Let me apologize for my heightened tone in the last postings. That was out of order.

Your comments, Richard, are right on the money. If everyone who comes to encounter Jesus gives away everything to live among the poor, then in the long-term their ability to do acts of justice and mercy may be hampered, as they are scraping to stay alive. I say “may” because there is clearly a tradition that stems from the teaching of Jesus wherein this is a VIABLE and God-ordained expression of faith in Jesus. And it is hard. And it is noble. And the personal transformation that folks who do this experience is astounding (read Mother Theresa’s writing about her work among the por sometime). It should be celebrated.

But in the early church we see no sign that this was the norm for the vast majority of the people of God. It was rather that, as you suggest, of faithful stewardship.

However, it is clear from the teaching of Jesus, from the New Testament and from the history of the early church that the people of God have an enormous responsibility to lift the downtrodden. And they do so not as a ruse to witness to them. They do this because this is a foretaste of new creation, of the kingdom here on earth … where each person takes responsibility, personally, for others and where the lowly are crowned with honor.

To reiterate, I am not suggesting we all give everything away. I am suggesting we see the role of justice for the lowly in a new light … a more radical one that squares with the teaching of Jesus. Wealth, on any reading of Jesus, is a dangerous thing. One who has it plays with fire. And if there is not a strong impetus in the people of God towards justice, mercy, and compassion for the lowly, an impetus that is concretely embodied, then we are probably missing something. We are playing with fire, even if it is fire that God has given.

I am not condemning your style of life, Richard. I don’t know you. And I agree with your assessment (and that of anonymous) of Katrina. How much is enough? That question cannot be answered. But, as I have said, if we do not see in the poor the face of Jesus, and know that by honoring and loving and helping them we are honoring Jesus, we will pass them and Him by. That, of course, will require seeing life in an “inverted” way. And so WE MUST, whatever life God has assigned to us, have a downward consciousness and motion. Or else we are self-deluded and purely self-interested.

By the by, thanks for helping me be more precise with the question of how this all fleshes out in terms of our praxis. Asking, “So what?” is where the rubber meets the road.

But that’s part of the difficulty. I don’t want to have to (and can’t) tell people, “This, then, is exactly how you must live.” The challenge of inversion is of letting it mess with you and then saying, “God, what does this mean for me, given my life and situation, concretely? How can I embody in my life your concern for the poor? How can I worship you by feeding them?”

Peace my friends,

Andrew

1 Peter 4:8-11 clearly states that we are to show hospitality without grumbling, to use our gifts to serve others and to show them the grace of God. But the Bible also teaches us to be good stewards of all that we are given as evidenced by the parable of the talents. The idea of inversion as presented here seems to easily fulfill the first part of this equation, but I feel falls tragically short of meeting the second part of it.

You brought up Katrina, and this is a perfect example of what I am saying. Billions of dollars have been funnelled into New Orleans since the hurricane hit, yet 40% of the city still does not have even basic services like electricity. Over 60% of the population is still displaced. Why? Do we need to send more money? What if I cashed out my entire retirement plan and gave it to a single family down there to get them back to where they were before the disaster? Indeed, this would have an enormous impact on that family. They would see the grace of God and that seed may blossom into an entire generational line of people coming to know God.

But…is this the best way to use my resources? The answer is an emphatic NO. I have spent some time in New Orleans since Katrina hit on my hands and knees cleaning out flooded homes. Twelve hour days followed by evenings sleeping on the floor to get ready for the next day. Doing work for free that others are charging $6000 per house for. The cost for me? Unpaid leave from work. That’s it. The impact? 30x that of sending all of my money away. You see, those houses that were cleaned out by a cleaning crew that was paid by generous individuals came in, did the job they were paid to do, and then left. The message of grace was lost very quickly. But those houses that we cleaned out touched the very lives of each person we helped. We were there in person. We were able to tell them why we were doing what we were doing. We were able to SHOW them God’s grace, to tell them about his gift of salvation, and on a number of occaisons lead them to a saving relationship with Jesus.

My gift of time reaped far more benefit than any gift of money that I could give. Justice for those people in need did not come in the form of a monetary handout, but in time spent. Money is nothing but one of many tools in our arsenal as Christians. God’s challenge and Jesus’ example to us is that we are to use all of the gifts that we are given to glorify him. Stewardship teaches us to use them wisely.

As my financial situation has improved, my ability to donate time has increased and my impact for the kingdom of heaven has increased. Inversion would in the long run hamper my ability to help those in need and would increases suffering.

You mention goverment programs failing due to lack of accountability, this is true….but the core of why these programs fail is a basic misunderstanding of people. I dont see how you are any different. Do you understand that people must want to help themselves? There are countless examples of entire societies that have failed because of too much ‘help’. People become dependant….its human nature.

These are noble causes, and I know your heart is in the right place….but making a “real” difference has much less to do with spending other peoples money and much more to do with changing hearts.

Do not misunderstand me, my point is that money is not the problem. It is not the focus.
I do understand how much money it takes. Money makes the world go around, you cant do anything without money…but it should never be the focus….its a tool, not a solution. Problems get bigger when money is the focus of anything.

You list many great examples of how people have met hardship in their lives, in my own experience I can list many….Why does God allow good people to suffer?
I believe the answer is this. “God has lessons for us to learn that are more important than life and death.”

I dont mean to say that everyone that suffers hardship is missing the message of Grace….it may be that God is using them to reach others. I pray God uses me!

God doesnt want any of us to suffer….but this is the price of free will.

Family and Leadership are two things that need to be focused on for real change….well worth every penny

But to say that money by itself only adds to the problem in matters of justice is pretty foolish. Lots of money is going to be required if we are too make sure that poor inner city kids get school supplies and clothes to wear when the school year starts. Lots of money is going to be required to make sure that they have after school programs to keep them off the streets. Lots of money is going to be required to help their disabled single parent, or their not-disabled parent working two minimum wage jobs to earn a living pay their rent and put food on the table. Lots of money is going to be required to get medicine to children with AIDS in Africa. Lots of money is going to be required to help Katrina victims rebuild their shattered lives.

OF COURSE we must make sure that there are systems set in place that keep the help we give financially from falling to the ground with no effect … OF COURSE we need to not just give people money but teach them how to break bad patterns of living that keep them poor … OF COURSE we need to provide long-term solutions for people … BUT, if you were a former truck driver who lost his job because of a disability that also left him with mounting hospital bills which broke his back financially and caused him to lose everything, who now sits on a bucket under a bridge every day with his belongings in a shopping cart next to him, who comes out twice a day to panhandle enough money to maybe buy a sandwich and coffee at a local diner, to hear a person say the things that you say would sound like indifference at best, PURE ARROGANCE at worst.

Life does not deal equally with people, and not everyone just needs good advice. Many (most) people need money for sandwiches and coffee, and even more need a commitment from the middle classes to see to it that they get back on their feet. If it were true “money has very little to do with justice”, then these sorts of things will not be undertaken, because in some warped version of reality it would b possible to be just without it having a PROFOUND reality on how we spend our money.

In reality, Anonymous, “getting involved and helping others help themselves” is going to require more money (and time) from you than you ever imagined.

Andrew

I respectfully disagree, but I welcome the dialog.

If I am welcome to continue posting on these pages I will promise to keep an open mind.

As I’ve said before….’justice’ is getting involved and helping others help themselves (No easy task), money by itself only adds to the problem.

I believe in justice, I just think money has very little to do with it.

If ‘wealth’ is not related to justice, then what is justice?

Are you suggesting that we can lead a just life towards the poor without it having anything to do with our pocketbooks?

If so, that is surely that is the very worst deception that has ever invaded the church’s thinking about matters of social praxis. Under such a scheme, the hungry WILL NEVER be fed, and the thirsty WILL NEVER be given to drink, and the homeless WILL NEVER be sheltered, and the diseased WILL NEVER be given treatment.

‘Even the mere hinting at it’? I wonder if you know what you are talking about. What is justice for the poor if it is not tied to wealth? Such thinking is the very best formula for keeping middle class evangelicals fat and happy while the widowed and the orphaned starve to death.

It is as though God could say that he loved the world without sending Jesus.

Love, justice, salvation … these are concrete realities. They are not ideas.

You need to read the texts and not let your late 20th century evangelical piety get in the way of justice.

Andrew

It is true, how can we accept Grace if we do not recognize it? I believe God goes to great lengths to make sure every man has a chance to recognize Grace….those that do…are truely blessed.

I feel it is a mistake to tie ‘wealth’ into salvation or justice….even the mere hinting of it.

” If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off, and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life maimed or crippled, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into the eternal fire” Math 18:8

Surely not every man needs to go through life maimed in order to achieve salvation…..but the words are true.
Those that Love money are better off giving it all away than go through life missing grace.

God blesses man in many ways, wealth is one way he does that. To deny his blessings can also be sin.

Teaching others to avoid the sin of lust, or love of money is a lesson to be taught to the poor as well as the wealthy. A Worthy lesson indeed, but not to supercede the overall lesson of Grace.

I was refering to the idea of communism, not the government….in retrospect it was the wrong choice of words because there are too many connotations to that name. Communism is a form of socialism, socialism is very much alive in this country and others and is a dangerous idea….and is not in any way biblical.

Thanks for your insightful comments. Let me clarify a couple of things:

(1) We ARE saved by grace, but how then do we reckon with the biblical language that speaks of us being “judged” by our works on the last day? There is a praxis appropriate for those who confess Jesus, as Jesus himself lays out in Luke here and elsewhere (for instance in Matthew 25). If we don’t care about the poor, if we don’t lower ourselves to receive them, according to Jesus we have rejected him. Love for him is not in us. Grace has not touched us.

(2) I am not suggesting that we should all be of the same social class or advocating secular communism. While Jesus called the rich young ruler to give all he had to the poor to follow him, Zaccheus only gave half. Yet Jesus said that salvation had come to his house. Why? Because his encounter with Jesus issued in a new posturing toward the poor. Secular communism is unbelievably dehumanizing (witness the countries of the former soviet block … there is a grayness that has settled on the corporate soul of each of the countries) … but when people motivated by the Spirit of the self-giving, lowering Jesus descend to the places of poverty and pain, however they can, we don’t see dehumanization. We see light breaking forth in the darkness, the desert blooming and rejoicing. This life is a gift of God. It is not the product of human innovation. No system of government can bring it about.

(3) The lesson can’t be merely avoiding the sin of pride. It has to be concretely embodied or it is fake. Like a person struggling with lust saying that they can still look at still look at the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition but do it without lusting. If you don’t stop doing that, you haven’t really been changed. Similarly, if we don’t recalibrate our posture towards the poor–concretely!–we haven’t had pride uprooted.

(4) All of this is really “love your neighbor as yourself” taken to its logical end. If my neighbor is not just the group of people that I like or is nice to me, but is really (as Jesus suggests in Luke 10) the wounded, beat up, and marginalized … then I have a godward responsibility to enfold them into my care somehow.

Hope that clarifies things a bit. I am not advocating communism, nor am I saying that we are saved by works. I am saying that when we embrace the way of Jesus, social realites will change … and if they don’t, perhaps that’s because we haven’t embraced the way of Jesus. Don’t let the language throw you.

Blessings,

Andrew

Consider who Jesus was speaking to. The Pharisees had a problem with social status and class.

Again, Money isnt the problem here, nor is social class, it is the ‘Love’ of money and the ‘Love’ of social class that Jesus speaks so harshly against.

Jesus lead by example and humbled himself. Does this mean we should all be poor or of the same social class?

There is a social system that has the goal of a common social class, communism. Contrary to popular belief, communism is not dead, it just goes by different names.

The lesson here is not to give everything away, but to avoid the sin of Pride.
The Love of Money is very evident in America today, but it is not a Sin exclusive to the Middle class……

I see more evidence of social status, pride, and love of money in poor communities. Consider gangs and lyrics from any popular Rap artist.

Justice to me means changing hearts as was Jesus’s example. Money is just fuel for the fire.