksgiving
2011” http://spsmw. org/2011/11/16/thanksgiving-2011/
Richard
W. Swanson, Provoking the Gospel of Mark.
https://www.therutgersreview. com/2018/02/10/classism-americas-overlooked-problem
The Politics of Jesús: A Hispanic
Political Theology By Miguel A. De La Torre
