Dana Reardon - The Poor Will Always Be With You

The Poor Will Always Be With Us, Therefore ...

The disciples' words to Jesus "For this ointment could have been sold for a large sum, and the money given to the poor," and Jesus words to Judas. " For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me," have long bothered me. I have heard them used as an excuse not to help the poor -- as if Jesus was saying that there will always be starving people, so why do anything? Read this way, it sounds like a kind of fatalism born out or a mentality of scarcity.

Did Jesus really mean for us to be resigned to the fact that hunger was a fact of life that we could do nothing about?

What exactly did Jesus mean when he said that you always have the poor with you?

I have an idea. I think that Jesus says this to us also when we get like the disciples. When we see a sum of money spent in a way which does not gain our approval such as a new organ or a new stained glass window. We say "oh, that money could have been spent on the poor." In reality we haven't been working or thinking about the poor. Jesus is asking where our concern for the poor was yesterday and where it will be tomorrow when this expenditure we disapprove of is not in front of us.

If the poor are always with us then we should always have their needs in front of us. If the poor are always with us, then we should think about them with every money decision we make. If the poor are always with us, we should be giving and sharing until everyone is fed.

Jesus is not talking out of a scarcity model that says that there is not enough to go around and so there will always be poor people. Jesus is talking out of an abundance model that says that there is plenty to feed the poor and also honor him as the woman did with her ointment.

The devil whispers in our ears, as the devil did with the disciples, that there is not enough to go around. It makes people hold back in their giving to make sure that their family has enough, when in reality we have more than we could ever need. It makes churches think they cannot give of what has been given them because they need it all for their own survival. It makes those who really do work for the hungry think there is not enough to have some beauty in art and architecture to honor God.

The devil has created a myth of scarcity and we twist the words of Jesus to perpetuate it.

Jesus' vision of the kingdom is one where everyone has a coat because those with two have given one away. Jesus' vision of the kingdom is one where everyone is fed because we see Him in the hungry and give back to Him out of the abundance that we have been given.

God has given us everything that we need and Jesus call is to share it and honor Him in the sharing, as well as in the stained glass and organ music.

Lord,

We give thanks for your abundant gifts. Help us to realize our riches and to share them. Amen

The Rev. Dana Reardon is pastor at St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church, Warwick, RI. A lifelong Lutheran, she came to ordained ministry after 21 years in nursing, mostly in pediatric intensive care. She graduated from Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia in 1998 and served 4 ½ years in Upstate New York before becoming a New Englander. She is still trying to understand the accent. While in the Upstate New York Synod she chaired the Stewardship Team. That began her fascination with what makes stewards -- and more, what makes for generosity. She has three amazing daughters: Pastor Reardon says much of what she knows of life she learned from them.