ENDING POVERTY IS A COMMANDMENT
MARK 12:42 A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. 12:43 Then he called his disciples and said to them, "Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. 12:44 For all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on."
Maybe the famous French philosopher, Jean Jacques Rousseau, a Swiss watchmaker’s son, hailing from the XVIII century, was an essentially indecent person, who abandoned his own children at their birth, giving them up to a foundling hospital. Ten years later, Rousseau made inquiries about the fate of his children, but unfortunately no record could be found. It is quite sadly ironic that Rousseau subsequently became celebrated as a theorist of education and child-rearing, and often was criticized for his abandonment of his children.
Nonetheless, when Rousseau wrote in his profound work called the Discourse on Inequality, which argues that private property is the source of inequality, and that the Land belongs to God and that We do not own the land, and that Landowners are criminals and hypocritical, wicked fools, he is profoundly right, because this is written in the Book of Leviticus, chapter 25, that the Lord says to Israel, that”The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; for you are strangers and live as foreigners with me.
Meanwhile Wall Street worships an other philosopher, John Locke, and as John Locke worshiped private property, so Wall Street worships private property, rejecting the Biblical notion, that ultimately the land is not for sale, as the only land owner is the Creator God. Still they had a valid point in worshiping when it came to private property, because the very notion of private land property is a religious myth. One has to believe in it, wrongly believe in it, I mean.
Henry David Thoreau was an American philosopher who lived mainly in the middle of the XIXth century. He is best known for his book, entitled, Walden, which is a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay "Civil Disobedience" which is an argument in favor of citizen disobedience against an unjust tyrannical state.
In his Book Walden he advocates for a simple life and he saw the ranchers and farmers in his home town who enslaved themselves to their property. He wrote that “I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of. Better if they had been born in the open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with clearer eyes what field they were called to labor in. Who made them serfs of the soil? Why should they eat their sixty acres, when man is condemned to eat only his peck of dirt? Why should they begin digging their graves as soon as they are born?”
"The twelve labors of Hercules were trifling in comparison with those which my neighbors have undertaken; for Hercules’ tasks were only twelve, and they had an end; but I could never see that my townsmen slew or captured any monster or finished any labor."
He advocated for a simpler lifestyle in his time in his country in order to free humanity from the pain of the toil, which enslaved the majority of his society, as he wrote that “I find by my own experience, a few implements, a knife, an axe, a spade, a wheelbarrow, etc., and for the studious, a lamplight, a stationery, and access to a few books, rank next to necessaries, and can all be obtained at a trifling cost.
He admired the Indigenous society in America, the he admitted that the industrial revolution created a new era of mass manufactured goods, but he mentions that “in the indigenous society every family owns a shelter as good as the best, and sufficient for its coarser and simpler wants; but I think that I speak within bounds when I say that, though the birds of the air have their nests, and the foxes their holes, and the indigenous their wigwams, in modern civilized society not more than one half the families own a shelter. In the large towns and cities, where civilization especially prevails, the number of those who own a shelter is just a very small fraction of the whole. He complained that and the poor spent most of their low income on the very basic necessity of renting a shelter, and many of them were never out of debts.
It is hardly conceivable, that the western civilization,which was supposed to be a very Christian civilization at the time of Jean Jacques Rosseau and Henry Thoreau, just missed the profound Christian teachings of the ban of poverty.
Beside to preach the Gospel to others in order to spread the God News on Earth about redemption and salvation, the most pivotal but forgotten and exiled job of the Church is the very getting rid of poverty.
It was also God’s major requirement of the inhabitants of the Promised Land, regarding the poor that At the end of every seven years, you shall cancel all debts. This is the way it shall be done: every creditor shall release that which he has lent to his neighbor. He shall not require payment from his neighbor and his brother, because the Lord’s release year, the Shabbath year, has been proclaimed. (…) However there will be no poor with you (for the Loed will surely bless you in the land which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance to possess) if only you diligently listen to Lord, your God’s voice, to observe to do all this commandment which I command you today.
In the last 1700 years the Western Christian countries have never listened to the Bible, which says, the Lord demands TOTAL DEBT CANCELLATION in every seven years. There shall be no poor among You.
Thus, the case of the poor widow and the case of her ultimate two pennies were the diagnosis of the society and the overarching hypocrisy of the age, because the rich grew fat from the sweat of the laborers of the land, especially the tax collectors became billionaires who collected taxes for the Roman occupiers, and confiscated the houses and the lands of the widows and the orphans.
The Christian 2000 years always had the excuse that it is impossible to get rid of poverty, as even Jesus complained about it, quoting to Book of Levitice, that the poor will be always with You.
However, in the Jerusalem community, established by Jesus and his brother himself, supervised by the Apostles, it was not so, as it is written in the Book of the Acts, chapter 2: “They continued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and prayer. … many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. All who believed were together, and had all things in common. They sold their possessions and goods, and distributed them to all, according as anyone had need. ... The Lord added to the assembly day by day those who were being saved.
May we belong to the Lord who wants us to share all the Earth and its wealth with each other, AMEN.
