Written by Richelle Thompson
Luke 6:20 (NRSV) Then he looked up at his disciples and said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.”
She offered the gift in a plastic grocery bag. Money is tight this year, so we decided to give our friends what we had. She smiled apologetically. Inside the bag was five pounds of beef wrapped in butcher paper. And I came to our appointment empty-handed. I didn’t have a present; it didn’t occur to me to bring one.
Our relationship is customer and service provider—I visit her every six weeks or so, and she works her magic. Our conversations are easy and deep, though we have little in common on the surface: She grew up the last child in a big family, with an alcoholic father who left when she was an infant. Pregnant early, divorced from an abusive husband, estranged from her daughter and son, she is a woman of deep and abiding faith who thanks God often in our conversations and wrestles with God’s plan for her life. I am solidly middle class, with a husband and two children, a dog, a horse, and a rabbit, living in a nice house in a good neighborhood.
Jesus reminds us that poverty does not determine generosity, that the poor have much to offer, and the saints of God often come from the least expected places.
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