You will always have them with you.

Jesus famously said that we would always have the poor with us.

If you were in an average Christian church, the first question that you would ask yourself is 'where?'  Functionally, they're nowhere to be seen.  Now, our church is located in a reasonably affluent area, but even churches that I know that are located in slightly less wonderful areas of town aren't filled to
the brim with the poor and very poor.  They aren't jam packed full of people who are hard up on their luck and desperate to get by.  Why on earth not?

Most churches, this one included, will mention that all are welcome, and it's true.  It's very true that all are welcome, and churches will go to great lenghts to ensure that as many barriers as possible are torn down, and that people feel comfortable approaching.  But like it or not, the barriers are there.  People don't feel all that comfy coming to worship in a community in which they are the minority.  And here in Canada, we tend to stratify on economic lines.  This happens constantly, where the classes separate themselves out, and don't really rub shoulder to shoulder, unless it's a rider game.  Beyond that, quite separate.  Now, I'm not here to call everyone out, and to scold us all, I'm here to point out that this isn't a new problem or a new issue.  It's as old as the Christian church, certainly, and without doubt older than that.  It's so old that James cautioned against falling into classism.  He cautioned against this, because he was well aware that were were incredibly likely to fall into it. We are people who have a desire to stratify on economic lines, who want to suck up to the rich a whole lot.  We want to suck up to the rich, and sweep the poor away, or at least out of our sight.  James mentions for us the possibility that we might want to encourage the poor of this world, and to not try to shove them towards the back where they might not be seen.

We recoil at this, in real life.  We recoil like this like Dracula from the cross, we do.  Nobody ever outright says that poor people aren't welcome, but their lack of presence seems to indicate that they aren't showing up for a good reason.  Everyone wants to welcome poor people to the church, where they may hear God's word, and be encouraged, but they just aren't around.  And because they aren't around, and even if they are they aren't visible, it leads us to a peculiar problem here in the Christian faith.  It leads us to a problem in which we get to ignore what we are called to do. As human beings, we tend to forget pretty quickly about the magnitude of the task before us.  We tend to forget about chapters like Matthew 25, we tend to forget that all this stuff is incumbent on us to do and to take care of.  We forget rapidly that we are required to take care of the poor of this world, that it is demanded of us.  And one of the things that lets us forget it is the general invisibility of the poor.

Think of what happens when the Olympic games come to a city.  What happens to the homeless?  In the case of Vancouver, they were shipped away, removed so that they might not bother the nice people who came to see athletes ride sleds down hills.  This is our desire, not to solve the problem, but to pretend, quite happily, that it doesn't exist.  We want to believe that the problem isn't a problem.  It's easy to do that when the poor aren't around.

For if they are around, then we are faced with something rather uncomfortable.  We are faced with the fact that our work is not done.  The more visible the poor of this world are, the more we are reminded of their presence, and it should be a little unsettling to those of us, myself included, who

have more than enough, and who are blissfully happy in their opulence.  We're essentially fat and happy, but it's much harder to be happy when you see those around you suffering.  James tells you to move these people, when they do come to our churches, to a higher, better place, to be visible to the congregation, so that nobody can forget the reason for their own wealth - to be used for God's will in his kingdom.

James not only tells you to let the poor into your congregations, but to place them at a place of great honor, up at the front, where we are normally used to having those who want to see and be seen.  And placing the poor there gives us a reminder of what it is that Jesus would have us do.  But something else happens, which is that they give us an opportunity, with their presence, to serve God in the world.  It's not as though you need to ask yourself what it is God would have you do when the people he would have you serve are all around you.  If the homeless, the destitute, arrive at your congregation, you have been given an opportunity by God himself to be charitable.

Now, you may not exactly want to hear this. You may want instead to fall back on the notion that faith, the faith of the Bible, is a matter of holding the right opinions, and that's all.  The vision that James presents, though, is that faith without works, is dead.  It's inert.  Oh sure, it looks the same, but it is dead.  And like anything else that's dead, Lazarus included, it stinketh.

So, what?  Is this works righeousness?  No, it isn't, though you might be tempted to think, heck, to hope it might be.  So you can ignore it.  Me too, really.  But it isn't.  All it is, is God indicating to you, who is probably comfortable with what you are currently doing, that you have a long way to go.  Even if you think you're doing fine, you aren't.  It's like when Jesus encountered the rich young ruler, so assured in his own righteousness that he figured that he didn't need salvation at all.  He just wanted recognition.  We're not like that though, are we?

So how can you be a Christian and not be constantly working with and serving the poor? How can you be a Christian and not have a church full of the poor who are desperate to hear God's word?  Well, you sort of have to ignore a pretty big part of the Bible.  The parts that talk about service to the poor of this world.  You either have to ignore them or not listen to them at all.  You have to become wilfully deaf to what Jesus wants you to do.

And that leads us to the biggest thing to consider, which is the Gospel reading for last Sunday, in which Jesus heals a deaf man.  And what does he do?  He touches the man's ears, and says 'be opened.'  This is Jesus, listen to him.  Through the words of the scriptures, you'll be unsettled, for sure.  But this is what it's all about, law and Gospel style.  It's easy to feel comfortable and assured in the church, easy to feel as though you have nothing left to do and everything is fine, but it's much harder to listen.  But it is only through listening to the words of the law that the words of the Gospel mean anything.  Whenever you are unsettled by the words of God in the Bible, whenever you read it and say 'this is a hard teaching.  Who can understand it?'  Whenever that happens, that is Jesus sticking his fingers in your ears and saying 'be opened.'  For after you have heard how far you have left to go, then you can hear his word of Grace pronounced.  For it is for these things that you don't want to hear that Jesus died.  After all, what is the purpose of a God of forgiveness if you have nothing to be forgiven of.

He still grabs our ears and says 'be opened.'  Hear the words of God's law, his good and perfect law spoken to us, and the words of his sweet Gospel, spoken for us.  Have your ears opened by Christ who will comfort and secure you, reminding you that it is for all these things that he suffered and died.  To take away the things you have done, and the things you have left undone.

PJ.