Luke 18:9-14
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is
the kingdom of heaven.” [Matthew
5:4]
I
know that it is corny and mushy and melodramatic beyond excuse, but when I
think of the poor in spirit, I think of a song from Mary Poppins that I have a hard time listening to Julie Andrews
sing without getting all choked up.
“Early each day to the steps of Saint Paul's
The little old bird woman comes.
In her own special way to the people she calls,
‘Come, buy my bags full of crumbs;
Come feed the little birds,
Show them you care,
And you'll be glad if you do.
The young ones are hungry,
The nests are so bare.
All it takes is tuppence from you.
Feed the birds, tuppence a bag,
Tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag!
Feed the birds,’ that's what she cries
While overhead, her birds fill the skies.
All around the cathedral the saints and apostles
Look down as she sells her wares.
Although you can't see it,
You know they are smiling
Each time someone shows that he cares.
Though her words are simple and few,
Listen, listen, she's calling to you:
‘Feed the birds, tuppence a bag!
Tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag!’"[1]
The little old bird woman comes.
In her own special way to the people she calls,
‘Come, buy my bags full of crumbs;
Come feed the little birds,
Show them you care,
And you'll be glad if you do.
The young ones are hungry,
The nests are so bare.
All it takes is tuppence from you.
Feed the birds, tuppence a bag,
Tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag!
Feed the birds,’ that's what she cries
While overhead, her birds fill the skies.
All around the cathedral the saints and apostles
Look down as she sells her wares.
Although you can't see it,
You know they are smiling
Each time someone shows that he cares.
Though her words are simple and few,
Listen, listen, she's calling to you:
‘Feed the birds, tuppence a bag!
Tuppence, tuppence, tuppence a bag!’"[1]
I have this image burned into my memory from
childhood of the little old bird woman sitting there on the steps, perched on
the edge of poverty and hunger herself, with only the company of the pigeons
and sparrows, although they, at least, flock around her and bring a smile to
her face. When I was in London as an
adult and visited St. Paul’s, which is a gargantuan pile of stone, I saw how a
figure like that would be even more forlorn against a towering backdrop and
lost.
That,
to me, is what it is to be poor in spirit.
It is to be overwhelmed, lost, overlookable.
Poverty
is a big part of that. The form of the
Beatitudes recorded by Luke doesn’t say, “Blessed
are the poor in spirit.” It says, “Blessed are you poor.” It goes together, though, doesn’t it? You don’t have to be poor to be on the
underside of things, but being poor will get you there pretty quickly. A few years back a woman named Barbara
Ehrenreich wrote a book that is a classic, or will be someday. Nickel
and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America tells how she, a middle-class
writer with a long list of educational accomplishments, went to work as a
waitress and as the employee of a cleaning service, and what she learned about the
dark side of our economic system. She
learned what it does to people, body and soul.
She wrote:
“To draw for a moment from an entirely different corner of my life, that
part of me still attached to the biological sciences, there is ample evidence
that animals — rats and monkeys, for example — that are forced into a
subordinate status within their social systems adapt their brain chemistry
accordingly, becoming 'depressed' in humanlike ways. Their behavior is anxious
and withdrawn; the level of serotonin (the neurotransmitter boosted by some
antidepressants) declines in their brains. And — what is especially relevant
here — they avoid fighting even in self-defense ... My guess is that the
indignities imposed on so many low-wage workers — the drug tests, the constant
surveillance, being 'reamed out' by managers — are part of what keeps wages
low. If you're made to feel unworthy enough, you may come to think that what
you're paid is what you are actually worth.”[2]
Extrapolating from that, she notes that a CEO
who makes, say, two hundred times what the company’s average worker earns may
come to think that he is worth two hundred times what they are. It has a corrosive effect on everybody.
Of
course, someone who becomes aware of their part in that may themselves be
overcome by the enormity of it all. In
Jesus’ day, it was the tax collectors who profited from the Roman occupation of
Judaea. The Romans despised them for
being disloyal to their own people, but they were glad to use them. The Jews despised them for the extortion that
they committed, as well as for the fact that the money they collected went to
sustaining the Roman army that carried out the orders of wonderful people like
Pontius Pilate and burned the occasional village or crucified criminals and
left them to die along the roads outside Jerusalem. Imagine that you were such a person. What would involvement in that kind of life
do to your soul?
If
I were to compare it to someone in today’s setting, I might ask what happens
inside a drug dealer or someone who traffics in human lives or somebody who
makes a living defrauding the elderly or harming children. To do that, someone would have to block off
or (worse) kill off a part of their conscience, and become indifferent to human
pain. Then, if they came to themselves
and that part of them came back to life, imagine what torment would be there.
Jesus
told a story. He said,
“‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a
Pharisee and the other a tax-collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying
thus, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues,
adulterers, or even like this tax-collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my
income.” But the tax-collector, standing far off, would not
even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be
merciful to me, a sinner!” I tell you, this man went down to his home
justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled,
but all who humble themselves will be exalted.’” [Luke
18:9-14]
Imagine!
It was the one who had to struggle with what he had done, who recognized
that he had to speak to God, but couldn’t really even bring himself to do that
the normal way, who would find that God had heard him.
However
they have reached that point, whether by other people’s action or by their own,
God makes the poor in spirit part of his own kingdom. It is as if he reaches down and scoops them
up the way a parent scoops up a child who is so weary and so tired that all she
can do is sit down and cry, and holds them the way a parent will, until the
child knows that, no matter what the problem may be, when she is held against
her Father’s shoulder she can sob all she wants until, with certainty, the
sense of being safe and secure returns, and she can rest. Then, after a while, she will open her eyes
again and all will be right.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is
the kingdom of heaven.”
[Matthew 5:4]
I’ll
give Billy Graham the last word on this today.
Thinking about this verse, he wrote,
“…We must be humble in our spirits. If you put the word ‘humble’
in place of the word ‘poor,’ you will understand what He meant.
In other words, when we come to
God, we must realize our own sin and our spiritual emptiness and poverty. We
must not be self-satisfied or proud in our hearts, thinking we don’t really
need God. If we are, God cannot bless us. The Bible says, “God opposes the
proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6).
Pride can take all kinds of
forms, but the worst is spiritual pride. Often the richer we are in things, the
poorer we are in our hearts. Have you faced your own need of Christ? Do you
realize that you are a sinner and need God’s forgiveness? Don’t let pride or
anything else get in the way, but turn to Christ in
humility and faith—and He will bless you and save you.”[3]
[3] http://billygraham.org/answer/what-does-it-mean-to-be-poor-in-spirit-as-jesus-said-we-ought-to-be/
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