Jesus declares poverty a perpetual reality

Ah, but let us get back to the original context to the declaration, and then work our way out and outwards. That context, as you remember, is a diner time in an upstairs room – in the home of a follower of His on the edge of Jerusalem. For Jesus, it is the last dinner He will ever eat on earth, as His crucifixion is the very next day.

Before the start of the dinner, He has dramatised and demonstrated eternal humility by kneeling and washing the feet of His team members. Among those team members, the greediest is the treasurer! (Judas Iscariot is at this very moment working out in his mind the expenditure budget of the 30 pieces of silver he is looking to receive from the officer and priestly plotters for His arrest, with whom a deal has already been secretly struck.) 

Out of the blue, right now, an infinitely grateful woman appears carrying a bottle of priceless perfume – and pours it on Jesus’ feet, additionally wetting them with her tears and wiping them with her long hair!

The greedy treasurer is incensed! ‘To what purpose,’ he explodes, ‘is this waste? This perfume could have been sold for a fortune – and given to the poor!’ (It is at this point that Jesus declares, ‘The poor you will always have’.)

You remember that that very dinner, (coincidentally happening on the day of the Passover that particular Thursday), is not paid for by Jesus and His team, but is entirely financed by the unnamed host. Very interestingly, among the various things He talks about during the dinner, He recalls for the team members their being earlier sent out to go preaching the good news of the Kingdom, and going out thus without any journey provisions. ‘When I sent you without purse, bag or sandals,’ He asks, ‘did you lack anything?’ And they reply, ‘No, we lacked nothing.’

You also remember the occasion in the temple when He observes the ostentatious rich men noisily throwing their silver and gold coins onto the collection tray; and He remarking that the two copper coins of the widow is of far a more value, as they constitute all the money that she possesses.

Then there was the fellow who asked Him to compel his brother to fairly share with him the inheritance bequeathed to the two by their father – and He flatly refused to be drawn into the matter, and dismissed the fellow with the rhetorical question, ‘Who appointed me judge over you?’

Needless to remind you of the wealthy young man who selfishly wanted to follow Jesus everywhere in the hope of spectacularly appearing in the public eye, but who could not stomach the prospect of selling everything that he possessed in order to become a worthy follower of His.
Jesus indeed summed it all up in the story He composed on the spot about the rich and foolish farmer, who was not rich towards God, yet whose farm yielded a rich harvest. He made plans to construct bigger granaries to contain the rich crop yield, then sit back, and gluttonously eat his way into the future – but he died that same night!

My esteemed fellow sojourner and tireless explorer, do you, in  conclusion, see Jesus as the kind of Messiah with ready-made blueprints for banishing or abolishing global poverty, global rotten governments, global hooliganism, global exploitation, global looting, and global foolishness?

Prof Timothy Wangusa is a poet and novelist. 

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