heard of the "new monastics"

heard this earlier today on speaking of faith.

http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/newmonastics/claiborne_downwardmobility.shtml

--- beginning of this piece ... published in 2000 ---
Downward Mobility in an Upscale World
by Shane Claiborne

The vision of Jesus is not spread through organizational structures, but through touch, breath, shared life. It is spread through people who have discovered love.

Not long ago, I sat and talked with some very wealthy Christians about what it means to be the church and to follow Jesus. One businessman confided, "I, too, have been thinking about following Christ and what that means … so I had this made." He pulled up his shirt-sleeve to reveal a bracelet, engraved with W.W.J.D (What Would Jesus Do?). It was custom-made of twenty-four karat gold.

Maybe each of us can relate to this man — both his earnest desire to follow Jesus and his distorted execution of that desire, so bound up in the materialism of our culture. It is difficult to learn to live the downward mobility of the gospel in this age of wealth. For the most part, those of us who are rich never meet those of us who are poor. Instead, nonprofit organizations serve as brokers between the two in a booming business of poverty management.

I believe that the great tragedy of the church is not that rich Christians do not care about the poor, but that they do not know the poor. Yet if we are called to live the new community for which Christ was crucified, we cannot remain strangers to one another. Jesus demands that we live in a very different way.

I recently surveyed people who said they were "strong followers of Jesus." Over 80 percent agreed with the statement, "Jesus spent much time with the poor." Yet only 1 percent said that they themselves spent time with the poor. We believe we are following the God of the poor — yet we never truly encounter the poor.

About five years ago, I became part of a community called the simple way, a group of Christians literally born out of the wreckage of the church. Dozens of homeless families and children had moved into St. Edward's, a cavernous, abandoned Catholic church in one of the most struggling neighborhoods of Philadelphia. A small group of us who were students at Eastern College, a suburban Christian school, decided to move in with them as a gesture of solidarity. From that initial step, one miracle followed another as those families mentored us in community, worship, and love.

Eventually, we settled in a rowhouse in Kensington, a few blocks from St. Edward's. It is the poorest (but most beautiful!) district in Pennsylvania. There is no place we'd rather call home. Here, we play and dance. We plant gardens. We feed people. We cry. We have a community store. We help kids with homework. We live, and we spend our lives joining folks in poverty as they struggle to end it. Because we know that we cannot end poverty without ending wealth, we also spend time talking with Christian communities about our work and hosting visitors.

Before moving to St. Edward's and then Kensington, I had worked in Calcutta, India, first at Mother Teresa's home for the destitute dying and then in a leper colony. A week after returning to the United States, I began a year at Willow Creek Community Church, one of the largest, wealthiest congregations in the world — where a food court graces their worship center. Talk about culture shock!

This contrast brought me face to face with Christ's radical love, a love strong enough to bring us together across chasms of difference. I longed for the two worlds to meet, for the lepers to know the landowners. I committed my life to trying to make that a reality.

Over the years I have come to see how charity fits into — and legitimizes — our system of wealth and poverty. Charity assures that the rich will feel good while the poor will remain with us. It is important that the poor remain with us, because our capitalist system hinges on it. Without someone on the bottom, there is no American dream and no hope for upward mobility.

Charity also functions to keep the wealthy sane. Tithes, tax-exempt donations, and short-term mission trips, while they accomplish some good, also function as outlets that allow wealthy Christians to pay off their consciences while avoiding a revolution of lifestyle. People do their time in a social program or distribute food and clothes through organizations which take their excess. That way, they never actually have to face the poor and give their clothes, their food, their beds. Wealthy Christians never actually have to be with poor people, with Christ in disguise.

If charity did not provide these carefully sanctioned outlets, Christians might be forced to live the reckless Gospel of Jesus by abandoning the stuff of earth. Instead, thanks to charity, we can live out a comfortable, privatized discipleship.

But when we get to heaven and are separated into sheep and goats (Matt. 25), I don't believe Jesus is going to say, "When I was hungry, you gave a check to the United Way and they fed me" or "When I was naked, you donated to the Salvation Army and they clothed me." Jesus is not seeking distant acts of charity. He is seeking concrete actions: "You fed me, … you visited me, … you welcomed me in, ... you clothed me.…"

If we are to truly be the church, poverty must become a face we recognize as our own kin.
...

 

Nice guilt job.

In my opinion, that's a hyper focused challenge to an important, but narrow form of ministry.

Jesus ministered to people from all walks of life -- the destitute, the disease-ridden, and the wealthy and powerful. To prioritize one over the other to that degree is decidedly unbiblical. Why should there be more focus placed on the poor lost than on the rich lost? Did Jesus not say it was more difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven?

The church is made up of millions upon millions of people throughout the world, and according to Scripture, each has been given a gift set to minister in different ways to different groups of people. Some are called and equipped to reach and serve the poor. Some are called and equipped to reach and serve the rich. One ministry is no more noble than another.

All that matters is that people from all walks of life are being shown the love of Christ.

 

I think it is a well-written article that hits right to the challenge of the Gospel to modern capitalistic society.

Yes, the Gospel does reach out to and seek out people from all economic strata of society, not just the poor. However, the poor are a test of our obedience to Christ and a test of our love of neighbor. Working in non-profit, poverty-oriented ministries, I have often felt a queasiness about taking donations from very affluent people, because in the back of my mind, I am wondering how they became so affluent anyhow. If I take a donation from a businessman who failed to love his employees as himself by paying them substandard, unlivable wages, then I am helping to ease his conscience and justify his lack of Christian love for them. Ultimately, however, I end up taking the money, perhaps wrongly so, because I am daily confronted by overwhelming needs of the poor that the money could address.

We must not forget that Jesus proclaimed in the Sermon on the Mount that we cannot serve both God and money - we will hate one and love the other or love the one and hate the other. As a Methodist, I cannot help but cite John Wesley, who proclaimed that it is sinful to spend anything on luxury while someone you know is in need. Though I at times fail to live up to that standard, I do try to live a simple life, so that I may use my resources to help give live to others.

 

guess i'm struggling with my own reaction to this ...

i do know this, the current "health and wealth" preaching you can find in many churches, tv and radio programs seems empty to me.

i was trying to remember something christ said about the poor ... finally found it (Matt 26).

The Precious Ointment
6(J)Now when Jesus was in (K)Bethany, at the home of Simon the leper,

7(L)a woman came to Him with an alabaster vial of very costly perfume, and she poured it on His head as He reclined at the table.

8But the disciples were indignant when they saw this, and said, "Why this waste?

9"For this perfume might have been sold for a high price and the money given to the poor."

10But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, "Why do you bother the woman? For she has done a good deed to Me.

11"For you always have (M)the poor with you; but you do not always have Me.

12"For when she poured this perfume on My body, she did it (N)to prepare Me for burial.

13"Truly I say to you, (O)wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be spoken of in memory of her."

so IF the translation is correct, christ himself said that we'll always have the poor with us.

i can say this: if i were thinking of a modern "example" christian from my lifetime, my first thought is mother teresa ... not fill-in-your-favorite-televangelist here.

 

That is an interesting passage...though Christ said much more about the poor, and service to them, that passage comes up frequently.

Several things:

First, take the scripture back to the original context. Like in so many other instances, Christ was quoting from the Hebrew Scriptures. He was citing Deuteronomy 15:11, where God says through Moses to the people of Israel "there will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land" (NIV).

Arguments can and frequently are made that Christ was criticizing their desire to be in ministry to the poor. In my opinion, that is off-target. Having Jesus the Christ physically standing in front of them was a unique experience, only held by a few in all of humanity. Essentially, Christ was saying that the poor will always be here, and you will have more oportunities to express love in person to them, but you will only have a few more limited opportunities to express love to Him in person/in flesh. There is an important shift in interpretation there.

Second, the passage should be taken in context with the end of chapter 25 (Matthew 25:31-46), just six verses previous, where Christ describes Himself sitting in judgement over humanity, and separating the sheep from the goats. You know the story: the sheep go to heaven and the goats are cast into the eternal fire meant for the devil and his minions. The factor that separates the sheep from the goats: whether one actively loved 'the least of these' by feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, showing hospitality to the stranger, clothing the naked, and visiting the sick and the prisoner.

Third, you have to take into account the setting of the story itself. Where are Christ and his disciples when this woman comes to him? In the home of a leper. That is an amazing statement in itself, because of the tremendous emphasis upon ritualistic cleanliness. Because of their incurable 'unclean' state, lepers were almost always poor, because no one in Judaic society would do business with them or employ them. The setting is akin to Jesus sitting in a house in a modern slum.

Fourth, you have to take into how often Christ either spoke of serving the poor, actively associated with the poor and outcast, or spoke of selfless-giving (which relates directly to the needs of others, particularly those with more needs - the poor).

 

Btw, try a search at youtube for "prosperity gospel." There's some interesting and funny stuff there, primarily criticizing the prosperity gospel. The Craig Lewis video is pretty funny.

 

That's a very, very thought-provoking piece. It's been on my mind for days, since I first read it.

HB makes some valid points in terms of a spiritual ministry. In particular, different people do have different gifts to offer; & I wouldn't hesitate to accept even a "guilt" offering of money or goods from someone attempting to salve his own conscience on behalf of someone in need. That may be all he's capable of at the time; & it's not my place or within my power to determine his motives.

I do agree that our culture has become extremely materialistic. And I also agree that a more personal, connected type of giving is of greater spiritual value than just writing a check to a charitable organization--both to the giver & the recipient. That doesn't lead me, however, to discount the value of the less personal effort. It's a place to start

I believe that the great tragedy of the church is not that rich Christians do not care about the poor, but that they do not know the poor. I do think it's a shame that people of different socio-economic classes are so socially isolated from one another. We can all learn so much from our personal contacts with people we don't normally come into contact with. And it's the more advantaged people who have to seek out that contact, because let's face it--they can't get into your country club, but you're very welcome in the soup kitchen.

we know that we cannot end poverty without ending wealth
This is a statement that scares the bejesus out of your typical middle-to-upper-class American. This crosses the line from the religious to the political--smacks of socialism & communism, those dreaded evils. Makes lots of people VERY uncomfortable, because while most people work for what they get, there's also the reality that what earns the most money is not necessarily what's really the most valuable.

Lots to think about . . .