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Author: Amy Thompson Sevimli
Jesus is poor. Are we?
I think the simple answer to that question for those of us reading this on the internet, possibly from the luxury of our own homes or computers, is no. At least not at first glance. Many of us probably work in stable or even wealthy places where we see the poor and even engage them but rarely do we become them.
Henry Nouwen, a Dutch-born Catholic priest and author, writes about Jesus’ poverty.
Jesus, the Blessed One, is poor. The poverty of Jesus is much more than an economic or social poverty. Jesus is poor because he freely chose powerlessness over power, vulnerability over defensiveness, dependency over self-sufficiency. As the great “Song of Christ” so beautifully expresses: “He … did not count equality with God something to be grasped. But he emptied himself, … becoming as human beings are” (Philippians 2:6-7). This is the poverty of spirit that Jesus chose to live. Jesus calls us who are blessed as he is to live our lives with that same poverty. (Bread for the Journey).
We often hear a lot about helping the poor, and many of us do so ourselves. We write checks, stuff bills into paper cups on the street, chat up the local homeless man, or get to know the woman who comes from her first job to clean our upscale building for her second; some of us even given our professional lives to working against poverty. But do we live our lives with that same poverty?
In a town focused on the world’s power, this is probably a politically incorrect conversation to have. Certainly no one talks like this at the dinner parties I attend. Sure many of us talk about working for the poor, enacting legislation to guard against poverty, and the like. But when is the last time you whipped out the Christ hymn and suggested living life with that same poverty or powerlessness at a dinner party or even tried it?
I am not suggesting we all sell everything we have and don a paper cup. Nor am I suggesting we give up our degrees and pretend neither to have the money for education nor the book knowledge that same education afforded us. That would be an extreme yet easy reaction. Instead, I wonder what it would be like to try giving up the power our wealth affords us. Just once. What would it be like to walk into a situation in which you have the ”riches” and power, and to give them up? I have no idea what this would look like for you, and I don’t know when it would be most appropriate, because there will be situations in which it would be inappropriate. But try it. Look for an opportunity in which you have power, and then give it up—put your money away, be vulnerable, depend on someone else. Empty yourself of your pride and give it a try. When you do, you may end up returning to this Bible passage both before and after the experience; powerlessness usually doesn’t feel good to us, but then that is the point.
Post a reaction, anonymously if that is best for you, after you try it and tell us what happened!
May the peace of the powerless, emptied Christ be with you!
September 30th, 2009 at 10:46 am
Hi, nice article, you carried yet if you don’t mind I’d add few notices about approaching young ladies or guys. Especially it can be hard when it gets to man woman relationships. The significant thing is your mental attitude, which should be strong and active. If you have an attitude like that, any person shouldn’t experience any difficultness that you have speechmaking as reading. When you jump into a conversation, you unremarkably require to ask safe queries that are sure not to cause her any irritation. Once the conversation becomes some momentum, you can require more physical queries. A good legerdemain is to learn some interrogates she made a point of so whenever the conversation slows up, you can raise one of these questions.
November 23rd, 2009 at 10:26 am
If your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart, it is not success at all.