The Poor Will Always Be With You

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0:00 Well, it's been a busy week for all of us, I'm sure. Lots, lots happening. My screen time report on my phone told me I was on my phone a lot more this week. Kept repressing news to see what was going on. Maybe you're in a similar boat. Stinking last, I was thinking some this week about this idea of God moving first.

0:34 While we were yet dead in our sins, just thinking about that Talifa kum, the promise that no matter what happens, the day will come when the risen Christ comes to call me out of the sleep of death and awaken me into life forever. And I did think about this week the beautiful reassurance, but also like I try to imagine the rest that comes. Sometimes life feels like a lot of work.

1:04 And the promise of not the absence of work, but the absence of striving, of the kind of tyranny of to-do lists, of the necessity, as though it all hangs on me accomplishing tasks. That kind of weariness that's bred from my own limitations, and the confines of time. I look forward to the rest that comes when all that striving is done. And I peaked at that reality a couple times this week in between

1:38 repressing my news feed on my phone. And one of the texts that all that kind of stuff brought me to is this one that I've looked at a couple of times, but really not very often. Because it's kind of confusing for me. And it comes up in a couple of the gospels, several of them actually, but the one that I want to look at is in Matthew's account of the gospel. If you could look there with me, that would be cool. Matthew's the first book of the New Testament. If you're in a paper copy, it goes Matthew Mark Luke John.

2:12 So we're in the back kind of quarter to a third of your scriptures. Matthew chapter 26 is where the story is that I want to look at this morning. Starting at verse 6, Matthew chapter 26. Jesus at this point in the story is like slow walking towards the

2:47 passion and the crucifixion. And so you see right before that, the beginning of the chapter, the plot to kill Jesus has been uncovered. He's done some teaching at the temple. He's kind of retreated to Bethany with some friends. And it says, now when Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, he's no longer a leper, Jesus took care of that. Robin, Simon the leper. It's fun.

3:17 Whenever they mention people by name, like this in the story of scripture, so it's not just the leper that was sealed, but it was Simon the leper. Mostly lotions think that they mention these people by name because the readers of the gospel, wherever it is spread around a to minor, would have known or known of Simon the leper. Meaning Simon the leper was a leperist individual, got healed by Jesus, hosted Jesus in his home. His is crucified, died, resurrected, appears to 500, ascends, Simon the leper per per per persere,

3:52 views in the faith, path to crucifixion and ascension, and becomes a leader in the early church. So whenever they're mentioning names, actual names of people in the story of scripture, mostly lotions think it's because these people went on to become known individuals in the church. So Simon the leper, we can take heart that we are in the continuation of this guy who hosted Jesus. At Bethany in his home, Simon the leper. Now when Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster flask,

4:24 a very expensive weet mint, and she poured it on his head as he reclined at the table. That's conspicuous, you don't do that unnoticed, right? We, Meghan for a while, well Meghan still likes these essential oils, anybody into the essential oils. I have to admit, is there something wrong with essential oils? I cannot handle essential oils.

4:55 I feel like I'm walking, like there's something in the air that I'm walking through that's hitting me in the face all the time. I don't like it. And it's unmistakable, when Jesus got those things going, as soon as you open the door you can tell us all in the house, right? It would be conspicuous if we're all at a table and somebody comes up and breaks a door of expensive perfume over the dude's head and it runs down. Like everyone notices everything stops, it all trains on this situation, everyone's looking.

5:27 And when the disciples saw it, they were indignant saying why this waste, for this could have been sold for a large sum and given to the poor. Fair point, right? But Jesus aware of this sedgium, why do you trouble the woman, for she has done a beautiful thing to me, for you will always have the poor with you, but you will not always have Me. So part of the reason I have not paid attention to this text before is because I don't, I haven't really known what to do with it.

6:05 The disciples say, hey, why did you waste this ointment, like we want to accomplish good in the world, we could have sold this ointment, got a bunch of money and given the money to the poor, wouldn't that have been better than just pouring it all over Jesus' head, now it's got to get cleaned up, right? And Jesus' response is a little bit confusing for me, which do I have stayed away from this passage because he says, hey, look, you're always going to have the poor with you, but you're not always going to have Me.

6:38 And I never said this out loud, but it always, it seems like he's staying, hey, you can deal with them later. Right now, take care of Me. It feels like that's what he's saying, like, hey, you're always going to have the poor, but you're not always going to have Me. I'm here right now. So take care of Me, and then once I'm gone, you take care of the poor again. And I was thinking about that text this week, it popped into my head because I've been thinking about, like, it's because of, like, the political season and thinking about our culture and our country and the challenges.

7:17 And the longer I follow Jesus, the more awakened my heart is to the injustices and the need for mercy, the longer I follow Jesus, the more broken I see the world that we're living in. So I was thinking about all that this week, and I've been, like, wrestling with all this stuff that needs to be fixed. And Jesus, God the Father, and Jesus the Christ, consistently saying, weakness is strength.

7:49 And the wisdom of God is full of this to the world. So I was struggling with that, like, idea of, hey, consistently, the God of it, creation in life, has set about on this mission, from the garden through to the ascension, to repair what is broken in the world. In fact, to restore, redeem, and launch a new perfect world into existence. And time and again, he doesn't go to the places of power and money to make the change.

8:27 Right? Over and over again. Right? He goes to the forgotten, the marginalized, he goes to the places of weakness to make change. So he picks Abram and Sarah when he's going to launch his nation into the world. He, like, to announce the coming of the Christ, he has a dude on the wrong side of the Mediterranean Sea, with a small nation of people that are socially outcast, outposts in the desert relative to the power structures of Rome and Persia.

9:06 Right? Like, they're out there. He takes a profit to announce the coming of the Christ, then takes him outside of the world city, puts him in camel's hair, lets him eat locus and honey. This is the announcing of the coming of the great king. And the king comes unceremoniously, right? Jesus is born to the poor from a pound of the only known for its said, continually, when God the Father and Jesus the Christ want to make change in the world for good, they do it through weakness. And I was thinking about my struggle with that.

9:39 Because, consistently, as I try and make change, my natural inclination is to try and get into the ear of positions of power and to accrue dollars. I need money and power to make change in my city and my country, I assume. And that, when I was thinking about that, this text popped into my head because I realized it was not a tiny thing.

10:09 Jesus was not saying, take care of the poor later after I'm here. It's almost as though Jesus is saying to the disciples, you think you need money to solve the problem of the poor? You think the money from this alabaster jar is going to solve the problem of the poor? What are you waiting on? I'm here. Let's solve the problem of the poor. Jesus says, I can handle it.

10:40 So then I dug into this passage a little bit and this cool thing happens sometimes when you dig in and in the right places you find cooler things. Terri, that happens sometimes. That happens here. So there is a common practice in first century Judaism and rabbinic tradition for the expectation of disciples of rabbis to know the Jewish Bible so well that the rabbi might just quote a little section of a text.

11:19 And by quoting that little section of the text, he's implying that they could pull their understanding from that full version of the text. You could dig into it if you don't believe me. It's a tradition that's there, right? Jesus does it on the cross most noticeably, right? When he says, my God, my God, why are you forsaken? He's quoting a song. When you go back and read the song, it's like prophetic talking about Jesus' experience on the cross. He's doing that here with this phrase that says, the poor you will always have with you.

11:54 He's cluing his disciples. It's like a language between rabbi and disciples. Hey, disciples, you are worrying about this money. You're waiting for this money to go solve the problem of the poor. The poor you will always have with you. And when he does it, he's throwing them back to this section, Deuteronomy chapter 15. We can look there together if you want. Deuteronomy is in the first five Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, the fifth book in the scriptures.

12:26 Right at the end of the Torah, we're pretty sure Moses wrote it. And if we look at Deuteronomy chapter 15, look starting at verse 7. In Deuteronomy, it's called Deuteronomy is like a Latin word for the second giving of the law.

12:57 All of Deuteronomy is Moses' sermon to Israel before they go and live as Israel in the promised land. This is the way you should live. Don't forget the law, the teaching, the way of life, that the God of salvation, the God who rescued us from Egypt, has been calling us to in the 40 years in the desert. Go and live that way as you move into the promised land. And so here in Deuteronomy chapter 15, he's still doing that. He's telling him, this is how we ought to live. And this is what we ought to be like.

13:27 Look at Deuteronomy chapter 15 verse 7 starting. If among you one of your brothers should become poor, if any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God has given 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.

13:57 A couple of things that are interesting to me here, because usually I interpret the Jewish, probably the older testing that we call it. Usually I interpret it to be about actions and not positions of the heart. But conspicuously here, Moses is saying, don't harden your heart. He's anticipating that Israel will be a nation of people who cares about the poor, about the marginalized.

14:33 That Israel will be a nation of people in the world uniquely who care about justice and mercy. That when you walk into the Promised Land and you align yourself with the people of God, Moses and the scriptures are consistent. That Israel is a position before God, not merely a physical lineage. So always anyone could come in and become an Israelite and worship God at the temple.

15:08 And they have this notion that when you come into the Promised Land and begin to align yourself with Israel, there's a way of life that's different. These people uniquely care about the poor among them. That they do not harden their heart, but their hearts are soft and their hands are open to the poor, to the marginalized, to issues of justice and mercy.

15:39 This is Israel, Deuteronomy, all the way through to Matthew. This is why Jesus is like, hey guys, why is this a question? And why do you think you need more money to solve the problem of the poor? You give from what you have. Immediately when I saw this where it said, but you shall open your hand to him and lend to him sufficient for his need, I thought of that story where Jesus is out in the wilderness teaching 5,000 men and their families and it gets to be dinner time and the disciples are like, hey, we should send them away so that they can find something to eat.

16:20 And Jesus says, you give them something to eat. They don't need to go. You feed them. It's like, what are we here for? The disciples, understandably, feel like they don't have enough. They can't be generous. They don't have enough. Jesus, we don't have enough. Jesus says, oh my gosh. Bring me what you have.

16:51 We don't need to wait. We don't need to buy something else. We don't need to accrue more money or more power. When the problem is apparent to us and consistent with our people throughout space and time, our hearts are moved. We respond with what we have. This is what Israel does. This is what the church does. This is what Jesus expects of his disciples. This is what we need to expect of each other.

17:28 We ought to expect that this group of people, this little congregation of the church in Orlando in 2020, are people who are responding to the needs that we see with whatever we have. We don't need more power or more money.

18:01 That's not the point. The point is that we are soft-hearted. We are open-handed. How? Why? He goes on here in Deuteronomy. Let's see. Verse 9, take care.

18:31 Let's there be any unworthy thought in your heart. He goes further. The seventh year, the year of the release is near and your eyes looking to gradually depur, he's like, unless you can scheme a way to get him off and not have to be generous. We won't go into it all the way. But then verse 10, you shall give him to him freely and your heart will not be grudging when you get to him because for this, the Lord God will bless you. Okay, so God blesses those whose hearts are soft.

19:04 Oh, here, get down to verse 14. You shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, out of the threshing floor and out of your winepress, as the Lord your God has blessed you, so you shall give to him. You will remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord God redeemed you. Therefore, I commend you this day. Do this consistently. When there is expectation laid on the people of God, the motivation is found in what God has done for them.

19:42 God expects that you will be soft-hearted people. Moving in response to the needs that you encounter in the world. Not because you are better than everyone else, but because you are acquainted with how soft-hearted God has been towards you.

20:14 It's important. Because if you look at yourself honestly, if we look at each other honestly, it is not hard to find places where we are hard-hearted, where we are miserly instead of generous, where we are angry instead of merciful, where we are apathetic instead of acts of hard-hearted and engaged.

21:07 It is not hard to fall short of the expectation of Israel. This is why Jesus says to the disciples, hey, the poor you will always have with you, but right now if you have me, he is like, come and receive my soft heart for you.

21:38 This is true from the time of the incarnation, from Christmas till now, especially even more, from ascension until today. We are in the age, the space and time in the world where our forgiveness has been assured, accomplished and complete. If you uncover hard hearts in yourself, go back to Jesus. Take your little loaves and go to Jesus with it.

22:10 Encounter deep forgiveness, mercy, justice for yourself. It is not a stretch to stay. One of the markers to know that you believe and have received forgiveness from God, is that you are able to forgive others.

22:41 One of the ways that you know you have received generosity from God, that you believe that God is generous towards you, is when you have the capacity to be generous towards others. One of the ways that you know that you believe that God's justice works on your behalf, that he will defend you against every wrong and harm done, is when you are able to advocate honestly and humbly for justice in the world around you.

23:19 Look, your heart is a reflection of the things that you have received from God or not. If we will be, if we will be Israel in the world, if we will be the church in the world, those redeemed by God with capacity to live soft-hearted and open hands. Advocates for justice and image-bearers of the God, it's because we have encountered the God for ourselves.

23:49 We have received justice, mercy, forgiveness, love for ourselves, and we expect that when we do, we will be agents of those things in the world. I expect that you all lack nothing, that you have everything you need to work in the world for justice against poverty, for mercy, to be the church.

24:22 You can be the church together, and we ought to expect it of one another. Let me pray. Hey Lord, thank you for this world where we get to be your church. There is plenty of work to do. The poor we will always have with us, soften our hearts, Lord, for all forms of poverty in the world, for all forms of injustice, for all the hungry and the lonely,

25:00 the disinherited and disenfranchised, Lord soften our hearts, acquaint us with your soft heart towards us, that we might be soft-hearted in the world. In Jesus' name, before His safety pray, amen.