quote:

---

The most relevant problem remains, Triskal, that Matt. version may be read the way you suggest, but clearly Luke cannot be so read. WHAT do you do with LUKE

---

quote:

---

1. do you acknowledge that God is showing compassion for the oppressed and threatening the oppressors quite directly?

2. do you recognize the obvious implication that we are being called to right the imbalance between the poor, hungry, etc. and ourselves?

---

quote:

---

" When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will seperate people one from another as a shepherd seperates sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, 'Come you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing. I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.' Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?' And the king will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.' Then he will say to those at his left hand, 'You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me." Then they also will answer, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thristy or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?' Then he will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did not to the least of these, you did not do it to me.' And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." Matt. 25:31ff

---

quote:

---

The danger of your words is that you still, in the end, spiritualize what is a very clear and, yes, even political command. I reject your redefining of poverty because of Christ’s teaching here (among others):

quote:

---

" When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will seperate people one from another as a shepherd seperates sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. Then the king will say to those at his right hand, 'Come you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing. I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.' Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?' And the king will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.' Then he will say to those at his left hand, 'You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me." Then they also will answer, 'Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thristy or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?' Then he will answer them, 'Truly I tell you, just as you did not to the least of these, you did not do it to me.' And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." Matt. 25:31ff

---

In the background is the consistent teaching of God to Israel about compassion and care for the widows and orphans. Check a concordance on that one, it’s pervasive. Is God refering to spiritual widows and spiritual orphans? Is that what we are now?

---

Modes, a few comments. Don’t think that I’m saying that material poverty is not legitimate or serious. Don’t think that I’m trying to get myself, or ourselves, the materially rich of the hook. It is we who are responsible for the poverty in the world and we who will be judged by it. “If our poor die of hunger, it is not because God does not care for them. Rather, it is because neither you nor I are generous enough. It is because we are not instruments of love in the hands of God. We do not recognize Christ when once again He appears to us in the hungry man, in the lonely woman, in the child who is looking for a place to get warm.” (Mother Teresa. No Greater Love. Ed. Becky Benenate & Joseph Durepos. Novato: New World Library, p. 40 – 41.) I can only assure you that my heart is in this BIG TIME. I’m currently thinking about joining the Missionaries of Charity and serving the materially poorest of the poor. (BTW this is a something I could use a TON of prayer about right now)

A quick aside to brag on God a bit: so here’s the deal. I’ve seen all those pictures on TV with starving kids and skeleton bones and I always knew intellectually that it was real, but I didn’t know it concretely until I saw it first hand. Until I touched it. My first experience with abject poverty blew my mind and I’ve never recovered from it. Doc once wrote an article about driving thru some slums somewhere and thinking why he had been born where he had been born and not in the slums. I thought all those things too. I went because I wanted to let God change me, the first thing he changed was that he REALLY made me want to change the world! That whole ‘is ought’ distinction. Well when those pictures on TV were replaced by concrete realities I decided that this IS real and it OUGHT not be this way, and I am responsible (in a very small part in the big scheme of things but in a very big way from my subjective SK way) for it. Anyway I had hung out with the Missionaries of Charity and I wanted to learn as much about poverty in the two-thirds world as possible. So I became a third world studies major (the no longer politically correct term BTW) and traveled around the world taking courses in community development armed with a warfare take on the issues at hand. Well my CD classes disappointed me. The professor and I had some different views on things and its too lengthy to go into right now. The long and short of it was that CD outside of the M.C.’s (missionaries of charity) was not for me. But I didn’t know how to get started since I’m not Catholic and I’ve got no connections. Well I wrote a letter to the M.C. Sisters in San Fran and they wrote back with a couple addresses one of which is in the Twin Cities! I had no idea who this person was so I called her up. Turns out she was one of Mother Teresa’s best friends. Her and her husband had founded the co-workers which is a group of non-religious order people who want to share in the work of the M.C.’s. It started out being mostly professional people like doctors and lawyers and stuff like that. Her husband happened to be a doctor and he showed me some cool x-rays of Mothers head and (yikes) chest that he had taken after Mother had gotten in a jeep accident. Anywho they were tremendously generous gracious saintly people who got me hooked up with the M.C. Brothers out in LA who I just got back from visiting. Mother once said that she knew where she was supposed to be but didn’t know how to get there. I felt like that too, and thanks to these MN folks I now at least have a foothold in the show. And that’s enough bragging on God for now. Just pray that he’ll lead me where I should go because the work of the M.C.’s is the hardest in the world and I’m not sure if I could realistically hold up for a lifetime of it. Also I’m pretty okay when it comes to making a sacrifice for myself but if I do become an M.C. I’d be asking my family to make a sacrifice too. Mother said it is a total gift, you can’t keep anything back. If I become an M.C. it means seeing my family rarely and not being able to financially support my parents when they are going to need it. I’ve vowed that they’re not going to end up in a nursing home but I don’t know how to follow through on this if I become an M.C. All this is to say that far from downplaying the plight of the materially poor or the responsibility of the materially rich this is exactly where my heart is right now, and hopefully will always stay.

Okay back to the debate about material vs. spiritual poverty. First the verses you quoted in Mt. 25 is the key text Mother Teresa used to define her ministry. She takes the main point of this parable to be that when we feed the hungry and clothe the naked we are IN REALITY feeding and clothing Christ. And when we reject the poor we are IN REALITY rejecting Christ. “One day I picked up a man from the gutter. His body was covered with worms. I brought him to our house, and what did this man say? He did not curse. He did not blame anyone. He just said, ‘I’ve lived like an animal in the street, but I’m going to die like an angel, loved and cared for!’ It took us three [THREE!] hours to clean him. Finally, the man looked up at the sister and said, ‘Sister, I’m going home to God.’ And then he died. I’ve never seen such a radiant smile on a human face as the one I saw on that man’s face. He went home to God. See what love can do! It is possible that young sister did not think about it at the moment, but she was touching the body of Christ. Jesus said so when He said, ‘As often as you did it for one of my least brothers, you did it for me’ (Matthew 25:40 RSV). And this is where you and I fit into God’s plan” (Mother Teresa 23 – 24.)

Modes:

quote:

---

Is God refering to spiritual widows and spiritual orphans? Is that what we are now?

---

Mother thinks so. I’m not using her as an authority on exegesis. I’m using her as an authority because no one will suspect her of trying to get off the hook of responsibility by spiritualizing poverty. No one will suspect her motives or question her commitment to the materially poor as they might (correctly) question mine. I want to make three points. First that Mother believes spiritual poverty is real, Biblical, and greater than material poverty. “In every country there are poor. On certain continents poverty is more spiritual than material, a poverty that consists of loneliness, discouragement, and the lack of meaning in life. I have also seen in Europe and America very poor people sleeping on newspapers or rags in the streets. There are those kind of poor in London, Madrid, and Rome. It is too easy simply to talk or concern ourselves with the poor who are far away. It is much harder and, perhaps, more challenging to turn our attention and concern toward the poor who live right next door to us. When I pick up a hungry person from the streets, I give him rice and bread, and I have satisfied that hunger. But a person who is shut out, feels unwanted by society, unloved and terrified—how much more difficult is it to remove that hunger? You in the West have the spiritually poorest of the poor much more than you have the physically poor. Often among the rich are very spiritually poor people. I find it is easy to give a plate of rice to a hungry person, to furnish a bed to a person who has no bed, but to console or to remove the bitterness, anger, and loneliness that comes from being spiritually deprived, that takes a long time” (94 –95).Second, that Christ also knew this kind of spiritual poverty. “They say that the passion in Gethsemane was much greater than even the crucifixion. Because it was His heart, his soul that was being crucified, while on the cross, it was His body that was crucified. And the only way that we know that it was so difficult for Him that hour is that He asked, ‘Why could you not spend one hour with me?’” (Mother Teresa 82). Third, that if Christ is to be seen in the distressing disguise of the materially poor he is also to be seen in the spiritually poor. The latter is harder to see than the former but we should try to develop radar screens to pick it up. That is to say we should try to define poverty in such a way that will pick up spiritual poverty as a legitimate form of poverty. “We often look without seeing. Am I able to see the poor and suffering?” (Mother Teresa 79.) Again, “It is easy to love those who live far away. It is not always easy to love those who live right next to us. It is easier to offer a dish of rice to meet the hunger of a needy person than to comfort the loneliness and the anguish of someone in our own home who does not feel loved. I want you to go and find the poor in your homes. Above all, your love has to start there. I want you to be the good news to those around you. I want you to be concerned about your next-door neighbor. Do you know who your neighbor is?” (Mother Teresa 27). Modes, your definition of poverty is ruling out ahead of time some of who the poor are.
This might sound self-centered (because it is) but the first time I walked thru urban slums I felt envious. It made me ashamed. I felt compassion and outrage and all of the noble things that you are supposed to feel as well but they were all overpowered by this shameful sense of envy. You see I was very suicidal at the time and as I walked thru the slums with some of my best friends and we saw these complete strangers our hearts automatically broke. I have no idea what emotional or spiritual poverty these people were experiencing in addition to their physical poverty but we could see that loud and clear (I love mixing sensual metaphors ) The thing was I envied the visibility of their hurt. Some of them were dying and we all knew it. I was dying and no one knew it. I badly wanted people to see that but there just was no way to get it out.

Beyond my own personal story I would argue we are just the dead burying the dead as Jesus said. We are a great mass of men and women who are living lives of quite desperation. We have no life to offer the material poor except a that of material life and spiritual death.

82 percent of Americans basically do not like their jobs. We are living lives that are trivial. Even if we fed all the hungry and clothed all of the naked, even if we raised the standard of living to the level of the first world they would not be any better off then the first world! If we made the material poor just like us the problem is that they would be just like us! “One has patience with every kind of living thing but not with the dead alive…The worst of charity, is, that the lives you are asked to preserve are not worth preserving” (Emerson Emerson in His Journals. Ed. Joel Porte. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982, p. 157). I am NOT saying that we shouldn’t sacrifice greatly to feed the hungry and clothe the naked, we need to do these things but we need to go FAR FAR beyond these things to truly give them the abundant resurrected life that Jesus wills us to have. “For when you come to think about it the only way to love a person is not, as the stereotyped Christian notion is, to coddle them and bring them soup when they are sick, but by listening to them and seeing and believing in the god, in the poet, in them. For in doing this, you keep the god and the poet alive and make it flourish (Brenda Ueland. If You Want to Write. St. Paul: Graywolf Press, 1987, p. 6). The poor need more than life, we need a reason to stay alive. I barely have this. Most Americans barely have this. This is, in part, why we are poor. We do not realize that we were made for greater things that just to survive the to the next day. 30,000 people WILL NOT survive to make it to the next day because of hunger related causes. How many millions of people will survive until tomorrow who will do so in a state of living death? We need more than food—we need art. “The rebellion of art is a daily rebellion against the state of living death routinely called real life” (Jeanette Winterson Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effontery. New York: Alfred A, Knopf, 1996, p. 108). We WERE made for greater things than food, we were made to love and to be loved. But how many people live in loveless existences? Should we not see these people as the poorest of the poor in reality? Have we defined poverty in such a way as to automatically rule them out? Are they not Christ in a more distressing and difficult to see disguise because it is internal instead of superficial? The abundant life needs bread but we cannot live on bread alone. The abundant life needs medicine but medicine alone will get us only to a state of immortal dying. To quote from one of my favorite movies, “We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of he human race. And the human race is filled with passion. Now medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for” (Tom Schulman. Dead Poets Society screenplay. Dir. Peter Weir. Perf. Robin Williams. Thouchstone Pictures, 1989.).

quote:

---

quote:

---

PI says:
“people always ASSUMED that his kingdom was a political one but the thing they were missing was that it was in reality a spiritual one. Arn't we making the same mistake if we force Jesus' words to be only about physical or financial povertty? was not everything he did ultiamatly with spiritual goals as primary (including all his pyshical healings mircules and socail justice stuff)?”

---

This is a serious error based upon a overzealous split between the "spiritual" and the "physical". Only one reality exists, there is a spiritual aspect to it as well as a physical one. To bifucate these sharply requires us to pick one or the other to ulitmately align ourselves with. Jesus did not do this, he kept things real. He kept them integrated. God’s concern for the truly oppressed is consistent throughout the Bible, and even though what that means is culturally relative to some extent, it was always clear within any given context WHO was considered to be those in need. For Israel it was the widows and the orphans in particular, because of the way their social system didn’t have a place for them. Jesus speaks of others in the passage above. Today, we would have to consider Aids victims, and abandoned elderly, and so forth. Let’s keep this real, I dare say it is “spiritually” risky to screw this up.

---

Fair enough modes. You are of course right that the spiritual and physical are more integrated than my language will allow but language betrays me. How could I better express what I’m trying to say without appealing to some sort of spiritual/physical distinction? Today we must consider AIDS victims, abandoned elderly, and so forth. Will you include the unloved, the lonely, the suicidal among the so forth? These things rarely manifest themselves in any physical way until it is too late. We are psychosomatic creatures but much of what goes on inside is not visible the way that malnutrition is. Why should malnutrition be ‘real’ poverty and loneliness not? Jesus in the garden prayed. All he wanted was for Peter James and John to pray with him, to not leave him alone. Can we not see Christ in our fellow lonely neighbors in this same way, just as we do in Mt. 25? Would one dare say it was less painful than starvation?

Modes:

quote:

---

However, I think it is to radically miss the point if you are saying Mother Teresa was MORE interested in sacrifice than in obeying God’s command to do justice to those in need!

---

Dudechild: you of course are very right! I thought it went without saying so I didn’t say it. Maybe it should have also been said.

Modes:

quote:

---

Again, needless and potentially damaging spiritualization. A more persuasive reason for her wanting rich people to get involved by humbly serving first hand is that it would inevitably CHANGE those rich people’s perspective with regard to the poor, and they would possibly even live differently as a result.

---

Dudechild: somewhere, I can’t find it right now, Mother said that the poor and the rich were made for each other. The rich will save the poor and the poor will save the rich. The whole idea that the rich should make a pilgrimage to visit, serve, and be taught spiritually by the poor is in the post that started this thread.

Modes:

quote:

---

Here I think your flat out wrong. There may be other reasons to talk about our “spiritual poverty” but let us not corrupt the clear commands of God to say something that gets “spirituat” which then has the effect of getting us of the hook in terms of practice! Again, refer to the passage above. It does not allow such a reading.
[…]
I can’t resist this strongly enough. Yes, we are like those people, we are sinners. BUT NO we are not poor like they are. Truly you must be more sensitive to inequities than this! Read the psalms, it is full of wresting with issues of REAL life and expectations that God will provide! God uses US to do it! If we identify OURSELVES with those we are supposed to be helping WHO the **** is going to actually help them?!? Have your spiritualized reading of these texts if you must, but for God’s sake, and the sake of the actual suffering people of the world OBEY them in terms of the physical world as well. Personally I think the split is not worth beans, but at least do not neglect the plain sense of the texts. Many in church history had “layers of meanings” for all passages, perhaps we can at least agree that there is a command here that is not optional. Whatever else you choose to do with such passages.

---

I hope you can see that I’m not trying to be antagonistic but I must insist, while still preserving our responsibility in very practical concrete ways, that we are the true poor in God’s eyes. I’m on your side with all of the inequities and Psalms and everything, but is it possible to retain all of this and still see a worse poverty in ourselves? These commands are not optional. I don’t know where I ever said that they were? By insisting that we are the true poor I am not implying that we no longer have to meet peoples physical needs. Indeed if things pan out in a certain direction I may spend the majority of my life doing just that. But that’s the thing. I could work at a job that I’ll probably hate, that stresses me out, but pay’s more money than 99.9% of people who have historically lived, and ultimately do nothing significant with my life. Or I could join the M.C. Brothers and do a job that I might also hate but at least it will be significant. I would argue that insignificance is a more fearful thing than anything else.

EMILY: “Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute?”
STAGE MANAGER: “No.” Pause. “The saints and poets, maybe –they do some.”
--Thornton Wilder Our Town

now that’s true riches—true wealth—an abundant life worth staying alive for.

Modes, Trosie, Pia, Doc, I’d love to hear what ya’ll think about this?




dudechild

"If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex?" -Art Hoppe


Edited by - Pseudo-Intellectual on 08/02/2001 6:21:18 PM

quote:

---

Dudechild writes: "Some of them were dying and we all knew it. I was dying and no one knew it. I badly wanted people to see that but there just was no way to get it out"

There are so many people (especially youth) who are acting out in violent ways against their own bodies in desperate hope that someone will notice their "emotional" and "spiritual" poverty. Many people turn to cutting themselves, eating disorders, alcoholism and drugs, even suicide hoping to somehow relieve themself of the internal pain they experience, desperately hoping someone will notice. When you say that you felt a bit envious because no one noticed how you were dying, I can see how much empathy and understanding you have toward hurting people. Have you ever thought that maybe your calling isn't to go do missionary work somewhere else, but to do ministry to hurting "spiritually poor" people right here? Just a question.

Anyway, I agree with what you say about spiritual poverty.

Trosie

---

quote:

---

1. As you note, you are speaking Mother Teresa’s view on these things. This raises several important points in itself: Mother Teresa would pass what I would call a modified version of Pascal’s Wager on this issue. Say you’re right; and a person decides to spend their life ministering to what this person considers the “spiritually” poor and doesn’t worry so much about the physically poor, (I know this is not what you intend to advocate, but it WOULD be consistent with your view)…especially since you say that the spiritually poor are really poorer than the physically poor. IF you are right, then all is well for that person. But what if you ARE overly spiritualizing this? Then it seems much more is suddenly at stake, for everybody. Mother Teresa is important to keep in mind here because REGARDLESS of who is right in this, she lived faithfully to the calling to care for the poor, widows, orphans, etc. EVEN IF she MISspoke about these things by spiritualizing what is a very concrete and tangible problem. SHE still is found praiseworthy for her life which speaks so much louder and more persuasively than her words. DARE WE take this risk ourselves WITHOUT the same regard for the ones whom most would rather not be seen around, the physically poor and oppressed?

---

quote:

---

I do not intend to shake any one's confidence, in fact, I haven't even finished my PH.D. yet, maybe next year...

---

well i want to pick up a copy of it when its done. i feel ive been influcend by sk in ways im not even aware of just by growing up evangelical

quote:

---

I think I hear your complaint. And in one sense, we are so screwed up as a society and as Christian communities that often the earliest attempts do as much harm as good. BUT we are not thereby released from the responsibility and our compassion does not fade...I HOPE!

---

i know man thats just the problem. we have responsiblities tied up in responsiblities tied up in respons....... the issue of poverty is one that has gone through a number of dialectical turns in my head over the past four years. this is where im at right now but i ask that no body holds me to it. if God reserves the rigchange his mind i sure as heaven reserve the right to change mine!!!

ive been reading a lot of levinas and derrida this summer and far from getting of the hook of responsiblity im starting to belive im responsible for everything!!! every sin ever commited by everyone who has ever lived is my responsiblity. its a little overwhelming. check this out : "Guilt is inherent in respponsiblityy because responsiblity is always unequal to itself: one is never responsible enough. One is never responsible enough bcause one is finite but also because responsiblity requires two contradictory movements. it requires one to respond as oneself andas irreplaceable signularity, to answerr for what one does, says, gives; but itequires , being and through goodness, one forget or efface the originhat one gives." derrida the givt of death page 51.

quote:

---

Day and night, at every instant, on all the Mount Moriahs of this world, I am doing that, raising my knife over what i love and must love, over those to whom i owe absolute fidelity, incommensurably. Abraham is faithful to God only in his absolute treachery, in the betrayal of his own and of the uniqueness of each one of them, exemplified here in his only beloved son. He would not be able to opt for fidelity to his own, or to his son, unless he were to betray the absolute other: God, if you wish.

Let us nok for examples, there would be to many of them at every step we took. By preferring my work, simply by giving it my time and attention, by preferring my activity as a citizen or as a professorial and professional philosopher, writing and speaking here in a public language, Grench in my case, i am perhaps fulfilling my duty. but i am sacrificing and betraying atevery moment all my other obligations: my obligations to the other others whom i know or don't know, the billions of my fellowss (without mentionng the animals that are even moe other others than my fellows), my fellows who are dying of starvatin or sickness. I betray my fidelity or my obligations to other citizens, to those who don't speak my language and to whom i neither speak nor respond, to each of those who listen or read, and to whom i neither respond nor address myself in th proper manner, that is, in a singular manner (this for the so-called public space to which i sacrifice my so-called private space), thus also toe i love in private, my own, my faimily, my son, each of whom is the only son i sacrifice to the other, every one being sacrifiece to everyy one else in this land of Moriah that is our habitat evry second of everyu day. (page 68-9)

---

how do we justify ourselfs every every moment? we can't. Mother couldn't either. every attempt at self-justification is a bloody tampon in God's eyes (check the Gk on that one ). We are not the measure of all things. as longs the other exists the gaze of the other is the measure of all things. we can only be justified by the other, by a grace we cannot give ourselves. even Mother can be deconstructed.:)

well i wanted to get to the rest of your last big post but i don't think i have time. it might have to wait for a week or so. pray for God's graces as in the next week im going to be shareing (scary scary) my thoughts about poverty with others.

quote:

---

(BTW: in case you haven't looked around, PI didn't really cave in to me! There is a very strange performance art deal going around, I hear its contagious...)

---

oh oh like that worm thing thats going around ;)

-Wislawa

quote:

---

ps. the difference between SK and Derrida and many other recent existentialists, is that SK retains the category of the Absolute, not as the self, or even the other, but rather Jesus Christ. Responsibility is taken up by Christ and we are set free, but the new relation is that we both strive to imitate and rest in the peace, as we relate absolutely to the Absolute. Sounds like you need to spend some time in the "rest" available to you through Christ.

---