Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
What does it look like to be poor in spirit? Good question. We are well aware with the poor – or, perhaps I should say, we have an idea of what the poor might entail. The government and academics have their criteria of what it takes to be classified as “poor,” but all it takes is a little observation to see. It’s been quite the topic in Victoria the last few months, with the controversy regarding people who are homeless and, presumably, poor. The poor are the people who live over on that side of town, or who live in those apartments, or who sit at the bus stop waiting for a ride to the dollar value shop to pick up a few things for a meager meal with their Lone Star Card. The poor line up for a weekly free meal at Christ’s Kitchen, for a bag of groceries at the food pantry, and for a utility voucher at VCAM. We look at people standing at the loop and on street corners, signs begging for food or a few dollars, sometimes chuckling at a WAG’s sarcasm or wit - “This sign is all my wife’s attorney left me” – or raw honesty – “Who are we kidding? A buck buys a Natty Lite.” Then, of course, there are those who are considered the working poor – there’s actually a fascinating book by David Shipler by that title - the ones who work minimum wage or so-called “dead-end” jobs with no possibility of ever getting ahead in life. But more often, we either stare straight ahead while pretending those folks – those people! – don’t exist, or we give them dirty looks that say, “Get a job, get an education, figure it out.” These people are usually easy to identify and we generally keep them at at least a window’s distance from us.
That’s a sermon for another day.
Jesus speaks here, not of the poor but of the poor in spirit. Poverty of spirit is sometimes harder to see; it’s easier to hide spiritual poverty because a person’s conscience cannot be seen. But just like fancy clothes and a nice car can hide a business person’s bankruptcy – at least for a while – a person can put up a façade to make everyone think they are spiritually filled when, in reality, they are spiritually broke, broken, and busted.
So, what does the poor in spirit look like? Let me tell you about a man who I will call Peter. I’ve known Peter for a while, now, and we’ve had many interesting conversations. We have talked about our families, cooking, caring for others, and our churches. He’s a faithful Christian man, and he’s asked me Bible questions and requested prayers for himself and family. We saw each other, across the room, at the HEB Feast of Caring but we didn’t talk – he was busy hustling plates of food to hungry people. I know him as a faithful man of God.
Last week, I saw him in a new way. I saw him as a former king bee drug dealer of Victoria county. Since he was 10 years old, he and his sister were major coke and marijuana movers. They did it to survive because their parents were drug dealers, too, and between one thing and another – sometimes including run-ins with the law – the kids were often left at home and hungry. They sold drugs to buy food, at first, and clothes, but as the business grew to be more and more lucrative, their spending grew. It was nothing, he said, to drop two, three thousand dollars before lunch time because they knew they would make it all back and then some before they went to bed that night. They didn’t use – they were smart enough for that – but they still got in trouble. A deal went bad and he had a loaded shotgun waved in his face. He watched customers and a few friends die. He got picked up the first time by the police in a raid when he was a young teenager; a few years later, he got popped a second time. Lesson learned, right? He swore this time it would be different, and he would go straight, but the siren song of wealth from the old life and the financial need of the new life would rise up again and he would sell. All the while, he was going to church on Sunday mornings to hear the Word being read and preached, looking for a word of hope, comfort, help. “You know what, Pastor,” he told me. “I was tithing my drug money. The preacher probably knew it was from drugs, but he never took it out of the collection plate.”
Last week, as we visited, he told me he had long left that lifestyle behind. He and his wife work hard, each day, to make ends meet. He has a good job, and she works for kind and understanding people. They are attentive parents and are vigilant to make sure their kids don’t go down the road he journeyed down twenty years ago. They watch out for the kids friends, too, and they know where their kids are after school. They go to church, are active in the church caring ministry, and he reads his Bible every day. But there were days, he said, when the bills were mounting and the car breaks and the kids need clothes and the doctor’s bills are adding up that he and his wife think about the old lifestyle and how easy it would be, how tempting it is, to do it again, to make money, to be physically comfortable again. It’s not what he wants to do, but it seems like he needs to – just to take care of his family.
But as he talked, I could see him physically deflate. He was filled with sorrow and remorse at what he had done: to himself, to his family, to those he sold drugs to. He was filled with sadness at being tempted by the love of money, the desire for wealth and an easier life. He was absolutely crushed by the shame and guilt of what he had done, and was terrified at how strong the temptations are to go back to that life. He began weeping. “And, pastor, what does God think of me? I am so ashamed…”
Sometimes a sermon comes to life, not behind a desk with theological books nearby and an open study Bible. Sometimes it is preached, not from a pulpit, but across a coffee room, with two people sharing a Word of comfort and hope from Jesus.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit,” I said. He looked at me. I repeated it again: “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”
I explained that the poor in spirit are those who know, without any doubt, just how desperately they need Jesus. The poor in spirit are spiritually bankrupt. They aren’t bad people. The poor in spirit come from all walks of life, from both sides of the tracks, regardless of the thickness of their wallet or the heft of the bank account, whether they have a 5000 acre spread or can’t afford the dirt stuck to the bottom of their shoes . The poor in spirit are children of God who realize just how sinful and sin-filled they are. They realize they can’t fix it, they can’t stop it, they can’t make it right. They are spiritually destitute and have no resources of their own. All they have is Jesus.
“The fact is, I told him, that everyone is poor in spirit. No one has enough of a spiritual portfolio to offer to the Lord in exchange for their freedom. No one has enough credit to pay off sin’s debt. No one has enough capitol to free themselves. The difference is that the poor in spirit who turn to Jesus are made whole.
“What the poor in spirit do have is to hear, receive and believe the Lord’s call to repent for the kingdom is at hand. In repentance, they admit it: they are poor in spirit. They repent: they are lost. They confess: they are sinners who are spiritually bankrupt with nothing to offer, hands that are empty and open like a beggar’s sack. And, in faith, they hold out those open hands to Jesus, who for our sakes, became poor, taking on the very nature of a servant. Not just any servant, but a suffering servant, a substitutionary servant who takes the place of the poor in spirit, dying the sinner’s death and declaring the debt paid in full with His blood.
Jesus calls the poor in spirit “blessed.” Some translations try to make this read “happy,” but that’s not good at all. Happiness is a feeling. A cup of coffee makes me happy; watching my dog race around the yard makes me happy, finishing a sermon on Thursday makes me happy. A blessing is a gift of God, a declaration, a statement that announces to the world, “This is true.” In the Beatitudes, Jesus declares His children are blessed in the situation, not from the situation. In fact, when Jesus uses the word in Matthew’s Gospel, it almost always means “Saved” or “Redeemed.” It’s as if Jesus is saying, “The poor in spirit are saved, therefore the kingdom of heaven is theirs!”
I leaned back, finished with the impromptu sermon. As I told him this, it was as if a tremendous weight being lifted from his shoulders: he began to sit up, his face began to rest easy. I had one more thing to do: I said, “For the last hour you have been confessing to me all that you have done wrong in the past life of drugs. You told me about how it has broken your heart time and time again, the guilt and shame you continue to carry around to this day. You spoke of the sorrow you have as a child of God for all you did against God and against others. Now, it is my privilege as a servant of Christ to share a blessing of God with you.
I said, “Where once, a crown may have been a symbol of your sin-stained trade, you are now given a new crown – the crown of Christ crucified, who wore a crown of thorns for you. He took your poverty of spirit and He fills you with the riches of His grace. And, so you know this - I leaned forward, put my hands on his head - and I spoke the full words of absolution over him. As I pronounced the triune name of God, I made the sign of the cross on his head declaring sins forgiven in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit.
In that moment, the poor in spirit became wealthy in Christ, and all the riches of heaven – given to Peter in his baptism - were again refreshed in his eyes. Peter and his wife will probably still will struggle, but he does so knowing that their sins are forgiven for the sake of Jesus. Amen.
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