Considering “the Least of These”
On the afternoon of August 20, after making my last blog post early that morning which was the second day of the Democratic National Convention, I started writing this as my next blog article.
“The least of these,” words attributed to Jesus, is a phrase found in the Gospel of Matthew: ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me” (25:40 NRSV).
Who are Jesus’ “brothers and sisters”? Conservative evangelicals tend to restrict those words to Christian believers. For example, a writer for the Gospel Coalition says, “‘The least of these’ refers to other believers in need—specifically, itinerant Christian teachers dependent on other Christians for hospitality and support” (see here).
In contrast, progressive Christians see the love of Jesus to be more inclusive and consider that those people in contemporary society who are poor and powerless as well as those who are marginalized and mistreated by many of the more privileged people are, indeed, “the least” among Jesus’ siblings.
The lack of apparent concern for “the least of these” in political campaigns is quite common. VP Harris and Gov. Walz have shown concern for such people by what they have said and done through the years, but that doesn’t make for good campaigning.
Thus, it is not surprising that at the Democratic National Convention last week, the candidates for President and Vice President talked much about helping the working class of the nation, but little was said about helping those who are living in poverty.
True, there were some who did talk about “the least of these” (as interpreted by progressive Christians) even at the DNC. Just past six and a half minutes into his speech on opening night, Sen. Warnock quoted the words of Matt. 25:40.
Also, in his acceptance speech on Aug. 22, Gov. Walz mentioned his policy of providing free lunches for all school children in Minnesota and his belief that no child should be left hungry.
But those were the exceptions to the repeated emphasis on helping people in the middle class, who with some exceptions couldn’t be correctly labeled “the least of these.”
In “Why Kamala Harris’s Centrism Is Working,” New York Times columnist David Leonhardt writes convincingly as how “many Democrats have been willing to tolerate her triangulation in the service of winning” (see here).
(In politics, triangulation is a strategy by which a politician presents his/her position as being above or between the left and right sides or wings of the political spectrum. That was a strategy particularly associated with Pres. Bill Clinton in the 1990s.)
After Harris is elected president—and at this point, I feel fairly confident that she will, indeed, be elected on November 5—I expect her to say much more in consideration of “the least of these” across the U.S. (as well as saying more about combating the environmental crisis).
Last week, Harris pledged to tackle high grocery costs by targeting profiteering by food corporations and to bring down housing and prescription drug costs.
In response to that stated intention to offer help that would include “the least of these,” Trump declared at a campaign rally the next day that in her speech Kamala went full communist” and then he referred to her as “Comrade Kamala.”
Indeed, political leaders (most usually Democrats) who seek to use government action to lift people out of poverty are often denigrated as being socialists/communists—and we will likely hear that sort of talk by Trump and Vance between now and November 5.
But I expect we will hear much more about helping “the least of these” after Harris is inaugurated on January 20 next year, which appropriately is also Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
In February this year, the Vice President had a private conference with William Barber, Jr., the head of the Poor People’s Campaign, and Barber was reportedly pleased with Harris’s interest in his work for “the least of these” (see here).**
I hope—and pray—that that meeting between Harris and Barber is a harbinger of what we will see in President Harris’s administration.
____
** In May 2018, I made a blog post titled “Can a Barber Do What a King Couldn’t?”
.jpg)
A couple of days ago, (Black) journalist Perry Bacon, Jr., wrote in an opinion piece for the Washington Post, "Democratic politicians who are women and/or people of color in particular often hold private views significantly to the left of what they say in public." I think this is a significant observation.
ReplyDeleteIn keeping with Bacon's statement, I saw this morning that in a pre-recorded message that Harris provided the American Methodist Episcopal Church General Conference on Tuesday, she said, "“We are fighting for a future where no child has to grow up in poverty, ... .”
Harris went on to quote Luke 1:79, which describes faith as having the power “to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.”
It has been a slow morning for comments. The first one, received about an hour ago, is from Thinking Friend Glenn Hinson in Kentucky:
ReplyDelete"Let me stand beside you, Leroy. I grew up as one of 'the least of these'.”
Thanks for your comments, Dr. Hinson. I am so thankful that in spite of being one of "the least of these" you were able to overcome the difficulties of your childhood and to become a scholar, professor, and author who has helped so many students and others through the decades of your teaching/writing ministry.
DeleteAnd then not long before noon, I received an email with the following comments from Thinking Friend Eric Dollard in Chicago:
ReplyDelete"Thanks, Leroy, for your remarks about our 'underclass' in America. I agree with what you wrote.
"I saw a statistic a day or two ago which pointed out that for every one dollar of private and public money invested in white communities, only twelve cents is invested in black communities, and thirteen cents in Latinx communities. We need a 'Marshall Plan' for our underprivileged communities. It is sad that our government spent $2 trillion in Afghanistan in a lost cause and our combined defense and interest expenditures are eating much of the federal budget. The Republicans can find funds for tax cuts, especially for the wealthy, but seem unable to find funds to ensure that poor people have enough to eat or have roofs over their heads."
If she becomes POTUS, it will be interesting to see what VP Harris will do to help people in the underprivileged communities across the country. It will largely depend, I think, on whether she will have the support of the House and/or the Senate. Perhaps I am not being realistic enough, but I think there is a possibility that there will be a Blue Wave in November so that the fate of many of "the least of these" will become much more positive. At least that is what I am hoping and working for.
DeleteThis comment caught me this week . . . . It is about a quality of mind and heart not consistently shown among us. Leo Baeck, the great leading rabbi of the German Jews before and during WW2 and the Holocaust, wrote, "Just as faith in God necessarily results in faith in ourselves, so does it lead to faith in our neighbor. The prophet derives it in this fashion: "Have we not all one father, has not God created us? How could we be faithless one against the other?" And thus, too, we have one of the sages of the Talmud, Rabbi Tanchuma, stating: "Say not; because I am despised, may my neighbor be despised as I am; because I am cursed, I will also curse my neighbor. When you think and act thusly, know whom you despise and whom you curse: Him Who has created man in His image." [Leo Baeck, The Essence of Judaism.]
ReplyDeleteHe wrote that and much more on scraps of paper while he was in the Theresienstadt concentration camp, itself a curse-factory.
That's good biblical theology (the OT is packed with such teaching) and good preaching, for Baeck was that as well. The "love of neighbor" is the core of any ethics claimed for the Bible, and Jesus apparently as a rabbi focused frequently on it. Why don't more "Jesus people" follow the tasks he gave them? Is it that hard? Perhaps it is too hard even for evangelical politics. I should not expect the winning party leaders to follow Jesus's task-list to help the poor exactly as he would have them to do. But would it be too much to ask that out of love for the least of the "brothers/others" the richest nation on earth might make policies that do not demean and defeat them at the outset? Even intentionally?
I look for more justice and equity from Dems or Reps, no matter the campaign talk, but I know which party actually has more consistently put up for the poor on the larger scale, the disenfranchised, the aged, and others overwhelmed by a devil-may-care politics.
Thanks, Jerry, for your thoughtful comments. I am not familiar with Leo Baeck, and I appreciate the quotes you shared from him--as well as your comments in the third paragraph. But with regard to your last paragraph, I sadly don't see more justice and equity coming from the GOP as long as it is dominated (as it is now) by Trump and the MAGA movement. I do have hope for that in what I trust will be the Harris administration after 1/20/25, especially if the Dems. have a majority in the House and/or the Senate.
DeleteAbout that matter of avoiding mention of the poor . . . it's one thing to say one wants to restore the middle class. It's another to specify the working classes and the poor. Why can't we have a more honest use of terms in our politics? I am sure that hourly wage earners and the poor have trouble identifying with the elusive "middle class". How could they not?
ReplyDeleteVP Harris said nothing about the poor in her acceptance speech, and I do not assume she considered any of the 11.5% of the U.S. population who are living below the poverty line being in the middle class. She spoke of growing up in a working class neighborhood, but I assume she considered that being in the (lower) middle class. And those who are hourly wage earners, whom I would think are the main ones in the "working class," are still considered as being in the middle class, but, of course, in the lowest part of that "elusive" class.
DeleteYesterday I received the following thought-provoking comments from Thinking Friend Tom Nowlin in Arkansas:
ReplyDelete"Thank you for your observations here. Like you, I believe 'the least of these' applies to all who stand in need.
"I believe the current Democratic Party (which is by no means perfect) most aligns with this compassion of Christ and his teachings. For this reason, I am currently running for Arkansas State Representative as a Democrat. The work has been exhausting in a so-called Red state like Arkansas. (FYI - I do not believe Arkansas is so much a Red state, as an apathetic state. Voters are not engaging the issues or voting.) With 64 days to go until November 5, considering my exhaustion level at this point (after one year of simultaneous constant work at organizing, fundraising, and campaigning [public speaking, door knocking, wordsmithing, message design, confronting hostile rhetoric and attacks, leading/guiding my team, etc.), I sometimes wonder if I can last that long. I am propelled forward, however, because of the good I hope to see from my efforts, if nothing else driving a healthy Christian discourse in the state, including separation of church and state and, yes, this Kingdom of God teaching to minister to 'the least of these.'
Interestingly, in contrast to your piece here, while on the campaign trail, I have heard some rather contorted scriptural teachings. For example, some Republicans (most I believe to be Christian Nationalists) interpret/take “the poor you will always have with you” (Matt. 26:11) to mean that the poor among us are poor by God’s design. So, there is nothing to do. This is often coupled with the health-wealth gospel (which is no Gospel, and only cheap grace), that is – If only those poor were true believers or people of true faith they would be rich, care free, etc. These days, in trying to defend our democracy against Christian Nationalists, I find myself rereading Niebuhr’s 'The Children of Light and The Children of Darkness.' As Niebuhr writes, “Man’s (sic) capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”
Tom, thanks so much for taking the time to send these comments for me and my blog readers to think about. I certainly admire your energy to run for a state office in Arkansas. What you said about Arkansas not being so much a Red state as an apathetic state because the voters are not engaging in the issues or voting. I think the same is much the same in Missouri--and yet except for Kansas City and St. Louis, the votes go overwhelmingly to the GOP candidates. I pray it will not be so in your Arkansas district.
DeleteHave you heard of Jess Piper? She is a woman who now lives in northwest Missouri, in the county adjacent to my home county. Four years ago (I think it was), she ran for a seat in the Missouri House of Representatives--and lost by a large percentage. But she keeps plugging Democratic candidates across the state, and even in other states. She grew up in northwest Arkansas and was a member of a traditional Southern Baptist Church, but she seems to have largely jettisoned organized religion because of the Christian Right. You might be interested in her Substack posts (which can be read without charge by clicking "No, thanks" at the bottom). Here is the link to it:
https://jesspiper.substack.com/
Here are comments from Jamea Smith Crum, a Thinking Friend who served for several years as a SB missionary in Japan and now lives in Springfield, Mo.:
ReplyDelete"Your hopes are also my hopes. Throughout my career as a nurse, I often repeated the phase ‘this is one of the least of these' as I delivered their care, including prisoners from the Federal Medical Center here in Springfield. I witnessed many times the guards who accompanied to the OR mistreated them. I always addressed the guards and told them they could not treat my patient disrespectfully often telling them to loosen the shackles that were digging into their wrists and ankles. They would always remind me that they were prisoners; and I would tell them that they were at the hospital to receive care from me, and I was in charge while they were in my care.
"I never had any control over which patients were assigned to me, and I must admit that there were times that I had to remind myself of my patient’s least of these status. It was hard at times, but looking back I know that I can say that I did my best to deliver the same quality of care to every patient.
"I have been blessed my the many scriptures I memorized as a young GA and have relied on them throughout my life and career. But the most often that came to my mind was the reminder from Matthew 25."