1. The context of this passage was the fleeting, physical presence of Jesus Christ on earth just before his death and resurrection. The focus of the passage is centered on worship not poverty and wealth. If his second coming included his physical appearance at my house for dinner, and if I were privileged to pour him his first taste of wine since the last supper, I would not hesitate to spend my retirement savings for a bottle of 1945 Chateau Mouton-Rothschild Jeroboam.
2. His statement was in response to the berating this woman received, particularly from Judas who was greedy for the money this perfume might have fetched to line his own pockets (John 12). He was defending this woman’s act of worship. Perhaps he was suggesting that our acts of worship would be to pour our alabaster jars of perfume upon the heads of the poor after his ascension, essentially saying, “This woman has done a beautiful thing to me now while I am physically present, you will have many chances to do beautiful things to me later when I am present in the form of the poor.”
3. Jesus was quoting Deuteronomy 15. This is a stunning Old Testament passage which says both, “You should have no poor among you,” v. 4, and “There will always be poor people in the land,” v. 11. God set up an economic system that, if followed, would make poverty virtually unheard of. The acknowledgement in verse 11 that there would always be poor in the land is either a prophetic denouncement that Israel would never fully obey the commands, or that the flourishing nation would be so economically solid that it would attract the poor from the nations around them. Either way, in his quote Jesus harkens to a passage which essentially says that poverty was never meant to be a thriving condition among God’s people.

I sat next to a man on a plane once reading, Why I am not a Christian and Other Essays …by Bertrand Russell. I leaned over and asked, “Does Bertrand Russell provide a compelling argument?”

(You may want to check out Part I, Part II, and Part III) 

Except for an infinitesimal pocket of humanity (almost exclusively in the west and mainly in the last few hundred years) men and women in every era and on every continent have known that there is some kind of life after death. From the beginning of the human experience, archaeologists tell us that we humans have always been deeply convinced of the hereafter.

I have opportunity to speak pretty regularly, mostly to highly educated, relatively rich young people. It’s always a little unnerving to see people nodding off as you speak, but I’ve come to expect it … except when speaking in certain contexts. By far and away the most attentive audiences I’ve ever spoken to have been inmates in a maximum security prison. Extremely alert, engaged and respectful. Would that all wealthy, educated, upstanding, church-goers have the passion for God and his word like a murderer serving a life sentence.

This is part 3 of a four-part series. Here are links to Part I and Part II.

When God made the heavens and the earth, he did not create slums. His creation was made to be in a state of flourishing, benevolently governed by humans made in his image. Later, God set his affections on a slave race in order to demonstrate to the world his intentions for human shalom-prosperity-flourishing, and set up an economic and social system so that "there should be no poor" among them (Deut. 15:4); they would lend to many nations but would never need to borrow (Deut 28:12). Land would be redistributed on a regular schedule (Lev. 25) and debts were forgiven on a seven-year cycle (Deut. 15) in order to insure no one would be driven so deep into poverty that they could never get out.

In the early days of the church we glimpse once more God's offense at poverty and his intention to establish a poverty-free kingdom.

When Paul and Barnabas went before the Apostles to be certain that their kingdom-building efforts among the Gentiles were not in vain, "They asked only one thing, that we remember the poor, which is actually what I was eager to do." (Gal. 2:10). Of all the theological issues the Apostles might have emphasized to Paul and Barnabas in the early days of establishing the church, their only concern was that Paul knew the importance of remembering (or caring for) the poor.

The church, like the nation that God established among the former Hebrew slaves, was to be a place where poverty was non-existent, or at least a rare exception. The early followers of Jesus entered into a community without private ownership or personal hoarding. As a result, they lived a reality that did not include poverty:

Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. Acts 4:32-35 (Also see Acts 2:44).

In order to eradicate poverty from among them, the followers of Jesus not only denounced private ownership and embraced the idea of communal wealth, but they undertook social programs, such as daily distribution of food to widows. Such systems required time, effort, intention, and a layer of management which they dubbed "servants," (diakonos in Greek) or Deacons. These were the systems and structures adopted to insure that “there was not a needy person among them,” (Acts 4:34) or in the words of the Old Testament Law, “there should be no poor among you.” (Deut. 15:4)

The church was an organism which was to express Christ's kingdom on earth. As such, poverty would not be tolerated. John the Baptist, Jesus, Peter, Paul and James all addressed issues of poverty and wealth in their teachings which indicated God's intent that his image-bearers might live lives of material sufficiency and radical generosity.

But what of Jesus' statement that, "you always have the poor with you," (Matt 26:11, Mk 14:7, Jn 12:8)? The point of Jesus’ comment was that showing kindness to the poor is something the disciples would have ample opportunity to do, but that anointing Jesus' body for burial was not. The concern about using the anointing money to help the poor was a deception anyway. It was something Judas Iscariot raised because his intent was to take the money for himself (Jn 12:6). His concern was not for the poor. Jesus' statement is not resignation to poverty. His words do not encourage us to accept poverty any more than if he had said "there will always be brothels," would encourage us to accept sexual exploitation. Sin may not be completely eliminated before his return, but this is not license for us to allow evil to flourish.

In God's abundant creation, in the national laws that he established for his people, and in the teachings of Christ and the operation of the early church it is clear - Poverty is anathema for those who know, love and follow the God of the Universe and its existence is an offense to be addressed by his people.

When God made the cosmos and everything in it, we see the oft repeated phrase in Genesis 1 and 2, "it was good." It shows up seven times, and the final time the phrase shows up was when God surveyed all he made. Then, he saw that it was "very good." So in this pristine creation of abundant goodness it strikes one as strange that God declares something in the cosmos as "not good." What was "not good" wasn't the fact that evil was a possibility (as implied in the existence of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil), nor that God's enemy was allowed to slither around and mess with things. The one thing in all of creation that was "not good" according to the voice of God himself, was the aloneness of man - Individualism.

While it is true that each human person is unique, and that there is affection between Creator and each particular individual, our view of the importance of self – the inflation of the individual and the diminishing of the community - has certainly impoverished the theology of the western church.

Our language betrays the fact that we are among the most individualistic and possessive people on the planet. Westerners (and mainly Americans in my experience) say things like "my doctor," or "my pastor," or "my hairdresser," which, when you think about it, is a little weird; as if these people are owned, and live exclusively to serve me.

It is easier for those of us in the west to live alone than most anywhere else on earth. Extended family and community are woven into to fabric of most cultures in the world and only in bizarre circumstances would a person choose to live, or even be allowed to live, by themselves.

Among the poor it is unsustainable to live alone. Most of the poor live in close (some would say crowded) community. Even street kids live in community. As a matter of fact, one hundred and fifty years ago in America most of us were farmers and we, too, had a more developed sense of community. But In the modernized, privatized, Americanized version of Christian faith, we view decision-making, relationship, and journey with Christ through an almost exclusively individualistic lens.

The idea of Christ as "personal Lord and savior," is relatively new to Christianity; and as I travel about the world I find the phrase predominantly used in the west. The ancient Jewish people, as all ancient peoples, thought of themselves collectively, and their relationship to Yahweh was more communal than it was individual. Within the early church we see whole households (which likely included related as well as unrelated people) converting to Christianity together (Acts 11:14, 16:15, 31, 18:8, I Cor. 1:16). Paul also addressed entire households in his letters, not to mention writing to communities of believers meeting in a city or region. Most cases of the word "you" in the New Testament are plural (again the English language betrays the fact that we only have one word for "you,” mostly used in the singular, unless y’all are southern). And the descriptions in the Bible of the future glory of Christ with his Bride treat the church as a collective entity.

Each individual person needs to answer the question which Jesus put to his disciples, "Who do you say I am?" We must each stand as individuals before our Maker to some degree or other. And it is appropriate to get alone with God in our prayer closets. Even Jesus went off by himself to commune with his Father. But most of us in the west, myself included, have so constructed a privatized, individualized faith, that we have lost something of the communal nature of the Godhead. My conception of heaven, my understanding of salvation, and the idea of sanctification are almost exclusively centered on me as an individual. The Christ who taught us to pray “OUR Father” has a communal understanding of heaven so far as I can see from some of the Kingdom of God parables (which often dealt with a king and his people or a landlord and his stewards). And from the description of the collective Bride comprised a great throng of people from every language and ethnic group. The call to repentance in the New Testament was almost always addressed to communities or collections of people (like Pharisees, soldiers, tax collectors, scribes, the nation of Israel or the city of Jerusalem, in addition to other entire cities). And the idea of spiritual growth, holiness, righteousness and justice are almost always expressed in communal terms.

There’s a whole lot of “one another” terminology in the Epistles and Gospels and the concept of career or even education was rarely something as individualized as it is for modern westerners. TheThe idea of a singular person deciding on their own to become a singular missionary and going on their own to spread the gospel is relatively rare in the New Testament (Philip being wisked off is the exception. There were not "missionaries" by and large, there were wandering mission communities).

We are communal people, created by a communal Godhead – God-Christ-Holy Spirit. Even our western nuclear family construct (comprised of only parents and children – or in some cases parent and child) is a frightfully smaller circle than we find in the lifestyles described in Scripture. Our understanding of the Christian faith, of God, and of ourselves is drastically shaped by an individualistic worldview driven by the concept of ME and MY.

Only by submitting ourselves to the community of Father, Son and Spirit and intentionally fostering interdependent relationships; living, eating, and serving in larger groups than most of us in the west are used to, can we come to more fully understand the God who exists in community and calls whole communities of people into fellowship with the Three in One.

The drug company, Pfizer, just settled with the U.S. government for $2.3 billion on charges of fraud. Pfizer essentially admitted that they were promoting the use of Bextra for ailments which the drug wasn’t designed to address. In the language of early America – they were peddling snake oil, “Good for what ails you!”