Blessed are the Poor

When we look at our choices through the eyes of Christ, much of what we assumed was normal is turned upside down. For example, there is oftentimes no bigger value driving us and the people we know than the pursuit of wealth. And yet, when Christ’s values become our values, wealth gets turned upside down -- because there is a kind of wealth that leads to poverty, and there is a kind of poverty that will make us rich -- and we have to determine which one we will pursue! Will we turn left and follow the world or turn right and follow Christ?

We see how this works in Christ’s sermon on the mount. After Jesus made his final cuts and picked his 12 disciples, he came down from the mountain where he’d been praying and he began to heal those who were physically sick, and to deliver those who were demon possessed.  

When that time of healing was over at the bottom of the mountain, Jesus moved back up the hillside to a place where he could speak to the crowd and be heard. Jesus sat down on the hillside and opened his sermon with a series of contrasts between what brings God “blessing” upon our life, and what brings terrible “woe” upon us. And the first contrast that Jesus makes between his values and the values of this world has to do with poverty and wealth. 

Jesus said, “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God… But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort” (Luke 6:20, 24).

It’s pretty obvious that Jesus isn’t saying that all poor people are going to heaven because they are blessed by God for the simple fact that they are poor -- and all rich people are bringing down serious woe upon themselves for the simple fact that they are rich. But it’s also pretty obvious that Jesus is saying that there is a kind of poverty that opens the door to the Kingdom of God and makes us rich -- and there is a kind of wealth that will leave us impoverished, because it leaves God out.  

So, the question is: what kind of poverty is it that makes us rich, and what kind of richness is it that leaves us impoverished? 

Material Wealth, Spiritual Bankruptcy

To answer that question, let’s go back and look once again at Levi’s conversion in Luke 5. Levi collected taxes for Rome from his fellow Jews. In the Roman system, the tax collector didn’t collect the taxes from the people and then give those taxes to Rome. No; the tax collector went out and got a loan, and prepaid the taxes that a whole community owed to Rome -- and then the tax collector would go out into the community and gather the taxes that the people owed to repay the loan he’d taken out. 

But Rome didn’t pay their tax collectors a wage; each tax collector added their salary on to the taxes that the people owed Rome.Thus they set their own wage. If you were an honest tax collector you would limit yourself to a modest wage and you wouldn’t gouge your neighbors.  But there were no honest tax collectors. Rome didn’t care how much extra Levi tacked on to the taxes that people owed Rome -- because they had already been paid! So if Levi could charge it and collect it, and not get killed by his neighbors for charging it, Levi was free to demand as much as he wanted.

And so many tax collectors, like Levi, put their own profits before their neighbor’s welfare and drastically over-taxed them. Before Levi met Jesus, he lived to make money so he could enjoy the comforts and security that his money could buy. He was rich, and his riches could buy him a nice home, and great clothes, and a jaw dropping chariot if he wanted one! 

Until Levi met Jesus, he was living as if God didn’t exist and his neighbors didn’t matter. And Christ’s warning to Levi and to anyone living by this value system, is that pursuing that kind of wealth may buy you some comfort now, but it will leave you impoverished and hell bound when you face cosmic justice. 

But then, Levi met Jesus, and he suddenly realized that the comforts that his money could buy had a very short shelf life, and his neglect of God and the mistreatment of his neighbor had eternal consequences. In fact, when Levi met Jesus, he realized that even though he was physically rich, he was spiritually bankrupt. There was nothing in his life  that he could offer to God and say, “Look at all the good things I’ve done for you; you owe me eternal life!” 

All he could say was, “I have nothing to offer you Jesus, but my sin. I’m a spiritual beggar. Please forgive me.” And to his amazement, his willingness to bring his poverty to Jesus and ask for his forgiveness is what opened the doors of the Kingdom to him and gave him eternal wealth.

Levi is also called Matthew. And when he wrote the book of Matthew he called this kingdom value that he embraced, “Being poor in spirit.” Luke calls it the kind of poverty that make you rich. Either way, it’s the poverty that comes when you stop hiding your sins, and stop making excuses for them, and you bring them to Jesus as a beggar. Jesus owes us nothing, but he is offering us everything. If we will own our sin, and ask for his forgiveness, he will forgive us and open the doors of his Kingdom to us and give us true wealth -- not because we’re good, but because he is!