No. 60 Have I expressed to you, Professor Sanchez, just how much I have enjoyed this time together? Thank you so very much. Now I have one final question for you: Serving as I do in the central city frequently leaves me restless at night, unable to sleep through the night, because the needs surrounding me are so dramatic and heart-rending. A key dimension of Christian life is helping the neediest neighbors in our midst. It is not uncommon for well-meaning Christians to romanticize the poor or see them as a means to an end. Does Luther comment about this? What is the proper Christian attitude towards the poor and needy? >>DR. LEOPALDO SANCHEZ M.: Dave, that is a question that is close to my heart. Latin American theologians used to speak of a preferential option for the poor. Some people got a little nervous about that because they thought that it basically meant that God only loves the poor or something like that. So it was to be interpreted in an exclusive sense. But the heart of the expression was really something along the lines of a priority of love for the neighbor. And I think it's helpful if you say "I love the neighbor" in general, "I love everyone." You really don't love concretely anyone in particular. And I think the notion that there is a priority of love for the neediest neighbors among us has a place in our ethics and the way we live out our Christian life. The way I like to think of it is I have a five-year-old son and a two-year-old daughter. And both of them require my attention at different times throughout the day. But if my son wants to play with me but on the other hand I have my little daughter you know hungry for a bottle of milk and has -- and with a poopy diaper, well, I mean I love them both. But who requires at that time the priority of my love? Of course my daughter. So there is room for the notion of a preferential option or perhaps a better language is to say a priority of love for the neediest among us. I think that sometimes people forget that although Paul's call was to be an apostle of Christ to proclaim Christ as crucified, it is also true that Paul spends a considerable amount of his apostleship gathering this fund for the poor church in Jerusalem. At one point Paul reminds the Corinthians in an appeal to help the Jerusalem church, reminds them that "Christ was rich yet for your sakes became poor. So that by his poverty you might become rich." So there is a sense in which Christ identifies himself in his incarnation with the poor. Christ's self identification with the poor in the flesh in his humiliation may at times surprise us. But such radical humiliation stands actually in perfect continuity with the loving character of the one God of Israel who himself identified with the poor by upholding their cause, by hearing and answering their cries and by protecting them from their oppressors. How often do we hear in the Old Testament God calling his people to care for the widows and for the orphans and also we hear often for the aliens, the strangers, the poor in their midst. Perhaps we speak and think too often of the incarnation in rather abstract terms. Christ assumes a human nature that we can conceive of somewhat apart from a concrete human history. We forget that Christ became incarnate concretely as a poor child to become a rejected prophet from a borderland region of Nazareth and Galilee where nothing good comes from. You can imagine how shocking it would be to admit that God would become incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth. So in his incarnation humiliation there is a real sense in which Jesus, the Galilean, identifies himself with marginalized peoples, with the poor and the rejected of the world. What then does that mean for the church's concern for the poor? The church should see in the poor the face of Christ. In the Christian tradition, one thinks of Martin Luther for whom Christ truly identifies with people in need. Despite various interpretations on the identity of one of the least of these in Matthew 25, Luther still uses this text in his explanation of the Fifth Commandment to identify the rejected Christ with those in need and peril of body and life. We also find a powerful example of Luther's portrayal of Christ's identification with the poor in a Christmas sermon where he warns against our inclination to judge the people of Bethlehem for not giving a warm welcome to Baby Jesus and his mother. In this sermon Luther suggests we think we would have been so moved to help the Christ Child in his poverty, then we should help the poor who is Christ in our midst. Oh, Christmas, that's always an interesting time of year. Sometimes you see the manger with little Baby Jesus that doesn't even look like he was poor or came from a poor area. He always looks so shiny and glorious. We tend to miss this important dimension of the incarnation. Here is what Luther says to his congregation. How about this for a Christmas sermon. "There are many who are in kindle with dreamy devotions," says Luther. "When they hear of such poverty of Christ are almost angry with the citizens of Bethlehem, denounce their blindness and ingratitude and think if they had been there, they would have shown the Lord and his mother a more becoming service and would not have permitted them to be treated so miserably. "But they do not look by their side to see how many of their fellow men need their help in which they let go and their misery unaided. Who is there upon earth who has not poor miserable sick heiring ones or sinful people around him? Why does he not exercise his love to those? Why does he not do to them as Christ has done to him? It is altogether false to think that you have done much for Christ if you do nothing for those needy ones. Had you been in Bethlehem you would have paid as little attention to Christ as they did. You bid the heir and do not recognize the Lord in your neighbor. You do not do to him as he, Christ, has done to you." You see, Luther's Christmas sermon is a call for the church to see the suffering face of the poor Christ in the poor of today. Who are the ones who recognize the Lord in the needy neighbor? Those who are led to repent. For rejecting the poor now as they would have rejected the Christ Child then. Who are those, the ones who recognize the Lord in the needy neighbor? Also those who are moved to love the poor. Empowered by Christ who first loved us and became poor that we might be saved. As interest in that for Luther there's an intricate relationship between the First and the Fifth Commandment, to love God and to love the neighbor. They are always connected. And one way that that comes together for me is when I think of that part of Scripture. I believe it's a Proverb that goes like this: Those who oppress the poor insult their maker. But those who are kind to the needy honor him. There is a close relationship here between the Fifth and the First commandments. Insofar as Christians promote the lives of those in need and peril of body and life, they are treating God's most vulnerable creatures with dignity and therefore honor him as the Creator who made us all. Kindness to God's creatures expresses faithfulness to the Creator and God whose will includes that we help the poor and the powerless in our midst. By contrast active oppression of the poor, a sin of commission, or passive failure to assist the poor, a sin of omission, insult our Maker. And moreover may indicate that we are actually putting our trust in gods other than the one true God. So there is this connection between love of the poor and love of God. Or lack of love of the poor and idolatry. You see, true worship of God leads to true love of the neighbor. Idolatry on the other hand hurts the neighbor. In his explanation to the First Commandment, Luther speaks against those who think that they have God and everything they need when they have money or property. They trust in them and boast in them so stubbornly and securely that they care for no one else. You see, when ***maman or riches become the object of ones devotion and trust, our god, then concern for the poor goes out the window. There's just not enough to go around for everybody. Later on Luther criticizes another form of false worship. One in which the conscience seeks help, comfort and salvation in its own works and presumes the rest of heaven from God by keeping track how often he has made endowments, fasted, celebrated mass, et cetera. Now, this is interesting. Works righteousness becomes a sort of god. In other words as love of riches hurts a needy neighbor, so those false trusts in one's work for salvation. Luther brings up this point right away after our previous citation from his Christmas sermon. Luther says -- to recall here, he says to the congregation: You do not recognize the Lord in your neighbor. Therefore, God permits you to be blinded and deceived by false preachers so that you squander on wood, stone, paper and wax or that with which you might help your fellow man. So if you think that by doing certain things you are in God's favor you are likely again going to forget to help your fellow man and use your resources and time for the neighbor. This is a kind of language that Luther uses to attack any practice that is done as a work to earn heaven or God's favor. But the attack does not end there. It goes beyond the idolatry of false works to unmask these disastrous consequences for carrying out the works of mercy that God actually commands us to do in imitation of Christ. In another sermon Luther says this: How far those have gone out of the way who have united good works with stone, wood, clothing, eating and drinking. Of what benefit is it to your neighbor if you build a church entirely out of gold? Do you think that God will permit himself to be paid with the sound of bells? The smoke of candles? The glitter of gold and such fancies? He has commanded none of this. But if you see your neighbor going astray, sinning or suffering in body and soul, you are to leave everything else and at once help him in every way in your power. And if you can do no more, help him with works of comfort and prayer. Thus Christ has done to you and given you an example for you to follow. In Luther's day, people typically assume that taking a monastic vow of poverty and giving ***ohms to the poor were works that earn the forgiveness of sins. These forms of idolatry or false worship shape a romantic view of the poor and a utilitarian attitude towards them. The first monastic sovereign association idealize poverty as the most favorable state in the eyes of God. So the poor were thought to be closest to God. In particular the narrative of the rich young man who asked Jesus what he must do to be saved was overworked by the medieval clergy to show that renouncing one's possessions and giving them to the poor earn God's grace. So you see people show poverty as the most elevated spiritual condition and the poor in particular as the nearest to God. So that was a problem. Such a view of the monastic ideal and poverty tended to romanticize being poor and not to take seriously their struggles. Second, during Luther's days, all ohms given became a divine means for the richer to be saved and securing ongoing intercession of the poor in heaven. So basically ohms given justified the existence of the poor as an indispensable step on the road to salvation. Interestingly some of the most popular biblical passages in this regard came from apocryphal books like "Tobit" in which ohms given saves from death and purges away every sin. Or from ecclesiastic books where we are told that ohms given atones for sin. Inevitably when the poor or idealized are seen as a means to the rich man's spiritual benefit, the end result is that the poor themselves do not become the object of our love. They are simply ideal life. Their condition is romanticized or they are simply used as a means for others to gain something from them. At times one here has added to the story the poor similar to those of Luther's day among Christians today. On the one hand, Christians may praise or look up the poor for their lack of attachment for material things and presumably wish they could be like them. In making this move however they could be romanticizing the poor and therefore taking too lightly the harsh reality of poverty and the church's need for an ongoing commitment to help them actually improve their situation. On the other hand, Christians today may be motivated to help the poor on special occasions or through special projects on the condition that they hear the Gospel in some way. They may talk about how much their own faith has grown as a result of these experiences without any further acts of solidarity towards the poor. By making these moves, they tend to use the poor primarily as a means to their own spiritual growth or to the potential growth of their church membership. And therefore, do not always make the poor themselves the primary object of their works of mercy. You see, concrete acts of love towards people in need should be done without expecting to receive anything in return from either God or the poor. Christian service is a matter of faith active in unconditional love. Luther's teaching on justification by faith apart from works turn medieval views of poverty and the poor upside down. By leaving the matter of one's salvation and even temporary blessings fully in God's gracious hands, people could now turn away from an obsessive preoccupation with their own spiritual merits and temporal lifestyles and now they could instead focus their efforts towards serving the neighbor in worldly concerns like embarking on initiatives to assist the poor. It is a monumental shift in Luther's teaching from the I to the thou. From self service to self giving. Because faith and trust in the one true God who saves us in Christ drives away the gods of riches. In salvation by works they seek to alienate us from our neighbor. We are now free. Free to serve the poor like we mean it. Trying our hardest and brightest with what God has given us. So each congregation and each servant of Christ in his own context, in his own vocation according to his own means will have to decide how they are to help the poor. There could be debates on that. But no debate should prevent us from helping. Rather, debates on who the poor are or how much is their need should always lead us to actually promote their well being in some way. We have much to learn from Luther on this.