I write this in an air-conditioned room, supplemented with a fan aimed at me. It’s beastly hot.

A sweltering heat wave has raised temperatures 10-20 degrees above normal.  My local heat index this past week regularly topped 110 degrees.  While I suffer minor inconveniences due to the heat (my bad case of poison ivy ignites into fiery itching as soon as I walk outside), as I write countless people are genuinely suffering.  

 It’s a good day to think about the poor. 

Around 1978 I attended a conference at my home church in Minneapolis led by Dr. Ron Sider. He had recently published a ground-breaking book: Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. Walking with him through hundreds of verses, I experienced a classic paradigm shift.  It was clear in and incontrovertible: God has a special concern for—indeed, identifies with—the poor and powerless.

God’s chosen people were slaves in Egypt.  When God became flesh, he did so as a poor, backwater Galilean. Most of Jesus’ disciples, and most members of the early church, were very poor and had no worldly power.

Jesus clearly announces his mission in the Nazareth synagogue by quoting the prophet Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
    and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  (Luke 4:18-19)

Certainly the gospel is for all. But Jesus makes a point of saying it is especially for the poor.  He says this not only with words, but even more with actions—he spends his time with poor people, lepers, all those “others” respectable people consider the dregs of society.

And in the historical context of Isaiah’s vision, the prisoners, blind, and oppressed were not “spiritually” blind or oppressed (our often convenient dodge) but suffering actual physical conditions.

God’s bias for the poor was a major shock to me.

You see, I already knew what was important to God.  It was saving souls, getting people to decide for Jesus. Now I was comprehending the biblical record—and pre-eminently Jesus himself—in a new and far more nuanced and complicated way.

All those verses about God’s care for the poor had been in my Bible. My worldview had simply filtered them out; they never registered with me until I was confronted with them.

Co-Opting the Poor

The poor showed up recently in my devotional reading of John’s gospel, in the story of Mary using costly anointment on Jesus:

But one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor?

My conversation partner through John’s gospel has been F. Dale Bruner in his The Gospel of John: A Commentary. Commenting specifically on the poor, he observes:

Both the far-theological left and the far-theological right wings of the Church have been too easily politicalized and co-opted by outside social forces.

The left wing has more forcefully elevated care for the poor to a central role in Christian life. For example, the Social Gospel movement of the early 20th century had clear biblical warrant:

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?  When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ (Matthew 25:37-40)

Jesus says the sole criterion to be welcomed into His Kingdom is this: how did we care for the poor around us?  There are no conditional clauses or “easy outs.”How can any of us hear these verses and not shudder in terror? (Yes, I know all about being “saved by grace through faith, not by works.” I have staked my life on it. But Matthew 25 is also in my Bible.)

Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg has made news (“Democrats are religious too!”) by vocalizing his liberal Episcopalian faith that embraces a priority for the poor. It is a valid viewpoint. Unfortunately, left-leaning Christians have sometimes gone too far, making justice for the poor the CENTER of the gospel, rather than an overflow of the gospel.  

At the same time, right-leaning Christians (I place myself here) easily make the opposite error of undervaluing or dismissing God’s concern for the poor.  

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, writing from a Catholic perspective, commented on the recent stories of deplorable living conditions in immigrant detention facilities:

For this cycle to break, for immigration policy to stabilize instead of whipsawing between folly and cruelty, you would need fraternal correction to happen within both the right-wing and left-wing coalitions.

He then speaks to the right-wing coalition:

On the American right, that correction ought to come from religious conservatives and their representatives, who have generally been far too blasé about the conditions in the migrant camps and the Trump administration’s moral responsibility to migrants

This is where the president’s religious supporters should be intervening, should be applying moral pressure, should be working to prove that the immigration restrictions they support can be implemented in accord with basic Christian principles.

Immigration status does not disqualify human beings from God’s love. Christians should care about poor people facing miserable conditions in detention centers because we should care about what God cares about.  God deeply cares about the poor.

In the Old Testament, abusing the poor and worshipping false gods are the two accusations God’s prophets leveled again and again against his people. Interesting, isn’t it, that idolatry should be so intertwined with not caring for the poor? 

Politics easily distorts biblical faith.

We evangelicals were quick to point out how political impulses warped left-leaning Christians’ too-exalted view of the poor for portions of the 20th century.  Let’s be equally clear-eyed in admitting how political impulses are distorting right-leaning Christians’ too-depressed view of the poor today.

What’s the solution?  Dale Bruner wisely comments on God’s “preferential option” for the poor:

Perhaps paradoxically, the only way to keep this preferential option really alive in the Church is by the full honoring and constant centering on the person and work of Jesus Christ, who constantly sustains this preference.

Politics has no time for paradox.  Both left and right shrink biblical faith into talking points advancing their agendas. Both eschew  “both/and;” only “either/or” lets them weaponize faith for their own ends.  

For POLITICS, “the full honoring and constant centering on the person and work of Jesus Christ” is simply not important.  What is important is winning.

For JESUS, the poor are more important than often seen by the right, and less important than often seen by the left. Jesus inhabits a paradoxical center based solely on his person and work, which we come to know only be spending time with him.

If we are paying attention, we will reject attempts to co-opt Jesus by any political party, especially regarding God’s deep concern for the poor.

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