Did Woody Guthrie get it right about Jesus? Or is that just propaganda?

Because, didn’t Jesus say, “The poor will always be with you. You won’t always have me”? And when he said this, didn’t he mean, “You have to set your eyes only on heavenly things and on winning souls for heaven. So don’t worry too much about unhappy things like poverty, and on obsessing over the impossible goal of making sure all the hungry are fed, that all who are naked are clothed, that all who are homeless have homes. Concern yourself solely on the person of Jesus. For salvation comes through him alone not through good works”?

Many Christians make this argument. I have the responsibility to address this, because it is in fact twisting Jesus’ words.

There is something very big at stake here in our lives and souls as people of faith: do we have the courage to honor that deeply felt moral sense that it outrageous for there to be such widespread destitution in our society and world at the same time as others enjoy wealth beyond what kings in the past imagined possible? Do we know that it can be different and should be different, that our Holy Creator wills for all God’s children to survive and thrive? Do we let that moral sense motivate us to work to improve this world? Or is it okay to excuse, and even to be complacent and cynical and self-satisfied in the face of the suffering that poverty can bring?

Now, obviously I have a judgment about this, which I will explain. But it’s not fair for me to have too sharp an edge of judgmentalism. We are all saved by God’s grace and mercy, that’s right, not by our works. We all fall short and can’t stand in harsh judgment of one another.

In fact, the last time someone said to me directly, “The poor will always be with you,” and it was someone, a fellow minister, for whom I have a lot of respect. This was a few years ago at my former call. This was someone who I worked with on ministries with folks experiencing homelessness, and was frankly someone who worked a lot harder than I did at the time and currently to help people directly. But when I told him about advocacy I was involved with in our city to expand supportive housing with the goal of ending homelessness in town, he tsked tsked me and said, “Well you know what our Lord said, ‘The poor will always be with you. I won’t.’ It’s foolishness to think you can make poverty go away. God has a purpose for it. Our job is to bring people to Christ to save souls.”

This has become a common talking point among Christians:

“Any attempt to use our common-wealth to address poverty is a case of us acting like we’re God. It’s idolatry, looking to government when we should be looking only to God. The Lord has in fact ordained poverty, decreed it, by declaring that there will always be poor people.”

Is that really what Jesus meant?

No, not at all.

I respectfully, but firmly, disagree.

Let’s look at these words in their context in the scriptures.

The story appears in the gospels of Matthew and Mark and John, with some differences between them.

What’s most important to understand from the start is that in saying “The poor will always be with you,” Jesus, as a Jew speaking to other Jews, is knowingly quoting the words of Moses. He is basically saying “Well, you know what Moses said, ‘The poor will always be with you.’” And Jesus is much too smart and faithful than to twist Moses’ words out of their intended meaning.

So, we need to start by going back to the book of Deuteronomy in the Hebrew Scriptures, the beginning of Chapter 15.

Now, just before this passage, the end of Chapter 14, is the stuff we were exploring last week: rules for the faithful use of the harvest. Every time a landowner harvests their fields, they are to leave enough left over for hungry people to come and take what they need. Then every three years landowners are to take a tenth of their harvest and put it in a central place in town that will be open to whomever needs to come and take what they need. And then on top of all that, every seven years is the Jubilee year, where the fields are to lay fallow, and anyone who needs can come and pick food for them to eat.

Then, in Chapter 15, Moses goes on to explain how in the Jubilee year you are also meant to cancel all debts.

Moses then says:

If you faithfully follow all these rules, none of your people will be poor. God will bless you and the goodness of this holy land will be enough for everyone.

This sure does sound like Moses is laying out a public program to eradicate hunger and poverty.

But Moses is not naïve. He knows human nature well enough to know that just because he laid down these laws and just because they are inspired by his encounters with God, that’s no guarantee that his people are actually all going to live in this way. The chances are, they will not all do what it takes to eradicate poverty for all time. So, Moses next says, if there happens to be anyone who is poor among you, don’t be tight fisted or hardhearted, but be generous and ungrudging in your generosity to them.

Then after that he says, Well, okay, let’s be honest, this isn’t really about if there are folks who are poor among you. Sin will get in, and with sin poverty. “You will always have people who are poor among you.” And, let’s be real, that can suddenly or slowly become any one of you. So, Moses reiterates: “I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.”

Alright? That’s what Moses has to do say.

This is what Jesus is referring to and riffing off of when he says “The poor will always be with you.” The poor will always be with you, because of your failure to follow Moses’ rules to make sure that everyone gets fed.

Now, why does Jesus say this when he does?

This episode in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John (Mt 26:6-13; Mk 14:3-9; Jn 12:1-8) is about Jesus facing the reality of his impending death, and a female disciple honors this and blesses him for it by anointing him with funereal oil.

This is not an episode where the point is Jesus teaching people about an ethical and faithful approach to poverty. There are plenty of other times when he does do just that. And what he teaches are things like, “Give to anyone who asks of you,” and “Forgive debts.” This is re-emphasizing what Moses taught. But also, Jesus identifies himself among the poor: “That which you do to the least of these you do to me.” And Jesus also tells people the uncomfortable things that inspired Woody Guthrie’s song: “Sell your possessions and give them to the poor,” and “Blessed are those who are poor; but woe to you who are rich.”

But in the passages we’re concerned with here, we’re approaching the end of Jesus’ life, and what’s at stake for Jesus is trying to get across to his disciples that he’s going to die soon.

Jesus is in Bethany, at a friend’s house. A woman, who is unnamed in the gospels of Luke and Matthew, and named Mary in the Gospel of John, this woman comes and anoints Jesus with oil. In one story she pours the oil on his head, in another she pours it on his feet. The male disciples complain about this. Jesus rebukes them and says that what the woman did is a great gift, a blessing to him, a kind of ritual preparation of him for his death. He’s obviously still very much alive, but she has blessed him so he can prepare for the fate that is ahead of him.

Some things to know here:

  1. It is well and proper and in fact required to anoint a dead body with oil. Funereal oil is a legitimate and necessary expense.
  2. The word “Messiah” literally means “The Anointed One.”

So, what Mary is doing here is very pregnant with meaning. She is the first person to honor that Jesus is the Messiah.

And more than that, she is the only person to honor that his anointing was not to be a king or a conqueror the way that everyone expected the Messiah to be, but rather to be a humiliated, degraded victim of execution whose shared lot is with the lowliest in society. She is the first to recognize this profound truth about what Jesus is doing. This is why Jesus says that everywhere the good news is shared, what she did will be told in remembrance of her. (Do we do a good job of that?)

In contrast to this wise woman, Jesus’ other disciples have been totally in denial about his impending crucifixion. Instead they have busy trying to one up each other, and jockey for Jesus’ favor.

So, when she anoints Jesus, the male disciples feel confused and upstaged by this bold and inspired woman. They try to save face and bolster their wounded male egos by chastising her for wasting the oil rather than selling it and giving it to the poor.

But Jesus sees right through them.

“Yeah right, guys, now you’re all concerned about the poor!?”

The Gospel of John makes the point very clear by saying that it is Judas who complains about the cost of the anointment, while he’s been pilfering from their common purse and stands to benefit from selling the oil “to give to the poor.”

When Jesus says, “The poor will always be with you. I will not,” he’s calling out this cynical and hypocritical appeal to the poor.

Jesus is saying, “Oh, give me a break. If you cared so much about the poor you’d actually be following Moses’ laws to make sure no one goes hungry. Your society is so sin-sick, you’re always going to have people who are in need. But I’m here right now, right in front of you. And I am in need. Don’t you get it? I’m going to die a terrible death, very soon. And I need your help like Mary is helping me.”

But they didn’t get it, not yet.

Mary got it.

And I hope that we can too.

Jesus really truly means it when he says “That which you do to the least of these you do unto me.”

What is it like for us to live knowing that this is true?

And to live knowing that the hope and the promise that Christ brings is also true, that God’s will be done, on earth as it is in heaven, and we can live for the day when there will be none in need in our precious and bountiful lands.

Thanks be to God.  

Delivered Sunday, August 20, 2023 by Rev. Nathaniel Mahlberg, at the United Church of Christ at Valley Forge

This sermon is entirely indebted to Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis