This morning we conclude our series on moral values. Our topic this morning is another issue (like the death penalty, health care, and the environment) that does not always get placed in the "moral values" category: poverty. Now some may wonder why we would consider such a difficult and depressing topic as poverty on such a celebratory day, Mother's Day. Actually, the logical jump isn't that great. In almost every time and place, poverty affects women and their children most profoundly - a phenomenon which holds true in our country today and around the world. The Old Testament always had a special care for widows and orphans, an acknowledgement that our poverty trends today are nothing new. In I Samuel, chapter 2 it is the new mother Hannah who sings of God's power to raise up the poor from the dust; to lift the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. And Hannah's song is echoed centuries later by the pregnant Mary in what we know as the Magnificat - a song of God's care and concern for the poor that we will sing after the sermon. It is no coincidence that Hannah's song and Mary's song are sung by women who are mothers - they knew firsthand the perils of raising children in a society where poverty lurked at every corner. We do no justice to our mothers on this Mother's Day, so many of whom worked so hard for us, who sacrificed so much for us, if we ignore the mothers don't even have bread to feed their children.

But poverty is not only a moral issue because today is Mother's Day or because it has such devastating effects on mothers and their children. Poverty is a moral issue because it damages people - and more than that, poverty damages societies. No society can be called just, no society can be called moral where some people do not even have the basics of life. But poverty for Christians must also be considered a moral issue because Jesus elevated it to that status. Jesus talked about money and riches and the poor more than any other moral issue - far more than beginning and end of life issues, far more than relationships and sexuality, far more than treating other people with fairness, justice and honesty. Indeed, Jesus was practically a broken record when it came to money and the poor. Why did Jesus spend so much time talking about wealth and poverty? Because he knew first hand the corroding effects poverty had on the human body and the human spirit. He knew that the answer to Cain's ancient question: "Am I my brother's keeper?" was an unequivocal "yes." He knew that an economic system that enabled some people to become fabulously wealthy could and would also hold many in crushing poverty. For Jesus, poverty wasn't an abstraction - the poor weren't symbols to be debated over. For Jesus, poverty was a crime against humanity, against God's children, and he rarely missed an opportunity to call his followers and the society at large to moral outrage and moral action.

So, my position on poverty: I'm against it. But of course I'm more than against it. I believe that we, as a society will and should be judged on how we treat the poor; I also think we will and should be judged on our attitudes about the poor. In a land of abundance, in a world of abundance, it is criminal that so many people live in such economic insecurity and poverty. Now I realize that some people are poor as a result of their own poor choices, that some poverty we would have little ability to change - some nations have intentionally impoverished their populations and we can do little about that. But study after study has shown that with modest investments we could reduce the amount of national and global poverty - all we, and other wealthy nations lack is the will. Let me also say that I believe that this congregation has engaged in significant ministry that literally puts our money (and our time) where our mouth is. Through our ministry commitments, we have said that poverty is not acceptable and we will do something about it. Our food pantry, our participation with Habitat for Humanity, our offerings to One Great Hour of Sharing, our support of our youth and adults on mission trips are all ways that we seek to fulfill God's command in Deuteronomy 15 that there will be no poor among us. But if poverty is a moral issue, then I believe that we must do more than give direct assistance to those who need it. We are called to make the eradication of poverty a national and global priority. Yes, it will mean that taxes will rise - but I would rather pay higher taxes than be forced to accept the false choice that our state just made when Medicaid was cut in order to give more money to schools. I can't imagine that God is pleased when we pit our children against the poor.

Now, as I have said, this sermon series is not about policy recommendations nor is it about us finding a common position on these issues; rather it is my hope that we deepen the level of our moral discourse and grow in our ability to be a moral voice in our community and our nation. And as we have done each week, our starting point for that is scripture. I have already mentioned that money and poverty were prime topics in Jesus' ministry. But Jesus didn't only talk about the poor, he spoke of God's special love for the poor. In Luke, chapter 4, Jesus is at his home church preaching his inaugural sermon. Here is his chance to frame his ministry, to say what he will be about as God's anointed one. He walks up to the front of the synagogue, is handed the scroll of the Book of Isaiah and opens it to the passage that we know as Isaiah 61. And he begins to read: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because (why?) he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. There are other things that also fulfill that "because": God has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. But the first sign, the first action of God's anointed one is to bring good news to the poor. We see this primary concern for the poor again when John the Baptist's disciples come to Jesus to ask if he is the Messiah or should they wait for another. Jesus responds: Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. In other words, if you want to know if the Messiah is for real, one of ways to know is how he deals with the poor. They are the ones who have the good news preached to them. And what is that good news? Not only that their sins are forgiven, not only that they are given the promise of eternal life with God, but that God not only desires that they have life, but have life abundantly. For the poor, God's good news is not some theological abstraction, but it is concrete - it means that God does not intend that they go to bed with an empty stomach, that God does not mean for their children to die a premature death; it means that God want for them what God wants for everyone - dignity, love, and food.

In many respects, our nation has wrestled meaningfully with poverty for much of its history. One of the changes that the Puritans made from the laws in England was the vagrancy, the lack of working for three or more days, was decriminalized. Of course, the main reason people didn't work for more than three days was that they were so poor and malnourished that they were sick much of the time. Instead the Puritans made care of the poor a moral issue for the community. In the 20^th Century, the scandal of poverty among older adults was largely addressed by Social Security and Medicare - neither are perfect programs, but each has had a tremendous impact on poverty rates among older adults. In the 1960's we had the War on Poverty - which again, did not signal the end of poverty in the United States, but it went a long way in getting various forms of assistance to the nation's poor. These are important steps. But there is still far too much poverty in this land of plenty. What's more, we will still too often treat the poor as nameless faceless people rather than as God's children for whom God desires the best. This attitude has been especially pervasive in our various welfare reform efforts when we have divided the poor into classes - the deserving poor and the undeserving poor. We usually don't use the term undeserving poor, but we hide our contempt for such people with much talk of personal responsibility. And while I do believe that we are all called to be personally responsible for the things that we can, much of our existence is beyond our control. When I served an inner city congregation in Kansas City, I experienced poverty first hand. I knew many families, usually single female headed households who lived in constant peril of not making it. They received food stamps, Medicaid and other lifelines that barely managed to keep their heads out of water. The church that I served, usually in partnership with other churches and organizations, tried to find ways, not only to help these families survive another day, another week, but also to get the training and resources to maybe one day get out of the grinding cycle of poverty. Some of these families were poor because of bad luck - the primary earner, who was barely making enough money to put her and her family over the poverty line, had to stay home when child got sick (there wasn't enough money for childcare, nor did her job provide health benefits), therefore lost her job and could never find a situation that would enable her to get back to the barely over the poverty line situation she had before. Other families were poor because the head of the family was basically incompetent, usually due to some mental problem or history with drug or alcohol abuse. She was never going to be able to hold a job that would pay enough money to feed, house, and clothe her family, and certainly never have a job that would provide medical benefits. Other families were living out generational patterns of dependency and poverty. The family was poor because that was all the adults had known as children.

Jesus did not make differentiations between the deserving and the undeserving poor - in his mind and in his love, all the poor are deserving - deserving of God's love, God's care and God's abundance. In our passage from Luke, Jesus says "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God." Jesus knew that the poor, for whatever reason then were poor, had a special place in God's heart - so much so that God's Kingdom, God's eternal goodness was their inheritance. We can and we should have searching seeking debates the best way to lift people to the abundance that intends of all people - but having that debate and doing something meaningful is not a choice for us. We are not called to sit idly by while the poor are treated as problems to be solved or ignored, priorities to be weighed; rather, we are called to embrace, love and defend, those whom God embraces, loves and defends.

In Matthew's version of the passage we read from Luke, Jesus is quoted as saying Blessed are the poor in spirit. Some people have speculated that Matthew was trying soften Jesus' radical call for concern for the poor and destitute - you know, spiritualize it and it won't cut so hard. But I think something else is going here - by having these two saying of Jesus, closely related, but different, all of us can find ourselves in that category we call "the poor." Some of us may be poor in things, but all of us, without God's love and grace and "poor in spirit." We all need that radical love of God which not only gives us life, but life abundant.

Later in Luke's Gospel, Jesus tells a parable about a man who gave a lavish dinner. He invited the people who were like him, the nice people, the respectable people. And one by one they declined his invitation. When the dinner was ready to begin, his banquet hall was empty. So he gathered his servants and told them to fill his hall - not with replacement friends, but those who would otherwise not be included. Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame. And so they did, and the hall was filled and the party, that great celebration began. As we become a moral voice for the poor, as we discover our own poverty, a poverty of spirit, a poverty of grace, we will hear, not only those who are lacking in material goods, but ourselves as well being invited into God's banquet. For God has a place of all of God's children - for the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame - and yes, God has a place for us - for God's table has a seat for everyone.