Library
Sunday, October 04, 2009
Homelessness
By Rev. Jerry Herships
Mark 14:3-7
3While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. 4But some were there who said to one another in anger, “Why was the ointment wasted in this way? 5For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor.” And they scolded her. 6But Jesus said, “Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me. 7For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me.
There are few scripture verses that are more misunderstood than this one. I have struggled with this one in seminary and on bar stools. I have been most enlightened by Jim Wallis’s understanding and commentary on it from his book, God’s Politics. I am going dig into, what they call in Bible study, social context, to understand this scripture.
It is really easy to look at a story in the Bible and plop ourselves into it. Sometimes that’s GOOD. And, sometimes it helps to remember that, while our struggles as human beings are the same, the world we live in is different from the world in which many of the stories from the Bible took place.
Let’s look at this one. First let’s look at where they are LITERALLY. They are at the home of Simon the leper – The LEPER. They were at the home of someone they shouldn’t have been with in the first place. What were they thinking? Well, what they were thinking is that, this is what we always do. We are ALWAYS around the least of society. THAT IS WHAT WE DO. They were not hanging with the high and mighty of society. They were not with the Oprah’s and the Bill Gates and the Obama’s. They were with the least, the last and the lost. As the kids would say today, that’s how they roll.
The woman from the story spends all this money on Jesus with this perfume and she totally gets yelled at. Jesus comes to her rescue and essentially says, “Listen, she was trying to do a nice thing. I am not going to be around you much longer, trust me. The poor will always be around you.
Jesus was not saying, “Don’t spend money on the poor because it isn’t going to help. They will still be here even if you did spend the money from selling the perfume. It is a no win game.” That is what a lot of people think Jesus was saying here, which, by the way, is SO out of character for Jesus it isn’t even funny. What he WAS saying is, look, the poor will always be with you. I taught you to be with the poor. Be with the poor. Never leave them. You know how we have been doing this. We have always operated this way and I hope you will continue to operate this way after I’m gone. Don’t ditch the poor after I’m gone. Don’t start hanging around the rich and affluent at the cost of the poor. I always want to see my disciples with the poor. THE POOR WILL ALWAYS BE WITH YOU…because that is where I want you to be. I want you to love the unlovable. I want you to care for the ones uncared for. I want you to be with those no one else will be with. As Jim Wallis says, Jesus is assuming that the social location of his followers will always put them in close proximity to the poor and they will be able to easily reach out to them.
So in this way, the poor WILL always be with us if we are living this gospel in the way that Jesus intended us to.
It is when we are isolated from the poor that we miss this point We also are just guessing on why they are poor. It could be that by being with the poor we get to give them one of the best gifts we can. WE LISTEN TO THEIR STORIES.
Let me tell you about Carl (not his real name). I asked him how he is doing and this is what he said, “Me? I’m doing great. We have a great spot behind a pawn shop. We have a tarp to keep the rain off. There is a 24 hour conveyance store at the end of the alley and they have a security camera so we are doing great, we have a good spot. Some people out here are pretty bad off.”
The poor will always be with us. Let us always be with them.
Having said that, there are laws making it harder and harder to do just that. We are seeing local governments across the country enact laws to prohibit sharing food with the homeless and poor, or to force them to designated areas. The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty and the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) have published a report on 22 such laws and their impact. These laws make it illegal to share food with the homeless. These, to me, are laws that might have good intent, but they make God cry. We are mandated to help the least of our brothers, and one way you do that is, “When I am hungry you feed me.”
There are other ways to help and our guest tonight is working with one of the agencies in this city that is doing an excellent job of doing just that.
Caroline Schultz is the Urban Education Coordinator for Denver Urban Ministries also know as DenUM. Let’s make her feel welcome.