Mortal Remains
The Gifts of the Poor
by S. M. Hutchens
It does not matter whether the Lord said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” or more simply, “Blessed are you poor,” for they mean the same thing. Poverty and wealth are, even in this world, states of the soul, of which material wealth is the necessary but separable symbol. He gives hard words, the very opposite of beatitudes, to those who think themselves wealthy but are instead “wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked,” and he says to the blessed, “I know your tribulation and your poverty—but you are rich.”
Given this direct teaching of the Lord, to which many Scriptures bear witness, it is a particularly irresponsible mistake for those who are accounted to be Christians, and all the more so for teachers in the Church, to treat material wealth or poverty as though they were necessarily connected with virtue or blessedness, or its lack. This error is made to the applause of the liberal mind by numerous church authorities who create a romance of poverty that blinds them to, and excuses, wickedness among the materially poor, to whom they grant a “preferential option.” In this way, the law of God, “You shall not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty,” may be perverted with the blessing of the church.
It does appear that among the poor with whom I have worshiped—and by such I mean Christians who know they are of no great account in this world, and accept this as from God—part of the blessedness they are granted includes special unctions and the spiritual insight and divine help that accompany simplicity of faith and single-minded devotion to the Lord, things that come with the knowledge and acceptance of their complete dependence upon him. The materially wealthy may also possess these things, but with greater difficulty.
Hoarded Manna Rots
Among the poor, however, this blessedness tends to degenerate into real spiritual poverty by the realization that what they have received of the Lord is true wealth, and instead of thanking him for it and sharing it as they can (as the materially rich are also called upon to do), they begin to think this makes them spiritually superior to others, other Christians especially, who are of greater account than they are in the world. Their captured, hoarded, institutionalized manna rots and breeds worms. They become ridiculous in their pride because their religion—their conception of and approach to God—now confirms them in their material, cultural, and intellectual poverty. They cannot escape this through revival, for the basic problem is that once they became fools, the glory departed, and without it their religion can rise no higher than its own level.
One of the great conundrums of the lives of believers is that those who are spiritually faithful will have a strong tendency to become rich in all other ways. Hence, Jesus’ disciples took the connection between wealth and virtue—and between sin and poverty—quite for granted until the Lord corrected them at a single stroke by telling them that the poor actually owned everything worth having (the kingdom of heaven). He then left us to ponder what he meant, and did not mean, by that.
S. M. Hutchens is a senior editor and longtime writer for Touchstone.
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