1. BLESSED ARE THE POOR

Luke 6: 20 - 26

The Beatitudes in St. Luke’s version of Jesus’ sermon differ slightly from St. Matthew’s account (Mt. 5:3 - 11).

But they serve the same purpose. Jesus the Messiah announced the content of his messianic mission through the Sermon on the Mount. The Beatitudes are the summary of that sermon.

The Kingdom of God is offered to the poor, to the hungry, to the unhappy, and to the oppressed classes of society (vv. 20-22). The coming of the Kingdom brings judgment on the rich and the well-fed, those who enjoy privilege and popularity (vv. 23-26).

This message must have astounded those who heard Christ. But in the course of Christian history, this element of grace to the poor and judgment to the rich became watered down. Slowly the Christian Gospel became concerned mainly about the ‘other’ world. But the other world is the Kingdom, which has come and is yet to be fully manifested. This world and the other world cannot be separated so easily.

It is only in our century that we have begun to see this good news to the poor coming within the possibility of realization. Some countries in Europe (East and West) and North America have been able to lift up the poor to a certain tolerable standard of living. Most of the once-poor in these countries have now enough to eat and drink and to clothe themselves with. Luke 6--21 is being fulfilled before our eyes. This has in its turn led to a ‘rising tide of expectations’ and a ‘backlash of frustrations’ in most other parts of the world, but perhaps especially in India.

If you examine the context of the beatitudes, you will see the kind of people to whom Christ announced the good news of the Kingdom (Mt. 4:23 ff: Luke 6:17 ff). They were the sick, the afflicted, the paralytics, the blind, the lame; not necessarily the religious and political leaders or the ruling classes, though they too might have been part of the crowd.

The terms which we translate ‘poor’ or ‘poor in spirit’ mean much more than just those who do not have money. The Greek word Ptochos (poor man) stands for one who is subject to all kinds of misery and oppression. And it was to such that Christ offered the Kingdom.

‘Blessed are you miserables! For yours is the Kingdom of God’ (Luke).

‘Blessed are the broken in spirit, for theirs is the divine Kingdom’ (Mt.).

‘The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the good news preached to them’ (Mt. 11:5 cf: Luke 7:22).

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, to announce the Lord’s time of acceptance (Luke 4:18-19).

These are all words spoken by Jesus. The passage in Mt. 11:5 is the answer to the implied question. ‘How can we recognise the presence of the Kingdom?’ The passages in Luke 4: 18-19 is the way Christ announced the content of his own mission, and the fulfillment of the promise of the Kingdom. In Luke 14:15-24, the Kingdom is illustrated by the parable of the banquet for the poor. In the parable of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16: 19-28), the hero is a poor man.

St. Paul reminds the Galatians that an important element of the reconciliation worked out in Jerusalem between the party of James and the party of Paul was that all should ‘remember the poor’ (Gal. 2:10). Perhaps the Pauline presentation of the Gospel did not emphasize this adequately in the beginning. Later on, the collection for the poor at Jerusalem became a primary concern with St. Paul (Rom. 15:26).

St. James, on the other hand, had this concern for the poor from the beginning (James 2: 2-15; see especially James 5:1-6). He says quite Plainly:

‘Listen, my beloved brethren. Has not God chosen the poor of the world to be rich in faith and heirs to the Kingdom .... But you have dishonoured the poor man’ (James 2: 5, 6).

What concretely brings release and rejoicing to the poor and the oppressed is already a sign of the presence of the Kingdom. Blessed are ye poor. For yours is the Kingdom.

QUESTIONS

1. Look up other passages in the New Testament which put the poor at the centre of the Church’s Concern, e.g., Acts 2: 44 - 45; 2 Cor. 8:2 ff: Mt. 19:23 ff; Mt. 25:31 - 45 etc.

2. In what way can we put the poor back at the centre of our concern? By giving more charity?

3. Where are the signs of the presence of the Kingdom today? That is, where do the poor hear good news?