BLESSED ARE THE POOR - Luke: “6:20 Then he looked up at his disciples and said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. “
We are all related as we are made of Stardust and starshine AKA light. God's love connects everything in the universe, is a force field. What happens here in a single moment in a tiny space, it effects greater events 100,000 light years away or more or less. Thus, we are not only all related, but we are all interconnected. And this is all science, nothing is mythological, nothing is theoretical, it is all experienced and even measured.
However, it is not only that everything and everybody are related and interconnected, but close to everything including everybody is relative compared to each other.
An Egyptian pyramid is really a huge building but its body mass can't compete with the huge mess of the Taurus mountains in Anatolia, and the summits of the Himalaya in Nepal are significantly even higher.
However, things are not only related to each other, interconnected with each other and relative compared to each other, but also, as things progress, events process, they are complex in themselves. In this world, despite that God is good, God is perfect, God is even Almighty and omnipresent, still nothing is good enough or at least it looks like that.
Once upon a time, during the rule of King Alexander Jannaeus, when the head of the Supreme Court in Jerusalem was Simeon ben Shetah, who was known for his strictness, at that time, around eighty years before Jesus was born, there was a man, remembered as Honi the Circle-Drawer, a pious scholar. During an extraordinary drought people said to Honi the Circle-Drawer, "Pray that rain may fall." “All right”, he answered, " but go out and bring in the Passover ovens, that they be not softened."
He told them to do so, because the ovens were made of clay. In a rainfall, they could be damaged. So he prayed, but the rain did not fall. He was quite annoyed, how on Earth, it could have happened. Imagine our prayers. Many times we pray and we do not get it granted, it seems that we are not heard at all. Actually, even when we are not praying, we are always heard, though, it is true, that our wishes most of the times not granted to us.
Honi, the Circle Drawer, got a bit annoyed, because he was a righteous man, and he demanded, that God must have listened to him. He drew a circle and stood within it and said before God, that "Master of the Universe, your children have turned their faces to me, for I am like a son of your household. I swear by your great name that I will not stir from here, until you have pity on your children."
According to the written tradition, the rain began falling drop by drop. But the people came to complain, that this is all, that you can do? Which almost meant, that is this all what your friend, God, can do? Little drops? He said them and also prayed to God that , "Not for such rain have I prayed, but for rain, that will fill the cisterns, pits, and caverns."
Then, it began to rain, like a wild rainstorm, with drops like human fists. People, of course, complained again, that it is too wild. Honi said them, that "Not for such rain have I prayed, but for rain of goodwill, blessing, and graciousness."
Then, it rained in moderation, until the Israelites had to go up from Jerusalem to the Temple Mount, because of the moderate, but long lasting rain. They went to him and said, "Just as you prayed for the rain to come, so pray that it may go away!" The drought had been deadly before, but now the water was too much. So he prayed and the rain ceased.
Some people were still angry with the events, and they reported Honi to the Supreme Court, to Simeon ben Shetah, accusing him with wizardry, which was a capital crime at that time, punishable by death.
Some people, like Enoch and Moses and Elijah, are like a friend to God, and their request are granted. They are like a tree planted by the streams of water, that produces its fruit in its season, whose leaf also does not wither. Whatever they do, shall prosper. According to Honi, a drought can wither the tree, too much water can make it rot. Even watering of the tree must be balanced, by blessing.
Thus, everything in the Universe is relative, including space and time continuum, and including being poor. Somebody can be relatively poor, compared to others, or somebody can be poor, hitting the poverty level, not able to afford the daily necessities.
The poor might be just relatively blessed, compared to the rich. As for the rich to enter Heaven was almost impossible, like for the camel to pass through the eye of a needle.
Thus, it can be a blessing for the poor, that they are not that rich, that the wealth itself can be an impediment to enter Heaven. Other than that it is hardly visible, how can be being poor is a blessing, beside the obvious explanation, that Jesus did not speak about the poor in general, but about his early community in Jerusalem or elsewhere in Judea, which was called commonly the POOR, as they renounced personal possessions and had a common table and a common purse, and there were no needy among them.
That is a blessing, indeed.
World Christianity could have done something similar long ago, but we did not. Thus, we still have to create a really Christian Way of Life on Earth according to the Gospel, having Christian methods for the management of conflicts, a Christian economy, Christian Self Defense, because the Lord says that our ways and methods should differ from the methods of the wicked and the greedy world.
Thus, we need Christian companies aiming real and creative production, paying fair wages, conducting fair trade, having profit sharing packages for workers, using the power of cooperation rather than competition. We need Christian farms, similar the Kibbutzes in Israel, working for the nutrition and well-being of our children and for the poor of the countries.
We should create Christian communities with common ownership of the land, of the natural resources, of the forests and waters, as it was the law in the best parts of America before the conquest.
We need Christian banks and credit unions for lending money to the needy without interest rates. We need Christian media independent from the politics, the pundits and tycoons. We need real Christian legislation to ensure that King Jesus Christ rules, in order the eradicate poverty at once and for all.
The Rule of the Gospel is the only end of poverty and all oppression.
The Christian WORLD must differ from the pagan world. The world Christianity shall act as an extended family, as we are all children of one Creator God.
Imagine the cope of Christianity which is on paper one of the biggest religion on Earth, having 2.4 billions of followers. We should have changed the World for the better long time ago.
As the Lord says in the Gospel of John: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Following Jesus, we have to follow the measures of his love toward humanity, in order to live in the communion of God who is our Father by the Holy Spirit. Whatever we do, we shall do it for the sake of God's love.
May the eternal God be blessed in the Son by the Holy Spirit,
Amen.
