Poverty is Broken Relationship*

One of my heroes as a child was a wrestler named Ted DiBiase. His nickname was the Million Dollar Man. He used to walk around with a briefcase full of money. He had it all. He was a champion wrestler. He had fame. He had more money than he even knew what to do with. But what he revealed later was telling. Although he had all of that, inside he felt empty. Though he was rich beyond measure, he was in poverty.

How can someone who is rich be in poverty? 

The truth is that poverty is more than a lack of money. In fact, in Revelation 2:9, the word of God to the church in Smyrna said this: “I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich)… You might be saying, wait, which is it? Are they in poverty, or are they rich?

The answer is “yes.” They are both. 

How about 2 Corinthians 8:1-2: We want you to know, brothers, about the grace of God that has been given among the churches of Macedonia, for in a severe test of affliction, their abundance of joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part.

Notice that Paul says this church has abundance of joy and extreme poverty? That these overflowed in a wealth of generosity? This is because poverty is not merely a lack of financial resources.

The first church I served in was in a really rich American suburb. The majority of the members were really financially wealthy. Every year we went on a mission trip to a very poor part of the US, and I remember the youth telling me, “These people have nothing, but they are so happy!” They were touched by how close the families were. They were touched by how they enjoyed and shared what little they had. It reminds me of the joy I see in the faces of so many Zambians even in spite of the suffering you are enduring.

Poverty is not only a lack of financial wealth. Likewise, wealth is not just financial. Sometimes I see prophets promising financial wealth, saying this is the “blessing” that God promises. That’s not true at all. Blessing, in the Bible, is life, and life abundant. In John 10:10, Jesus says that the Thief comes to kill, steal, and destroy, but that he came to bring life, life abundant. That is blessing. Another way to say this would be: The Thief comes to bring poverty. Jesus brings wholeness.

So, if poverty isn’t just a lack of money, what is it? I think it ties into the Hebrew concept of “poor” which brings the meaning of low, helpless, insignificant, powerless, without property, wretched, or needy. When Jesus says “Blessed are the poor in spirit” he isn’t just talking about people who don’t have money. Poor in spirit is something else indeed. It is hopelessness. It is brokenness. It is broken relationships. And it is this aspect of poverty that we are going to look at this next four weeks.

Many in the west try to come in and “fix things” usually by giving money. But if the poverty is rooted in broken relationship, then will money fix things? Ted DiBiase, the wrestler who I talked about before, experienced that. He found himself with more money than you could imagine, and he was horribly broken and unhappy. So how do we help alleviate poverty? Poverty alleviation is all about reconciling relationships. This is what the Apostle Paul was getting at in 2 Corinthians 5:17-21. He starts with the familiar: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old is gone, the new has come! Many times we memorize that verse but we don’t read on. Listen again to what it says after that part. All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that God was reconciling the world to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as if Christ was making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him, we might become the righteousness of God.

There are multiple instances of reconciliation in this passage. God reconciled  himself to us through Christ. God gave us the ministry of reconciliation. God is reconciling the world to himself. God has committed to us the message of reconciliation. Be reconciled to God. 

There are four ways we live out broken relationships. Broken relationship with God. Broken relationship with ourselves. Broken relationships with others. And broken relationship with all of creation. Through each of the next four weeks we will be looking at one individual aspect. Today is a bird’s eye view, but in the next weeks, we will dive in for a closer look. But we will also look at how poverty can be alleviated. Because poverty is rooted in broken relationships, the solution to poverty is rooted in the power of the cross — the power of Jesus’ death and resurrection put all things into right relationship again.

When we define poverty in this way, we can recognize that it’s not just the financially poor who are in poverty. There are two ways we can go. Most of the western world goes one way, while we often experience the other. 

If we have a broken relationship with God: here in Zambia we often worship spirits and false gods. In the Western world, we deny God’s existence and behave as if he doesn’t exist.

If our relationship with self is broken: We can experience a marred identity, thinking we are worthless, or we can experience pride or even a God-complex.

When we experience a broken relationship with others: we either focus outward and fight with others, as in intertribal conflict or we look inward and experience self-centeredness.

When our relationship with all creation is broken: we either fail to take dominion, thinking that whatever is is what will be, or we become a workaholic, thinking that I must work and do everything.

In the next weeks, not only will we look at specific cases of how our relationships are broken, but also we will look at some biblical examples of how we can be reconciled. For if we have been reconciled to God and He has given us the ministry of reconciliation, then this should be important to us. But just to tide you over, remember this verse from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:3: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Most of us are broken in some way or another. Maybe all four ways. But there is hope. In 2 Corinthians 8:9, Paul writes: For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.

*The idea for this message comes from When Helping Hurts, a small group resource from the Chalmers Center.