The Poor Will Always Be With Us

Two days before the Passover Jesus told his disciples that He was about to be condemned by the Jewish High Council, the Sanhedrin. This would lead in turn to his crucifixion. I wonder how he sounded as he spoke. Was he calm, nervous, excited, grave, sober—what?

Anyway, while he was at the house of Simon the leper in Bethany, a little village near Jerusalem, a woman came up to him with an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment. Based on John 12, the woman was likely Mary, sister of Martha and Lazarus. I posted a blog about this incident a year ago. Based on certain calculations, this jar of perfume was worth at least $18,000. No wonder that the disciples, especially Judas, said this was a waste of good money. The ointment could well have been sold, put into the disciples' treasury (which Judas controlled) and used to help the poor. To this Jesus replied,

"Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. In pouring this ointment on my body, she has done it to prepare me for burial. Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told in memory of her." - Mat 26:10-13 ESV

Alabaster Jar

From Pastor Mike Freeman's - wordhavering blog

My question for this year's Holy Week is this. Why does Jesus—and Moses (Deut. 15:11)—teach us that we will always have the poor with us? Will we never discover a social program by which to eliminate poverty? Certainly many political and social systems have promised to do so. But Jesus says it won't happen. Why not?

It has to do with the human heart, not with the created world in which we live. Consider the disciples and their supposed concern about the poor. Take Judas, the treasurer, for example. Shortly after his hypocritical remarks about having money for the poor he turned around and betrayed Jesus for a paltry 30 pieces of silver, roughly $330 in today's terms. So much for his concern for the poor.

Already from the Torah both Jesus and the disciples had heard about caring for the poor. Moses told them,

"If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be. . . For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, 'You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.'Deut 15:7-8, 11 ESV

Poverty in the promised land was not a result of poor land or poor crops. This was a land of milk and honey. It provided for the people in abundance (Exodus 13:5; Deut. 26:15; Jer. 32:22). However, again and again they used the land for their own greed and pride.

The same remains so in our modern world. Potentially our planet is capable of providing food for everyone, regardless of the billions living on it. Beyond that, we who bear God's image, have the gifts and intelligence to make the earth productive. Human pride, selfishness, greed and carelessness both waste and destroy this abundance.

How shall we Christians respond? Shall we simply shrug our shoulders because we know that we'll always have poor people? The Spirit of the Risen Christ whose victory we celebrate this coming Sunday moves us in a quite different direction. By our care for the poor, the hungry, the sick, the wounded, imprisoned and broken we worship Jesus who came to make all things new (Matthew 25:34-46). In Christ we anticipate a coming world in which poverty will be completely eliminated.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. - Rom 8:19-23 ESV