A Commandment and A Commission

The Great Commandment of Matthew 22:34-40 and The Great Commission of Matthew 28:16-20 are bookends to any ministerial vision in a local church.  We cannot have one without the other.  Discipleship development requires we love the Lord with all of our hearts, minds, souls and strength.  God is our “ultimate concern;” nothing else or anyone else can displace Him.  Unquestionably, God is number one in a believer’s life.  “There [are] no other gods before Him.”  However, to realize authentically The Great Commandment, you love your neighbor as yourself.  There is a spiritual fallacy which believes you only need to relate rightly to God at the exclusion of everyone else.  To fulfill correctly The Great Commandment, you accomplish the goals and aims of The Great Commission.  Effectively succeeding at The Great Commission is a natural outgrowth The Great Commandment.

Central to the fulfilling both The Great Commandment and The Great Commission is our treatment of the poor and those people whom we characterize as “the least in society.”  In Christ, a poor, perhaps illiterate carpenter, Almighty God demonstrates preferential consideration for the poor and oppressed of society.  In the preceding passages, He charges the Church with the specific prerogative of caring for the poor.  In continuance of Old Testament prophetic traditions, the Church must speak for those people who cannot speak for themselves.  This social justice ministry must be done forcefully.  Isaiah says, “Cry aloud and spare not.  Lift up your voice like a ram’s horn.”  Because the daily burdens of life inhibit the poor from advocating their causes, the Church must stand in the gap in do so on their behalf.

Regrettably, society relegates the poor as expendable.  Laws, tax structures, government programs, lending practices, etc. demonstrates society’s exploitation of the poor.  Forty states in the country have lotteries.  The poor primarily play the game.  It is a regressive tax on working people.  Using lotteries to fund public education eventually results in poor people providing a college education to middle and upper class citizens.  Poor students do not test as well as these other groups.  They usually do not gain admission to college with scholarship offers.  It is ironic, through the state lottery, they inadvertently supply those who do not need it with a free college education, America’s ticket to upward social mobility.  In addition, high sales taxes are most regressive for working class and poor people.  High sales taxes devalue the worth of the poor’s income.  They shop more regularly and do not have “liquid” income to save and use for non-essential items.  Their incomes are disproportionately undermined by inflation in comparison to the middle and upper classes.  Moreover, healthcare policies particularly reflect society’s indifference, actually incivility, toward the poor.  If they die as a result of these policies, no one cares.  After all, the underclass does not contribute to the gross domestic product. 

As we perennially celebrate MLK Day, we recall the great achievements of the Civil Rights Movement.  Lest we be guilty of the idolatry of memory, we must ask the question, “What is the Movement for today and what does it require of us?”  Nonetheless, we can also inquire into King’s disposition toward the poor.  In his incomparable and substantial biography, Bearing the Cross, David Garrow meticulously documents King’s unwavering commitment to the poor from the time of the conferral of the Nobel Peace Prize to the time of his death.  Garrow painstakingly recounts King’s activities in Chicago from 1966 onward to gain a better life for the poor.  The late Mayor Richard Daley was surprised by King’s extreme and unflappable resolve to better the lives of “the least of society.”  In his seminal book, The Struggle for Black Equality, Harvard Sitkoff recalls that King mentioned near the end of his life, “It one thing to march and gain the ability to eat a hamburger at the counter of a department store.  It is another thing all together to be able to afford the hamburger.”  That remark demonstrates the expansion of King’s ideology and theology to include the economic necessities of life.

Today, we face similar challenges as we consider the conditions of the poor in the United States and throughout the world.  An uncritical adherence to the myth of rugged individualism and an ignorance of the systemic structures that perpetuate their oppression.  In accordance with Isaiah 61:1-3, Matthew 25, Matthew 28, Luke 4:18, James 1:26-27 and James 2:14-26, the Church must speak and advocate for the poor.  Fulfilling The Great Commandment and The Great Commission leaves us absolutely no choice in the matter!