Who’s the audience, is this a way of doing right by God or doing right by other people or maybe those two are tied together and the way you treat people in need is the way you do right by God. It’s the roots of that concept, Proverbs 14:31, an expression of this mindset, the one who oppresses the poor, taunts or dishonors his maker, but the one who is gracious to the needy honors him. In other words, in this worldview, how you relate to the poor is how you relate to your maker and actually here, the one who oppresses the poor dishonors his maker and the question is, who’s the his, of his maker? It’s intentionally ambiguous, meaning the one who oppresses the poor and the poor have the same maker. If you’ve grown up in a culture saturated in Jewish and Christian values, we already take this for granted, it’s called human rights. Is it a secularized version and then image of God, is it biblical version, but this is revolutionary, because God identifies himself with the poor right here.
How you treat the poor is how you treat God, it’s that equation unique to the Jewish and Christian traditions in a way of framing how you relate to the poor. Proverbs 19:17, the one who shows kindness to the poor, is the one that lends to Yahweh, he that is Yahweh will repay him his reward. In other words, somebody who shows generosity to the poor lends to Yahweh, he’s actually giving money to Yahweh, when he’s generous to the poor and it’s not the person in need who will repay you, that’s not what you’re after, it’s trusting that Yahweh will repay you for lending to him by giving to someone in need. Jesus is expressing a worldview, in which when there’s somebody in my community, who’s in need, how I relate to them is how I relate to God, Yahweh identifies himself with the most poor and vulnerable people in our communities.
This was so radical in the early Greek and Roman world, it led to the creation of these institutions that today we take for granted called hospitals or orphanages or food banks and these were Christian contributions to Western Civilization based off this value right here. Be careful, Jesus’ overriding point is be careful, memorial plaques, universities, public buildings, if that’s all your after, great, you got the plaque. In Jesus’ day, this was the game right here, to get that plaque, that’s everything, it’s fixed in stone, that I am a generous outstanding member of our community, who has provided a good thing for other people and you get the plaque and people read your name. The desserts of the plaque, being able to have access to the thing that honor gives them, you dedicate, so that a library can be built at a university, but it might be what you’re really after is access to the Board of Trustees.
It’s that game and Jesus, he’s not saying don’t be generous, what he’s saying is be careful, because all your motives can get turned upside down so quick without even knowing it. Jesus uses this vivid image of, if it’s your right hand that wants to write the check, don’t let your left hand know, what your right hand’s doing, a great metaphor. The idea is, it might be better for you and for others involved, if it’s an anonymous gift or if you just say I don’t need a plaque, it might actually be better for the health of your heart and mind to not get the plaque. Jesus would seriously want his followers to entertain a different mode of generosity that doesn’t play the game. The fact that Jesus uses a really dense figure of speech to communicate his idea, Christians have taken this a lot of different ways. There are some traditions that have so inverted this whole game, that now the new way of gaining honor is to give anonymously. A new honor and shame game, then all of a sudden someone will feel ashamed that there’s somebody that they helped and that they wanted to tell others and make it known.
Jesus is giving ethical wisdom here, he wants to instill a value, that the default way of showing generosity, it should be, I’m not doing this for other people to know about it, it’s not what I’m after here and if somehow other people are going to find out about it, okay, but that’s not the reason I’m doing it, I’m doing it, because it’s doing right by God and doing right by this person. In the first century Greco-Roman setting, this is the game, the game is to calculate, the game is to put the plaque on there building, so that I can gain more public notoriety, so that I can be invited to this dinner, because that person will be there and I can bring up the plaque, this is the game. The game goes on in every human community that’s ever existed and it’s that, that Jesus wants to turn on it’s head. The reason why you should give generously to someone in need, is because they’re made in the image of God and to do right by them is to do right by God, whether or not anybody ever knows about it. Jesus’ point is, it doesn’t matter, some people might learn about it, but don’t do it for that reason, it’ll ruin everything, including you.
How you treat the poor is how you treat God, it’s that equation unique to the Jewish and Christian traditions in a way of framing how you relate to the poor. Proverbs 19:17, the one who shows kindness to the poor, is the one that lends to Yahweh, he that is Yahweh will repay him his reward. In other words, somebody who shows generosity to the poor lends to Yahweh, he’s actually giving money to Yahweh, when he’s generous to the poor and it’s not the person in need who will repay you, that’s not what you’re after, it’s trusting that Yahweh will repay you for lending to him by giving to someone in need. Jesus is expressing a worldview, in which when there’s somebody in my community, who’s in need, how I relate to them is how I relate to God, Yahweh identifies himself with the most poor and vulnerable people in our communities.
This was so radical in the early Greek and Roman world, it led to the creation of these institutions that today we take for granted called hospitals or orphanages or food banks and these were Christian contributions to Western Civilization based off this value right here. Be careful, Jesus’ overriding point is be careful, memorial plaques, universities, public buildings, if that’s all your after, great, you got the plaque. In Jesus’ day, this was the game right here, to get that plaque, that’s everything, it’s fixed in stone, that I am a generous outstanding member of our community, who has provided a good thing for other people and you get the plaque and people read your name. The desserts of the plaque, being able to have access to the thing that honor gives them, you dedicate, so that a library can be built at a university, but it might be what you’re really after is access to the Board of Trustees.
It’s that game and Jesus, he’s not saying don’t be generous, what he’s saying is be careful, because all your motives can get turned upside down so quick without even knowing it. Jesus uses this vivid image of, if it’s your right hand that wants to write the check, don’t let your left hand know, what your right hand’s doing, a great metaphor. The idea is, it might be better for you and for others involved, if it’s an anonymous gift or if you just say I don’t need a plaque, it might actually be better for the health of your heart and mind to not get the plaque. Jesus would seriously want his followers to entertain a different mode of generosity that doesn’t play the game. The fact that Jesus uses a really dense figure of speech to communicate his idea, Christians have taken this a lot of different ways. There are some traditions that have so inverted this whole game, that now the new way of gaining honor is to give anonymously. A new honor and shame game, then all of a sudden someone will feel ashamed that there’s somebody that they helped and that they wanted to tell others and make it known.
Jesus is giving ethical wisdom here, he wants to instill a value, that the default way of showing generosity, it should be, I’m not doing this for other people to know about it, it’s not what I’m after here and if somehow other people are going to find out about it, okay, but that’s not the reason I’m doing it, I’m doing it, because it’s doing right by God and doing right by this person. In the first century Greco-Roman setting, this is the game, the game is to calculate, the game is to put the plaque on there building, so that I can gain more public notoriety, so that I can be invited to this dinner, because that person will be there and I can bring up the plaque, this is the game. The game goes on in every human community that’s ever existed and it’s that, that Jesus wants to turn on it’s head. The reason why you should give generously to someone in need, is because they’re made in the image of God and to do right by them is to do right by God, whether or not anybody ever knows about it. Jesus’ point is, it doesn’t matter, some people might learn about it, but don’t do it for that reason, it’ll ruin everything, including you.