Poverty
I don’t know how to begin this note. It’s a new year, which brings to mind resolutions, goal-setting, inspiration, and maybe even going to the gym (again). Well, then it seems that, right on cue at least, my mind has gone in the opposite direction. Instead of all that I have, and all that I can do in the coming year, I’m thinking about poverty. I have a reason, of course. In a few weeks I’ll be speaking at the Vancouver Eastside Vineyard, and have taken on the task of working through the Beatitudes for my time there. When I was pastoring at Graffiti Night Church (circa 2017) one of my first sermon series was on the beatitudes. So, this isn’t new material for me, but a lot has changed since then.
Debilitating burnout, a pandemic raging across the world, me moving internationally twice in two years, gaining and losing full time employment, all happened. In the midst of all of that, I experienced feeling closer to God than ever before in my life. While I can say that I have known God for a significant amount of my life, this closeness was qualitatively different. There was a kind of casual conversational aspect to my relationship with God that I hadn’t had before. I used to pray with questions and for solutions. Now I experienced wonder as the entry point, and discovery as the experience. In the midst of this there was specific revelation. That’s just a fancy way of saying that God showed me specific things. One of those things was that the beatitudes, a series of propositions that Jesus is documented as making in the book of Matthew and echoed in the book of Luke, was somehow more than just a list.
A few months ago I explored the idea a little further. In that note I wrote about how the beatitudes may be much more than a set of desired human attributes or even experiences of the world and of someone living in the Kingdom of God. I proposed that they may in fact be interrelated, compounding, and describing a reality of the journey of transformation for followers of Jesus. In the coming weeks my hope is to work this out. I’ve been noodling with this for almost two years now. So, without complication, I’m going to try to put this thinking into words.
We should begin with a little about the proposition of transformation itself. There are many voices currently who are proposing appropriate ways to accomplish transformation. They span a full range, from living and dead, psychological and scientific, religious and anti-religious, spiritual and humanist. The likes of Tim Ferris and Jordan Peterson, Curt Thompson and Dallas Willard, Socrates and Aristotle, the Dalai Lama and Jesus Christ all have propositions in this area. Of course, there are others. In every community and culture, voices arise that draw people unto themselves on account of their vision of what life could be and how to get there. My writing centers around the propositions of Jesus (and other writers who point back to him) because his propositions are the ones that I have staked my life on. This is not to say that I have embodied the way of Jesus with any kind of perfection. In the coming weeks you will learn some of the hard things I’ve encountered, the questions I still carry, and the amazing moments when everything seemed to just lock in and I experienced the reality of the propositions of Jesus. They are all part of the journey of discovery for me – perfection is the aim (but we’ll get to that later).
Oh, one last thing before we jump in, as if we already haven’t. As much as I am writing here to try to get these words out of my own mind, I’m hoping that in sharing these ideas something might move in you, too. The comments section is open to everyone. I plan on experimenting with Substack’s new chat feature, too. The conversational aspect of this endeavor is just as important as the ideas themselves. Words have power. Sharing words has shared power. If you’re moved to respond, share something, comment, message, whatever, please do. I’m here for it.
Let us begin.
The process of transformation begins with a vision, or maybe an anti-vision. My own journey began in the middle of burnout, saying, “Things don’t have to be this way.” Still dealing with the ramifications of burning out, that statement sent me seeking towards the way I would rather have things be. My imagination went first, envisioning another way. I then had to experiment, do things, and take account of the outcomes. This couldn’t just be a thought experiment. I had to do things, notably without any actual knowledge of how they might work out. The process was cyclical – experiment, take account, adjust, repeat. The new thing I was shooting for, the vision of something different, even better, became the underpinning of my days. Everything else somehow became part of the journey.
Once inspiration gives birth to a vision and we begin to make choices towards it – cultivating, experimenting, seeking – we will encounter one of two experiences. One is that things will begin to change. We will see the change we hope to experience, our vision will begin to manifest, and our world will begin to shift. This is a wonderful experience, a case of grace, and one that we should celebrate! The other experience is more challenging. In the attempt to transform, we will simply not see the shift we desire. Change will not come to our world. Nothing will manifest. Things might even get worse. We may blame this on technical issues – a lack of vision or intention, perhaps. However, there is a deeper reality.
Fundamental inner transformation doesn’t happen under our own strength. It can’t. From the spiritual perspective, our individual spirit (or will or heart) is simply not strong enough to change itself. We suffer in the pain of defeat. Our lack of ability here, especially for those of us who are highly accomplished in other areas of life, can be disorienting. We may think, “Of course we should be able to achieve transformation. We’ve achieved everything else we’ve done.” The truth is that as we try we will discover that we do not have the inner or outer resources necessary to change in the way we want, we may feel inept. We may begin to feel weak, small, or more specifically, impoverished.
The idea that we don’t have the thing we need (the means) to get to where we want to go (the inspired vision) simply means that we are poor in that area. Seeing as how the transformation of our person is foundational experience, this sense of impoverishment, may be sensed at our core. Everything within and without us may begin to have a sense of being insufficient to the task at hand. No amount of money, books, freedom, real estate, or practice, can actually transform our inner being.
Spiritual transformation is not the same as other kinds of transformation. Most kinds of transformation that we may endeavor towards require direct action. Training for a marathon requires running. Learning how to tap dance, requires tap dancing. Learning a language requires the practice of the language. Spiritual transformation, the transformation of the inner person, requires indirect action. Training and practice is not around the transformation we desire itself. Rather, it deals with doing things that will position us for the spiritual transformation we desire. Often described as spiritual disciplines these practices look like silence, rest, or fasting, for example. The actual transformation is something God does. This is where different ideas of the reality of the world begin to diverge. If you’re interested in seeing something more specific about where I’m coming from, here are my convictions.
Is it no wonder then, that Jesus begins with poverty. When we hear the word poverty, being immersed in the material world, we may focus on the material means that many today experience severe lack of. This, of course, is important to give attention to and do what we can to address. However, there is something deeper here that we must not miss. That is the human experience of poverty in spirit. Anyone who has attempted to change their ways, with little or no success, will attest to the harshness of feeling unable to do what they want – perhaps instead doing what they don’t want – even when what they want to change is for the good. It is not a fun experience. Yet, in the midst of this reality, Jesus is found saying:
Happy are those who are poor [in spirit], for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
A couple things need to be checked out here. First, do you see the vision? The Kingdom of Heaven (or the Kingdom of God), the scope of God’s effective will, where God reigns, is a vision that those who Jesus was speaking with would have had clearly in their mind. Many of them would have also known that the life they were experiencing was not commensurate with what life in God’s Kingdom was supposed to be like. Can you imagine being that person, listening to Jesus, and hearing him say these words? My inner voice would have said something like, “I’m sorry, what do you mean that the Kingdom of Heaven is mine? Can’t you see the reality of my life?” Second, it must be stated that Jesus is not saying that the poor he is identifying are happy because they are poor. He is saying that the poor can be happy because the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs, particularly in spite of their poverty.
Within vision, intention, and means, it is means that often requires outward movement. I can see what I want, I can make choices to get there, but I do I have the stuff to get there? With regards to apprehending the Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus circumvents the need for means coming from the person desiring entrance. He is flatly saying that despite our lack of means, lack of spirit, the Kingdom is ours. There are other ideas that come along side this as things we can do – following Jesus as the way, truth, and life, and seeking the Kingdom of God, are two that come to mind. But I digress. We’ll come back to what we have to do in all of this later. For now we must keep our focus on this proposition, that with significant lack in our own person, Jesus is saying we can still have the most important thing of all – a life with God.
The experience of poverty has some stereotypical responses from the world around us. When we express our poverty some folks will try and help, others will freeze not knowing what to do, and yet others will turn away or even scoff. The scoffers might even wait until we’re not around to do their scoffing. Those who give might give with a sense of indebtedness. The look upon the impoverished is not often one of common humanity. Rarely, in dealing with the world from a position of poverty, will someone tell you, “Come, let me show you what you already have.” Instead, the world tells us that we have nothing (living in lack) so often, that our minds might make the move from “We have nothing” to “We are nothing.” What a horrible move to make, and yet so easy to slip into.
But there is another way. What if what Jesus said was true? That even in spiritual and material impoverishment, the Kingdom of Heaven is ours. Notably, Jesus didn’t say that the Kingdom could be ours. As if, like a game show host, baiting us with the prize behind curtain number three. We just need to win the game – do just the right things at just the right time, solve the riddle, have the wheel land on the highest number (but not too high). Can you imagine? No, God’s Kingdom is here, is now, is ours.
In thinking about the beatitudes as a cumulative journey of transformation, at every line, there is a choice. The choice is at a kind of crossroads. It is between accepting the organization of the visible world and its proposition of reality, or the proposition that the Kingdom of Heaven and how it is organized is actually the reality we live in. In a state of spiritual and material poverty it takes faith – that is believing in something that is not yet seen – to accept the proposition that Jesus is setting forth. This is especially true in light of a lived experience that may suggest otherwise – you are poor, you have nothing, you are nothing, to say nothing of the Kingdom of Heaven. Here in lies a key aspect of the journey of the follower of Jesus. The reality of the Kingdom of Heaven is testable. It is verifiable through experimentation. In the small things – a good place to start – as well as in larger things – a place we may get to.
One way to try this out, is to ask, “What does it mean for the Kingdom of Heaven to be mine?” If we decide to ask, we should ask in earnest. We should ask, wanting to really know, to experience. Not just as an observer, baiting God to prove himself, but as someone desiring interaction, to enter into the reality of God’s Kingdom. If we do, look out. Literally, watch, and see what God allows us to experience regarding what it means for the Kingdom of Heaven to be ours.
This is the power of a choice. Our personal will is not strong, but it may be just strong enough to do this. To say, “I want to know, what does it mean?” We can not will the answer or the outcome. But to ask the question is enough. The outcome is up to God. We can then go through our day watching and seeing what happens – what God does. That is also enough. Even in our poverty we can watch and see.
In all of this, we might just realize what it means for the Kingdom of Heaven is ours.