Psalm 22:18-27

18 Be not far away, O Lord;
you are my strength; hasten to help me.

19 Save me from the sword,
my life from the power of the dog.

20 Save me from the lion's mouth,
my wretched body from the horns of wild bulls.

21 I will declare your Name to my brethren;
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.

22 Praise the Lord, you that fear him;
stand in awe of him, O offspring of Israel;
all you of Jacob's line, give glory.

23 For he does not despise nor abhor the poor in their poverty;
neither does he hide his face from them;
but when they cry to him he hears them.

24 My praise is of him in the great assembly;
I will perform my vows in the presence of those who worship him.

25 The poor shall eat and be satisfied,
and those who seek the Lord shall praise him: "May your heart live for ever!"

26 All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations shall bow before him.

27 For kingship belongs to the Lord;
he rules over the nations.

This year, Monday Matters will focus on wisdom conveyed in the treasures of the book of Psalms. We'll look at the psalms read in church before Monday Matters comes to your screen.

Blessed are the poor

According to Psalm 22, a portion of which we read in church yesterday (and reprinted above), we praise the Lord because he “does not despise nor abhor the poor in their poverty. Neither does he hide his face from them.” The phrase got me thinking about the persistent scriptural message affirming "preferential option for the poor," a phrase from theologians serving among some of the poorest folks in Latin America.

The first instructions to the children of Israel called for care for those in need, especially strangers and refugees. The psalms repeatedly call for attention to those on the margins. Jesus in Luke’s gospel says “Blessed are the poor.” The New Testament Letter of James defines true religion as caring for widows and orphans, i.e, those who are on the margins, those deemed dispensable.

The phrase from Psalm 22 also made me think of what I’ve been hearing from some Christian leaders. Our new presiding bishop, Sean Rowe, preached at the National Cathedral in early February, one of his first big pieces of communication outlining his vision. He said: “We’re told by the kings and the rulers of the day that the rich shall be first. That somehow compassion is weakness…In the kingdom of God, the meek shall inherit the earth. The last will be first. The merciful shall receive mercy, and the captives go free…Those who have been considered at the margins are at the center. Their struggles reveal to us the kingdom of God.”

Before he died, Pope Francis said: “If we truly wish to encounter Christ, we have to touch his body in the suffering bodies of the poor, as a response to the sacramental communion bestowed in the Eucharist. The Body of Christ, broken in the sacred liturgy, can be seen, through charity and sharing, in the faces and persons of the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters. Saint John Chrysostom’s admonition remains ever timely: “If you want to honor the body of Christ, do not scorn it when it is naked; do not honor the Eucharistic Christ with silk vestments, and then, leaving the church, neglect the other Christ suffering from cold and nakedness’.”

Francis’ successor picks up that same theme. Drawing from the Psalms as well as the experience of those facing poverty, Pope Leo XIV calls Christians to recognize the poor not as “objects of charity but as protagonists of hope.” He spoke on the Feast Day of Saint Anthony of Padua, patron of the poor, and called for rediscovery of Christian hope as a response to instability in our world. The Pope noted how the poor, though deprived of material security, often embody a deep and enduring hope. “They cannot rely on the security of power and possessions... their hope must necessarily be sought elsewhere,” he writes. In this vulnerability, the Pope explains, we too pass from fleeting hopes to a lasting hope. He noted that the gravest form of poverty is not to know God.

Mother Teresa had similar thoughts on the nature of poverty: “The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty -- it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There's a hunger for love, as there is a hunger for God.”

Paul Farmer a model of what it means to be a Christian servant noted that the basis of preferential option for the poor is to say: “I accompany them not because they are all good, or because I am all good, but because God is good.” Dorothy Day said: “The Gospel takes away our right forever, to discriminate between the deserving and the undeserving poor.”

In a world where the poor are demonized and relief efforts diminished for the sake of political advantage, where preachers promise prosperity for personal gain, I need to attend to the voices of these followers of Jesus

One more thought from Dorothy Day: “Those who cannot see Christ in the poor are atheists indeed.” This Monday morning, I share the wisdom of these Christian leaders mindful of how I fall short of their vision. I share with the aspiration that their wisdom can guide us all into a deeper sense of community and responsibility for each other as we seek to fulfill the commandment to love neighbor as self. For me, that is a work in progress.

-Jay Sidebotham