In the gospel lesson for this Sunday, Jesus is sharing a meal with his dear friends, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.  Mary comes into the room and kneels in front of Jesus; she bathes his feet with expensive ointment.  Judas grumbles that this act is extravagant and wasteful, remarking that the money spent on the perfumed oil could better have been spent on the poor.  Jesus responds, "The poor you will always have with you; you will not always have me."  This remark has sometimes been used to justify the idea that we Christians have no special obligation towards poor people, and that we can serve Christ without serving the poor.  Actually, Jesus was naming Judas' hypocrisy, refusing to humiliate Mary and honoring her gift.  He was also saying clearly that he knew he didn't have much time left--and that Mary probably knew it too.

During Lent, a group of us have been meeting weekly to discuss the book "The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto" by Tavis Smiley and Cornel West.  Pardon the pun, but the discussion has been very rich.  We have begun our time together with a Bible reading.  That exercise has reminded me yet again of how much of the Bible is devoted to how people of faith are called to respond to poverty.   

Even before the Israelites were allowed to enter into the Promised Land, Moses told them that God required them to assist widows and orphans, and to welcome strangers and foreigners.  Through Moses, God reminded them that they had been unwanted strangers, prisoners in a foreign land, and they had known poverty and oppression.  The Old Testament books of the law are full of concrete commandments about caring for the poor, such as a requirement that farmers go over their vines only once, allowing the poor to pick whatever grapes were missed; or that when harvesting grain, to leave the edges of the field unmown, so that poor people could have that, as well as any grain left behind in the mowed part of the fields.   

Jesus told his astonished listeners that contrary to the idea that wealth is a sign of God's favor, it is as difficult for a rich person to enter heaven as it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.  Paul expanded on that idea, calling the love of money the root of all evil, arguing that craving money can cause people to fall away from faith.

Poverty is not a big topic in our current cultural climate, and even the words "poor" or "poverty" are words I seldom hear as part of our national discourse.  Sometimes I hear politicians talk about "the working poor" or "the deserving poor"--but for the most part, poor folks just don't get mentioned.  Even in the context of religious community, we might consider it a part of our mission and ministry to do acts of mercy and charity, but it can be difficult or even painful to discuss how we might be called to address poverty.

Only today, I read in The New York Times business section that, according to The Urban Institute, people under forty have accrued less wealth than their parents had at the same age; this may be the first American generation in which young people do less well financially than their parents did.  If prospects are worrying for the young, things are downright bleak for people of color.  According to the Pew Research Center, the wealth disparity between white people and people of color is huge, and possibly growing.  Median wealth of Caucasians is 20 times that of African-Americans, and 18 times that of Hispanics.  The National Poverty Center, part of the Gerald Ford School of Public Policy at University of Michigan reports that the last census reveals that 15.1% of Americans live in poverty.  (For a family with two adults and two children, poverty is defined as a family income of about $22,000.)  Almost one in four children in America lives in a household that meets the poverty threshold.   

I don't have any magic--or even clear--answers about what to do in the face of this kind of suffering.  But I do know that as people who, to quote our baptismal vows, are called "to work for justice, freedom and peace, and to respect the dignity of every human being," and to "seek and serve Christ in all persons," we must grapple with this.  I believe that it is healthy for us to talk openly and lovingly about economic injustice, and to think and pray about the poverty that is all around us, whether we see it or not.  As one person in our book group said, "I don't think any of us is rich, at least not in the way it's defined in this book.  Most of us are middle class, or some of us would say 'comfortable.'  But that doesn't let us off the hook."        

We moved to the house we live in now in the springtime, and I began to feel that we really belonged there once I started to dig in the garden.  One day, I was planting some annuals, and I hit something hard.  I was totally surprised to find that I had dug up a small plastic statue of a saint, buried upside down.  I grew up in a very Protestant household, so I wasn't around images of saints very often--well, ever--but even to me, that seemed a rather disrespectful way of treating a saint.  It turns out that my little plastic friend is Saint Joseph, and many of you may already know about a custom that I had never heard of.  Sellers who want to sell a home quickly will invoke Saint Joseph's aid by burying a statue of the saint.  Apparently even realtors in this area recommend this practice.  

I'm not quite sure why Joseph is the saint around whom this custom developed, and sources differed when I tried to research it.  But the Joseph of the Bible knew what it was like to have to relocate on very short notice, and he knew what it was like to be without a home at a challenging time for his family.  And as a carpenter, Joseph would have made things for the home or worked on people's houses.  In any event, the little statue of Joseph sits benevolently on our kitchen windowsill, and I like to think that he helped us to find our way home.  Joseph is now one of my very favorite saints.

Saint Joseph was, of course, the man Jesus called "Abba," Hebrew for "Daddy," before Jesus learned to call God by that name.  I like to think that this carpenter taught Jesus to work with his hands, to be patient, and to be gentle.  Joseph was a man of deep faith, who was willing to trust that Mary's pregnancy was part of God's plan, and that the baby would be a blessing, a savior.  Joseph was warned in a dream that King Herod intended to harm the baby Jesus, and Joseph took his little family and fled to Egypt in order to keep them safe.

Joseph is the patron saint of carpenters and contractors.  I suspect that he was at least as good a dad as he was a carpenter.  Though Joseph's saint day is overshadowed, at least in this part of the country, by that famous saint who is honored two days earlier with shamrocks and parades and green-tinted beer, perhaps the unassuming and faithful Joseph wouldn't mind.  Why not honoring Joseph by thinking of your own dad or of some man in your life who modeled for you what it means to be faithful and diligent and kind?     

Chuck and Ginny Barthel, Dorothy Brown, Christine Camper, George Chace, Betty Fraser, Gloria Graves, Bernice Herrick, Allan Johnson, Deborah Katt-Lloyd, Lisa Kimball, Robert Knoettner, Mary Anna Krause, Tony Lopes, Carole Lutton, Maureen Manzelli, Jim McCallum,  Dave McDonald, Lynn McDonald, Rheta C. McKinley, Mike Morgan, Sara O'Brien, Rhonda O'Keefe, John Parsons, Carolyn Poor, Eleanor Schott, Kevin Smith, Ron Smith, Anita Webb and Ashley Westerman.