The poor will always be with you?

How Jesus' words are misunderstood and get us off task

Good morning and happy Friday everyone!

Brief update: Many of you know me from Twitter primarily, but as we’ve all seen that platform is becoming a shell of its former self. I would strongly encourage folks to find me elsewhere, since Twitter may not be here for the long term. You can find me here on Instagram or Facebook. I’m also on BlueSky and Threads, which I can’t link directly to.

See you there!

Today’s writing piece has primarily taken the form of sermon in the past, so if you’ve seen me preach you may have heard a version of this. Enjoy!

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At a point about three years into working with people experiencing homelessness, I realized a shift was happening.

If you know my story, you know that I went to Bible college and seminary, studying scripture, theology, preaching, the works, towards becoming a pastor. When I pivoted into work with people experiencing homelessness, my training and education in ministry and theology and scripture affected the way that I approach that work. But then a crucial shift occurred: the relationships and community I experienced with people experiencing homelessness changed how I view ministry, my theology, and how I read scripture. I had encountered a Jesus who I couldn’t meet in Bible College or Seminary or even at my local church, but who I could only meet under the overpass, in the tent city, and at the shelter. That’s a Jesus has transformed me in ways that I can’t ever shake.

But there’s this passage, (one that’s been flung at me a lot,) that prevents a lot of us from ever meeting that Jesus. It’s one of those scriptures where Jesus says something that makes you scratch your head a bit, and wonder, “Why would you say that? That doesn’t sound like you.” It’s been used by countless preachers and teachers and leaders to convince us that we should be suspicious about helping the poor, leary of people experiencing homelessness; that they aren’t worth our Christian time or energy. I bet by now you might have an idea about what scripture I’m talking about:

While Jesus was in Bethany, reclining at the table in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on his head. Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly. “Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.” (Mark 4:3-9)

I (also) grew up hearing this. But my experience working with people who are extremely poor and unhoused has helped me challenge this scripture, and wrestle with it for deeper meaning more in line with who we know Jesus is. And I’m so glad to report back from this wrestling that this passage does NOT mean we shouldn’t help the poor. It can’t! And even better, it calls us forward into more life-sustaining, effective, and Christian ways of interacting with poverty and homelessness.

So let’s start with what Jesus is NOT saying here. Now, I’m not a person who spends a ton of time looking at footnotes, but there’s a pretty important one here. In most Bibles, there’s a footnote after “the poor you will always have with you” that points us back to Deuteronomy 15. Now, we know that Jesus loves quoting from the Scriptures that he and his followers knew by heart. The amazing thing is, if you go back to Deuteronomy, that chapter leaves no question that we are obligated to help the poor. The verse that starts with, “There will always be poor in your land” literally goes on to say, “Therefore you should always open your hand to those who are in need.” 

Additionally, that whole chapter is where we get the instructions for the year of Jubilee. So not only is Jesus calling back to a scripture that encourages individuals to help, he is also referencing a scripture that commands the people of God to reorient their entire society to eradicate debt, return land to those dispossessed of it, and to redistribute wealth. The scripture that people use to say we shouldn’t help the poor because they’ll always be around is actually Jesus referencing a scripture to help the poor in ways that eradicate it socially. 

There is also a pretty significant translation issue going on here. The version so many of us grew up hearing says, the poor you will always have with you, or the poor will always be with you. Because of that “will ”, we get this interpretation that having poverty is just a part of life no matter what we do, like Jesus is saying it’s just the way things are and always will be. Some people will always be poor, there will always be homeless people. 

Would it surprise you to know that in the original Greek, this verb is not in the future tense? That every other other major translation, including KJV, NASB, and NRSV, have it in the present tense. There is no will . The more accurate translation is something more like “The poor you always have with you” or “the poor ARE always with you.” 

Which changes EVERYTHING! Especially when you remember that the majority of Jesus’ disciples, and the vast majority of people who followed Jesus from town to town, were poor! Jesus even says in Luke that his mission, the reason he’s on this earth, is to bring good news to the poor. Jesus simply cannot be saying to ignore the poor–that’s who he’s talking to!

It’s worth pausing here to ask a hard question: is this true of us? Can the poor be found among us, wherever we are? At our churches, in our communities? For Jesus, the Gospel is about bringing good news to the poor–that they are blessed. And I won’t presume to know about any of you here and your churches and communities, but it has been my experience that often churches and Christians insulate themselves from the poor, seeing them as an “other” who we might need to help or feel bad for, but who are different from “us.” That wasn’t the case for Jesus, or the early church. “The poor are always with you” should read like an expectation–if the voices of the poor, the unhoused, the marginalized are not part of the Church, are not centered in the church, then the Church is not whole. 

This story also gives us a hint about what Jesus expects our relationship to be like with the poor: Jesus’ followers were saying that the woman should have sold the perfume and given the money to the poor. So if Jesus is not saying “don’t help the poor,” why doesn’t Jesus agree with them? Surely they have a point: it seems kinda wasteful, and the poor sure could use some money right? I think Jesus is up to two things here:

First, I believe Jesus is calling us away from a model of charity and into a model of community. Remember: the poor are always with you. This notion that we should sell the perfume and give the money to the poor already assumes that the poor are somewhere else, that they are someone else– and that the best thing we can do for them is a transaction. The poor should always with be with us, should always be “us.” If “us” doesn’t include the poor and the marginalized, we have missed the point. When we live in community and solidarity with the poor and the marginalized, we share our resources and meet one another’s needs organically and quickly because we already know what they are because we live in communion together. We don’t need to give money at a distance, whether it’s a geographic distance or a social distance. The social and physical distance between the Church and the poor is a lie, and if we allow it to exist then we stand in opposition to Christ.

And I want to say a little about the perfume. Mark places this story right before Judas goes to betray Jesus, and Jesus remarks that the woman has done a beautiful thing and in a way she has anointed him for his burial. Coming back to this idea of transaction, Jesus’ followers were so caught up in what the monetary value of the perfume and how that could be better allocated. It’s so tempting in our world to put a price tag on everything–our culture commodifies our time, our bodies, and often tries to convince us that those are the same thing as our worth–that we are only as good as what we produce, what wealth we can generate for ourselves or for someone else.

This is all the more tempting when you do nonprofit and social work. You see people who are without these resources and these commodities and you want to be clever and creative with how to get those things for them, and it can very quickly start to all look like checkboxes and dollar signs and not… human beings. People. Us. Beloved children of God, bearers of God’s image–an image that is neither dampened nor diminished by lack of wealth or power. 

Something that I love about this story is that Jesus calls us away from that transactional thinking–we are allowed to think of things outside of their maximized efficiency or their net value. Perfume is more than a commodity worth a particular dollar amount. It is something beautiful, something that has a texture that is soothing, a smell that is enjoyable, and has ritualistic meaning within a community.  

It’s so easy when we are talking about poverty or homelessness to get stuck in this scarcity mindset, where we’re so focused on what people lack economically, and forget about all the things that make us human, that make us whole. We expect people experiencing homelessness to be happy receiving the bare minimum: a crappy two day old sandwich, a cot on the floor of a gym next to hundred of others, an apartment the size of a closet. More than that, the “othering” that happens when we forget that the poor are supposed to be with us, neglects the way that all humans, rich or poor, homeless or housed, need community, friendship, and love in order to flourish, to be well, and to be whole. I like to think that when Jesus rebukes his followers, many of whom were probably poor!, and allows the woman to pour the perfume, he’s telling them and telling us, “It’s ok to enjoy this. We’re supposed to be here, together. Enjoy the texture. Enjoy the smell. Value the ritual. This moment with us together is worth more than the price you can put on this jar.”

I have a suspicion that a good many of my readers are millenials. If you are, you surely remember a bit of drama that occurred a few years ago, all centered around avocado toast. If you don’t know or need a refresher, in 2018 there was an oped that circulated that said that millennials were lazy and that’s why we couldn’t afford houses and that we were so irresponsible for spending money on things like avocado toast. And just for the sake of argument, let’s ignore the absolute absurdity of that statement from an economic or logical standpoint–I want to focus on what I think is an insidious implication baked into this viewpoint that I think is more pervasive than this one absurd example–it’s the idea that something delicious and mildly decadent like avocado toast is only for a certain kind of people. That if you can’t afford to buy a house, you should be miserable until you’ve earned the right to enjoy things like avocado toast. 

When this was circulating we had just Women’s Day at work, where we set aside a new day where we weren’t previously open and invited exclusive women-identifying people to access our services on a morning all to themselves. And of course, a great way to launch a program like that is to make food. And so, that week, we decided to be a rebellious millennial and we made avocado toast for the dozen of unhoused women, most of whom had no clue what the cultural conversation was. And we all ate it together, and it was one of the holiest protests I’ve ever experienced. A bunch of millennials who don’t own houses and a group of women who have been excluded from housing altogether, eating avocado toast to spite the idea that only certain people should enjoy good things. We were supposed to enjoy it, together. 

actual photo from that morning in 2017

After years of working with people who we so often consider to be “less fortunate,” I’m here to tell you this morning that it is not a miserable job. If you remember that the poor are supposed to be with us, that they are supposed to be “us,” and that we can enjoy being human together, it’s the holiest thing in the world to share laughter, good food, coffee, celebration, and friendship with people experiencing homelessness. 

So what does community and relationship look like with people experiencing homelessness? It can look a million different ways. It might look like stopping and having a conversation with a person instead of just handing them a dollar and moving along. It might look eating with someone rather than just giving them food. It certainly could look like learning the name of that person you see on the way to work everyday, and asking what you could bring them next time that would bless them. You’ll usually be surprised and humbled by what you hear. 

That’s the thing about humans and relationships–you never know what to expect. My best memories in this work have been watching Marvel movies with someone I helped house on his tv, eating Philly Cheesesteaks after a difficult housing appointment, getting recommendations on which stand at Universal Studios Hogwarts has the best Butterbeer, playing Yahtzee or Jenga in the middle of a “work-day”, lovingly arguing with a 20-year old about whether Nikki Minaj is even in the same league as Beyonce.(She’s not, by the way.)

This is the stuff of humanity, and of friendship. Jesus invites us into loving, reciprocal, and equal relationships with the vulnerable, where we aren’t there to change them, but are there for mutual transformation.