It would seem that in western nations to be poor is almost the equivalency of being a loser. This seems to be the impression so made upon people, in which, for many a person and organization the overriding drive of their lives is to make and to have money. Yet, for those that profess to be Christian and have actually examined the life of Christ as well as his disciples, those that have wealth seem to be on the opposite side of what Christ and Christianity represent and was always meant to represent. After all, Christ, himself, had no material assets, and never desired or needed to have any. Further to the point, Christ made it his point that the “Great Commission” is not a commission to achieve material wealth, but rather is a commission so structured to make disciples of many nations and peoples.
What might surprise some people is how powerful the orthodox Church, of many Christian faiths, did so become in the Christian era, in which, the church often joined hands with the prevailing political institution to thus have their corresponding power and control over the people – and seldom then were they in true service to the people. Additionally, how is that any Christian edifice would ever desire to achieve or to acquire great material assets as if this somehow is in harmony with what Christ so characterized. That is to say, Christ owned nothing; yet, the Christian church has billions upon billions of dollars of assets, of which, there are hundreds and hundreds of millions of people that are suffering and are continuing to suffer, each and every day, because of the lack of aid and help so reaching them.
The mission of any Christian church, should be first and foremost, to be a great shepherd to their flock. So then, to the degree that a church needs monetary assets in order to provide that service, this most definitely has its place; but the optics of what that church has and what it truly does, should be consistent to that which believes that in Christ, we have everything that we could ever need. So then, those churches, peoples, and institutions that have great monetary and physical assets need to do a far better job of putting those assets to work in the helping of the living poor, and far less in trying to maintain their own wealth and power.
In truth, Christ took on a vow of poverty, but so many that profess to be Christian and also have wealth, have absolutely no intention of taking a vow of poverty, themselves. This would seem to presuppose that today’s Christian is quite good at mouthing platitudes and not so good in actually living a life of material poverty and thus having no material assets. Perhaps this is the way that it should be, of which, each of us is fairly entitled to the wages that we have so earned or have been gifted, which is therefore ours to keep and to thereby expend as per our discretion. Perhaps though, Christ was right, and those that permit mammon to take precedence over God, are at best, lukewarm, and thus vomited out of our Savior’s mouth.