Beggars For Sure--August 30, 2024"Then Jesus looked up at his disciples and said:
'Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
In the Reign of God, the one condition for being fed... is being hungry.
That's what this all boils down to. That's what we've been discovering all throughout this month's focus on The Table of Jesus. It's the recurring theme that God provides for us, not on the basis of what we have earned or how much we have impressed God, but simply on the basis of our need.
Hungry people need to eat. Food is not a prize for being "good enough" or "holy enough"; it is a gift given by grace simply because we need it. This is how God runs the universe, according to Jesus: by providing to us all what we need, rather than doling out a limited number of prizes only to the "winners." If anything, Jesus says that God has a particular concern for the ones the world labels "losers."
Taking Jesus seriously here may take a long time, maybe even a lifetime of discipleship. That's because so many of us have the opposite deeply ingrained in our minds. We are used to thinking that God's job is primarily to hand out rewards for the worthy or heavenly paychecks for those who have worked hard enough. We are used to picturing life as a competition for the top spots and told to climb over and step on whomever we have to in order to make ourselves King of the Hill. We are used to hearing Christianity peddled as a deal where I do something for God (believing the correct theological propositions, or doing enough good deeds, or inviting Jesus into my heart, or praying fervently enough, or voting for the party that claims to be "God's choice," or whatever), and then in return, God has to give me the good things in life (going to heaven, success in my work, provision for my family, etc.). That's sort of the plot of Respectable Religion, in all its variations. But it is decidedly not how Jesus teaches us to see things. Jesus shows us a God who doesn't make deals, but who gives out meals.
That contrast--between what conventional wisdom thinks and what Jesus shows us of God--is clear to me every day I listen to the news. Especially in these late days of an election cycle, it seems that there is relentless coverage of which politicians have the lead, or how the latest turn of events gives an advantage to one side or another. We are engrossed with the horse-race dynamics of who has an edge in the polls, who has raised more money, whose most recent publicity stunt got the most views on social media, or whose endorsements will give their side a boost. But what I find desperately lacking so often--especially from would-be followers of Jesus!--are the kinds of questions Jesus seems concerned with: how are we embodying God's priorities that everybody gets to eat? How do our values and platforms reflect God's concern in particular for those who are "poor," those who are "hungry," and those who "weep"? Do the people we choose to lead us reflect the character of a God who feeds the hungry, simply because they are hungry, or do they give us role models and examples to justify our selfishness? Do we accept the voices who tell us that everything is a deal or a transaction where we only do something for someone else if they will repay us with something to our benefit, or do we listen to the voice of Jesus who says that God does not operate that way? Every day we are presented with the choice of which voices we will allow to shape us. The open question is whose we will give our attention to.
Today, then, is an opportunity to let Jesus reset our vision. Today is a chance, like each new day is as well, to see ourselves (and the whole world) rightly--as people with empty hands seeking daily bread from a faithful Giver, rather than as competitors in an unending struggle to get to be on top. Today is a day to consider what our older brother in the faith Martin Luther meant with his last written words, "We are beggars; this is true." I think his insight, even in his last hours, was that this whole life has never been about needing to cast ourselves as "winners" who therefore deserve to eat, but as people who are reliant to our last breath on God to give by grace what we cannot buy or earn. To take Jesus' blessing on the hungry seriously helps us to see what we are acknowledging about ourselves when we pray, as Jesus also taught us to ask, "Give us this day our daily bread," namely, that we are dependent on God to be a generous provider, rather than seeing daily bread as a prize for being a success. We are beggars for sure in that sense. We are children at the table, who have been given a place there not because of our politeness or good grades but simply because we are hungry. And we are learning to see the world from that perspective, too--the view from our seat at God's table.
Lord Jesus, for all who hunger, feed us.
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