Jesus and the Poor

In his inaugural sermon, Jesus lays out his vision for why he came. He quotes from the prophet Isaiah, summarizing it all with the words, “to set the oppressed free and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:19).

There are three elements to this vision of setting the oppressed free. The first is caring for the economically disadvantaged. Jesus says,

The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
    because he has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor. - Luke 4:18

What might be good news for the poor? I can imagine that it might be that God cares about their plight and is raising them up and others to partner with them to change the circumstances of their poverty.

In contemporary America, what might be some of those circumstance? As Barak pointed out on Sunday in the message, African-Americans have a median family net worth of about 1/10th of White Americans. (See graph at bottom) He pointed out about the GI Bill after WWII and how it was taken away from the million Black veterans so that they could not buy houses or get job training or education. He talked about redlining. He talked about how generational wealth has been passed down in families of privilege - often based just on the color of their skin - while other people (notably those who are POC) were denied the ability to do so.

If Jesus were preaching this same sermon today, what might be an appropriate response to the radical economic disparity in our country?